Part 3, The hidden affair between Potato Masher and Gravy Boat

  Continued from Part II

 Part III – Day after Valentine’s

Setting - A dark toy-box

She is covered in paint.  Love colored red paint that has now dried to an unappealing mucky mud. It cracks and peels off her inner curves.  She remembers the joy with which sticky tiny Hands received her, a desperate attempt by big Hand to placate tugging fingers.  Just happy to be out of the drawer and away from the sidling nauseating advances of delusional Serving Fork, who she would no longer call friend let alone grant benefits, she was not even surprised to find herself dipped in paint.  Her luster had too long been worn off with the hard mashing of life for her to be surprised by anything. 

Love red.  That is what color it was, she decides.  She sighs recalling slithering through vibrant glop, until tiny Hands pounded her slick love red frame again and again on top of Pink Paper.  She was mesmerized by the fiery imprints left behind.  Another exhilarating dip.  Then pound, pound, pound, pound, until she had grown dizzy from the fumes and frenetic energy.  Pink Paper shuddered below her and said, 

What lovely Toy you make.

Toy? Is that what I am?  I like that… Toy.  What are we making?

Valentines, for love. 

I had love, once.  But he was too Fine for me.

Perhaps, or perhaps not, look at your sensuous markings and tell me that is not Fine. 

 Now the beauty of her curvaous shape is forever emblazzed on Valentines. In love red.  Even now that the Valentines have all been given out, she only has to remember.  And in her new home amongst Toys, her true glorious self dances before her in the dark.  No longer utilitarian, no longer a drawer dweller, no longer Utensil.  But beauteous Toy.  Slightly itchy from cracking dried paint, but beauteous Toy nonetheless. 

What does it say about Love and Life that at this precise moment of long overdo self-realization light floods in? And tiny Hand place another resident into her new crowded home.  They hold their breaths in the light.  He turns away first, in shame.  But before the lid closes and darkness retakes its firm hold, she catches sight of the uneven glue and ragged cracks.  But for her it does not matter.  Her heart jumps wildly.

My love, don’t turn away.

Look away, I don’t deserve you.

I never wanted you punished.

I never meant to hurt.  Darling, forgive me.  Please…

Does he mean it truly? Is being smashed to pieces on a cold tile what he needed all along to wake up and realize what he had?  She is torn. But confident now in the knowledge that she is the stronger one.  And glue or no, she is the more Fine. 

Can we start fresh?  Two new Toys.  In love.

As they find each other in the dark, Potato Masher’s faded love red curves nestling perfectly inside pieced together Gravy Boat’s smooth round opening… does it matter who says it? For this ending is truly happy. 

                                                                                                                                                                

Part 2, The hidden affair between Potato Masher and Gravy Boat

    Continued from PART I

Part II- Christmas Eve

Setting – A lonely drawer

A JOLT and shifting metal KLANGS banging against each other longing for touch. Sudden light immerses Potato Masher in shame at being exposed so precariously intertwined with Serving Fork. She is not proud. But it is lonely in the dark.  A low-carb year, she has been banished to the drawer since Thanksgiving and finally succumbed to his 3-pronged attentions.

What’s the matter, Babe?

I’m sorry this was a mistake.

Hands carry them into the light. She catches sight of her true love then. His embossed porcelain shimmers in the warm glow of holiday candles. Steam rises out of his wide mouth. A place she once found home in, now he is filled with dark rich liquid.

Can you see me?

She can not be sure. But imagines he lets out a shudder at her words. A trickle of velvety hot juice escapes him, spilling over.  Hands lift him, revealing a dark ring on the counter. Take him away from her.

Wait. I‘m here. I am coming.

Silence. He does not acknowledge her cries of love. It is then she sees Serving Plate, that flat skinny bitch, preening with the knowledge of her superiority.

Mash, my dear, give it up.

Gravy Boat rejoins his matching partner, and they are whisked away to the bounteous table. Hands fumble extracting the insufferable Serving Fork from her intricate curves. A place she should have never allowed him in the first place.  But what can she say?

I am only Utensil after all.

