Skin Folk (16 page)

Blaise cringed. The cockatrice spat a thick red gobbet at her face. It burned her cheek. The drool smelled like rotting pepper
sauce. Blaise went cold with horror.

Suddenly the creature’s weight was lifted off her. Johnny was holding the cockatrice aloft by its thick, writhing neck. Blaise
scrabbled along the floor, putting Johnny between herself and the monster. Johnny’s biceps bulged; the rock-crushing fingers
flexed; the cockatrice’s furred hindquarters kicked and clawed. It spat. Johnny didn’t budge. Fire had met stone.

“Kill it for me, Johnny, do!” Blaise shoved herself to her feet.

“Oh God, Johnny; you all right?” Sharon asked.

“Yes,” he muttered, all his concentration on the struggle. But his voice rang flat, a hammer on flawed steel.

The cockatrice thrashed. Blaise’s belly squirmed in response. The animal made a choking sound. It was dying. Blaise felt warmth
begin to drain from her body. Her heat, her fire was dying.

“You have to go,” Blaise whispered at it. “You can’t do as you want, lash out at anything you don’t like.”

Sharon gripped Blaise’s shoulder. Where was the softness? Sharon’s hand was knotted and tough as ironwood. “You want to kill
your every desire dead?” she asked.

The cockatrice sobbed. It turned a hooded look of sorrow and rage on Blaise. Then it glowered at Johnny. Blaise saw the membranes
slide back from its eyes. She lunged at it.

Too late. The heat of its glare was full on. The air sizzled, and Johnny was caught. Sharon screamed. Johnny glowed, red as
the iron in his forge fires.

But he didn’t melt or burn. Yet. Blaise could see him straining to break the pull of the cockatrice’s glare, see him weakening.
Her beast would kill this man.

“Bloodfire!” Furious, she charged the cockatrice, dragged it out of Johnny’s grasp. She heard Johnny crash to the floor.

The cockatrice broke away, fluttered to the carpet. It glared at her. Hot, hot. She was burning up with heat, with the bellyfires
of anger, of wanting, of hunger.

“Talk to it,” Sharon told her. “Tell it what you want.”

Blaise took a step towards the cockatrice. Birdlike, it cocked its head. It mewed a question.

“I want,” she said, her voice quaking out the unfamiliar word, “to be able to talk what I feel.” God, fever-hot. “I want to
be able to say,
You hurt me.
” The cockatrice hissed. “Or,
I’m not interested.
” The cockatrice chortled wickedly. “Or,” Blaise hesitated, took in a burning breath, “
I like you.
”

The cockatrice sighed. It leapt into her arms, its dog-heavy weight nearly buckling her knees. Its claws scratched her and
its breath was rank, but somehow she hung on, feeling its strength flex against her. She held the heat of its needing body
tight.

Suddenly, it shoved its beak between her lips. Blaise choked, tried to drop the beast, but its flexed claws grasped her tightly.
Impossibly, it crammed its whole head into her mouth. Blaise gagged. She could feel its beak sliding down her throat. It would
sear her, like a hot poker. She fought, looking imploringly at Sharon and Johnny, but they just sat on the floor, watching.

Blaise tried to vomit the beast out, but it kept pushing more of itself inside her. How, how? It was unbelievable. Her mouth
was stretched open so wide, she thought it would tear. Heat filled her, her ribs would crack apart. The beast’s head and neck
snaked down towards her belly. Its wings beat against her teeth, her tongue. Her throat, it was in her throat, stopping her
air! Terrified, she pulled at the cockatrice’s legs. It clawed her hands away. With a great heave, its whole bulk slid into
her stomach. She could feel its muscly writhing, its fire that now came from her core. She could breathe, and she was angry
enough to spit fire.

“What oonuh were thinking!” she raged at them. “Why you didn’t help me!”

Johnny only said, “I bet you feel good now.”

Oh. She did. Strong, sure of herself. Oh.

Sharon leaned over Johnny and blew cool, aloe-scented breath on his blisters. Blaise admired the way that the position emphasized
the fullness of her body. Johnny’s burns healed as Blaise watched. “I enjoyed your company this afternoon,” she said to them
both. Simple, risky words to say with this new-found warmth in her voice.

