Wake, Siren

by Nina MacLaughlin

  —I look like him.

  —A little bit.

  —Does that feel complicated to you?

  —Not complicated. But—

  —It’s okay.

  —Curious.

  —Mmmm. There are some very specific boundaries in the relationship between analyst and analysand and sometimes things can feel blurry. Intimate things get—

  —I’m sorry.

  —You were talking about your nurse helping you.

  —Thank you. She told my father that a girl loved him. She asked if he wanted to meet her. He asked how old she was. She said, “Myrrha’s age.” He told her to send her to him that night.

  —How did you feel about that?

  —Terrified? Excited? That night started clear. Tons of stars, a good swollen moon. And as I made my way toward his room, the skies got dark. The stars went away, the moon went away. Dark low clouds. It was so dark. And I tripped. I stumbled a few times. My legs were shaking I was so nervous.

  —Did you think about turning back?

  —I almost did. I stood outside his door and I almost turned back. There was this awful bird cry in the night and I told myself to run. To leave that place.

  —But you didn’t.

  —I opened the door.

  —Mmmm.

  —He was in bed. It was so dark. I walked across the room. There’s a different smell people give off when they sleep.

  —He was sleeping.

  —I climbed onto the bed. I put my body against his back. He rolled toward me. And then I was gone.

  —You were gone.

  —I left myself. I was there, but I was not there. My father had his hands on me. In the same way I’d imagined so many times. And I didn’t know what to do, but I did. And he lay on his back and the hair on his chest was so thick. And he kept whispering. “So young, so young. It’s okay, my girl. It’s okay.” He could sense that I hadn’t done this before. “Don’t be scared,” he said. “Just like this.”

  —Did you want him to know it was you?

  —No. No.

  —Mmmm.

  —Yes.

  —Mmm.

  —He placed me on top of him. I straddled over him and he was so gentle. And he kept whispering.

  —What did he say?

  —He kept saying, “So tight. You’re so tight. My girl, you’re so tight. You can feel me.” And he got a little less gentle. He said, “It’s yours, do you feel me, it’s yours.” And he started moving faster and I cried out, and then I was afraid he’d know my voice but he didn’t. And he sat up so my legs were wrapped around his back and he held my bottom.

  —Like your dream.

  —Just like my dream. And it felt like this ring, that this is the way that blood should flow, that we were sharing each other the way that was meant. So tight, so tight. And I felt so proud. That I was making him feel so good. And that I felt so good. He held my bottom and rocked me on himself. I was proud.

  —How did you feel afterward?

  —I had more than his blood inside me. And I knew it was right.

  —Did it happen again?

  —Yes. I returned to his bed again the next night. He was so happy to see me. He said, “You remind me of my daughter.” And my heart turned into a firework when he said that. It made me think that he did have the same feelings I had. And so I knew it was just a matter of time until this wouldn’t have to be a secret anymore.

  —What did the thought of it not being a secret feel like?

  —It’s what I wanted, for it to be real, for it to be unhidden. And it was also scary.

  —What was scary?

  —How much I wanted it.

  —Mmmm.

  —He held me when it was over. He rubbed my breasts. I would wait until he fell asleep, then I would go back to my room.

  —And it happened again after that.

  —He had this way of pressing his hand against my chest, over my heart. And he’d stay really quiet and he’d say, “I feel you beating.” And I’d place my hand over his heart but it was hard to feel it because of how thick the hair was. And he’d say, “Can you feel me beating? Can you feel me? Feel me.”

  —This felt good.

  —I felt him. We were so close.

  —And it happened again.

  —You still have no reaction?

  —Should I be reacting?

  —I mean, if you’re a human being probably you’re having a reaction.

  —Would it be useful for you for me to have a reaction?

  —I mean sometimes it’s good to have someone acknowledge that there is actually something wrong.

  —Do you feel like there’s something wrong?

  —I know there’s something wrong. You know it, too. You know. I don’t understand why you’re not telling me.

  —You want me to tell you there’s something wrong?

  —I want to know that I’m not fucking crazy for thinking I’m crazy.

  —You have a lot you’re holding on to all at once. A lot of rich, complicated experiences and feelings.

  —No shit.

  —Did these encounters with your father continue?

  —Again and again. And then one night I arrived and he took me into his arms and he said, god, so sweetly, “I’ve touched you with my fingers, I’ve tasted you with my tongue, I’ve smelled you, the deepest parts of you, I’ve heard your breath in my ear. But I’ve never seen you. Let me put my eyes on you.” And he lit a lamp and I—

  —It’s okay.

  —His face.

  —What was his face?

  —Like he was sick. Like he’d just swallowed something rotten, like he didn’t understand what he’d just eaten, but knew it was poison. And then it shifted. And he looked scared. And then right after that he looked furious. And he threw me off the bed and he came after me. If he’d caught me, he would’ve killed me. I ran. I ran and ran. I disappeared. I moved from one place to the next. I never stopped. Not for nine months. I knew my father’s seed had taken hold. I knew it the very first night. My son would be my brother. My brother my son. My father would be both father and grandfather to this boy. This shared blood. I moved until I was too heavy to move.

