by Garrett Cook
He is moaning. He is happy. He is frightened. He is wise to be afraid. He is stirring. I am stirring. I am stirring in him. He wants her to stop. I don’t. He wants her to keep going. I do too. Should not stop.
“There’s something in those woods. Whether it’s out there or it’s in me, I don’t know.”
“You’re strong. You’re beautiful and attuned. You don’t need to be scared, Micah. You can trust it. I trust you and I love you, Micah. It’s something wonderful in you and it’s growing. You need to trust the forest. And your instincts. Always trust your instincts.”
She keeps trailing down his belly. There is something distant and different in her voice. Something big, distant and wise. Or very very foolish. She’s not on drugs. She’s not alone. The me in her and the Maddy in her are not alone. I do not care whose interests you’d maintain, they are not mine since it is not me engaging them. I do not care whose interests you maintain, you’ll be gone from here. I do not care what you make of this house and what it could be. I do not care what you make of this house and what you can do for it. The Closetsong is speaking through her. I consider moving straight away. It would expect that. I hear you hearing me you rotten shit I hear you hearing me!
I am louder than Closetsong. I am a tune behind tunes and it must not forget.
Cytherea keeps kissing down, pulls down his shorts and pulls him out, gives it a feathery touch with her lips to call it out of hiding. To coax me out of hiding just as likely. I hear you hearing me I can predict this outmaneuver you and triumph. I only triumph. Hollow. Hollow victories. More hollow things. I could drop a pin in the things I’ve won and it would sound like thunder.
What is this doubt, this misstep? I had to have been here before. I am timeless. I flutter into him as she starts to kiss and suck, tender and enthusiastic in her hunger. I feel him feeling nothing but her mouth and fill his nostrils with the musk of Pan. The musk of Pan pervading, he tries to make me go. He dares to try and make me go. I have gotten lax. No more. No more distraction. What if there is no Closetsong? What if doubt is a force that emerges when you near perfect? I have dismantled hearts with doubt. Perhaps I’ve collected too much.
He throws her down, her reaches to the floor and in one swift, talented motion, he pulls the belt from his pants, he wraps it around her throat. She complies and smiles.
“Yes, it’s something beautiful. You need to learn to trust the woods.”
And he does. He trusts the musk and the woods and trusts me and not the smarmy shit who thinks he can take them away or else take them better. These walls belong to me. Her cunt belongs to me. He proves it with all his might as he thrusts in and pulls the belt. Thrust yank thrust yank thrust yank thrust yank. She is starting to slip, she is starting to move toward me. Is it too soon? I cannot quite feel if I care. He pounds her fierce and brutal. He writes “MINE” in her womb. And she is but me means me. The only me is me. When will they see?
She gets glassy and gasps, she gets terribly faint, a wheeze, a whisper, a loss. I can feel her etheric hand pull toward me then away. I overestimate what’s mine and how complete. She’s pulling away and into life. She pushes him off, a wild werewolf smile on her face and with all her might, she frees herself from the belt and makes it hers. And around his throat it goes and she pulls and it feels good. They play this game. She takes his cock and pumps and pumps and pumps, exploding gouts of cum. It begins to fold up and go but her mouth won’t let this happen. She sucks it big again. She sucks it triumphant and sits on it and bounces and she squeezes his throat with the belt. The squeezes are short and rhythmic, the breath played like a piano. She only wants certain sounds. She wants to play along with the Closetsong and it sounds so sweet it hurts me.
I haven’t a throat for teeth but I feel its teeth on my throat and it hasn’t a throat for teeth and I haven’t teeth but it, it still feels mine. The whatever we are pushes against each other, united in violence like the lovers we puppeteer. Has it come here to love me? Does it bring an understanding of love? Is it the notion that I could love myself? What are you? I know you taste like a taste and that taste is something good. You infringe on me corrupt my walls, sing inside my closets, violator! I want you to stop right now. Then I want you to start again and I want you to corrupt my walls as he is corrupting hers. This is the hardest I’ve been pushed against, the biggest prerogative I know. It sprays something unknowable in my throat. I cannot explain metaphysics. Not my role. Not me.