Sharon smiled. “You must come and visit again soon, then.”

Blaise giggled. She reached a hand to either of them, feeling the blood heat of her palms flexing against theirs.

T
he mutant fish that K.C. mentions is the only thing remotely fantastical about this next story. It felt like a tale that needed
to be grounded in the potential for reality.

Y
ou work as what, a fisherman?”

I nearly jump clean out my skin at the sound of she voice, tough like sugarcane when you done chew the fibres dry. “Fisherm…?”
I stutter.

She sweet like cane, too?
Shame make me fling the thought ’way from me. Lord Jesus, is what make me come here any atall? I turn away from the window,
from the pure wonder of watching through one big piece of clear glass at the hibiscus bush outside. Only Boysie house in the
village have a glass window, and it have a crack running crossways through it. The rest of we have wooden jalousie shutters.
I look back at she proud, round face with the plucked brows and the lipstick red on she plump lips. The words fall out from
my mouth: “I… I stink of fish, don’t it?”

A smile spread on she beautiful brown face, like when you draw your finger through molasses on a plate. “Sit down nuh, doux-doux,
you in your nice clean pressed white shirt? I glad you dress up to come and see me.”

“All right.” I siddown right to the edge of the chair with my hands in my lap, not holding the chair arms. I frighten for
leave even a sniff of fish on the expensive tapestry. Everything in this cathouse worth more than me. I frighten for touch
anything, least of all the glory of the woman standing in front of me now, bubbies and hips pushing out of she dress, forcing
the cloth to shape like the roundness of she. The women where I living all look like what them does do: market woman, shave
ice seller, baby mother. But she look like a picture in a magazine. Is silk that she wearing? How I to know, I who only make
for wear crocus bag shirt and Daddy old dungarees?

She move little closer, till she nearly touching my knees. From outside in the parlour I hearing two-three of the boys and
them laughing over shots of red rum and talking with some of the whores that ain’t working for the moment. I hear Lennie voice,
and Two-Tone, though I can’t really make out what them saying. Them done already? I draw back little more on the fancy chair.

The woman frown at me as if to say,
Who you is any atall?
The look on she face put me in mind of how you does look when you pull up your line out of the water sometimes to find a
ugly fish gasping on the end of it, and instead of a fin, it have a small hand with three boneless fingers where no hand supposed
to grow. She say, “You have a fainty smell of the sea hanging round you, is all, like this seashell here.”

She lean over and pick up a big conch shell from she windowsill. It clean and pink on the inside with pointy brown parts jooking
out on the outside.

She wearing a perfume I can’t even describe, my head too full up with confusion. Something like how Granny did smell that
time when I was small and Daddy take me to visit she in town. Granny did smell all baby powder and coconut grater-cake. Something
like the Ladies-of-the-Night flowers too, that does bloom in my garden.

I slide back little more again in the chair, but she only move closer. “Here,” she say, putting the shell to my nose. “Smell.”

I sniff. Is the smell I smell every living day Papa God bring, when I baking my behind out on the boat in the sun hot and
callousing up my hands pulling in the net next to the rest of the fishermen and them. I ain’t know what to say to she, so
I make a noise like, “Mm…?”

“Don’t that nice?” She laugh a little bit, siddown in my lap, all warm, covering both my legs, the solid, sure weight and
the perfume of she.

My heart start to fire
budupbudup
in my chest.

She say, “Don’t that just get all up inside your nose and make you think of the blue waves dancing, and the little red crabs
running sideways and waving they big gundy claw at you, and that green green frilly seaweed that look like it would taste
fresh like lettuce in your mouth? Don’t that smell make your mind run on the sea?”

“It make my mind run on work,” I tell she.

She smile little bit. She put the shell back. “Work done for tonight,” she tell me. “Now is time to play.” She smoky laugh
come in cracked and full up of holes. She voice put me in mind of the big rusty bell down by the beach what we does ring when
we pull in the catch to let the women and them know them could come and buy fish. Through them holes in the bell you could
hear the sea waves crashing on the beach. Sometimes I does feel to ring the bell just for so, just to hear the tongue of the
clapper shout “fish, fish!” in it bright, break-up voice, but I have more sense than to make the village women mad at me.

