All Characters 18 or older
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Kalli's grandfather built furniture. That was her memory. He was the one who cared for her, when her parents dumped her every weekend and sometimes longer. He was the one who fed her, and bathed her, and tucked her in at night. His hands caressed her as her rocked her to sleep, and made sure she wore clean panties. His hands gave her love, and built furniture. He was huge and strong and knew everything.
"Anyone can saw a board in two, Kalli," he had told her," but you have to love the wood, put your heart in it, to make it smooth and silky; just like you." He would rub the chest of drawers, or the table, or the bed he was building, with his strong hands and guide her small hands to feel the surface, and then have her touch her own skin. "When you can make wood feel like your skin, when you can make it alive, you can craft Art, not just bric-a-brac."
He taught her how to judge raw lumber and how to tension a band-saw blade. His house became not a dumping ground but a home; the smells of teak and walnut like home cooking to other people. She knew shop safety, types of glue, and how to change the bits on a drill press, before she was able to drive a car.
No one even asked her when he died if she wanted his tools; they were too valuable to have "sitting around for nothing." When they carted away the jig saw she shed the tears that had not come with his death, for it was the last machinery they had shared; she kept the teak cut-out of "Kalli" that she made with his hands on hers as her most prized possession.
After that she would walk through her parent's house and touch his ligneous art, and feel his texture. She could feel his hands touch her from the highboys, buffets and sideboards and she could feel his love. As she got older, she would touch herself and compare her skin to his handiwork, and wonder which was better. Could anyone inlay silver into walnut like he could?
She always wanted to be like him. In high school people scoffed at her, and only when she was old enough to live on her own could she go to the technical college and sign up for woodworking classes. She didn't need a teacher. She worked a boring, crappy job, and lived on dirt, so she could pay for the chance to use the tools she couldn't afford to buy. The shining blades reflected the green of her eyes, giving to them some of the chlorophyll that breathed for the weald as they stood in groves and jungles in their first lives.
Mr. Klaus was the instructor, and he was an adamant misogynist. He thought women should be barefoot and pregnant and that they should polish their beautiful furniture and worship it and their husbands. He had blatantly told her she was wasting his time and her money.
"To get a certificate from this class, you have to complete a project I approve," he towered over her 5' frame with his strong hands and shoulders. "I can tell you, little Missy, nothing you ever make will be good enough for me!" He detested people who desecrated the sacred planks, and saw Kalli as unqualified to become a priest(ess) of the order of wood.
She didn't care; she could make Art, and that was enough. She could bear the jibes as long as she could build furniture. Klaus fumed, but he saw her skills and couldn't decide whether to mould them or crush them. She agitated his serenity.
When Kalli took a long hard piece of Oak, and held its thickness in her little hands, she felt strange stirrings inside that she could not describe. It had a smell almost of sweat, a roughness like an unshaved chin, a knowledge within it. Running her fingers lightly over a board of Walnut, she felt its tight pores, like a woman' nose, and saw its darkness contrast with her pale skin, and it made her nipples hard; caressing her cheek with a dense shaft of Ebony, tracing the almost invisible veins with her lips left her panting and barely focused, and wanting more. She loved as a druid, communing with the souls of trees.