Psyche in a Dress

by Francesca Lia Block

  faded gold and green striped wallpaper

  A cart with some leftover baguettes and mineral water

  stood outside someone’s door

  but no one was there

  The only sound was the ice machine down the hall

  The city so strangely quiet

  Everyone was away, where it was cool and dry

  The rain had stopped

  “I’m sorry,” I said, letting his hand drop

  “No, it’s not you”

  “I shouldn’t have assumed anything after so long”

  “It’s not you…I just…it’s been a hard time”

  I nodded and stood on tiptoe to kiss

  his cheek without touching him

  He steadied me with his hands

  They were huge and bony

  Most men’s hands

  are not bigger than mine

  “Do you want to come in and talk?”

  I turned on the lamp

  He sat in the large cream damask chair by the window

  The lights from the city shone in, fuzzy with the rain

  I sat on the bed

  “I would like to stay with you tonight,” Eros said

  “Just tonight

  Then I have to leave”

  I could feel my throat closing with tears

  But what is real?

  Maybe Eros and I stayed a month

  a year

  Who is to say?

  Maybe we are still there now

  When our lips touched

  our clothes fell away

  dissolving from our bodies

  the white peony dress scattered its petals on the carpet

  underwear disintegrating like cobwebs

  Eros lifted me onto his hips

  and I wrapped my legs around him as he fell

  back into the cream damask chair

  we kept falling as if through shifting

  clouds

  I could feel him inside of me

  and that is how I awoke from the sleep of deadly beauty

  After, we bathed in a tub that became the sea

  with liquid topaz water and a beach of pulverized pearls

  and we swam there and made love again

  Then we ordered room service at midnight

  ate omelets and grapes and bread in our bed

  and the bed became an island

  —covered with aphrodisiac flowers—

  where we slept until late in the morning

  Every day

  I put on one of the dresses from Aphrodite’s sample rack

  And we ordered books and films and food

  brought to the room

  We lay in bed

  reading and eating and memorizing each other’s bodies

  We wrote a play together based on his book

  In the evenings we danced on the rose-covered carpet—

  our ballroom

  It went on like this for a day

  a month

  a year

  I still don’t know

  I know only

  that when Eros finally left I had his child inside of me

  That was what made it possible for me to release him

  even after the sacrifices I had made

  even after waiting for so long

  Do you want to know the name of the child

  of Love and the Soul?

  This is her name:

  Her name is Joy

  Eros

  The house was built on the side of the hill, so it seemed perpetually to be sliding off. It was mostly glass so that one could see wooded hills and smoggy skies from almost every room. Eros’s mother had decorated the house all in purple. There were purple velvet couches and chairs with purple silk beaded pillows, purple Persian carpets, giant purple candles and huge natural amethysts reflecting the light that poured through the windows. There was a terraced garden that Eros had planted with banks and banks of lavender, hyacinth, pansies and hydrangea—with pennies buried at their roots to make them the right color—and little fountains and statues of Eros’s naked mother hidden among the foliage.

  Eros was not unhappy. But as he grew older his mother began to suffocate him with her love. She couldn’t help it. She had never loved anyone as much as herself before. No one had seemed perfect enough. He was perfect. But he felt as if he couldn’t breathe. People acted strangely around him. They saw his face, smelled his skin and hair or touched his hand and something happened to them. It was as if all their senses were coming to life. It was too much for Eros sometimes. All that wanting.

  He read the myths and learned that the god of love is not only the son of love and beauty but the son of chaos.

  Eros felt empty, as if he had no soul. So he went looking for her.

  He didn’t have to go far. It was his mother who led him to her.

  “My boyfriend’s daughter goes to your school,” she said. “She’s featured in every single damn film. You should introduce yourself.”

  Psyche was the long-legged girl who kept her head bent as if to hide her face with her black hair. She always seemed so sad. He tried to talk to her but she wouldn’t look at him. She hurried past in her odd dresses.

  Eros could not help himself. He found out where she lived and he crawled in her window one night. He knew she was the part of him that was missing but he didn’t know how to explain it to her. He thought that if she saw him she would send him away. Is beauty monstrous?

  His mother said, “I heard that girl I told you about eats boys alive. She likes them really good-looking to feed her ego. Then she dumps them. You’re so sensitive, sweetie. It’s a beautiful quality. I just don’t want you to get hurt.”