  —You’re due soon.

  —I’ll name him Adonis.

  —Your son.

  —I want to be changed. I want to change. There’s no bottom. The creatures are alive and there are more and more and they’re getting braver. I don’t want to be this anymore. Please. Can you help me? Can you please help me?

  —What do you want to be?

  —Not this. Not foul. Not a second hand snapping off the clock.

  —It’s okay.

  —Can you make me a tree?

  —I hear you talking of plants again.

  —Can I be a tree? Can you help me be a tree? They talk. All of them actually do. But no one knows it and I could have my guilt without anyone knowing. Roots in the earth, bark skin around the shame.

  —Mmmm.

  —Please. Can you help me?

  —We will work to find the tree in you.

  —It’s in me?

  —It’s in you. We’ll find it.

  —I can feel it.

  —In time. You are brave.

  —I am.

  —We’re going to explore the volcano.

  —I’m ready.

  —Let the creatures talk with you. Listen to what they say.

  —They’ll lead me to the tree.

  —We have a lot of work to do together.

  —I’m ready. I’m ready. I can feel it. Already I’m changing.

  Io

  PART I

  On an afternoon at the end of summer, I walked home along the river. Jove approached and I believed him when he said, It’s too hot in the sun, your pale skin, come into the shade, you’ll be safe in the woods, come with me, no animals will eat you, no harm will come, I’ll protect you.

  I walked with him into the woods.

  It was nice in the shade, cool, like flipping yo
ur pillow in the night.

  It is still too bright, said Jove. I didn’t know what he meant. He produced a fog and it surrounded us. It was cottony and dim. There were no more edges. I could not see the trees. To protect your soft pale skin, he said and he touched my soft pale skin. I did not expect this. His hand was too warm. I took one step away.

  You’re safe, he said.

  He kept touching my skin.

  You’re safe, he said.

  He touched the skin beneath my clothes. I stepped away. Not me, I said.

  You’re safe, he said.

  No, I said. No thanks. I need to go.

  Stop, he said. His voice was louder.

  I stepped away. You stop, I said.

  You’re safe, he said.

  No thanks, I said. Not me. I need to go. Stop please.

  What was it like? Picture this: there you are and you’re with someone else and there is an understanding. There is such a thing as things making sense and the feeling that you know where the other stands and both of you are operating under a shared system of how the world works. And then there is a moment when there seems to be a misunderstanding, when certain words aren’t communicating what they’re meant to. And maybe you try again. Perhaps you were not clear, or you did not say it in the right tone of voice. But then you see something different in the other person’s eyes, something gone, and it becomes clear that it is not misunderstanding and it is not about tone of voice. The way you’ve understood things to be turns out to be very wrong and everything is upside down and out of control and words no longer have their power.

  You grow up to believe that if you say, Please pass the salt, a person will reach toward the shaker, grab it in his hand, and move it in your direction. But then one day some of us might learn that it can happen that you can say, Please pass the salt, and a person will jam his hand into the mayonnaise jar and fling a fistful of it at your face. All at once, words don’t mean what they’re supposed to mean.

  I am a girl. My name is Io. I say no thanks, not me, stop please. But all at once, words do not matter. I do not matter.

  * * *

  I am: Up against a tree. On the ground. On my belly. Split. All his body on all my body. The word is too small and too known and too tame for what took place. And it was only the beginning anyway. Another beginning. We begin again and again.

  My words had no power. I was speaking the language of animals. I could not make myself understood. I was no longer the full human self I knew myself to be, who is friends with Linda and Daniel and Quinn, who loved grapes as a kid and hated socks, who drew pictures of castles and tigers, who laughs at rhymes and hates ice and loves milkweed pods. All at once that went away and I was a body and an entrance and a means.

  Want is the only thing. One want eats the other. I want this to stop. Someone else wants it not to stop. Whose want wins? If we are basing it on duration, mine does. Because my want for it to stop does not ever end. If we are basing it on who gets what they want? His. My want was consumed by his want; it made his want bigger. My want was swallowed whole by a gaping, gulping mouth that spews and swallows at once.

  Jove’s wife saw the fog in the woods on that otherwise sunny afternoon and she suspected. And she knew what her husband was—except instead of saying, My husband is a rapist, she said, My husband is easily tempted and acts on his wants and she felt angry at the tempters for existing. The safer direction to aim the rage. Their shared life was eternal after all and he was not someone she could kill even if she wanted to.

  And so she scorched down a path through the fog. Jove didn’t want to get caught, didn’t want his wife’s wrath, he didn’t want to hurt her. So the coward changed me to a cow.

  He’d made me an animal already.

  PART II

  Begin again.

  Low. I am a cow. All white. But not my eyes. The size of a baby’s fist, they are the color of small ponds in fall. Io inside me. Her voice is lost. Low. My cry, my wordless bass-horn moan, the sound of it frightened Io inside me. The wordless expression of loss.

  * * *

  An all-white heifer to disguise Jove’s crime. Juno knew. What’s this cow, she said to her husband, his face still flushed, jewels of sweat sliding down his temples. She looked into my baby-fist eyes. Where’d this cow come from? It’s nice, she lied. She didn’t touch me.

