Authors: Autumn Christian
You don’t need to save money when, at any moment, you feel
as if you will die. It’s like your heart is tied to a string around your fist,
an invisible clock ready to be smashed.
Do you remember when we convinced the faux-French “Francois”
into taking us home for dinner? At least he wasn’t lying about being rich,
though it’s kind of hard to fake a good suit and well-bred posture. I
remembered, after he fed us Chinese leftovers and a two hundred dollar bottle
of wine (he made sure we knew how much it cost), you reached over and loosened
his tie.
“I swear I’ve seen you before,” the Francois said, as you
leaned over and gave him a mouth of bugs.
“Hey Francois,” I said, mad drunk on his wine. “Aren’t you
going to fall in love with us?”
When I went to set the wine glass down on the table, it fell
to the floor and shattered. I didn’t care, I was already rolling across the
table, my back crushing the violet vase and bending the silverware. Francois,
what golden eyes you have, I’ve never noticed how your swallow gets stuck in
your throat. Never invite a mad girl and her demon into your
house,
they’ll ruin the good carpet.
Now just drape my skin over your arm, hiss, I’m trailing
piss and honey, hiss. I could unzip for you. I’ll be your red and warbling muscle-bound
monster, and you’ll be my toy.
Demon, this language has been inside of me since I can
remember. It’s been eating its way through my organs, poison rot and festering
crystal. It felt so natural to touch his lips where the spider clung, and open
my mouth to hissssssssss.
To ke-ke-ke-ke-ke-ke.
Francois, with the golden eyes, coughed up the spider. He
breathed the word “monster,” and it struck me as hilarious. They’ve called me
child murderer, baby girl killer, but never “monster.”
And
never a “monster” with such sober shock.
I loomed over him, bigger,
monstrous,
ready
to roar. Yes, I’ll be your monster,
Francois the rich and Frenchless. Look at the acid scars on my throat and arms.
Look at the scars on my thighs as I hike up my skirt. You wouldn’t believe the
stories I could tell you.
We fled his house dressed in vintage dresses, with diamond
and pearl necklaces strung around our throats. We ran off laughing into the
darkness. When you outran me, your hair reached back to tease my throat. I
discarded my heavy lace dress in the middle of the street, to catch up to you.
Only at the end of the street, at the DEAD END sign next to
the bridge, did I stop to ask.
“What am I doing here?”
You pulled a string of black pearls out of your throat.
“How did I get here?”
I could’ve been a
scientist,
at
least that’s what I tell myself. In truth, they’d never let a dirty skinned
lesion-filled little brat like me into their hallowed halls. And why should
they? I couldn’t even find Cignus in the sky.
Police sirens wailed. Francois must’ve called them after we
ran off with his grandmother’s trinkets.
I grabbed you by the arm and we dove off the bridge into the
tunnels.
In the tunnel, the sound of dripping pipes in our ears, you
were still pulling pearls out of your throat and wrapping them around your
wrists. Overhead the police cars pulled over. Flashlights shone across the
dried-up creek.
I took your hand again, and we delved deeper into the
network of tunnels.
I’m such a silly girl. “What am I doing? How did I get
here?” I should’ve known by then that you never answer those questions. The
stars would swallow and spit me up first.
Soon we were laughing again, tugging on the black pearls
around each other’s necks, kissing and stumbling in the sewer water. We went
further down into the tunnels, chasing each other, busting cobwebs. Our laughs
echoed for miles, but if the police ever decided to hike up their britches and
delve down here, they’d never find us.
I came across a full-length mirror, a wooden chair, a
pallet, smokes, and half a bottle of Jameson. People must live down here.
Scavengers,
more tired than the two of us, huddled
underneath faucets and pipes in a place where the police wouldn’t disturb them.
Maybe they’d go blind down here, Demon, but not us. Our eyes
are shining. They’ve been waiting for the dark.
“Why are we here?” you asked, mocking, tongue pushed between
your teeth.
I gripped you by the throat, black pearls crushing between
my knuckles.
“You’re mine, isn’t that what you said?”
You gently tapped my fingers around your throat.
“Yours,” you whispered.
I fell into the chair, and it slid across the tunnel floor.
