At first she didn’t pay any attention to the song, just kept kissing Jarrett, encouraging him, trying to get him into it. His blond beard and long hair kept on getting in the way, poking into her eyes, tickling her neck or snaking its way into her mouth, but whatever, that was how it was with Jarrett, something you had to live with if you wanted to have sex with him. And if you could get over that, well, he wasn’t such a bad lay.
Or okay at least. She had to admit, the last few weeks’ sex with Jarrett had been feeling a little routine. She had a hard time keeping her mind on things. She kept drifting away, thinking about what she had to do the next day, wondering whether she’d put the trash out, if the cat litter needed to be changed, whatever. Not a good sign, and probably an indication that Jarrett and she weren’t likely to be an item for all that much longer.
But today her mind was catching on something, on the song coming from the radio. At first it seemed just weird, nothing worth paying much attention to, but there was something about it that kept hooking her. Hooking her, tugging at her, reeling her in. She kept
imagining that: a hook sliding into her flesh and then pulling at it, the feel of it as it went in, the sharp pain of it, and then the anxious buzz of it as, once affixed, it began to tug.
Why am I thinking that?
she wondered briefly. It should have grossed her out. But weirdly enough, it was kind of a turn-on. It was like the tug of the hook and the music and the movement of their bodies were all the same thing, all mixed up in a way that made her crazy, but in a good, transgressive way.
A really good way
, she thought. It had been years since she’d felt this turned on. What was this music anyway? What was it doing to her? And how could she get it to do more?
“Turn it up,” she said, midthrust.
Jarrett stopped, breaking the rhythm. She pushed him from his side onto his back and climbed on top of him, slid him into her, took over. There it was again, the hook, piercing her skin. Only the music didn’t feel like a hook exactly anymore. It was thicker and harder, more like a nail or even a spike. And instead of feeling like it was hooked into the flesh of her body, it felt like it was being pounded first through one eye and then through the other. It was like she was being blinded by desire. Why should that feel good?
What’s wrong with me to have a fantasy like that, some fucked-up mutilation thing?
she wondered, and for a moment she tried to break away from it. But the music: something about it was too insistent, and it kept drawing her in, flooding her body and mind.
She gave a kind of gasp.
“Oh my God!” she said. “Turn that up… Turn it up! I have to hear it louder!”
Beneath her Jarrett lost his rhythm again, but she just kept going, faster and faster, listening to the slick thwip, thwip, thwip her movement made. “Huh, um, okay…,” he finally said. “Okay.” He reached to one side, tried to fiddle with the knob of the radio, but he wasn’t finding it fast enough.
“Louder!” screamed Maisie Mather.
And then he found the knob and had cranked the music as loud as
it would go. The radio’s tiny speaker began to fuzz out, but Maisie didn’t care. Somehow that made the music even better. And she was beside herself now, no longer even quite sure who she was anymore. The music was a kind of discordant off-kilter metal, but with a tribal beat hidden somewhere inside it. It flowed into her and through her, and beneath it she could hear something else, a kind of chant, a kind of spell almost, but running backward. There were voices there, and they were calling out to her. She could almost hear them, could almost hear what they were saying to her, what they were telling her to do.
“Louder!” she screamed again. “Louder!”
“Dude, chill,” said Jarrett. “That’s as loud as it’ll go!”
She moved faster and faster, grinding harder and harder. Even if she’d wanted to stop, she probably couldn’t have. Beneath her Jarrett just tried to hold on. She sunk her nails into his chest and he cried out, a little hurt maybe, but she didn’t care. She just kept going, the music rushing through her.
Inside of her, a sleeping beast reared its head and became attentive. It came and pressed its ear against the side of her skull, listened through the music to the reversed chant hidden within it. A chant she didn’t even hear until the beast did. She could feel it slavering within her, and then it opened its mouth and began to speak.
