Young Underpaid Professionals

FICTION posted by Rica

Her hands didn’t feel like her own; she had been staring at them since this morning. She couldn’t help but be amazed at how her hands had cooked a wonderful breakfast for her and her lover, how they had washed the dishes afterwards, and how they had done even the most trivial of chores around the house. She had never enjoyed doing those before with her own hands.

Those hands, she thought they were wonderful!

It could’ve lasted all day, her amusement; but slowly she realized that the hands were not like the ones she had been keeping clean. These hands were different. They were bruised, the nails were bitten short, both pinkies looked like they were sewn back on the hands, and they looked really worn.

This isn’t a Stephen King novel, she kept telling herself when she realized the hands were not hers. She knew she wasn’t the type to just change her hands whenever she desired so – not that she had the ability to do that anyway. But the hands, she knew they were not her own.

She didn’t hate them when she was taking a shower; the thought of having someone else’s hands scrub her clean actually turned her on. And the thought of someone else feed her at lunch made her smile big enough that she even noticed herself beaming for the first time that day.

The cheap ring her lover gave her looked rather nice on her ring finger, and it even paired well with the bronze decorations she painted on her bitten nails. She felt like she could even finish the pile of unwashed clothes in the laundry room, but she thought against it since she had just finished washing a week’s worth of dirty clothes yesterday with her real hands. Her back could still remember yesterday’s activity well.

What was it that irked her about these hands? She would think about it during commercial breaks. She loved Grey’s Anatomy so much. If they sew my fingers back if I cut them, would they still work the same? It was a morbid thought even for her, but the stitches on the pinkies made her laugh if off.

Downy? Oh that will certainly help with the laundry. She remembered how that morning she couldn’t get the stain off one of her prettier dresses. She didn’t have bleach lying around the house.

What was it again, she said to herself when the show finally came back. Oh, the letter. I should’ve given it before I slept.

She wrote a letter last night – something she did with her old hands. She could remember that every stroke of the pen pained her. Maybe it was how her fingers held the pen. She really couldn’t see much of what she was writing because her eyes were already too heavy and swollen. It was late into the night and she was still awake, finishing that letter.

Her lover was already in bed, and she was sitting beside him, writing. She blew her nose as silently as she could every time she felt she couldn’t breathe anymore. Her lover didn’t stir in his sleep whenever she did. She could sense though that he knew what she was doing.

It was not a very long letter, just half a page was filled by her writing. When she finished it, she massaged her hands for a while – they were swelling and she knew that if she didn’t put ice on them, she’d be in trouble.

She glanced at her lover who she knew wouldn’t wake up, and decided that her bruised hands would definitely be okay the day after. She could also sleep in that pretty little dress she had on, and the stain on it wouldn’t bother him the least bit.

She placed the letter on her lover’s bedside table so he could read it if he wanted to. She knew she should’ve slept early that night, but her lover wouldn’t let her. She turned off her lamp as she thought about the chores she had to do in the morning: clean the house to get rid of the stench; buy a bottle of bleach (thankfully, there wasn’t any left to use on her dress after she had used it on the kitchen floor, otherwise she’d have ruined that pretty outfit); wash the sheets; sew his hands on her; cook a delicious breakfast for two; finally get some quality time with the TV and watch Grey’s Anatomy (his football games were always on at the same time as the show); make sure her lover was presentable at breakfast; and, finally show him the letter she wrote.

Maybe this time, she thought as she watched Patrick Dempsey smile, you’d appreciate me more. Because from now on I’ll be using your hands to do everything you used to tell me to do.

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