I was alive, squirming, and hot. The demon knelt in front of me and her hands
slid up my knees.
I was full of nighttime. If I wanted to, I could bite through
my skin, fashion for myself a new body.
And yet the drugs had worn off long ago, hadn’t they?
I knotted my fists in your hair.
“I’m going to eat you alive,” I said.
You pushed up my skirt, the wooden chair splintering against
my bare skin.
The dark concealed my blushing cheeks. Your eyes rolled up
into your head as you inhaled me. You scratched my knees, whispering in spider
language.
Whispering, “Love,” whispering, “Fuck.”
You were cool wherever I touched you, but my skin boiled.
Look at me now, Mom, I wanted to say.
See how I’ve tamed the creature that once tormented me.
She’s my pet now, spider girl with the pink tongue. See how she shivers when I
wrap my legs around her small waist. See how she pants. See how her face
screams with lightning when I ask her, “Do you want it, do you want it, want
me, want me.” When I knot her hair in my fingers and pull her closer.
See me say:
“Drink, baby, drink. Don’t you look
away.
I know I once pushed you away, cursed you, called you a bad thing. I would’ve
killed you if I got my hands around your throat, but now, that’s over. I want
you to drink.”
And when you pressed your mouth between my legs, when I felt
your teeth, I transformed into an animal, legs digested, head twitching, my
organs spilling out before me. I wanted to speak your name, but I didn’t know
your name, I’d never know your name. So it was “Demon, Demon, Demon, Demon,” my
tongue melting into acid in my mouth, my toes smoking in my shoes.
Maybe the ghosts of people who lived down here lurked in
corners of the tunnel, trying to find where they left their Jameson, wanting a
place to sleep. And here were two girls, fucking in their chair, in front of
their mirror.
But it didn’t really matter, because, God, your tongue was
so cool.
I came hard, black spots dancing in my eyes.
You said to me, “My horned goddess, they're beautiful.”
I looked into the mirror.
There was a girl there, with velvet-tipped horns growing
straight out of her head. I reached up and touched them, soft on the edges,
glass-white. They were horns, and the girl was I.
I leaned back in the chair and my horns scraped against the
concrete wall.
“My family will be so proud,” I said. “Their daughter,
horned goddess, Queen of the deer. I’ll never get a sweater over my head
again.”
I touched the horns again, just to make sure they were still
there. They must’ve been growing for years. It’d taken the inverted night, the
chase,
demon
sex in this tunnel, for me to see them.
"Beautiful," the demon whispered.
I touched my chin, my mouth, my hands trembling, and you
crawled into my lap and kissed me everywhere my fingertips fell.
A fantasy that I have sometimes:
In the middle of the night we toss in our dirty bed.
Someone’s burned us bad, and we’re sick with the stench of cheap drugs. I grasp
your fingers, sweating.
Then we sink.
We hold each other as we sink through the floor and miles of
strata, until we arrive at a grand hall. It’s the land of the gods. When we
rise we shake off those bad drugs and sweat. We realize why we struggle and
shake, why we’ve become losers and deadbeats and grifters and junkies. That
world above didn’t belong to us. We were curious fools; we wanted clean air
when we could’ve been breathing jewels.
But now we can go home.
My throne is waiting for me, and as I walk toward it, my
blood turns into wet rubies.
When I sit down, I see my reflection in the mirror at the
end of the hall. My horns are fully-grown and quivering with gold. My body is
coated in silver and my fingernails drip with sweet drugs, the sweetest you’ve
ever tasted. They’re drugs with no bad hangover and no cheap burn. No comedown,
no overdose. One taste and you’ll never dare to leave.
With a finger, I beckon you to me. You walk with a pack of
dogs quelling in your hair. You are my consort, my queen.
My
demon and my slave.
I spread my legs and you kneel.
Your eyes are festering.
You eat my silver skin. It’s a slow and fine feast. First
you shred the skin of my feet away from my bone, into tiny strips to dissolve
on your tongue. My legs and knees are next. You glow as you swallow pieces.
When you suck my fingernails the drugs melt your skin into pale silk.
