LAST TANGO IN PARIS (1973) is a Bertolucci film about an American’s sexual relationship with a Parisian woman.
12/08/09 | Film

Last Tango in Paris

by Adam Moorad

I.

He’s sitting on a red chair with his feet up when his face splits in three. Three chins.  Three noses. Three sets of ears. His eyes swell and from the sockets bulge six bloodshot eyeballs.  He stares at me and smiles with three sets of teeth. They’re razor sharp and coated with blood and saliva. I roll my ankles and my tendons click over the bones. When he hears this, he licks his lips with three different tongues and blinks. The walls are a sick yellow and the carpet is green. It grows like grass. When he leans back to stretch, a clump of black dirt falls from his kneecap and shatters on the floor. The particles rise in the air and float around his outstretched calf. He has an arm behind his head and, as he shifts into position, his white shirt spreads across his chest. It hides his ribcage. He now lies on his side. His naked hip shines in the light and sweats like a raw chicken leg.  When he exhales, the lips on his three mouths quiver and a thick beard of orange whiskers spreads across his three chins. It reaches down his throat and around his neck.  His forehead splits down the center. From the crevice sprouts a white brain and pulses with his beating heart. It’s ridged with thick, purple veins. A yellow haze rises from between his legs. It has a fungal odor that permeates in a gold cloud throughout the room.  Now he is frowning. I cross my legs slowly. The black dirt floats above the floor.

II.

The room is black but the tile flooring glows pink. My eyes radiate as I watch her. She lies across the floor and spreads her legs. Her hair is grey and melts like lava into her thin shoulders. She sits up and leans softly on her hands. Her knuckles flare white and she shifts her weight. She looks cold. Goosebumps pucker from her skin and reach up her arms and across her breasts. The pink tiles highlight the blue blood vessels spiraling like springs around her neck. The veins fill with blood and the spaces between them grow dark and cavernous. I touch her neck and feel the folds. As she rolls her head around, her hair become light and dissolves into her forehead. Her face begins to glimmer as it thaws into a milky liquid. Like a weeping volcano, the fluid seeps from the pores across her brow and runs down her face, down her neck, down her chest, down her stomach, down her open thighs, down her tense calves to the pink floor. The fluid begins to bubble and, gradually, begins to boil. Steam rises from the floor and fills the air in the room with a hot swampy musk. The aroma makes the hair on the back of my neck prickle. A tongue falls out of her belly button and rolls across the floor. It touches my leg and begins to lap.  Spit runs off her tongue and down my leg. When the dribble reaches the floor, the tiles heat up from pink to red. The walls grow darker. She arches her back. Slowly, I careen.