  * * *

  Jove, his hand on my ribs and my muscles flickered beneath it. Juno’s eyes and my eyes, we looked at each other and we both knew what we were. I saw her sadness. She saw mine.

  * * *

  Oh this cow? said Jove. This cow comes straight from the earth, if you can believe it.

  * * *

  She couldn’t, of course. But she played along. We kept staring into each other’s eyes and there we saw what the other suffered.

  * * *

  I would like her as a gift, said Juno. I blinked, lids so slow to lower. Blinked for the bad news that came in that wish. She’s so beautiful, she said. Lie. Low. She wanted, too: see what he’ll do.

  * * *

  Jove stood there, tried to smile, damp on his dick. Cock milk. Clear and white at once. Not the white of me or the milk that would come from the weight of my one own white breast below me, low. Swollen. I could feed so many mouths. All we do is hunger, from when we’re egg and seed, before we’re pulled from our original home. Each day after, all the days, hungering. It does not stop. I could pause your hunger for a moment with the white inside me. We are all so swollen low with want.

  * * *

  Jove, damp-dicked and trapped. What did he want? He wanted the cow that glowed like the moon which hangs in the sky like a drop of milk that fell from the breast of a star. He wanted not to hurt his wife. He wanted not to be caught. One could see the argument in his mind: give up this creature he wanted to possess versus please his wife. To deny her this request would be to prove his guilt—to give up the cow would be to lose something of his. Shame, potent motivator, lives low, pushes hard. Whose want wins?

  * * *

  Of course, he said to Juno. She’s all yours.

  * * *

  But she did not really get what she wanted. And neither did he. And neither did Io inside me.

  * * *

  This was still the beginning.

  * * *

  I stood on hooves, four-legged, a tail at swish behind me, the new matter of flies. My hip bones sharp as arrowheads. Two lovers could sit within my rib cage, if each held their knees to their chests.

  * * *

  Juno knew what I was, she’d seen my eyes as I’d seen hers. Ban the tempters. Exile the enticements. As though Jove would mount me now. Maybe he would. I don’t know how low.

  * * *

  Juno sent me off to Argus, a giant who had a hundred eyes. All time all-watching Argus. His eyes slept in pairs, ninety-eight left watching while two at a time took rest. He never took his eyes off me, suspicious Juno wanted it this way. His eyes held no sadness. They held the nothing of boredom: he had seen too much.

  * * *

  By day, I grazed. Chewed grass, flicked flies. Milk pressed up against the edges of my own low breast. There’s boredom that comes in the back door: when one sees too little. The field, the grass, the fence. Mud puddles, dung, sun. Argus stooped, his everlasting leer, eyes shifted, flicked, rolled. Blinky blink blink. Gone wrong barnyard kaleidoscope. Io inside me. Somewhere the shape of her inside the shape I’d been given. White wide load low. One does not need to be jailed to be imprisoned, to be caged by something that happens. Memory lives in the body like Io lived in my body. I felt her there, caged by the moment when language lost its power, caged by the moment when her want lost.

  * * *

  Argus saw, did not talk. At night, he roped me. Put me in a pen. Tight hot place of wet dirt, stink. He jammed bitter leaves and thorned twigs at my face to eat. Chewed and chewed. Frothy cottony mouth. Sores from the thorns. Trough water mostly mud. At night he fastened a harness on me, perverse acrobatics to get it on, cinchi
ng it over my chest, pulling it tight around the space where my front legs met my body. Tethered to a peg. Always he found a way to touch my one own low white breast. Bumped it with his elbow, low, his hip, grazed it with his hand. This too-many-eyed monster. Sores where the harness rubbed me. Sores where the rocks dug into my flesh as I slept. Dreams about silence. Rid the low moan.

  * * *

  An afternoon, a fence post fallen, a way out. I followed the river to Io’s home. Across one low bridge, paused, looked. In the water, wide white face, horn nubs, eyes the size of baby fists. Io in me. She could not bear to look. To see what she’d become. Reflected in the dark water like a distorted sort of moon. Hoofed off the bridge. There along the shore, Io’s father, the sisters that were hers. They couldn’t see her, but when she saw them through my baby-fist eyes, she urged me toward them, made herself more present.

  * * *

  There you are, I thought.

  * * *

  I nuzzled against her father. I ate soft leaves from his hands. Her sisters touched me. What a beauty, they said.

  * * *

  I tried to speak but low it was the same old sigh. To make them know, I steered my hoof in the sand of the shore and spelled out what I’d suffered. I wrote out the woe.

  * * *

  My father cried. No, no. My beautiful girl transformed. Ruined and muted. My sisters cried and pressed themselves against me. They kissed my eyes.

  * * *

  And then Argus appeared with the harness and my sisters clung to me and my father threw a stone at him and missed. They knew the massive all-seeing monster would take me away. And he did. He pulled me to a field and he sat on top of the hill and watched. I no longer lowed. Head bowed, lowered, couldn’t lift it for the woe.