“Maisie Mather,” it said, and she felt her own name echo darkly within the confines of her skull. Its voice was the voice of an animal, and the words came out crippled and unnatural, but she could still understand them, could still hear her name. And once it said it, she realized that yes, this was one thing the chant was saying: it was calling to her, calling her name. And something inside her, some bestial thing she didn’t know was there, had heard the call and was answering for her, and now was listening to what was hidden in the music, to what the music was trying to say.
Suddenly she was very afraid.
But the part of her that was afraid was caught in a dark tide that swept through her whole body. It was as if her body no longer heard now; it was moving fast and hard and almost without her. The beast that had reared its head was fully awake now, and she could hear it slowly stretching and spreading within her, its limbs sliding through her arms and legs until it filled them, its chest expanding to fill her own and even push it out farther until her ribs threatened to crack. Below her Jarrett was a little astonished, maybe even a little afraid, but enjoying himself, enjoying the way she kept going and going and going.
Help me,
the part of her that was still left tried to say to him, but the only thing that came out of her mouth was a moan that mixed pleasure with pain. The creature snuffled through her skull and slowly pushed its way along its edges until its own head filled it, and the person who had been Maisie Mather was now relegated to a little imaginary island deep within her brain where she could feel things a little, could look out the eyes a little, but couldn’t move, couldn’t act. She was where the beast had been. And now the beast had taken her place.
Oh God
, she thought,
what’s happening?
She tried again to cry out, and did cry out inside, but outside she felt her lips curl into a smile. The beast was enjoying her body, enjoying having control of it, and wasn’t likely to give it up willingly. How had she released it? It wasn’t her fault. It wasn’t what she wanted. No, it had been the music. The music had done it.
Turn off the radio
, she tried to say to Jarrett.
Turn it off before it’s too late!
But even as she struggled to say it and failed, she knew it was already too late.
She felt her body grinding and flexing, felt the beast pushing it harder and harder. Jarrett’s chest was red and scratched by her nails and maybe she’d hurt him a little. She could still hold the beast back a little, couldn’t stop it but could brake it a little, slow it down slightly. But that was fading, too, and she was afraid of what it would do to Jarrett, or to herself, if she lost control. The song was coming to an
end, she hoped, building to a crescendo anyway, and if she could just hold on, could just keep some measure of control, maybe once it was over she’d be able to get hold of herself again and force the beast back asleep. She fought it, fought it hard, and the beast felt her fighting and snarled at her and clawed at Jarrett using her hand, and grinded even harder.
The demon let her go just enough that she could really feel how it felt. Oh God, it felt good to let go like that. The beast was her and not her. She could feel herself—things she had done, ways she had given in to her desires and impulses over the years—in it, in what it was doing now. But it was frightening, too. It wouldn’t stop, she knew. It would go too far. She’d always felt she had that in her, the desire to go too far—maybe everybody had it, maybe she wasn’t the only one with a beast, but most people could keep it in check. She had always been able to keep it in check, too, but that had been because she was in charge—she would wake the beast up just a little, let it join in the fun but keep it groggy, and knock it unconscious again right after. But the music, something about that song, had pushed things the other way, so that now it was she who felt groggy and almost overwhelmed as desire swept through her. It felt so good! Maybe she could just let go a little, just a little more, and then still get back in charge after, push the beast back down. Or maybe the song would end and that would be enough and she’d get back in charge before the beast did something really rash and slaughtered Jarrett.
Because that was where this was heading, she suddenly knew. It was great having sex with Jarrett, the beast was thinking, but how much better would it be just to go a little further, to let Maisie’s nails not just scratch their way along his chest but gouge out his eyes and pop them, tear his throat out, beat his head in until it was a wet pulpy mass, not only fuck him but kill him, and then once he was dead see what else she could do with him? With what was left of his body.
Inside, she recoiled, started screaming. But she wasn’t in charge. No, the beast was in charge.
The song has got to end soon,
she told herself.
Please, dear God, let this song end.
Back in the radio station, the whole bank of phone lines had lit up. The song was still playing, with Francis and the Big H team waiting for it to end.
