The Book of X

by Sarah Rose Etter

  “Won’t these be nice?” she asks.

  “I don’t like those. I like black and red.”

  “Well, we need to try new things, so we’re going to try new things,” she says.

  In the changing room, the dresses hang behind me like limp bodies.

  “Hurry up,” my mother calls.

  I put on the yellow dress, too tight against my body, a cage. I look sallow, a tumor.

  “I don’t want to show you this one,” I call.

  “Stop fucking around,” she hisses. “Get out here right now.”

  I stop fucking around and walk into the dull blare of the lights. A set of three giant mirrors triples my wrong shape, the horrid color, over and over again, infinitely. My mother lets out a sigh.

  “This is all wrong. Take it off.”

  I put on the next dress: An aching lilac satin that strains against me. I step out of the dressing room, teeth bared.

  “Is this it?” I bellow. “COULD THIS BE THE ONE?”

  “Don’t be goddamn ridiculous,” my mother hisses. “It looks terrible. Get it off!”

  I picture her mouth with duct tape over it, the sky widening with calmness above my head in the bright new silence.

  VISION

  I stand on our front porch, barefoot, the white house muted behind me. My mother is cleaning inside again, but the scent hasn’t reached me yet.

  The sky is stormy green, the shade of terror or mold. The wind riles itself up around me, pushing at my skin and hair.

  In the secret part of my heart, I think about Jarred, looking at that sky. I only want to whisper into his ear, to feel the curl of his fine hair near my lips.

  The wind rolls harder. Inside, the radio chatters warnings. Pressure builds, waiting to drench down thick on the land.

  Suddenly, a red dress appears in the sky, a bright slash against the dark gray clouds. I watch as it falls, getting larger as it draws closer to the earth, then drifts onto the grass, empty and thin, collapsing into a pool of fabric.

  The sky fills with other dresses in different colors: Blue satin gowns drip down alongside black strapless numbers. Old green chiffon twirls around black and white polka dot dresses until they go weak on the grass.

  The sky is a mess of hues and textures, clouds building with the promise of more cloth to come. Tulles and silks and polyesters fall past my face, skirts and bodices billowing.

  Each gown lands with a soft thussssh when its fabric collapses against the ground.

  I walk through the gown rain until I get to the red dress. I kneel down to the scarlet fabric, running my fingers over it.

  The dresses begin to fall faster, the closets of a million women pouring down over me.

  Still-glittering prom gowns and wrinkled dark grey sheaths brush against my arms. A heat builds in my belly and below it.

  The hues and textures keep falling, combining, coming, puddling. I hear the screen door open.

  “You better get your ass inside,” my mother screams from the porch.

  “I’ll be in soon,” I call. “Just a minute.”

  A beige dress brushes past my face. The touch is so light my chest swells with the want to weep.

  Jarred, I whisper.

  I cannot stop myself. I collapse on the red dress, stretch my body over the slippery fabric, the new touch. I look up at the sky.

  The dresses stack up around me, pile down, make weight on top of me. Scents rise up from the threads to greet me, smells of flea markets and old perfume and hidden sweat.

  A yellow fabric falls over my nose and mouth like a hand over the face, taking my air. I go dizzy from the lack of oxygen, my eyes close against the fabric, the weight of it like Jarred’s body pressing against me.

  LOW SOUNDS OF GRUNTING AND panting through my open window wake me in the night.

  I follow the sound across the field to the deep red door of the barn.

  I crack the door, and I press my eye against the peeling red wood.

  Inside, my father is shirtless, covered in blood, bottle by his side. Piles of meat surround him. He shoves a handful of the red into his mouth. His eyes glint with some level of madness.

  A small gasp escapes my mouth, and my father’s eyes flash up. He’s at the door in an instant.

  “Well, look what we have here,” he slurs. Small flecks of meat land on my cheeks when he speaks. “Spying for your mother, huh?”

  “No, I just heard...”

  He yanks me into the barn, shutting the door behind us.

  “You’re going to help me,” he says.