  When his soul finally lit the candle he felt betrayed, but he would have stayed anyway. It was she that sent him away. Afraid that she was not enough.

  Eros packed his things and left. He traveled across the country. He shaved his head and ate only rice and vegetables until he lost so much weight that every bone showed. He practiced yoga and chanted. He went to museums and read books and saw films. He did not touch anyone. His skin broke out and he lay in the sun to burn away the red bumps. This left shadowy scars on his cheeks. He was called a freak more than once. Love is freakish to those who fear it. He was beaten up and his nose was broken. Love is a threat.

  This was all right with Eros. Eros did not want to be a god. He wanted to be a man. A writer would be nice, too.

  Eros wrote about the girl who was his soul and in this way he felt his soul inside of him. He sent the book to his well-connected mother who sent it to her publisher friend. There was really only one reason Eros wanted the book to be published.

  It was like writing a letter and putting it in a bottle and sending it out to sea.

  Eros’s mother had not told him about her new employee, the girl he had lost.

  When he found her again he wanted to stay forever in that hotel room in the deserted city. He never wanted to leave her. But he was afraid that she would leave him. That she still felt she was not enough.

  He might have tried, though.

  Joy changes everything.

  I awaited Joy in our tiny cottage

  I made little films for my unborn daughter, little myths

  Girls were transformed into flowers, trees and birds

  but they always came back—

  better singers, more fragrant, full of the earth’s power

  I stopped working for Aphrodite

  I was afraid she might turn me into something

  and not turn me back

  There were other available slaves and witches to help her

  and when you are about to become a mother

  you just can’t take as many chances

  Even so, secretly, I wept for Eros

  Part of me wished I had remained a flower

  Passive, trembling in the sunshine

  closing with the darkness

  Waiting for some bee to pollinate me

  It would ha
ve been easier than being a woman

  much easier than being a mother

  But I couldn’t have stayed with Love

  Although he had become a man he was still a god to me

  And I?

  I was a mere mortal

  I was not a goddess

  After I gave birth to Joy something changed, though

  something I could not have predicted

  There in the hospital room

  I held her to my breast

  and she took my nipple into her mouth

  she looked up at me with long, still eyes

  too large for her face

  her fingers wrapped around mine

  there was no one else in the world

  Then I knew I could live without Love as a man

  I had taken him inside me

  and given him back to the world

  in the form of a girl

  I was hers—

  my daughter’s—

  I was divine

  Demeter

  They say we turn into our mothers

  When my daughter became Persephone

  I was Demeter

  Just because I had loved Hades

  doesn’t mean I was prepared

  when my child found her own hell god

  He had one white eye and his nails and his teeth

  were filed to points

  Sometimes he wore plastic breasts on his bony chest

  or a plastic phallus over leather pants

  He wailed about carnage in a raspy voice

  This is the one who took her from me

  All I can think of is how, when she was a baby

  she cried for me all the time

  I was the only one she wanted

  When I held her I didn’t even need my hands

  She clung to my neck with her arms

  to my waist with her legs like a little animal

  She slept in my armpit, her mouth on my nipple all night

  It was the only way she would sleep

  We woke in each other’s sweat

  She smelled like little white flowers

  and baby soap and me—my milk

  I had never been so important

  to anyone

  I felt as if I could make the world blossom

  I had

  I had made the world bloom with her

  Then he came with his teeth

  his nails painted black, his rubber clothes

  his one eye behind a white lens like a blind man

  He smelled of sulfur

  He had a metallic gold limousine

  and a driver with white gloves

  This is the one who took my daughter away

  I remember how we spent our days together

  We had picnics with the dolls

  on a red-and-white-checked cloth in the garden

  ate off their china tea set

  the tiny, bitter strawberries that grew in the clay pot

  miniature carrots, tomatoes and sprigs of mint

  drank homemade lemonade from seashells

  We filled the birdbath with rose petals

  and watched their reflection on the water

  We painted our faces with rainbows

  and wore giant heart-shaped rings

  and wings

  of gauze

  We went to the library and read books

  about baby animals

  searching for their mothers

  We sang songs of tiny stars, lambs, cakes

  What was I thinking?

  That this would be enough for her forever?