In the tunnels below the city, we didn’t encounter any
monsters or homeless knife boxers. Not even a shuddering, lone policeman,
praying his flashlight battery wouldn’t die. I pulled down my skirt and we left
the way we’d come, through the entrance underneath the bridge. We emerged
underneath the night sky. I no longer heard the sirens. I felt crystals
expanding in my blood.
You peeled your dress off and threw your pearls in the
weeds. You were naked before me with the moon trapped in your stomach. You ran
and I caught you in my arms.
I whispered, “We’ll never have this again.”
“We already have,” you said, but I was mourning you already.
You bounded into the empty creek. I threw away my stolen
jewelry and chased after you. I’d find you and I’d catch you. You wanted me to
catch you, up in the trees with your hair whispering, your arms snarled in the
branches. I’d find you pale and naked, squeezing the sky between your knees.
You’d pretend to be stuck up there, kicking your feet, your playful smile
poisonous enough to kill snakes. I’d press my head to the tree trunk and offer
my horns for your descent.
And in that hall of gods, I will whisper:
“Momma was wrong when she told me I’d eat them alive.
“Here my baby, eat this feast I’ve made of me. “
I
LURCHED AWAKE IN
a cold bath, naked and numb, unable to even scream. I
pulled myself out of the tub and onto the tiles. For several long seconds I
felt I couldn’t breathe, my hair wrapped like a fist in my mouth. I crawled
across the floor and ripped a towel off the rack to cover myself.
Saint Peter and Genie sat at the kitchen table, drinking tea
in the dark. I knew it had been dark for a long time.
Saint Peter ran toward me. She smoothed my wet hair, touched
my face, felt my heart.
“Oh god. Lily.”
“Why was I in the tub?”
“Do you remember last night?” she asked.
“I don’t remember anything. I’m freezing.”
“You wouldn’t wake up. No matter what we did.”
“You just left me in there?” I asked. “My head feels like a
goddamn cathedral bell. Everything hurts.”
“You should go to bed,” Saint Peter said.
But I couldn’t sleep, because, maybe next time, I would wake
up in the center of a frozen lake, or in a black tar pit. I popped the last of
my aspirin. The water heater didn’t work, so I took a cold shower. My razor was
too dull for me to shave and the tiny bar of soap disintegrated between my
fingers.
I thought of how many people must die each year from
slipping in the shower. Probably thousands.
I couldn’t find a brush, but at least the hair dryer still
worked. I ran my fingers through my hair, trying to untangle the knots. My head
kept throbbing despite the aspirin.
I threw on ragged, dirty clothes. I couldn’t remember the
last time I’d done laundry. We ran out of detergent a long time ago. I just
took a shower, but I already smelled like sweat and grass. I curled my feet
against the cold tiles, and they cracked. I stretched, and the bones in my back
cracked. Nausea hit me. I ran to the toilet to vomit, but there was nothing in
my stomach. I gagged and gagged.
I emerged from the bathroom again to find the sun had risen.
It seemed like it’d been months since sunlight filtered through the house.
Saint Peter threw her cardigan over my shoulders because I
couldn’t stop clenching my teeth with cold. I sat at the table, cross-legged,
tucking my blue feet underneath me. Genie stood at the kitchen countertop. The
black dogs lay around her feet.
“Why does my head hurt so bad?” I asked.
“You really don’t remember what happened?” Saint Peter said.
Something moved in my periphery.
Three dirty-faced, tall boys stood in the entryway. I hadn’t
even heard the front door open, or footsteps sound through the house. Their
eyes darted around the room, refusing to make eye contact. Their fingers
twitched with involuntary spasms. I couldn’t distinguish one from the other and
I recognized none of them.
“You said you had a fourth,” one said after a long pause.
“Oh,” I said. “Oh. You’re talking to me.”
I darted out of the kitchen and grabbed the weed stashed in
my bedroom. When I came back, Genie had turned away from the stove. The dogs
ran toward the boys and sniffed their hands and legs.
“Would you like some tea?” she asked.
I was sure they’d never walked into a punk house, at six in
the morning, to be greeted by a red headed witch, dressed in a crushed velvet
cloak, holding a silver tea tray, with a pack of black dogs quelling at their feet.
And
all the while, her outstretched arms bleeding sigils, her
smile not quite a smile, the kettle going off with a scream
.