I should start by mentioning that I (F1035) had just come out of a so-called “fairy tale” relationship with O. (M1037). Technically, O. and I are still married, but I had recently forsworn his bed and company. I couldn’t take it anymore: the jealousy, calling me “rash wanton,” the brawls that disturb’d our sport, etc.
The last straw was when he demanded full custody of a changeling boy that I had “adopted” from an Indian king. O. wanted to make him his little henchman. And perpetuate the cycle of toxic masculinity? Uhhh, no thanks! He already exploits that creepy “Robin Goodfellow,” the little troublemaker. Consequently, I had made a vow that we would never meet in grove or green, by fountain clear or spangled sparkle sheen, or even that Athens coffee shop we like.
One midsummer evening, after hanging with my BFFs (Peaseblossom, Mustardseed, Moth, and Cobweb, even though Cobweb can be soooo clingy!), I decided to take a nap in the garden. When I awoke, there in the moonlight stood B. (M32), the most beautiful creature I have ever seen! My eye was enthralled to his shape, like OMG! It was love, to swear, upon first view.
The problem is, he’s a bit of an ass. I mean, literally, he has the head of a donkey.
Personally, I have nothing against a fellow hairy about the face, and B. really knows how to accentuate it: sticking musk roses in his sleek smooth head and rounding his hairy temples with a coronet of fresh and fragrant flowers. It takes real confidence to pull off the coronet look.
I love him so much! All I want to do is fetch him jewels from the deep and sing while on pressed flowers he does sleep. I want to fan the moonbeams from his sleeping eyes. I want to feed him apricocks and dewberries, and honey bags steal from the humble-bees. Oh, the things we do with the honey bags!
I can get over the age difference, the whole mortal/immortal thing. But it’s a full-ass donkey head! Long ears, rolling eyes, giant teeth, the works. I have a wedding coming up. Am I the asshole for not wanting to bring him? I don’t think I could take the stares, not to mention the lewd comments (“You know what they say: big ears, big…”)
It gets worse: he’s an actor!
I mean, he says he’s an actor. Technically, he’s a weaver, but what he really wants to do is direct. Right now, he’s playing Pyramus in this play but keeps going on and on about how he was this close to getting Thisby. At the same time, he says he was born to play the lion part, though he “decided” to turn it down because his performance would “fright the ladies.” Really, I think this whole play business is just an excuse to hang with his frat bros.
I doubt the play’s ever going to see the light of day. It’s called The Most Lamentable Comedy and Most Cruel Death of Pyramus and Thisby. I hope that’s the working title. Is it a thriller? I suggested calling it Through a Cranny Whisper, but he just brayed with laughter and ate some oats.
The acting thing’s going nowhere. There just aren’t parts out there for donkey-headed actors. He could do voice work, I suppose. Is there future advancement in weaving?
And now he wants to perform the play at the wedding! They’ve added this embarrassing prologue where the actors remind the audience that they’re actors, the whole breaking-the-fourth-wall cliché. Also, an actor plays a wall.
I can’t bring my donkey-headed artisan/actor boyfriend to this wedding! And yet I’m completely under his spell! I don’t know, maybe I should wake up, surrender the changeling boy, make O. my plus-one, and go back to the way things were for the rest of eternity. Oh, I wish this were all a fierce vexation of a dream!
Also: any suggestions on how to rid my garden of all these young people running around?
Signed,
Enamor’d of an Ass