Love Changes

Nicole Whitton

I was born hairy. My mother told me this.

I was born with long silver hair covering my entire body. I came into this world from the womb like a cocoon caught in the rain.

My first boyfriend used to say to me: Why do you think you’re hairy? He willed himself to ignore the long locks that draped off my limbs; the silver lengths that glowed like pewter in the sunlight.

He could not give me love so he gave me reassurance.

My nails grew as I did – although they were better at it than the rest of me. They grew long and curly, and when I scratched myself I left red welts along my face, my neck.

“Don’t scratch yourself so,” said my mother.

“I can’t help it, it’s the nails,” I replied.

She sighed and rolled her eyes.

“You’re obsessed.”

At night I could hear them grow, the same way you can hear mice eating at your shoes or spiders’ legs tapping on the walls.

My height was another problem. I was short and stubby. I wished for platform shoes, but my parents wouldn’t oblige. “What do you need those for?”

They willed normality into me: normality is something you believe, not something you see. We can redefine normality if we ignore the absurd.

When I worked in filing I would stand on a ladder. My parents were not alone in their convictions: my manager would say to me, jovially, “Ah, you don’t need that.”

I would smile into the conspiracy of suspended belief.

When I met the man who was to be my lover he bent over backwards to reach for my hand. He told me he liked my hair: he had his fingers caught in the silver knots and I sat patiently for an hour as he undid himself.

He appeared only at night and wore a scarlet cloak, and had a small dog that barked incessantly; on the third date it was run over by a car and when he cried his tears swayed with waves: such was the universe he carried. He was built with nothing but tiny oceans and stardust. I read somewhere we are all made of the same stuff as stars but with him you could see it: he shone as he walked.

I suppose he liked me because we had our differences. We were interesting: me silver-haired, stubby, short, red welts and long nails: he with his sweeping red cloak, his aura of stars.

We made love on the seventh night. It was soon, even for me. When I stood before him my breasts hung to my knees and the silver hair between my thighs glowed like a soft wet beard.

This man had a penis that was the size of a small planet. I hadn’t really noticed sizes before, but then again I’d never before noticed the man: they all seemed like dicks to me so how was I to separate the cock from the rest of them? But this time I noticed the eyes that shone with their stirred oceans, the feet that spread out like two fans, the knees that were knobbly like two good rocks that you would use to throw at someone; the stomach with his fine line of black hair reaching downwards like a line of black coke. And then his penis: his glorious penis. Huge and unforgiving. At first I was afraid it wouldn’t fit. That seventh night he took me into the face of the moon and fucked me till we caused a blackout. Down below us they called it an eclipse, but I knew why: it was his dick inside me and my screams of pleasure that clothed the moon and made it whole again.

When I returned to earth I felt a spring in my step. I wasn’t sure if it was the lack of gravity up in space or the effect of his tide on my waters. People told me I was glowing: I expect his stardust rubbed off on me. Certainly when I slid my finger along the length of my inner thigh and placed that finger in my mouth, I tasted him: salty with a slight hint of moonstone.

On the eighth night he simply fucked me in my bedroom. It was better than the moon: not so cold. And we didn’t cause a blackout. He tied me to the bedposts and kissed my nipples. I thrust my legs out at him: my orgasm had slipped loosely since the weightless effects the night before and now hung around my ankles.

Obediently – a quality I was growing to like in him – he massaged my legs. “What about the clit?” he asked.

“Overrated,” I said lazily, my eyeballs rolling into the heavens of my mind.

“But what about the g-spot?” he said, reaching for the smooth, blank space behind my knees.

“Fuck the g-spot!” I yelled.

He found every orgasm there was to be had, pulled them back from the toes, the foot soles, the ankles, then the shins, then the flesh behind the shin, slowly working over the knees towards the thighs. Finally he put his fingers in my pussy and put my orgasm back where it should go, leaving just a few scattered over my legs for our enjoyment when we got hungry again.

The next morning he was away and I was tall. He had stretched me: legs were twisting over one another and arms hung loosely at my side. I brushed my hair – all of it, especially on the head and the arms – and got to work just five minutes late.

“You’re late,” said my manager.

“I know,” I said.

“Something’s different,” said my manager.

“Mmm,” I said.

“You’re holding yourself taller,” he nodded to himself; he was pleased at his discovery.

I didn’t need the ladder that day, nor did I ever need it again.

On the ninth night I made my lover fill the bath with chocolate liquor and I made him lick me from tip of toe to cheekbone. Once again he was obedient. I did the same for him and eventually, drunken and exhausted, our tongues thick with muscle and sore with exercise, we fell out of the bath and lay panting on the floor.

The stars in the bathroom shone above our heads and deep inside my caverns I heard the echoes of angel music.

I left him slumbering on the bathmat: his big bulk looking a little less shiny and my tongue looking like a disco ball.

I put on my dancing shoes and did a waltz down the street. My first boyfriend saw me.

“You’re looking good,” he said.

“I know,” I said.

“You look different,” he qualified.

“Mmm,” I replied.

“Is it your hair?” He said. “You’ve had a haircut.”

I tousled the hair on my head for there was no other hair to tousle except some of the wet, silver beard my lover had left clinging to my pussy, and I felt sexy and free like a bird whose wings have been unclipped.

On the tenth night I fed my lover fruit. I fed him a strawberry, a gooseberry, pineapple, kiwi and a lime. He sucked them off each finger, his mouth growing taut on the lime.

As he sucked each finger I played with my newly-trimmed pussy: I found the orgasm just where he’d put it. I stuck each finger in one by one and as a dessert he licked those fingers too. We fucked for ages and I thought afterwards about calling it love. We both had groaned this word throughout our passion and it seemed to kindle the fire rather than making it damp.

The morning after I left him cleaning the breakfast plates and I visited my mother.

“You’ve changed,” she said.

I nodded. “Had my nails done.”

I showed them to her.

“Can’t see any difference,” she said confused, “but I’m glad you’ve stopped scratching yourself.”

We drank tea and listened to the pigeons coo.

Nicole Whitton is based in London, and is currently traveling and writing hard. She has a blog page: http://tinyhappyfeather.blogspot.com where all comments are gratefully received. She is also a proof reader and collector of rare books.

LitNet: 19 July 2006

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