The Abstract Tattoo

Chapter Two

Chapter Two

“Micah, “ I whispered to his sleepy head in a sultry voice as sweat poured from his skin. “Micah!” My voice grew closer. It was almost as if he could feel my breath on his face. I was a feminine figure appearing from a mist unfolding in his mind. Dreams are always imprecise and out of focus. “It’s okay.” I said. “I’m here for you. For both of us.” He could feel my fingers grazing his skin. “You’re my other half.” I visited him in his dream with a plea, as if we were devout confidants and he was my celebrant.

I could sense Micah was at a loss. His lips parted. Yet, no sound emerged. Nothing, save his breath escaped his mouth. He gazed my figure and caught sight of what looked like a tattoo above my ankle. What was it? As he lowered his eyes came the realization he was naked, lying on a blanket atop some straw in a horse stall. I birthed my dream in his mind and prayed it would find its way into his heart. Don’t ask me how I learned such a mystical skill.

Vulnerable and naked are siblings. It was amusing to learn Micah had participated in the World Naked Bike Ride in Montpelier, Vermont. A couple dozen riders showed up. Micah was one of them. He wasn’t entirely naked. He wore his expensive watch, aviator sunglasses, brown synthetic leather ankle boots and wool socks. Nakedness doesn’t require too much courage. There were several naked women and men wearing bright colored cycling shoes, sunglasses and hats. It felt au natural. The day of the bike ride was a bit chilly at first. Ironically, the coolness caused n*****s to harden and c***s to shrink. The people on the side of the biker’s route cheered the naked riders on. “Keep it up!” Several women shouted. Laughter followed. Micah was a quirky sort of intellectual and preferred being on stage rather than a spectator in the audience. This I already knew about him.

Now it was a matter of inserting myself in his mind and fantasies. As my fingers pressed the keys on my cellular phone I whispered Micah’s name. I repeated a vision of a horse stall, a scarf, a chastity device clasping his c**k and a leather harness along with the whiff of wild flowers mixed with the straw after a fresh rain drifting in waves. Would he inhale the fragrance of my voice?

***

Micah broke out in a sweat. “What happened? How did I?” His brain spun in a circle. His eyes darted back and forth to catch a peek. He only saw a sliver of light. Bewildered. He felt stranded and adrift. He couldn’t move his arms. What was happening?

“Micah?”.

“What?”

“Open your mouth. Let me see your tongue.”

“My tongue?”

“Yes, please!”

He stuck out his tongue.

“Very good!”

“Oh my God, this is…” A ping sound intruded Micah’s vision. His body trembled. Increasing beads of sweat bled from his skin. His eyelids opened. He glanced around. He looked at his alarm clock, 6:00 a.m. “What was this dream about?” He asked, as he grasped himself. He wasn’t bound. His breathing was heavy.

The propeller blades of a ceiling fan turned counter clockwise sputtered and droned. The blades were real. Monotonous. The apartment’s central air wasn’t working. “Conditioned air is unnatural,” he gasped succumbing to the arousal and uncommon rhythm of the vision. His c**k was hard. He grasped it and moved his hand up and down.

“Ping!” Was it coming the from outside or in his room? His apartment was on a side street with lots of trees. He wanted to think the leaves soaked up the stale breath of pollution from the traffic. The sound was followed by a floating sensation. He thought of his wall-to-wall book filled office at the university with its worn, nostalgic ceiling fan and dangling beaded string. His tired eyelids twitched as sweat dripped down from his forehead and onto his eyelashes.

“Ping!” Micah’s attention was averted to the shadows of lights flashing against the walls. He turned and looked over at the flashing light from his cell phone on a nightstand. “Jesus,” He said, “At least the sound is real.” He reached over to the cell phone. The screen read, “private call.”

“Who’s calling?” He asked himself. He loathed private calls. They were generally from someone wanting money. “Hi? Sorry, my brain is still asleep.” Micah said, answering anyways.

“There’s no need to apologize,” I whispered. “You have a nice morning voice, Micah. Forgive me.”

“What? Who is this? “ He sat up in bed and moved his pillow behind his back as he leaned against the headboard. “Wait. Your voice…it a…”

“Micah, I’m so sorry to wake you. Another time, I’m very certain. Okay?”

Silence. Micah was momentarily stunned.

Click.

“How do you know my name?” Micah’s voice asked. The dream

flashed across his mind.

Silence.