She chest brush my arm as she lean over. She start to undo my shirt buttons.
No, not the shirt.
I take she hands and hold them in my own, hold her soft hands in my two hard own that smell like dead fish and fish scale
and fish entrails.

The madam smile and run a warm, soft finger over my lips. I woulda push she off me right then and run go home. In fact I make
to do it, but she pick up she two feet from off the floor and is then I get to feel the full weight and solidness of she.

“You go throw me off onto the hard ground, then?” she say with a flirty smile in she voice.

One time, five fifty-pound sack of chicken feed tumble from Boysie truck and land on me; two hundred fifty pounds drop me
baps
to the ground. Boysie had was to come and pull me out. Is heavy same way so she feel in my lap, grounding me. This woman
wasn’t going nowhere she ain’t want to go.

“I…” I start to reply, and she lean she face in close to mine, frowning at me the whole while like if I is a grouper with
a freak hand. She put she two lips on my own. I frighten I frighten I frighten so till my breath catch like fish bone in my
throat. Warm and soft she mouth feel against mine, so soft. My mouth was little bit open. I ain’t know if to close it, if
to back back, if to laugh. I ain’t know this thing that people does do, I never do it before. The sea bear Daddy away before
he could tell me about it.

She breath come in between my lips. Papa God, why nobody ever tell me you could taste the spice and warmth of somebody breath
and never want to draw your face away again? Something warm and wet touch inside my lips and pull away, like a wave on a beach.
She tongue! Nasty! I jerk my head, but she have it holding between she two hands, soft hands with the strength of fishing
net. I feel the slip slip slip of she tongue again. She must be know what she doing. I let myself taste, and I realise it
ain’t so nasty in truth, just hot and wet with the life of she. My own tongue reach out, trembling, and tip to twiny conch
tip touch she own. She mouth water and mine mingle. It have a tear in the corner of one of my eyes, I feel it twinkling there.
I hear a small sound start from the back of my throat. When she move she face away from me, I nearly beg she not to stop.

She grin at me. My breath only coming in little sips, I feeling feverish, and what happening down between my legs I ain’t
even want to think about. I strong. I could move my head away, even though she still holding it. But I don’t want to be rude.
I cast my eyes down instead and find myself staring at the two fat bubbies spilling out of she dress, round and full like
the hops bread you does eat with shark, but brown, skin-dark brown.

I pull my eyes up into she face again.

“Listen to me now,” she say. “I do that because I feel to. If you want to kiss the other women so you must ask permission
first. Else them might box you two lick and scream for Jackobennie. You understand me?”

Jackobennie is the man who let me in the door of this cathouse, smirking at me like he know all my secrets. Jackobennie have
a chest a bull would give he life to own and a right arm to make a leg of ham jealous. I don’t want to cross Jackobennie atall
atall.

“You understand me?” she ask again.

Daddy always used to say my mouth would get me in trouble. I open it to answer she yes, and what the rascal mouth say but,
“No, I ain’t understand. Why I could lick inside your mouth like that but not them own? I could pay.”

She laugh that belly laugh till I think my thighs go break from the shaking. “Oh sweetness, I believe a treasure come in my
door this day, a jewel beyond price.”

“Don’t laugh at me.” If is one thing I can’t brook, is nobody laughing at me. The fishermen did never want me to be one of
them. I had was to show up at the boat every blessèd morning and listen to the nasty things them was saying about me. Had
to work beside people who would spit just to look on me. Till them come to realise I could do the work too. I hear enough
mockery, get enough mako make ’pon me to last all my days.

She look right in my eyes, right on through to my soul. She nod. “I would never laugh after you, my brave one, to waltz in
here in your fisherman clothes.”

Is only the fisherman she could see? “No, is not my work clothes I wearing. Is my good pair of pants and my nice brown shoes.”

“And you even shine the shoes and all. And press a crease into the pants. I see that. I does notice when people dress up for
me. And Jackobennie tell me you bring more than enough money. That nice, sweetness. I realise is your first time here. Is
only the rules of my house I telling you; whatever you want to do, you must ask the girls and they first. And them have the
right to refuse.”

After I don’t even know what to ask! Pastor would call it the sin of pride, to waltz in the place thinking my money could
stand in place of good manners. “I sorry, Missis; I ain’t know.”