“Well?” I snapped, too loudly.
“What?”
“What do you want?”
She shrugged.
“You invited me over. You must want something.”
She sidled over, gripped my hair and with her cigarette smoldering close to my ear she kissed me hard. I tried not to give in to it, and as soon as I did, she moved off, wiping my lipstick from her mouth with the back of her hand and smirking. She sauntered away again, back toward her hidden sculpture.
“Is that it?” I barked, but my voice cracked. Was this really it? She had been grinning smugly, but now her lip curled in irritation.
“Why do you have to get so cut up?” she spat and then jammed the heel of her hand against her forehead as if to reproach herself for this outburst.
“Look, whatever it is you asked me here for…” I swallowed, “just get it over with, will you?”
She glowered at me for a moment, then threw her cigarette to the floor and ground it out on the cold gray concrete. Muttering to herself, she whipped the dust sheet from her sculpture.
“Fine. I wanted to show you this,” she snapped. I gazed at the figure before me, still amazed by her ability to coax such intricate figures from the harsh ice.
It was breathtaking. I took in the details in the translucent ice with awe. I gazed at the tapered fingers, odd-shaped feet with splayed toes and the teardrop-shaped eyes. The figure was seated, naked, with voluminous hair clouding around the face like a painting of a Greek goddess. Its lips were slightly parted, and the eyes were closed. She had even, with some tiny sharp object and a great deal of skill, carved the exact curl of her eyelashes into the sculpture’s cheek. One hand was raised and tangled in the hair, and the other rested in the lap.
It was her I realized as I stepped closer to the sculpture. She had created a sculpture of herself.
“It’s you!” I said stupidly, peering closer. I darted a glance at her. She looked miserable again.
“Almost,” she replied.
Almost was right, for as I looked I noticed the difference. She had managed to conjure a serenity in the figure’s face and a lack of tension in its limbs that was missing in herself. The figure’s skin was smoother, lacking scars and imperfections. I couldn’t help but feel that this was a sculpture of what used to be, not what was now. I composed myself.
“So, you dragged me all this way to show me a sculpture you made of yourself. I can’t say I’m surprised; it’s a subject you’re obviously obsessed with,” I said, taking a last desperate swipe at her. She appeared to shrug it off.
“If you want to spoil everything for yourself, go ahead,” she said.
“Me spoil everything?” I shouted as I whirled around to face her, tearing my eyes from her glistening alter ego. “You’re the one that’s riding off into the sunset without so much as a by-your-leave!”
“Fine!” she roared in response. She grabbed my shoulders and kissed me again, and though I hated her I felt my own tongue tangle ecstatically with hers and my hands creep to her hair. She pushed me away.
“Fine. If you care so much, show me what you would have done if I were staying.” She spun me around to face the sculpture.
Now it dawned on me what the sculpture was for. Now I could see what the game would have been. She hadn’t counted on us fighting, but she was determined despite or perhaps because of our argument to put us both through it. Something inside me snapped. I decided that if she was going to cast me aside, I would punish her with the only thing I knew she wanted.
With my back still to her I unbuttoned my shirt and slid it from my shoulders. I kicked off my shoes and stepped out of my skirt. I turned back to her. She was looking at me uncertainly and inside I crowed. For once I had surprised her. I kissed her roughly with her chin in my hand. I felt her mouth search for mine as I broke from the kiss and then turned her face away.
I turned back to the sculpture and considered it for a moment. Given her attitude it was much more attractive to me than she was at that point. Its body was open to me, its arms clear of the torso and the legs outstretched. The face was calm and smiling. I realized as I slipped out of my underclothes that this was an ecstatic figure, enraptured by something that was secret, and for a moment was stunned by its creator’s cleverness. Then I shook the thought away. The sculpture was mine now, not hers.
I stepped toward the sculpture and sat astride its lap. A moment’s self-consciousness swept over me as the sudden cold between my thighs shocked me. I straightened my back, where I felt her eyes, resisted the urge to turn and gauge her reaction, and laid my hands on the sculpture’s exquisite, pointed breasts. The smoothness excited me. I drew my hands across, marveling at the detail of the sculpture that had captured the exact folds of skin I remembered from her body. My hands came away wet and I tentatively laid them against my throat and shoulders. Behind me I heard her shift where she stood.
Pretending to ignore her, I turned my attention to the sculpture’s face. The piercings and the frown were gone, but otherwise, it was a replica of her face. I traced my fingers across the upturned, open mouth, and then my tongue. The coolness was deliciously refreshing on my mouth, where I felt my pulse pounding in my starved lips. I leaned close and pressed my mouth to the sculpture’s. Freezing water filled my mouth, and my lips slid over the icy tongue and teeth. I felt the nerve endings in my lips inflame with the shocking cold and drew closer.
My body came into contact with the slick torso and I gasped. My body seemed to freeze against the sculpture for a moment, and then as the heat of my skin melted the surface, I slid and shuddered. Involuntarily I wrapped my arms around the sculpture and held it closer to me, running my lips and tongue over its face and welcoming the almost painful chill.
Now I permitted myself to turn my head, and I saw her. Her expression was impossible to read. She may have been furious, or saddened or enchanted, but whichever it was, she couldn’t look away. Her hands were stuffed tightly into the pockets of her filthy jeans and her shoulders hunched, as if she were willing herself to stand still. Pleased with myself I looked away.
With one arm still around the sculpture and my body pressed to its chest, I reached down. My fingers were turning blue and I was trembling, but my head felt thick and my face was flushed. I touched myself tentatively and groaned. I longed for her warm kiss but wouldn’t give in and go to her. Instead I consoled myself with the sculpture’s tortuous, freezing caress.
My breathing grew heavier, and I broke from my icy kiss and rested my hot forehead against the sculpture’s neck. As I glanced down at my hand, working slowly at my cunt, I noticed it. She had thought of everything, and with a breathy laugh I turned to her. She gave me the ghost of a smile.
The hand in the sculpture’s lap had appeared at first to be of no significance, trailing carelessly over its thighs as if forgotten. From where I sat, however, I could see that the hand’s knuckles rested on the thighs, with the fingers curled upward. She nodded at me, and I turned back to the sculpture. With excruciating slowness, I glided over the sculpture’s slick lap. The hand, already melting and wet from my heat, pressed into me as though into a glove. She had crafted it to fit me perfectly.
I cried out at the shocking, stunning sensation. My body convulsed but I forced myself to be still until I could bear the cold. Shaking now from the cold and the intensity I drew myself up, down, back and forth on the hand, moaning as the icy fingers found new spaces inside me. The hand was as unyielding and unforgiving as its creator, and my insides rejoiced at the pressure it exerted. My breasts pressed to the wet body of the sculpture and my hands slipped and slid as I tried to grip its hair and face. I rolled my hips harder, relishing the bizarre sensation of the flush of red on my skin spreading under the purple goose bumps. I dared myself to kiss the sculpture’s lips again, drinking the condensation hungrily and then flinching from the cold. The chill became so intense that I longed to come and then move somewhere warmer, but at the same time, I hoped that I never would. I wanted to freeze into the sculpture and become part of it, immortalized as the figure’s ecstatic lover, fucking euphorically until the heat melted us both away. I could hear my own moans as if they were someone else’s, and their ragged, frenzied tone drove me on faster and wilder.