Rubber, Metal, Glass, Plastic

“We should be together,” he says, six months to the day they met. “We should always be together.”

Marina considered this statement, at the time, to be farcical, the sort of thing that half-deaf septuagenarians say to anybody born in the twentieth century.  When he spoke these words to her – his knotted knuckles clutching her white wrists -- Marina was sure that she had whispered some sort of affirmation, her eyes welling up with tears.  She had probably extended her left hand while covering her lips, coy, with her right. Most likely, she had smiled, grinning like the winner of the goddamn grand prize.

She had nice teeth.  Her mouth was a display of faultless geometry -- perfect squares rimmed by blushing gums, no hint of plaque or flash of forgotten dental work, no trace of film or funk on her pointed red tongue.  She had the kind of teeth that indicated generations of good breeding, as if there were plush plantations, polo ponies, crisp stacks of bills reflected in the pearlescent bones.

Clyde’s mouth was outfitted with teeth that bent left when they were supposed to go right and a constant stench of half-ripe bananas. His nose had seen one too many bar fights, and his chin sinkholed into his neck.  Clyde’s eyes were green, a color a topographer would use on a map to illustrate foliage in the area, but they were hidden beneath cloudy cataracts and lids swollen by sodium.

Clyde Litkos had shades of former beauty, but at 78, he was shriveled, puckered, swollen and soft in the joints, the belly; even his chest sagged.  Tufts of curly white hair sprung from every orifice, coarse like the brush tail of a doe.  

Marina was hairless.  Waxes, sugar stripping, and laser treatments that felt like a thousand rubber bands snapping her inner thighs banished any errant fuzz, aside from the strands of gold that fell root to tip past her shoulders. She was a natural blonde, but after the accident, her hair had paled – a delight to Clyde, who had a penchant for Marilyns.

Ma told Marina that ancient Roman women used to douse their hair in horse urine and sit in the sun with wicker bonnets to lighten their locks.  Ma would laugh and laugh about the ridiculous things people did for beauty, but Marina didn’t think it sounded so bad.  No scalpels, no snipping, no silicone – Marina would take pony piss on her head any day over what the carnage her fiancé built his life on.

 Tit jobs, nose jobs, arm suction, tummy tucks. Who was everyone trying to look like? Marina would wonder. Who was everyone trying to be? They looked like aliens.  The nine weeks that she lay in the cosmetic wing, awaiting her new face, she would watch the women in the lobby through the close-circuit channel on the TV.

They always looked the same to her – muscled calves flexed beneath cropped yoga pants, neon tennis shoes, their mouths twisted into a scowl as they typed on their smart phones with one thumb.  They always seemed obligated to be there, as if this was the world’s best looking DMV.  They never acknowledged each other, instead casting their eyes skyward as if they needed a greater approval before proceeding.

Clyde showed Marina dozens of before and after photos, so she knew what their eyes looked like: glued to the floor, their lips quaking and their hands flying to cover themselves in their sports bras. Their bellies were puckered and dimpled, their breasts uneven and drooped, their faces were lined like walnut shells – some would say that time had been "unkind." Why did time have to be kind? Marina thought.

What did we expect?

Afterwards – “after” – they were happy, pink cheeked, their eyes gleaming in the fluorescence. As they watched their new breasts push out the front of their camisoles, I have hope for happiness now. I have everything I need, they thought.  She thought.