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The train, P remembers, was cold. Dark and foreboding and yet still lifeless, somehow; as if he were an instrument used to filter his surroundings. To record, the way that gramophones immortalize music. He wasn’t alive then, sitting on his chair, but neither was he dead. When Sophia reached out to him, he felt a flood of warmth from his chest to his fingertips, his cheeks, his knees. Then he bubbled with the steady hum of anxiety: Where is my father? Where is he?
I want to see him.
To protect him.
To hold.
Although he didn’t remember what directions his creator had given him — some programming that told him where to be, when, and who — he knew that, by opening his eyes and standing from his chair, he was defying such orders.
The puppet did not — does not — care.
He lays back on the sofa in his father’s study now, human arm pressed to his forehead. Rest. Lie down, his father said, and he isn’t questioning his command. They are together now, and that is all that matters.
The ceiling light flickers, making his eyes twitch, and he ponders context as his father slips onto the couch, cushions dipping beneath his weight. The puppet is hours old and yet this is all he has ever wanted: his father’s closeness. There is something ancient, heavy, overwhelming about his yearning; he does not doubt its validity, but neither does he think he will ever understand it. Was he designed to have a heart so full, even upon his awakening? Or was it like a switch that flipped inside him once he awoke? Was it a process, this overwhelming love, or was it something that once lay dormant inside his core?
And perhaps, most aching of all: If the creation longs so for its creator, might the opposite be true as well?
There is a peculiar sensation inside him, like the spark of static, when his father touches his knee. Was he born with this need, designed with such a craving, or was this something he picked up along the way? Perhaps it is an error of some sort, some flaw. Might there be something wrong with him?
Or maybe all is as it should be. He may have woken with clothes — white ruffles, cropped pants, ribbed stockings, and button boots — but he doesn’t need them now. They puddle upon the floor as his father peels back layers of fabric, and he thinks: This is art. Something made from nothing. The off-white of his shirt; tight trousers slipping off his legs; underclothes, unmentionables. All mixing with his father’s clothing in a heap.
The thought comes to him in a breathless wave of longing: I don’t need these things. Only you.
His own nudity does not scare him. In truth, the puppet is fascinated by the smoothness of his skin; the slopes of flesh, imitating human musculature; the tingle in his nerves, woven with wires, that allow him to feel at all. Even more riveting is the way his father’s eyes rove over his body, soaking in the sight of him, skin wrinkling even further as he squints. As if the puppet is truly a sight to behold: something special. Something to touch, to acknowledge.
Without warning, his father falls against his chest. He would be concerned if not for the way his father’s lips move in odd patterns, his mouth brushing along collarbone, neck; facial hair scraping against skin. It feels like static again: sometimes strange, sometimes pleasurable, but always invigorating, as if something inside him knows what this is. Knows he needs it. More of that ancient knowledge lying dormant, deep, its surface barely scratched.
Fingers thread through his father’s thin hair as the puppet stares up at the ceiling: swoops and swirls of patterns carved into the wood. Humans are amazing, aren’t they? he thinks. Creative. Strange. Hungry. His father’s chest is a whorl of wispy hairs, scratching against him, and he wonders why he himself is hairless beyond the waves upon his head, beyond the curls of long lashes. Why does he lack this simple thing? People call him beautiful: perhaps this is what appeals to his father. Maybe it makes him easier to touch; his skin smoother, more pliable beneath human hands.
Kisses trail down his neck, chest, stomach, all while he lies still. His father’s touch is pleasant, but he doesn’t know how to express that with words, or if he even should. Perhaps his father prefers him silent now; surely he would say something if they were meant to chatter through such intimacy. A final, lingering kiss is pressed to his knee before his father pulls away, and the puppet glances down at him, ice meeting faded blue. His chest rises, falls: faster than usual. Is this normal? Should he be concerned? No, his father would have mentioned it, would have paused this intricate, unusual game of his.
Because it does feel like a game, P realizes. His father kisses his inner thigh and the puppet’s leg twitches, trembling, jittering unnaturally. Is it the newness of such an embrace, any embrace, or is something wrong? No one else has taken his clothes off before; no one else has even asked. Is this what fathers and sons do? Creators and their inventions? Perhaps Venigni and Pulcinella are much the same. But he lacks so much context: Is this normal? Would Father make me do anything that isn’t normal? What is normal?
The puppet sucks in a breath he does not need, desperate to appear human. He thinks not of his own strength — hands that kill, skin that has bathed in blood — but of his father’s fragility. It would be so easy to lose himself here with his father, thinking of nothing but the buzz in his wires as he is caressed, but he must remain vigilant. My arm, he thinks, clenching his metal fingers, gripping the side of the couch as if such a limb is unwelcome in their special space. It is an awkward break in their otherwise magical fairy tale: he is not whole, wishing to hide this part of himself, despite the fact that he was deliberately designed as such.