  “What’s going to go—”

  “Drink up,” he says, handing me the bottle.

  I take a swig. It burns clear down the throat.

  “This is all gonna go bad soon,” he says again.

  He sinks his hand deep into the meat and pulls out a clump.

  “Get started,” he says, handing me the meat.

  My throat tightens, but I force my lips open and slide it into my mouth.

  I picture snakes in the wild, consuming men whole. I picture women swallowing swords, great sharks consuming millions of fish at once. The meat slides down my tight throat, begins to work through my knot.

  “Good,” he says. “We won’t waste this harvest. We’ve worked too damn hard.”

  We eat all night, the bottle between us, an endless midnight dinner, eating until it feels we might split open.

  In the morning, in the bathroom mirror, red is smeared across my face. I grin into my reflection, a wild animal.

  AT SCHOOL, A PHRASE IS NEWLY scratched into the wood of my desk: KNOTTY BITCH.

  Red rushes to my cheeks.

  A line-up of my classmates’ faces flicks through my head: Jarred, Sophia, the other kid with the lazy eye.

  “I know you did it,” I hiss at Sophia, pointing at the words on my desk.

  “What do you mean?” she asks. “I didn’t do anything.”

  “Just admit it. Just admit you carved it into my desk.”

  “You’re fucked up,” she says. “Fuck you.”

  ◆The word knot comes from the Old English cnotta, meaning an intertwining of ropes

  ◆The knot was a symbol of the bond of marriage from the early 13th century

  ◆In the Inca culture, the only “written” language was a system of knots tied into documents called quipus, or “talking knots,” which recorded numbers, and retold stories and historical events

  ◆Gorillas and select species of birds are known to tie knots

  ONE SATURDAY MORNING, MY FATHER pulls me from bed before sunrise.

  “Today is the day,” he says.

  We take the tractor across the land, driving until we reach the entrance to the quarry. My father unlocks the black gate with his key.

  “Isn’t it incredible?” my father asks, as we step inside, the quarry walls rising up around our heads.

  I act awed.

  “Yes,” I say. “It’s bigger than I ever imagined.”

  My father grips my hand, and we walk deeper into the quarry, following the silver tracks until we come to a split in the path. He gestures to the left.

  “Now, this here,” he says, “your brother discovered this.”

  We veer left and the meat scent gets stronger than I remember it before, the red deeper, the rivers of fat thicker, whiter, brighter.

  “This is quality,” he explains. “You see here how the fat spirals evenly through the flesh? That’s going to sell for more every damn time.”

  We walk until we come to a dead end of meat, a place where the digging has stopped.

  “We’ve got more to do here,” he says, gesturing to the last wall. “There’s enough here to keep us in money for years. Just have to harvest it. Then watch your mother spend it all.”

  FOR WEEKS, SOPHIA AND I DO NOT SPEAK. Our eyes never meet.

  ALONE, MY DAYS GET STRANGER.

  My vision goes wild. The grass begins to breathe. Through the window at breakfast, the green blades heave, pulsing like
a large body below the house.

  “The land is alive,” I say.

  “You’re acting weird again,” my father says, through the toast in his mouth.

  I slide my morning rock into my mouth and suck.

  ◆The loneliest creature on earth is a whale who has been calling for a mate for two decades

  ◆There are roughly 60,000 miles of blood vessels in the human body

  ◆Like fingerprints, each person has a unique tongue print

  ◆It is impossible to commit suicide by holding your breath

  I WAKE IN THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT, sweat pooling in the curves of my knot.

  The empty walls of my stomach grind against each other. I make my way down to the kitchen.

  I open the pantry cabinet. Inside, there is a perfect loaf of bread. The hunger makes me wild. I stuff the bread into my mouth, I gorge until it feels like choking.

  “GET UP,” MY MOTHER SAYS. “WE’RE going to the doctor.”

  Outside, the sun blares light down on us. A headache begins behind my eyes.

  “This doctor is supposed to be very handsome,” she says.