“Did I make a mistake in calling him?” No. “I adore his voice. I

don’t really know him yet. I know myself.”

Sweat dripped from Micah’s neck in rivulets descending down his chest and entering the

soft patch of grass surrounding his distinct mushroom. His inner eye was still caught up in the vision. He blinked, and his head fell on the hard pillow, cushioned by his thick head of hair. He looked up. The ceiling fan continued to drone, “Fuck.”

An indecipherable noise came from outside, in the street. Micah looked at his cell phone again, 6:00 a.m. had pivoted into 7:00 a.m. His head throbbed. “Too much wine last night,” He said to the walls and stumbled into the shower and pressed his head against the cool tile. The hot water created a steam and an immediate cooling embraced his skin stepping out of the shower. Drying with an oversized bath towel he looked at his reflection in the mirror and stuck his thick tongue out that stretched below his chin. He glanced at his stout Lilliputian, snuggled between his legs like a turtle’s head peeking out from under its shell. He was healthy, vital and confident.

He shaved and retrieved his Baume & Mercier watch from an end table. He then hurried to the kitchen, poured himself a glass of organic, pulped, orange juice. After a few gulps he went back to the bedroom and got dressed. Micah was odd. He looked at his watch. It was a singular gift from his parents upon graduation. He always put his watch on after showering and shaving. Even when naked while cleaning his place or cooking, he wore his watch. It was a peculiar ritual. He knew it, he couldn’t avoid it. He felt compelled to wear it. His cellular phone kept the time, so did his computer and the clock on the wall. He was surrounded by time. Time could swallow and suffocate him making it difficult to breathe. He understood his obsessive nature about the watch and time. On the other hand, there was only so much of it. “This moment is short,” He said to no one. Yet, the watch was an example of few material luxuries in life with personal meaning. No, it wasn’t about time. Rather, the watch was symbolic of a deeper connection. He wore it whether clothed or naked and having s*x. It was nostalgic and an emotional connection with his identity. The watch was an art piece.

There was another material item of tangible emotional value for Micah. His aging sports car. It was his getaway vehicle. He kept his car parked in a rented garage and only drove it for an escape to the countryside. He had a second-hand bicycle, preferred to ride it to his campus office a few blocks from his apartment in Morningside Heights.

Leaving the apartment astride the bicycle he began pedaling as the dream and the phone call continued to echo in his head. The woman’s voice haunted him.

Micah taught a course on the Medieval Ages. He planned to discuss witches and conjuring spells during the final weeks of the course. Being a romantic and slightly superstitious from his research, he surmised the enchantress of his dream cast a spell. Nonsense.

The human mind has the capacity to dance in circles. “Perhaps the casting of a spell is merely the human heart’s appeal to be seduced by someone or something beyond our common experiences. And such a seduction may be the heart’s wish to lead us on a path toward an unanticipated reality.”

“Academia is burdensome at times,” A colleague told Micah over a glass of wine in recent conversation at a local wine bar.

“When I started teaching it was a calling. After being moved around and told what to do and when to do it, the calling became a job. Income.” Micah reflected aloud to himself. A gust of wind blew hair in his face. He squinted as if to see the dream with greater clarity. Existence.

“Hey, watch where you’re going, professor.” A taxi driver with a thick, Eastern European accent, yelled at him.

“Thanks!” Micah waved. He countered angst with politeness. The voice and a smile are a safety valve.

“Hey professor,” A student caught his attention. Micah noticed the student’s bulging crotch displaying the outline of his c**k visible through his pants. Micah waved to him. “Last year, I took your class,” the student yelled. “Good to see you,” and then hurried to catch up with another student.

Both male and female students flirted with him on occasion. Micah considered himself evolved though was a virgin when it came to men. He pondered his sexuality. As he neared campus he looked around at other cyclists, “everyone on a bicycle appears to be a professor, student, messenger or a cop.”

Fragmentation. He uttered, “What do I want? What do I expect?” As he reflected on existence, bird s**t struck the shoulder of his corduroy sport coat. “Crap. I’ll wash it off when I get to my office. Reality bites?”

He glanced to his side as another cyclist passed him and a young woman talking on her cell phone. She wore toeless sandals with holes in her blue jeans and was braless under her tank top. Her n*****s were hard. He noticed she wore an ankle bracelet. Jewelry can make a sensuous statement. He noticed such things as how an individual female covered their feet and the resulting effect on the symmetry of the human figure. He drifted. He needed some form of love. Love has many shapes. He understood.