They still choke and fuck without us. There are reassuring strokes from her hand on his cheek. And I am pushing up against it, it makes itself known. It will be well. Why can’t you trust me? Don’t you know it will be well?
“Don’t listen!” Maddy shrieks, “you’re stronger than this. Do you need someone to love you? I can love you! See the glass I grind inside me? I can love you. But you can’t let this make you weak.”
I feel weary. I feel deceived. I feel the teeth of whatever it is on whatever in me is like my throat. I feel the intruder in my walls. Though it woos me by seeing my bidding done, I know intrusion when I smell it and I cannot welcome it as Cytherea welcomes Micah into hers, bouncing rhythmic, reassuring, choking slowly, leaning in to kiss in and steal more breath, careful to spare her rhythm so he doesn’t breathe too heavy. I wish he’d breathe too heavy though it’s not yet time. I always want to say I know what’s mine.
I withdraw slightly from the consciousnesses at hand, reward Maddy for her intervention with a journey back to some of her most exquisite moments torturing Antonia. She is squatting above the girl, taking a great long shit on the porcelain face beneath her as Doctorpuppet sits on a chair and smiles, masturbating furious and hard. Antonia is trying to object but stops herself. She knows that worse is ahead if she does, not realizing that death would be better even though death won’t be better not when my arms are open to all of this, open to owning the things that pass the threshold. The stench of rotten meats and cheeses long gone almost drown the girl. But she opens her mouth and swallows, tastes damnation again, trying not to choke like Leah with her fat.
For Maddy this is paradise. Maddy has been good to me this time, the kind of good, the rare, nigh nonexistent kind of good that resides in a rare putrid heart like Maddy’s. I sit and watch with Maddy, trying to experience the thing that feels like pleasure to me through the suffering of Antonia who is mine. I cannot find the fervor in Clarence. I am calling Doctorpuppet Clarence. I look around in the past, the chamber set aside and in this place, I can’t hear the Closetsong.
I drag Maddy back to champagnecunt, to Antonia’s triumph and feel the thing like pleasure. I feel a great deal of the thing like pleasure. Maddy feels betrayed. Maddy feels betrayed because I might have been.
“You stay here,” I hiss through all that makes her up, “you stay here until you tell me. You tell me what it is. Tell me about the sounds from the closets.”
“I hear it but I don’t know what it is or what you mean. What do you mean?” her voice is faint. She is not at all like Maddy. She is tiny. She is a child over her father’s knee again. She is begging. Antonia is sliding the bottle in and out. Maddy is bleeding and I’m making it real real slow. Champagnecunt at half speed. Begging and screaming and triumph lasting all the longer. I search her and I wonder if the Closetsong can hide things inside of people like it hides inside the walls to do inscrutable things, things that deceive and hurt me. I will not be fooled. I am far too old and powerful and smart for that.
“I don’t believe you,” I say, pulling back Antonia’s arm and slowing it to a speed that can only be called glacial. The strike ferments for centuries before it is executed, slowly, mightily and cruelly so. She screams for an eternity but none of these screams are my answer. I leave her there to stew and maybe she will be more cooperative. Or else she won’t. I don’t care.
I return to the room and Micah’s legs are in the air. Cytherea, smile upon her face, is easing a finger into the ass I claimed as Pan. I have seen them do this. I have seen this bli
ssful grin. Their bliss is of no consequence to me. I could abandon the scene but it has been here. Leah is weeping through the night. There is nothing to do with Leah. She is mine. Kaz and Brian might go into that room and Leah will do them no harm and that’s all well and good. The harm is coming and it will make them mine. But this, this is something to sit and watch. Am I like Clarence on his little chair as his wife squats on precious Antonia?