  “Do you think he can fix me?”

  “We’ll see,” my mother says. “Maybe he fixes us both.”

  IN HIS OFFICE, I SIT ON THE PADDED table in a paper gown white as frosting, shivering.

  The door opens.

  “Well, hello there. You must be Cassie,” the handsome doctor says. He has brown hair, brown flashing eyes, thick lips, a jaw like the men in the magazines.

  I nod.

  “Mind if I take a look?”

  He slides the gown above the knot. He stares deeply into the caverns, a wonder in his eyes.

  “May I touch it?” he asks.

  I nod.

  The doctor runs his cold fingers over my body.

  “Just going to do a few more things here,” he says.

  He pulls out a measuring tape and measures my knot. He pulls out a flashlight and shines it into the darkest parts of my knot. He uses a small rubber mallet to tap certain sections, testing for reflex.

  “Well, we unfortunately have not made enough strides in research to handle this,” he says. “There are, however, a few things we can do for now that will make life easier.”

  “You mean you can’t just fix me?”

  “We just aren’t there yet.”

  “What can you do for us now?” my mother asks.

  “Well, there are some injections that will help loosen the knot and make it easier to operate on later,” he says.

  “Can you give us a moment?” my mother asks. He nods and leaves the room. Alone with my mother, the walls feel brighter, closer.

  “Well, he really is a hunk,” my mother says.

  “I just—”

  “Listen, sweetie, this is all we’ve got for now,” my mother says. “Get the injections.”

  I picture it: The needles entering me, the knot loosening into a future flat body.

  THE DOCTOR KNOCKS AND ENTERS AGAIN, a black case in his hand.

  “I had a feeling you’d want to try this,” he says.

  He shoots a wink at me as he unzips the black leather which opens like a mouth, giant needles for teeth.

  “Excellent,” he says. “Now just lie down for me.”

  The first needle appears quickly. He flicks the end with his finger.

  “OK, this will hurt a bit. Look up at the ceiling.”

  He slides up my gown and sinks the needle deep into my knot. A sob begins in my gut, but I imagine my throat full of cotton and hold it there.

  He draws another needle and I squirm on the table.

  “Now, now,” he says.

  He sinks the next needle into the knot. He rubs my arm between the shots.

  “How many more?”

  “We’re getting there,” he says.

  The next needle he sinks into my skin pinches even deeper inside.

  “Just 37 more to go,” he says.

  The doctor begins his own ritual.

  “Here comes the sugar water, here comes the sugar water, here comes the sugar water,” he murmurs under his breath.

  Needle after needle sinks into my body until I lose count.

  I WAKE THE NEXT MORNING PINPRICKED. The knot is still there.

  My body aches from the injections, from the memory of the needles sinking into my body.

  ◆In 1844, the first hollow needle was invented for injections

  ◆The first hypodermic medical needle was used to introduce morphine into the skin of patients who suffered from sleep disorders

  ◆The word hypodermic comes from two Greek words meaning “below skin”

  I SIT AT MY SCHOOL DESK IN MY RED dress. I am early. Outside, it is raining. The musk of the rain is in the air, on my clothes, in my mouth.

  The classroom door opens and Jarred appears. He sits down next to me.

  “Morning,” he says.

  “Hey.”

  Then everything shifts.

  He stares at me as he lowers his hand to the zipper of his blue pants. The sound of the metal smoothing open rushes through my ears as he pulls out his private self, which is pink as the bellies of the pigs.

  He keeps his eyes on me and begins to stroke.

  “Look at me,” he says.

  I feel loose between the legs, dizzy in the head. The classroom with its posters and desks warps around me.

  “I said look at me,” he commands quietly.

  I pull my gaze up to meet his.

  We sit like that for some endless time. The scent of his body overtakes the scent of moss. He moves his hand faster and faster until there is a low mean moan and a shudder that shakes the desk in time. His face warps.

  I PICTURE US IN THE FUTURE, MARRIED in the small chapel on the edge of town, me with no knot, his face warped with pleasure again.