  My mother had hoped the same thing

  She had been wrong

  My daughter screamed, “You’d say that about any man.

  No one is good enough unless he’s exactly like you.”

  She left the house

  I want to believe that he put a spell on her

  bit her

  drugged her somehow

  forcibly carried her away on his black motorcycle

  But she went by herself

  They broke glasses just to hear them shatter

  and tore sheets with their hands

  like animals with claws

  They stayed up all night watching videos of him

  dressed as a schoolgirl

  His pieces

  were about children killing each other with machine guns

  about rape and explosions

  bodies falling from burning buildings

  People blamed him for inciting more of these things

  but she said, “He is just a shy kid who was beaten up in

  high school. A poet. He re-created himself to point out

  the hypocrisy. He sees the world the way it is. You

  pretend none of this exists. You live in a dream.”

  I wanted my dream

  I wanted, more than anything

  to make a dream and give it to her

  to live in, always

  But I didn’t try to hide her from the world

  She wasn’t happy at school so I taught her at home. I took her to foreign movies, gave her all kinds of books. I let her wear lipstick and nail polish from the health food store, although I told her she didn’t need it. I let her go to parties, even. I even let her go to that performance of his. I wasn’t too strict. I didn’t cause this, did I? I just wanted her to be happier than I was.

  My own father swallowed me

  and then vomited me back up

  I blame him for what happened to her

  If he had loved us she would never have gone away

  with the god of hell

  And I would not have needed my Hades

  Or maybe it is my fault

  I doubted myself

  I let her real father go away twice

  When she left I sat in the garden and lit a cigarette

  smoked half of it and let it drop

  thinking I could make a small pyre

  a performance piece, almost

  But the fire started to spread

  After the fire department came

  I felt guilty, of course

  All those nice, strong men

  who risked their lives to help people

  Not clean up after some crazy, grieving mother

  The ground was scarred and barren

  She was gone

  I thought, this is how I will repay life

  for taking her from me

  I will never grow another seedling

  I will shrivel up in the darkness

  and the flowers all die with me

  Then one day I went to see

  my daughter’s Hades

  He lived in a dark palace with iron gates and fierce dogs

  A huge bald man let me in

  He was smiling to himself, I knew

  Smirking

  Another mother trying to drag her stray child back home

  He didn’t think I was anyone to fear

  I had not been a goddess before Persephone was born

  Now I was a goddess enraged, protecting my child

  A slender young man came down the staircase

  He spoke softly and asked if I wanted a drink

  I fingered the knife in my pocket

  had imagined this moment so differently

  Facing the hell god, slitting his throat

  slaying him, bringing her home in my arms

  All my fury at fathers and gods

  would make me invincible

  Instead I just stood there

  looking at him with his soft unwashed hair

  his stubbled chin and two blue eyes

  like my daughter’s eyes

  He played the piano for me

  a bunch of narcissus, white in a vase

  The smell made me swoon, so I steadied myself

  He sang of a mother and child

  looked up at me, grinning, and said

  “I could never put this on an album, though.

  Reputations involved her
e”

  She came down the stairs, in his shirt

  Her legs so small and bare

  When she saw me she looked

  as if I were her hell

  Then he reached out for her

  took her in his arms

  folded her up

  I remembered

  how light she once felt

  and warm, perfect, safe

  I thought

  maybe any man who held her would be

  like a hell god to me

  maybe I can never

  give her up

  “I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m sorry for coming here”

  I let the knife fall from my fingers back into my pocket

  I turned and left her there

  I knew that I could never bring her back

  The child I wanted to bring back with me was gone

  It was winter

  I took a bath in the claw-foot tub

  and put on a white silk kimono with red poppies

  I made corn, squash and garbanzo bean soup

  on my hot plate

  I watched the film I had rented

  about a biker poet in a leather jacket

  His wife went to the underworld

  and he had to battle Death

  who was not a man

  but a pale woman with long black hair

  I looked at myself in the tiny mirror on the door

  I was no longer beautiful

  I did not look like a former starlet

  but I looked like an artist

  a director of small, strange films

  someone you could tell your story to in a bar

  someone who had borne a daughter

  (a perfect daughter)

  someone who knew about planting

  and pyromania

  I looked like someone whose father had almost killed her

  whose lovers had almost destroyed her

  whose mother had tried to save her