Pluto's Moon

Inspired by some taboo novels. Please be as honest as possible; I can handle negativity! This is my first draft for something that may turn into a competition entry.

I.

a rose mid-bloom

II.

was what she was. He loved her from afar, and watched her long, slender limbs move to an unhearable music. She was a dainty cigarette dream in a Bradbury town; she was fifteen at that time and he was old enough to be her father. It was an obsession of sorts; he wrote pages and pages and pages of metaphors for her eyes and novels of her innocence; but there was a beauty in his obsession and a magnificence in his devotion.

III.

Her eyes were the part of the moon you couldn’t see, he wrote, luminous but evanescent, a mystification to mankind. And in return, the moon was a metaphor for her, you see, because some days you could see her in all her glory and contrast, and other days she smiled and flaunted her beauty but he thought that he saw a flash of longing in her eyes.

These eyes saw him, of course, the flash of a face from the window of the house across her street; the man that everybody knew existed, but never saw existing. To her, he was Pluto.

IV.

And Pluto existed, silently worshipping her like it was his religion, comparing her flushed pink skin to overused ballet slippers that made him sigh with desire. Unbeknownst to her, she was insidious; she was a great-granddaughter of a witch that was never burned, and she was bewitching him.

V.

and then she was sixteen. He knew so because her mother had tied birthday balloons around their mailbox, and he peaked around the curtains to watch clusters of girls (like bacteria, he thought) to come and corrupt his little moon nymphet. He watched them disgustedly, the girl with chemically changed hair to resemble the color a dead chicken’s liver, the girl chomping on gum as though she was worried it would disappear from her mouth. He wondered how such a beautiful angel creature could associate herself with such unromantics.  

VI.

Then she began to wear a watch. She wore it everyday, probably from her birthday, but he wrote in his journal that she wore it like a death sentence because she wasn’t the type to die old. She was ageless, and Pluto could not even comprehend the thought of a moonchild such as she with love handles and liver spots.

VII.

It was sudden to him, but he saw it; the progressing curve around her bosom and hips. He did not like it, oh no; he was restless for days as he tried to come up with remedies for his little muse, his angel, his beautiful ouija board. She was no longer ageless as she aged; he saw her taking unworthy boys into her house as she painted over her rosebud lips with a clownish pink. Her white french dresses were replaced with scratchy, colorful cotton as she too, fell for the devil of aging, and he could not bear the pain.

IX.

He was going to save her, of course, from herself. It would always be him and her, the Moon and Pluto, two unknown lovers across the pure galaxy. He would save her from the gravity of Earth, the disgusting pull that attracted her unearthliness to the dirty influence of the planet.

He chose his shield of choice; fire; easily extinguished in the galaxy but a deadly beauty on earth. He chose her next birthday. He did not want her to ever be eighteen; by eighteen, there would be no hope for her.

X.

The flame licked over the top of the match like the devil’s tongue.

XI.

He thought he heard her scream from her bed as she was cleansed, heard her scream beautiful and pure and nude from her bed as she lay without clownish lips or sharp-heeled shoes or dirty-minded boys. And he smiled joyously at the top of the flames where the full moon shone over him, where she waited lovingly for him to join. He had saved her from the impurity of earth; restored her to her timeless beauty; a spirit moon and forbidden fruit. And he stepped in one leather loafer at a time as he felt the blazing, liquid agony lick over his liver-spotted skin and love handles, and imagined that he was being carried by the smoke to the sky, where he joined his lover once more.

Author's Note

It would be great if you could guess my age; I've wondering what age people think I am. Please be as honest as possible in your review; I can handle negativity! No cushioning. This is a first draft of what may turn out to be a competition entry.

Reviews

[Delmar Cooper]

I thought the story outline compelling and well conceived. The Pluto metaphor and the Moon metaphor seemed to battle one another for attention. I assume by Moon the writer means Luna not Charon. The ending is not so much predictable as it is fore shadowed or presaged. My guess at age is 73 years, 4 months and 18 days. More or considerably less.

[Joanna Maharis]

This is such a wickedly good piece of writing. It's also very sensuous in its own right. I'm wondering if the old man in the story were an angel of some kind. Perhaps a fallen angel or someone sent down to earth to watch over the young girl, seeing as how he took it upon himself to cleanse the girl of all impurity. Yet, I sense a wickedness to him in his own right.