With a BOING they are flung apart, and she is falling.  Bouncing.  Dizzy with the fall, and a broken heart, she rolls across the tiled floor. Kitchen debris clings. Slick Dog tongue abrades her frame, soothing and demoralizing simultaneously. Rescued from this unnatural bath, she is dumped into Sink’s stale water which has lost all its suds.  And no longer lathers luxuriously.  She waits beneath the murk.

Waits for him despite herself. Waits for him though she knows it is fruitless. But she can’t help her heart.

Time goes by anyway, as it does. Carols fill the air as the kitchen grows hazy with food and family. She is picked up, Hand dries. Smears a cool shining gloss against her, and rubs. Hard. Harder. Moving faster, polishing, stroking in and out of her curves. Her hated curves. Polishing her into a glowing heat till she beams with beauteous satisfaction. Done. She thinks.

But then she is drawn close as a PUFF of warm air encompasses her entirety. Again PUFF over a difficult spot on her inner curve. A tiny rough spot carefully worked over. Rubbed. Buffed. Again and again. Until with an internal shudder of submission, she grows sleek and smooth. Satisfied, her once hated curves vibrate with the synchronicity of pleasure and luminous well being. Till every passing Hand has the inexplicable need to run a finger along her edge.

A Christmas miracle places them on Drying Rack together. She beams not despite of herself but due to herself.  She can feel the heat of his skin close to her. And see the slight chip in his perfect veneer, evidence of their hidden affair.

You look lovely.

I don’t believe in you anymore.

I’m not perfect, as you know. Darling I want to say…

What were the next words to be, an apology? A long awaited declaration of his love. Would he dare with his matching set in earshot? What will she have to take with her back into the darkness? For even the hottest metal too soon grows cold.

But she will never know.  Before he can finish, Hand grabs too roughly unaware of his masculine frailties. A faint CRACK explodes into a earth quaking SMACK. His handle splinters casting his rounded solid body to the tiled floor. Unlike her, he is not strong enough to withstand the fall. The sound of SHATTER rings her core.

Noooo. Don’t leave me this way.

It is an accident. No one’s fault. Only love.  Love ending in disaster.

But is this the end, my love?

 

Stay tuned …

Read Part III

The hidden affair between Potato Masher and Gravy Boat

 

Part I- Thanksgiving clean-up

Setting- A Hot Sudsy Sink

 

The water’s greasy.  Don’t you think? 

What a silly thing to say.  But she is nervous.   It vibrates her core.  If she wasn’t dunked in water, she knows she would be hot to the touch. 

            Come closer while we have the chance.

He is not. Nervous that is. She slides into him.  The water is scalding.  Is it her?  Suds lather luxuriously.  Lather luxuriously, she likes that.  The warm soapy water pushes her further into him. She clicks her curves against his smooth inner walls.  He is cool despite the ever rising temperature of the water submersing them.    

             I’ve missed  you.

            You look lovely.

Hardly, there are bits of peel still clinging to her handle.  Her cheap rubber handle, so utilitarian.  So unlike him.  Porcelain fruit-embossed skin that shines, begging to be stroked, polished, displayed.  There is a tiny chunk of potato caught in her lattice.  She can smell it and hopes she is scrubbed better this time.  Prays he doesn’t notice.  But now is not the time for these thoughts.  They only have the briefest moments.  Rubber hands grab and probe; work steadily on Daisy Casserole. But that will only bide so much time.

           

He is bound to Serving Plate. A matched set, he has no choice in the matter.  That is what he tells her at least.  Who is she to argue? Nothing but a drawer dweller, she waits to catch a glimpse of him in the hutch. Before she is shut back into darkness with Serving Fork forever getting himself caught up in her, a little too conveniently she thinks.

The hands come separating them.  Not now, it’s too soon!

I won’t leave you.

Darling it’s time.

She fights and gets caught in his delicate opening she somehow found so easy to slip into.  A subtle Clink. The faintest CRACK.  Her heart rips open at the sound.  The chip is barely perceptible, but to her it is disaster.  She proves nothing but a destroyer yet again. He will hate her now. Their time is over.  What will she have to look forward to, but for these festive days that allow them the briefest stolen moments?

I’m so sorry.

His graceful neck arches up towards her before he disappears beneath the foam.

            You always hurt the one you love.  

A joke to take with her into the darkness.   

                                                                                                                                                                            

Stay tuned….  

READ PART II