“Total Christmas tree,” said Herman, gesturing to the phone bank. “I guess this crap struck a nerve. Either that or the FCC is calling to pull our license.”
Francis, on his way to the door, stopped and turned around. He touched Heidi lightly on the shoulder. She jumped a little and then looked at him questioningly.
“I wanted to apologize. I’m very sorry I overreacted to your question,” Francis said. “I take everything so seriously. God, I must have sounded like such an ass.”
Heidi shrugged it off. “All good,” she said. “We should have gotten a better sense of you and your book first, I guess. It was a dumb question anyway.”
He was tempted to say, as he’d said in his classes back when he taught, that there were no dumb questions. But he didn’t exactly believe that. Never really did. And the apology wasn’t really why he’d stayed around. “You’d mentioned that, for the movie…,” he said, then let his voice trail off.
“Yeah, sure, man,” said Herman from next to her. “Pick a couple up at the front desk on your way out, tell the receptionist there I said it was cool.”
Francis nodded his thanks, but didn’t look away from Heidi. “May I ask you,” he said to her in a quiet voice, “where exactly did this music come from?”
She’d already turned back to the papers in front of her, getting ready for the next segment. “Huh?” she said. “The receptionist said it just appeared with nothing but a note for me. Probably somebody dropped it off while she was out to the bathroom or something.”
“So it was specifically sent to you?” asked Francis.
“Yeah, very specifically,” she said. “Check this out.” She reached into her pocket, removed the crumpled note, and handed it to him. He took it, and then took out his reading glasses to get a better look at it. The paper was handmade rather than mass-produced. Strange script, too, he thought. A very good imitation of seventeenth-century handwriting, and probably done with a quill, too, or something very much like it.
For Adelheid Elizabeth Hawthorne
, it read.
From THE LORDS
.
“Adelheid Elizabeth Hawthorne,” he said. “That’s you?”
“Yeah,” she said. “I didn’t even think anyone knew my real name. A little creepy, right?”
“A little,” he said. He held up the note. “Do you mind if I take this?” he asked.
She looked a little surprised, but shrugged. “Whatever. Go ahead,” she said. “Why do you want it?”
He weighed in his mind whether to tell her the truth. No, he decided, it was silly in any case, no point in alarming her with some wild story, particularly not after having come out so strongly against irrational ideas and the supernatural. He faked a smile. “I collect examples of interesting handwriting,” he lied. “Just a hobby of mine.”
When Maisie came she
saw
things, had visions almost. They flooded her and crowded in on the little space that was left to her, overwhelming her. She saw Jarrett lying there with his throat cut, the bed soaked with his blood. She saw him strangled, her hands locked around his neck. She saw him tied to the posts of the bed and then slowly pricked, over and over again, with needles. She saw him with his eyes gouged out and she crouched over him, slicing off his genitals with a razor and letting the blood spurt warmly over her belly. She saw herself claw his chest bloody and then claw deeper and push her hands in through his flesh and tear out his heart, then slowly begin to eat it. It was rubbery and hard to chew, like poorly cooked calamari.
She saw herself standing in a circle around a fire, her body smeared in the blood of a newly slain infant, a symbol inscribed on her chest. A circle, with an upside-down cross in it, the top of it touched by a crescent moon, the bottom of it cut across by a hillock of ground, two stars lying at the extremes of the arms of the cross. Beside her, standing in the circle with her, were other women, like her but not like her. Their clothes were outlandish and old, as if they were from another time. And as she watched them, they stripped their clothing off and collapsed one by one, moaning and writhing, giving themselves over to libidinous pleasure, the same pleasure that her body felt when, in the real world now, with Jarrett, she came so hard it nearly tore her head off.
After that, lying exhausted next to Jarrett, she expected the beast that had filled her body to disappear, to curl up and go back to sleep and let her take over again.
But it did not disappear. And it did not let her take over again. It was as if she had lost the right to do anything with her body. She could see out through her eyes, but nothing more. She no longer had any sort of control.