Micah moans, eyes locked in those of his lover, eyes drowning in those of his lover. Their closeness is not always apparent but right now it is clear as clear can be. There is no more denying what they are or fighting against it right now. So, I leave them be. I whisper that I am in the room but do no more to color or shape their intimacies. They barely hear me and they barely care. She fingerfucks him with the utmost care, acknowledging what he is to her each movement. I witness so many intimacies and I want to get it. I get it, I have so many hearts and essences to make inquiries in. Have they come up short?
He moves into her, trusting someone who so often he thinks betrays him, who so often does betray him, who keeps so many secrets in uglies all over her. He moves into her and accepts her completely as she accepted him completely, as the mine accepts me completely. Doctorpuppet knocks, Clarence and asks if he can sit beside me and watch. Is he seeing me unravel. He is seeing me unravel. Can’t be trusted. Never could. That’s how he’s mine. I could deny him but I keep him close and he watches with me, breathing heavy into the room. Micah turns his head thinking he’s heard something then withdraws from the thought and back into the touch of his lover.
She gingerly slides in a second finger, challenging the architecture of prostate. Wriggling round, she animates him more, increases the volume of his moans. Micah’s head shakes whipping his long blonde hair back and forth. Don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop don’t stop his manhood is hard implacable a peak at a peak. Why am I so interested in this? The workings of these bedrooms? What should anyone care about the workings of these bedrooms? They argue for it. His spasms of joy explain it again. So often they explain it and so often I return to watch this. The prettiest and ugliest of their behaviors. A dot of “yes” congeals upon the tip.
The third finger does not go in so easy. The third one is rapid and intense. She has pulled out the two and added the third abruptly. What is this? This seems like something I’d tell her to do or like something something like me would tell me to do. There is only one thing like me and that is me or there are two things like me and that is it. I like this, what she is doing, I like this, it’s right but I have to stop her, I rush toward her, I rush into her and call out for the intruder but the intruder can’t be found but she is still going, smile big, she is laughing and he is saying stop and trying to wriggle away like she had been but he cannot wriggle away, he has gotten weak and sleepy and she is strong she is suddenly so strong all things rerouted all blood recirculated into this invasive act. He is in pleasure, he is agony. He knows what this is like. This is justice. There should be no justice in fucking. It should be inherently fair, I have watched it so much, it should be inherently fair. This isn’t fair. Out out stop! Out out stop!
A fourth. He is crying out. He is screaming. Brian and Kaz should be able to hear but they know not to intervene when there are screams from this room. There are so often screams from this room that it is known as a place where screaming happens. This is a place where screaming happens. They are a place where screaming happens. He is a place where screaming happens and he wants her out. She is smiling she is giggling she is not listening she is elsewhere even as I look around inside her and try to find the song.
“Let her go! I scream at it! You’ll ruin this!”
It does not let her go. It does not listen. It slides her hand inside him and makes a fist and he is wide and he is suffering and he is cumming and he wants for her to stop and he screams for her to stop and he tries to find the word help but someone has stolen it from him. I cannot give it back. I am not in control. I am not in control here. Of me of them I am not in control here and I cannot let this be. You let him go. You let him go. You let her go. My pleas are inconsequential as their had been to me.
“What is this?” I ask.
It looks at me through Cytherea’s eyes and Cytherea’s grin and it speaks, the first words I’ve heard from it.
“You think you know of houses, you know nothing of houses. You only know of this house. There are so very many houses, wallsgod. I am here to help you. Acknowledge my beauty and strength and I will help you.”
“I won’t!” I hiss through Micah’s lips, asserting myself to slide him off of her and back on top of her. He takes the belt and shows her tits what’s what. He takes his cock and shows her insides what’s what, shoots her full of everything in his balls. It leaves and I leave and we leave them to wonder about the places where people scream.
Playing Doctor
Leah has drawn the circles. She is nervous again, shirt off, looking at her work. She sighs.
“I don’t know.”
Julie puts a hand on Leah’s shoulder.
