On Reflection

She was so beautiful that I would talk about her on the bus to total
strangers until the driver would ask me to be quiet and sit down.

She was so beautiful that I would go to see newly married couples walk
out of church and shout awful things like 'Ha! But she's an old trout
compared to my gorgeous lover'.

She was so beautiful that I would ring her parents up in the middle of
the night, weeping with joy, and thank them for having her.

And then her beauty was superseded and my world began to
collapse.

I was shaving, and as I rubbed the foam into my face she came up behind
me, and I was dumbstruck. Tiny changes had occurred through that
reflection with wonderful results. Her eyes seemed, more ... coherent
somehow. Her nose was coquettish in a way that I'd never noticed
before. The alignment of her teeth was an absolute joy to behold and
her ears were ... I don't know ..... but there was an air of erotic
mystery floating around the lobe of the right one.

I stared intensely, confused at this revelation, cutting chunks out of
my face, blood streaming onto my chest and legs, my hands shaking with
anticipation. And then I sprinted into the bedroom and hurled myself
onto the bed.

But something was wrong. Her eyes had lost that new found coherency.
Her teeth were Higgledy Piggledy. And her nose.... Hell! that wasn't
coquettish it was just plain .. nosey..like. I took hold of her lobe
and flapped it around a bit, beginning to get a mite agitated and
demanding to know where she had put it.
'Put what?'
'You know - that mystery erotic thing. Wait! Wait! Maybe it wasn't this
ear - maybe it was this one.'
'What's going on? Look can you stop dribbling. You're upsetting my
breasts'.

She had gone. That woman in the mirror wasn't there anymore. The woman
in my bed was a reasonably good copy, but just wasn't quite up there
with the mirror one. I mumbled something about getting up real early
and rolled over aware that something terrible might have
occurred.

The following morning I tried to forget about what I had seen but I
couldn't stop thinking of this dream woman and as my girlfriend cleaned
her teeth looking into the mirror I crept up behind her and stared.
Christ No! There she is again!! Only this time she's even hornier!!
Look it is there! It is!! That erotic mystery lobe dangly thing. She's
like Julie Christie, Natassia Kinski and Hanna Mandlikova rolled into
one. (I always had a thing for Hanna Mandlikova. Especially when she
argued with the umpires).

She turned round, told me I should see a dentist if I was going to
spend the rest of my life dribbling.

What could I do? Could I tell her that I had the hots for her mirror
image and that she was beginning to look plain dowdy in comparison. And
that's what was happening alright. While one face was becoming more
sublime the other was going down the pan.

I began to put mirrors up all over the house and came up with the most
childish ruses to get her in front of one.

- God love look at my tongue; it's not right.
- No it looks fine.
- You're not looking hard enough come on lets have a look at
yours.
- See, they're both O.K
- Jesus what's that at the back of your throat?
- Where?
- That.. that...hanging down thing. God Christ Almighty!
- It's my Uvula. You have one too. Look are you alright?'

For months I laughed off accusations of intense vanity whilst leading
her to believe that maybe I was evolving into a terrible narcissist.
Mirrors on the ceiling were impossible - much too obvious - but by an
elaborate system of hand mirrors positioned at various spots around the
room I managed to engineer four positions for carnal activity. I wasn't
proud of this but when you're driven you're driven. Though as time went
on I began to feel seedier than a pomegranate.

Now there's a fruit for you.

I took dozens of photographs of her gazing into the mirror explaining
that I was involved in some art project and carefully cut out the faces
and stuck them on the heads of the existing photos of her which were
around the house. Some of the joins were a bit dodgy and in places she
appeared to have a very young body for one with such a mature face but
I was reasonably happy with my work. I polished things incessantly. I
bought her ties.

But she began to suspect that something was up. I was getting her in
front of the mirror on increasingly ridiculous pretexts; 'God your
head's doubled in size!' and the dribbling got worse. And then one
night after we had made love with me staring in my concealed mirror I
turned to face her and cried out 'My God! No! What Have I Done!'

This was not the most encouraging post coital remark and she began to
cry. I came clean. I didn't love her anymore - I loved her reflection.
It was stupid but there it was. A slight difference here and there but
the repercussions were enormous. Hadn't she heard of the Butterfly
Effect? Christ suddenly your ears get all mysterious and erotic. Well
your right one does and that's enough for me.

She decided to leave. The saliva had been getting to her but this
really took the biscuit.

I wept. I pleaded. I smashed the mirrors in a grand dramatic gesture
realising that I was risking one thousand three hundred and two years
of bad luck.

She gave me one last chance.

But I had seen paradise in that mirror and that was where I wanted to
be.

I made a pact with the Devil. Lucifer, I said, you can take my soul and
smoke it. But in return you must give me the gift to see everything as
though in a mirror. And he granted my wish.

It knew it would take me a while to come to terms with the outside
world. Driving would be treacherous, shaking hands potentially
ridiculous and reading a real bitch - although 'Finnegans Wake' should
be a whole load easier.

And so I returned from my tete-a-tete with The Angel Of The Bottomless
Pit, struggling a bit with my door keys, and as the door swung open I
was faced with a big mirror leaning against the coat rack, an outline
of a female body, seemingly that of my girlfriend, drawn on it with
bright red lipstick. I shuffled about a bit trying to get myself inside
this frame and as I stood there she appeared behind me, naked and
holding a bottle of champagne and two Crunchie Choc Ices.

'Don't turn round' she whispered. 'I want you to gaze at me with those
eyes of yours through the mirror'.

'Do you like my nose?', she said, stretching it out in all its
glory.

'Yes. Yes! Yes!!'.

'Makes you go all tingly in the balls department does it?'

'Oh yes'.

'And how about these earlobes?'

'Mmmm'

'Do they want to make you drool like a slavering crazie?'

'You're spot on'.

'Well that's all a bit strange isn't it. I mean correct me if I,m wrong
here but surely if Beelzebub has done his job properly then my
reflection should look like the mirror image of what it did before.
Like unreflected. Now what was the phrase you used? Gargoyle. That is
right isn't it? On reflection'.

I swung round and she opened her mouth wide, ridiculously wide, and
there were those bloody shambolic teeth.

'You putrid little tosspot, thinking you can get everything your own
way. With your stupid mirrors and photos and deals with the Lord of
Eternal Darkness. Yes Lover Boy I've been keeping my eye on you and
after you'd done with Mr Lucifer I had a little word and he told me
what you were up to and that he would flip my facial features for no
cost whatsoever and that in addition he would make sure that you would
get the A1 Eternal Nightmare Treatment down in Hades. Flames, Itching,
no Salami. The lot. Now bugger off out of my house'.

So that's that. I've blown it big time. Haven't I? I'm not asking for
sympathy or anything but - it's really hard.