Todd discovered the legs online. One of those straight-to-source websites with wholesale prices. He was taken, at first, by the cleanliness of the legs. Pristine feet and delicate ankles, shins sloping up to symmetrical knees. Then the thighs. All of this rising to a Y-shaped groin, inches below where the plastic ceased. The top half had been sliced away and discarded. Todd leaned in to the screen. They were beautiful things, shapely and aesthetic. But his favorite part had nothing to do with looks. He liked that the legs were inanimate. They weren’t going anywhere. He could set them down and they’d be there waiting when he returned. They couldn’t run off to Madrid with their squash partner.
He moved the mouse and clicked the “Add To Cart” button.
Two weeks later a man arrived with a large, square box. He set it in the doorway and had Todd sign a clipboard. Todd stood for a long time and stared at the box. He went to the kitchen and found a bread-knife, sliced the tape down the box’s center and withdrew, in pieces, the mannequin legs. He turned the feet in his hands, felt the new matte quality of the calves and thighs. He grinned to himself. It made his face prickle.
When the legs were together—supported by a stand and steel rod through the crotch—Todd paced around and admired his workmanship. The legs were perfect. Tina Turner in a miniskirt perfect. But there was a problem he hadn’t considered. He couldn’t have these naked legs standing around near the living-room window. People would notice. The neighbors would talk. No one would ever come round again. But he liked the legs nude. Now that he walked a circle around them, he found that the backside was also quite nice. Firm buttocks and a tight crevasse where the hamstrings started. He decided to set them in Heidi’s study. He kept the curtains drawn in there.
After he’d moved the legs, Todd stood back. By light of his wife’s old desk-lamp the legs seemed to shine like marble columns.
Todd got off work at four each afternoon. Before the train home, he would stop at a coffee house next to the station. There was a waitress he liked. Her name was Marla. She wore camouflage pants and white, sleeveless shirts. Her toenails were polished with bright summer colors. The coffee was swill, but Todd didn’t care. He sat at a very particular table. The one by the window, where light from outside made everything glow. Marla would come and pour his coffee. She’d look at Todd and purse her lips politely, then she’d turn and walk away. That was when the magic happened.
In the sunlight, her shirt was translucent. The peripheral world would fall into whiteness and there in the middle was Marla’s shape. Todd would glimpse, in wild, fleeting moments, the uniform ridges that marked out her spine; the black of her bra and the crease of her hips. He wanted to capture these moments in jars. Then in the madness of some lonely morning, he’d open the jars and drink their contents. Marla could live and breathe inside him, her heartbeat thumping in time with his own.
When the show was over, Todd would drink his coffee. He’d catch the next train and be back home by six. He would sit in his wife’s study and stare at the legs he had bought online. Once in a while he would stand up and touch them, run his fingers around the hole where the top half was meant to go.
Summer ended. The days grew shorter and four o’ clock was no longer bright. Todd visited Marla, but the sun was too low and all he saw was plain, white fabric. In the fall, she changed her clothes. She kept the pants, but now her top-half was covered in wool—cardigans, sweaters, long-sleeve plaids—all too thick to show off her back.
One afternoon he asked her a question. He wanted to know what her voice was like. She arrived with the coffee pot and tipped it into his cup. He looked at her face, followed the line of her nose to her mouth.
“Cold outside, huh?” he said.
“Mmhmm,” she hummed. Her eyes moved over Todd, jumped to the window, back to the coffee. She turned away, revealing nothing. Todd sunk into his chair and watched her tend to a couple more tables.
That night, as he sat and stared, the legs evolved inside his mind. He imagined Marla’s torso sprouting from the hole in the top. Her arms falling to touch her hips. A living body with no way to move. The image made his blood heat up. He ran a bath and lay in the tub til the water went cold.
The following day he knocked off work at 2 p.m. He got to the coffee shop and sat in his chair. He looked around. Things were normal. The place was crowded, but a guy with dreadlocks was waiting the tables. Marla was absent. That was okay; she worked the evenings. She’d be there soon, he told himself. He sat there tapping and drumming the table for two full hours. Still no Marla. Through the window, the purple sky deepened into deep, navy blue. The lights came on inside the shop. People took it as a sign to leave and wrapped up their dates and left empty mugs and napkins behind. Todd’s patience ran out. He went to the counter and asked the barista why Marla was missing.
“She’s gone,” they told him. “Yesterday was her last day.”
Todd felt the color leave his face.
“Do you know where she’s going?”
“India,” the barista said. “She’s moving there to see new things.”
“India?” he said. “For how long?”
The barista shrugged. She pulled a shot of espresso and set the cup on the counter. Todd looked at the coffee and felt his eyes glaze.
“Why do you ask?” the barista said.
“No reason.”
“You need something to drink?”
“No. I’m good. Thanks.”
He left the coffee house in a daze. He wandered to the station and sat on the platform, watching the trains take people away.
Back at home he went online. He browsed a few sites. Checked Facebook, searched the name “Marla,” and stumbled through a hundred profiles. She was one of those anti-social-network people. Todd closed the browser. He stared at the desktop a moment, reopened the internet and brought up a search engine:
Flights to India.
Countless departures in the next 10 hours. Several cities where her plane might land. Mumbai, Kolkata, New Delhi, etc. Todd closed the laptop and turned in his seat. The mannequin legs were there beside him. He studied their shape, took in the shadow they cast on the wall. He stood from his chair and reached out a hand. The plastic felt warm. He dropped to his knees, rocked himself forward and sniffed the fake feet. They smelled of plastic and chemical powder. He kissed the feet softly and begged them never to wake up and leave.
He took the legs to bed with him, tucked them in on Heidi’s side and ran his feet on their senseless skin. He put his finger inside the hole where Marla’s body was meant to go. It was smooth and inviting. He reached under the covers, stripped off his boxers and positioned himself perpendicular to the legs. He fucked the hole until he came, and fell asleep inside the legs; lying still in the dark of his loss.
He dreamed of a world where no one moved. Everyone had one job to do, and they did it well from where they stood. Feet grew roots and roads split apart. Cars sat lifeless, covered in mold. The seasons changed and humans evolved. Legs grew wider. Shoulders broadened. Arms reached out to touch each other. And when they had no room to spread, the only place to grow was up. Through the clouds and into the sky, far above where planes could take them, the air so thin they couldn’t breathe. But by the force of some great muscle, they raised their heads to greet the sun.
Andy Valentine was born in England and now resides in the Pacific Northwest. His stories have appeared in Pioneertown, Chagrin River Review, Oregon Voice Magazine, Poplorish Magazine and The Shrug. He holds a degree in English from the University of Oregon.
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–Art by Menerva Tau