Lip Balm

Lip Balm

Catherine was speaking to a group of women. She was talking so fast she was spitting. Her multicoloured hair was half tied up with a piece of Brazilian fabric and the lines on her face were caked in, working a moon scape with pale foundation across her loose skin.

Susan spoke in the same authoritative way as Catherine; they could have been sisters. I could imagine them together as young women conspiring against their mother.

Catherine had lived a hundred different lives all over the world; somewhere along the way she had met a man and touched him enough to create a child.

Susan had lived and loved the lives of three men; they had all left her with a child each and returned to their countries, their mothers and lost childhood loves.

Susan was unmistakeably a mother, and undoubtedly a terrible actress.
She was a makeup artist and a lover of men, she was extremely proud of the way she loved men. Her devotion to her children was equally amazing and we wondered if that was what had chased away her lovely men.

Susan had a thin yoga body and massive breastfeeding breasts.

Always slung over her thin shoulders were massive handbags, filled with; you could only guess. Her life seemed at once extraordinarily organised and wildly disorganised – she was always late but never forgot anything you asked her to bring.

The weather was undecided that day in the park. We were sitting in a circle listening to Catherine rant at us passionately. Susan grabbed one of her enormous bags from under her chair and pulled out a lip balm.

She flicked her hair slowly and slow motional and sexily and snowily; not sure exactly as she over-acted a serious facial expression, she applied the balm to her her chapped cherry lips. The park went slow motion; I was amazed at how intimate it was this small act; me roped into the intimacy. A performance, some kind of lurid scene in a porn film, and I was there. Shocked at her open a sexual hunger and transfixed at the same time, included and excluded; mean and kind. I don’t like her though.

She smacked her lips together; reset, pulled her concentration back to the group and moved her body forward like she was listening again, still holding the lip balm in her hand when Catherine reached for it grabbing first her hand.

Still focused on the group of women sitting on the grass listening, Catherine continues to speak and teach while slowly holding Susan’s hand. Like King Henry the Eighth and a turkey’s leg she smeared the lip balm on her paler lips, gloss and Susan’s spit left behind gliding. Like a seen from a Grecian orgy; then finished like nothing had happened; the end. Susan flung her bag swung her hips and hung her hand down her leg she sauntered away watched and liking the watching, I saw her go, my face red, my stomach churning and I thought ‘shit actress, I could do her part much better’.