“I think you look great just the way you are.”
And Julie knows that’s the worst she can say to her. She knows that Leah will think her feelings are being protected and if her feelings are being protected then what are they being protected from and why? Why are they being protected? If the way to her heart is open, then why is it vulnerable? There must be something she’s being spared. There can be just one thing she’s being spared. She’s been taking poor care of her body. She’s getting big. She has to be getting big. And these, they’re so thick and lumpy and ugly. Everyone thinks she’s lean and slick beneath the sweatshirts and sweaters.
“Can you hand me the scalpel?” says Leah.
“You know you don’t have to do this.”
But she does.
“I know. I don’t like this. I want it to stop.”
Julie says nothing. I can feel the anguish in her knowing that she must stay silent. I don’t understand this. She’ll get Leah back she can be with Leah everywhere if she just listens. Julie is sentimental, unlike me. I am never sentimental. I love nostalgia but I am never sentimental. She doesn’t want for it to be like this. She wants to see Leah happy now and free. That’ll never happen. She is so much mine already.
She hands Leah the scalpel. The ingrate pleads that this just isn’t right and that I don’t need this woman. If she’s so irrelevant, then why then is she loved? I’m not deceived. Julie can see that she must be good now so she hands Leah the scalpel. How much could Julie really have cared for her? Melodrama. Nothing but melodrama. As she hands over the weapon, it becomes clear where her loyalties lie. You were never loyal to anyone. You never loved her. You don’t care for these people at all. You should be grateful I let you betray them. You never had the courage to do it yourself now did you?
Leah makes the first incision. Ribbons of red. A smile. A semicircle. She bites her tongue, swallows copper, swallows hurt. She grabs the flask. She grabs the pills. She knows she’ll have to make the cut before they’ve done their business all the way. She swallows her scream. It will be worth it. What’s important is that she’s the best Leah she can be and the best Leah is unburdened by sacks of rancid gravy. Julie begs me to let her let her stop. I will not let her let stop. I have Julie and Julie has nothing to give me. She is fighting to say please stop this, she is fighting to say this is crazy. But she can’t say this is crazy. It can’t be.
She keeps cutting. Deeper, more thorough. Hurts so much it makes them quiet, stiff. It tells them they have nothing to look forward to. She doesn’t really know anyone with much to look forward to, not in school, not in this house. The cuts should be clean but her heart, her movements and motives aren’t, she goes too deep, a spray and then suddenly ragged tearing. She’ll never be a doctor. Lets the feelings get in the way.
“Leah, please...” says Julie, though just ahead I am showing her the oven and showing her the moments when we were at play and re
minding her whose she is. I could take her there but I actually don’t want to because being here will be worse for her and being here will educate her and she needs to be educated.
But the cuts are made, the strands of flesh and muscle that keep the breast in place have been completely severed. With her ungloved hand, she grabs the lump of now incoherent skin, squeezes, squeezes tighter and she pulls. She tosses the skin unceremoniously to the ground. She never cared for it. It wasn’t her. And behind the skin she finds the source of offense, adipose, detritus, bullshit. And she grabs onto a handful of tacky, amorphous yellow Leah, examining it almost in disbelief. Was this her? It wasn’t. And if it was, it can’t be anymore. It’s alien, it’s wrong and yet she takes in my whispers, listens to the ideas I present and knows what to do with the objectionable outsider ooze.
She shovels the little lump of tissue into her mouth, chews on it. She savors it. She almost contemplates what she’s missing. She’s thinking of food. Good. She can think of food again. Salt. Rust. Meat. Sugar. Salt. Rust. Meat. Sugar. She closes her eyes and imagines it isn’t her. She chews, savors and tries to down the lump of fat. She feels relieved, ecstatic, almost. She opens her eyes and looks again at all the ooze and oil before her and there is only one thing she can do. She reaches down into the carved breast, taking another mound of bloody fat and putting it into her delicate mouth.