Another taxi driver honked his horn and a police siren blared on the next street while he talked to himself. At last, on campus he wheeled his bike into his office on the first floor. His first class was at one o’clock. His contract with the university was on a term-to-term basis. Tenure in the twenty-first century is a meaningless concept. The administration used words like, “the situation is fluid” and “soon we’ll know better” or there was a purposeful quiet. It was psychological. To say they were cocksuckers would be to honor them. The term is one of endearment.

The head of his department told Micah the university might cut back in courses where fewer students showed interest. It was about money. “Sorry professor,” a student said to him, “It’s about return on investment. Adaptability. Have to look at what’s going to help…get me a job. Money allows freedom….assuming there’s world still here tomorrow.”

Cynicism, adaptability and fluidity. Three weeks remained in the academic term. Micah knew the end of his job was near. He met with his students to review their work. “You’re not an empty vessel waiting to be filled. Please compare notes with each other. And you have each other’s email. Share. Cooperation not competition means you get the top grade.”

Micah wanted to tell his boss to f**k off. “People draw power from other’s insecurities,” Micah thought to himself. He had no need for it. He was merely trying to have power over himself. Another part of his brain thought of the woman he saw in the bookstore’s coffee shop. The woman was enchanting. “Who was she?” He photographed her with his eyes and uploaded image to his brain so as to recall her at any time of day or night. “Did she see me?” He teased his mind with the thought. Every other thought seemed to be of her. Perhaps that was what a spell was all about. He knew from history and psychology people can “spell” their own minds.

Micah met with Doctor Sheila to talk about his future, the dream, abstract tattoo and the woman in the bookstore.

“And what else?” She asked.

“I was told this morning by my department head not to take it personal. I still have finals, grades and the transition.”

“Of course it’s personal,” The doctor said, in a matter of fact tone.

Micah appreciated the sentiment. A moment of quiet.

In the midst of their reverie there was a commotion in the hallway. They glanced over at the open door. A woman chatted with a portly, balding, vociferous and self-important man wearing a suit that appeared too tight for his frame. Micah recognized the woman from the bookstore. She was the woman he took a photograph of in his mind.

“That’s Reine Sharifa,” Dr. Sheila observed in a reverential tone and explained the man she was with as one of the many vice-presidents at the university.

Sheila and Micah heard my words to the vice-president, “If you wish to get together to discuss business matters tomorrow let’s do it. I have a number of details we’ve got to work out. I’ll let you know where.”

“Okay. Sounds good.” The vice-president said. “I’m good to go.”

I nodded and glanced over into Sheila’s office. She was sitting with Micah. I’d planned to call her later to talk about him and find out more information. I caught him looking at my feet and legs.

Micah smiled. His eyes moved up my body until he reached mine. I couldn’t take my eyes off him. I’d heard he had a serious foot fetish. I was getting wet at the thought of him worshiping me. The entire silent exchange lasted several seconds.

“Huh.” I sighed. Micah was even more intriguing the closer I came physically near him. It was chemical. I wanted to touch him. Embrace him. I wanted to f**k him right there in Dr. Sheila’s office. Instead, I walked down the hall to a restroom, minimizing my contact with the vice-president. Tomorrow would be the last exchange with him. It’s a long story not worth telling. I was supposed to meet him tomorrow in a neutral place to discuss a business arrangement and was thinking of a museum or gallery. He kept his cell phone turned off, otherwise I would have texted him today. I’m glad I didn’t, as I would’ve missed seeing Micah again up close.

Sheila and Micah continued with their animated conversation. I was a special friend of hers. I appreciated the fact she was intending to formally introduce me to Micah. I assumed he was intrigued by my style. She had already relayed to me that Micah had fascinating interests. I wondered if one of the interests was somehow tied to his studies in Medieval life. His fetishes appeared rather apparent, according to the doctor. He was also the kind of man that noticed physical details - the design of earrings, hairstyles, esoteric tattoos, toeless high heels and pedicured feet.

An office door slammed. I heard the noise as I exited the restroom. I noticed the vice-president had departed. I decided to make a hurried return to Dr. Sheila’s office. I peeked inside. “Sorry to interrupt. May I call you later?” I asked her. I then looked over to Micah and smiled. He returned the smile

“Yes, please do. We’ve much to discuss.”

“Sounds good.” I said.

“Oh wait. Reine Sharifa, this is Micah Zunge.”

