Tender Things

The first gift he brought to her: apples. They fell from his hands before her. She picked up each one from the splintered floor, testing the bruises with her index finger. From the cabinet with a missing door she selected a bone china plate decorated with a pattern of roses. She’d never touched a rose. She piled the apples carefully on the plate until the roses were covered and placed it on the tiny card table, the only table in the room. They sat before the plate of apples for a time. Eventually she stood up and led him to the stained mattress lying in the furthest corner of the room. Six candles lay scattered around the mattress. She lit a single candle and crawled, fully clothed, beneath the frayed blanket covered with fading dinosaurs. He followed, nervous, and pulled the blanket gently over them both. They did not touch and eventually slept.

The second gift she brought to him: a paring knife with a cracked handle. He accepted it, grateful but unsure what to do with it. She produced a paring knife of her own and held it in front of him so that he could see its handle was also cracked. Lowering it, she took his hand—the first time she touched him—and led him to the plate of apples. She selected an apple and carefully peeled the skin off. He attempted to do the same, but the skin tore beneath the blade, leaving a ragged trail around the apple. She indicated that he should pick up a second apple. As he did so, she positioned herself behind him and reached her hands around to guide his. She did this for two apples. He did the rest alone, and the last one was perfectly peeled, the curlicued skin lying on the table like unwound rope.

She lit two candles and allowed him to lie naked next to her, beneath the dinosaur blanket. Her ragged clothes smelled of sugar and copper. He had never smelled anything so rich. He closed his eyes and focused on his breathing until it was steady in his chest. He did not touch her. It was a long time before he fell asleep.

The third gift he brought to her: a bundle of sticks tied together with a strip of oil-stained cloth torn from his jeans. She accepted the bundle with outstretched arms. He slid open the cracked window, the only window in the room, and started a fire on the floor in a bowl-shaped chunk of concrete. She knelt in front of the fire and carefully laid the sticks on the flame, one at a time, before dropping the strip of cloth atop them. Together they watched the sticks burn until the fire went out and only ash remained. She reached into the warm ash and rubbed her fingers together. Withdrawing them, she turned and drew a sigil on his forehead followed by a matching one on hers. This, he understood, was the fourth gift and it was for them both. The sigil warmed his skin. He knew it would remain there always.

She lit four candles and removed her clothing before slipping beneath the dinosaur blanket. He did the same. They did not touch, but after she fell asleep he reached across her body, took her stained t-shirt from the floor and lay it atop his pillow. This time he fell asleep quickly.

Later he awoke, the sigil wrapping his head in a warm embrace. She was not in bed, nor was she in the room. He dressed, but the fear that he might not find her or his way back to the room sat heavy in his mind. He would wait. He took the plate of skinned apples from the card table and set it on the floor. He positioned himself cross-legged in front of the bowl. With no skin for protection, the apple meat had darkened and dried. He stared at the corpse fruit, hungry. So hungry. Yet he would not touch the apples. He sat like this for a long time and still she did not come. His stomach growled and his body ached. The warmth in his head gradually became oppressive. He ignored the protests of his body, concentrating on the dead apples. Eventually sleep overtook him.

When he awoke he was naked and many birds were painted on his skin. This was the fifth gift. She was sitting next to him and, seeing that he was awake, reached over and touched one of the birds, a small crow just above his belly. The crow took flight and circled over them. She laid down with him. As they made love, all the birds on his skin took flight and circled around the mattress, creating a cocoon. He cried when he climaxed. She touched his tears with her finger, drawing them to her body. She guided his hands until her own climax shook both their bodies. The fury of the circling birds drowned out what little light the candles provided. He could not see if she cried too.

She rose from the mattress, the birds widening the circle until she arrived at the cracked window. She slid it open. All the birds flew out.

This was the sixth and final gift. Now they started their work.

The plush rabbit they found in an alleyway the first time they went outside together. It was she who spotted the creature, lying on the wet pavement, completely saturated. Covered in brown fur with a white streak across its back, the animal’s opaque plastic eyes bore down on them as she held it outstretched. Unspoken, the decision was made. Back at the apartment, the rabbit was placed at the head of their mattress, from where it guided them through their work.

Before they ventured out the rabbit told them what to get. In this way they gathered wood, wire, nails, a canvas, paint, a warped handsaw and a hammer with half its claw broken off.

With the supplies obtained, they began to build under the rabbit’s guidance. They worked, naked, without resting. They did not eat and they did not touch each other. The air in the room grew cold as they framed the canvas and painted many doors, one atop the other, until they painted one to the rabbit’s satisfaction. Working by the light of the six candles, they leaned the canvas against the wall and proceeded to build the door, using the canvas and the rabbit’s instructions as their blueprint. Wood, wire and nails were molded into shape with the broken hammer, warped handsaw and their muscle until the rabbit was satisfied.

Now, the rabbit instructed them, you must wind your skin through the door and its frame.

This they did, using their paring knives. The knives, dulled from the previous labors, tore their skin instead of slicing it clean. Their blood pooled and mixed on the floor, their tender things exposed to each other. They collected the ragged pieces of skin and entwined them with wire on the door.

After the task was done, the rabbit fell silent. They cut open its belly and pulled out the stuffing, soaking it in their blood and spreading it in front of the door.

Though it was now difficult to move, he crawled to the cracked window. Using the windowsill for leverage, he pulled himself up along the wall until he could slide the window open. As he turned back to where she waited in front of the door, the birds flew back in. Circling overhead, they cried songs in a thousand different languages. He made it back to her. Facing each other, they knelt in front of the door and sang of tender things to each other in birdsong.

When their song was done, they helped each other to a standing position and linked arms. Tender things falling from their eviscerated bodies to belly of the rabbit, they pushed open the door and stepped through. The birds, crying no more, followed.