  IT IS SATURDAY, TWO DAYS WITHOUT seeing Jarred, each moment a desert.

  I roll out of bed to go to the bathroom. A shock shoots through my veins when I find blood between my legs, a pool of it freshly staining my white cotton underwear. It’s a burgundy mark, scented like the Meat Quarry.

  I run to my mother’s room.

  “I’m bleeding,” I say, gesturing between the legs, mortified.

  “We don’t have time for this,” my mother says.

  She pushes a thick wad of cotton at me.

  “Figure it out,” she says. “And you better watch out. Things are going to start changing for you now.”

  In the bathroom, I mop the blood between my legs. I shove the cotton in the hole where I think it should go.

  Outside, through the window, I can see my brother pushing meat toward the house, slick and red as wet roses.

  ◆The earliest recorded mention of the menstrual pad was in the 10th century

  ◆Hypatia, an Egyptian philosopher, astronomer, and mathematician, was said to have thrown one of her used menstrual rags at an admirer in an attempt to discourage him

  ◆The first disposable menstrual pads evolved from a Benjamin Franklin invention created to help stop wounded soldiers from bleeding

  ◆Rags, soil, and mud are used for collecting menstrual flow by women in developing countries who cannot afford disposable pads or tampons

  I CALL SOPHIA, MY ANGER DISSOLVED into need.

  “I’m sorry,” I say into the phone. “I shouldn’t have blamed it on you. The words on my desk, I mean.”

  “I’d never do that to you,” Sophia says.

  And just like that, we’re made up.

  “Something happened,” I say.

  “Come over,” Sophia says.

  AT SOPHIA’S HOUSE, WE HIDE IN HER room. I whisper it to her.

  “I bled this morning.”

  “No! You got it first?”

  I nod. The cotton is still thick between my legs.

  “What does it feel like?”

  “It’s like being hurt, but the blood never stops.”

  “I missed you,” Sophia says. “My mom has be
en treating me like shit.”

  “I missed you too,” I say. “I think Jarred might like me again.”

  THAT NIGHT, I BLEED THROUGH THE cotton and through my clothes. I wake drenched in the wetness of my own blood, the white of the mattress ruined.

  DAYS LATER, JARRED KISSES ME IN THE empty hallway between classes. He presses his face hard against mine.

  “I think I like you,” he says.

  His mouth tastes like salt and metal. I touch his hair and it is like touching a holy monument. I go quiet from the glow of it. Below, I am still bleeding, red, redder, reddest, bleeding and kissing.

  ◆Only the macaque monkey has a period similar to a woman’s, with a cycle that lasts for 29 days

  ◆The body releases roughly three tablespoons of blood during a regular menstrual cycle

  ◆Before the invention of artificial lighting, it is believed women only menstruated during the new moon

  EACH SPRING, THE MEAT BLOOMS. THIS year, the harvest is huge, wild, flesh bursting out from the walls of the quarry. The people in town complain about the great stench.

  “Goddamn,” my father says at dinner. He wipes red dirt from his forehead.

  “You’re telling me,” my brother says.

  They’re both lean from working the land so hard, each day the meat harvest doubled. We go to town twice each week now, sell it all.

  “Proud of my men,” my mother says.

  “I want to help in the Meat Quarry,” I say.

  My mother’s mouth clenches like a fist.

  “What did you say?” my father asks.

  “I want to help,” I say again. “I’m ready.”

  My brother lets out a laugh.

  “You wouldn’t make it one day out there,” he says. “Not with that damn knot.”

  “Now, now,” my father says. “Let’s not pretend we couldn’t use the help.”

  He clears his throat.

  “One day,” he says. “You have one day in the quarry.”

  WE RIDE OUT TO THE MEAT QUARRY IN the early morning sun. I sit next to my father, my brother in the backseat.

  I am wearing work clothes: Overalls, boots, busted t-shirt.

  “Now listen,” my father says. “Don’t be hard on yourself today. Just do your best.”

  “I will,” I say.