Hips rise. His father’s hands are everywhere and nowhere: carving into him, sliding along his thighs, scraping his skin with wrinkled, spotted hands. The brassy heart in his chest thumps and thuds and he worries that his anxious whirrs might be overheard, as loud as a beating drum. What would it mean if his father continued despite his son’s body failing beneath him? Would he pry the puppet open with those careful hands of his, finding whatever flaw and healing him, saving him from the overexertion of his own hunger? Or would he be abandoned, cast aside for being a naughty boy, a bad son?
He is nameless, powerless. Staring up at the ceiling as his legs are wrenched impossibly wider apart. A human could not withstand such, he thinks, but he has seen so little and understands even less. Who is he to say what a human might endure for gratification? He lacks the word for this feeling: his father’s eyes on him always, caring not for the world beyond the puppet’s body. Perhaps nudity is required for such — perhaps it is the only thing that might captivate him, drawing his rapt attention — but it doesn’t matter. The puppet would parade himself round the hotel, bereft of clothing, if it might mean this wouldn’t end. If it guaranteed him even a slice of this love.
There is an ache deep inside, carving a hollowness into him. His father fills that ache — fingers, lips, more — but is it because he wants to, or because he feels obligated to his unruly son? Their bodies rock together and he blinks up at the ceiling, wanting this to mean something and yet knowing it does not. He has no name, no title beyond “Geppetto’s puppet,” but surely this requires a name. His father would not touch another person like this if he didn’t know their name; of this, the puppet is certain. Does this make him special, then? Someone — something — elevated to divinity by the fact that these hands made him, shaped him?
“Father,” he says. His voice is a steady hum, reverberating through the wires in his chest. It is not a plea but an affirmation: We are united in this. He feels the soft skin of his creator against him, sagging ever so slightly around his stomach, and the puppet loves that. He adores the creases in his father’s face, the dark splotches of age, and he thinks he could love this, too — being laid bare, legs spread, love burning — if only he had a name.
Then it would be perfect. His father would say his name hoarsely, as if he were in pain but not quite; like the static that roils in his own stomach, his limbs, his heart. Unexplainable, for he has no context, but still pleasurable. The sort of bond he’s yearned for all these minutes and hours that have felt like months, years. He has been alive for such a short while — for all he knows, he is made full, desperate by what he saw and heard whilst asleep — but he craves the togetherness that only his father can provide. If someone else were to try to touch him like this, he would swat them away — or worse. They are not him: father, creator. The man who inspires love even when his gaze is stony, disinterested; even now as the coarseness of his beard scratches against the puppet’s skin. With anyone else, this would be a deterrent. Repulsive.
With his father, it is everything he has ever wanted in his very short life.
Is it supposed to hurt? he wonders. Both lower, in places he isn’t familiar with beyond the monotony of changing his clothes, and deeper, in his heart. There is some part of his father inside him, and although he knows what it is, can picture it in his head, he doesn’t know what it’s called or what this means. It must feel satisfying for him, perhaps even be a sacred act of some sort, worshipful, or else his father wouldn’t be between his legs now.
Not once does his father ask if he is well. Not once does the roll of his hips cease; it only softens, quietens, like a dull hum. His father’s hips shake; they slow, exhausted. As if they have been at this carnal act for an age. There is the slap of skin on skin, and the puppet curls his human arm, his real arm, round his father’s neck, cradling him against his chest. Fingers sweeping through his hair, worrying. Always worrying.
“Father?” It is a question this time, inquiring, needing to know this is right, that they aren’t wrong, but his father’s only response is a sound low in his throat. Garbled, strained. Breath hot on the puppet’s skin, wafting over his chest, his nipple. Lips sucking at him again, and he wonders what his father might gain from such an action. Perhaps it’s another thing he will never understand, something unique to his father. Lips round his nipple, sucking weakly, as if such a motion might provide him succor.
A whisper from his father, hoarse in his throat: is that a name on his breath? There is the worst of the pain, deep, relentless, and then there is nothing but the echo of a sting. His father collapses atop him, breathing heavy, ragged. His hair is sweaty, damp, and the puppet runs his fingers through it, smelling the salt of him. Ancient, human. Family, love.
He is filled with something strange, seeping from between his thighs. An accumulation of his father’s pleasure, perhaps. Once their bodies are separated, individual once more, the puppet reaches between his legs. He brings his hand to his face and sees that the liquid is neither blood nor sweat. It must not be dangerous, then, he thinks; bringing soiled fingers to his lips, rolling them over his tongue. Bitter, strange.
His father is standing over him, trousers already pulled back on. Belt hanging round his hips like gates that have yet to be latched closed. Their eyes meet and the puppet thinks maybe, just maybe, there is a flicker of compassion, of love.
Instead, his father grimaces. Expression twisting, pained. “You disgust me,” he says, and somewhere, deep down, the puppet realizes, midst the twinge of anxiety in a sea of newfound lethargy: There has never been anything else.
This, he thinks, is nothing new.