Micah stood up as I walked over to him. He was a head shorter than me. “My pleasure, Micah.” I was enamored with the man I saw up close. Second and third impressions either affirm or complicate first impressions. And an erotic impression is never static, neither is memory. It’s a fluid process especially when it’s fate.

“Mine also, Reine.” He said.

We shook hands. “We’ll meet again,” I said, as we held each other’s hands a second or two longer than normal.

“I hope so.” His eyes widened as we looked at each other. They suggested he wanted to know me better.

“Never let hope be without intent. We’ll meet.” I offered him a cordial smile and then disappeared out the door and down the hallway to another meeting. “Micah,” His name dripped off my lips as I walked away.

About two hours later I called Dr. Sheila. “Hi. This is Reine. Do you have time?”

“Ah, Micah left a while ago. As you noticed he’s short and you’re statuesque. At least a six-inch difference when you are in your bare feet and he’s in shoes. A perfect match for you.” She laughed, knowing it was a frivolous detail to Reine.

“Ha! You’re funny and perceptive.” I said. “Do me a favor. Play your professional role of clinical psychologist for me. What was his childhood like?”

“His childhood? Well, let’s see. He was an only child. His mother was comparatively attentive I suppose, given how little he saw of her. Both his parents worked. On the other hand, his mother apparently disappeared a week or two at a time. She was in contact with him by phone during the week. She worked as an executive for Ford Motor Company in Detroit as long as he could remember. Though she rarely talked about her job. And, his dad taught at a community college. Money, job security and survival were his parents’ motivation. His father was Jewish and worked in Jerusalem where he met his wife, a Roman Catholic, when she was visiting the old city. They were both secular and believed in serendipity. Neither of his parents were into athletics or sports.”

The doctor took a breather than started again. “He told me once that he remembered his dad saying, ‘sports were created to keep men and women out of s****l mischief while seducing them with it. Sports depended on s****l illusions.’ Otherwise, his dad couldn’t understand why anyone would spend his or her hard-earned cash as an example, hitting and chasing a miniature white ball around a green pasture to see if you can drive the ball in a mole whole. Entertainment has a price. And his father told him he preferred a good movie or book to read or listening to his wife’s stories about social affairs in the automotive industry.”

“Hm. He had to become independent fast.” I said.

“Yeah. And I told Micah my life was no exception and whatever happened he needed to be good to his heart as not too many people would be, except for the closest of an old friend or two. Sounds cynical. It reflects the era in which we live.”

“Hmm. I understand. Is there anything else…I should be aware of?”

“Well Reine, as a matter of fact there may be an intriguing issue.”

“What?”

“His days at Columbia are growing shorter. His classes are no longer being offered and the administration as you may know is cutting back in certain subject areas as not enough students are showing an interest. Money. What’s the return? I know he needed to email a final report to his department head, as part of his job-ending requirement. His students were busy finishing essays and journals and he told them he was available to them by computer, cell phone, and he could always meet them at a coffeehouse, bookstore or in his office. All his students pass. He doesn’t want to leave anyone behind. And he did say something odd to me the other day.”

“What was that?”

“He mentioned, ‘a sense of isolation crept over him,’ when he thought of his future. He had a complicated dream the other night where he was supposed to meet a couple of colleagues at an Italian restaurant in the Times Square theater district. He made a reservation and got there early. He waited so his colleagues wouldn’t have to wait. After being seated a well-dressed statuesque woman was seated alone at the next table to where he was sitting. After his colleagues arrived he excused himself, went to the restroom and upon return, he found he was in a different restaurant and his colleagues were gone, except the statuesque woman remained seated alone at a nearby table. He approached a waiter about his dilemma who stated there was no adjoining or nearby Italian restaurant. He then noticed the statuesque woman who was watching him, got up from her table, and walked to exit. He tried to follow her, but she seem to vanish like the woman in his dream. He then woke up in a sweat.”

“Intriguing.” I said, knowing more than I wished to divulge.

“Well he definitely has developed an existential philosophy. I suspect if you hadn’t entered the picture, he might consider joining a remote, exotic journalistic outpost where he could write cryptic dispatches back to some bureaucratic headquarters. His legacy would be filed away in some digital file folder.”

“Amusing. Given the political, social and economic climate we live in I understand his feeling alienated and the transient nature of things we think are real.”

“I very much agree with you Reine. And with that…good luck tomorrow.”