“Oh wow,” I say. “That’s . . . amazing.”
“I think so, too. I’m glad they expanded into Manhattan.”
Behind her kind eyes, a gnarled mess of ancient, ugly thoughts writhes like the tails of a rat king. I’ve never seen so many in one place. They crawl from her mouth and ears, creeping through the air on deep-scaled legs, their voices like the drone of descending locusts.
I’m not her first. I can tell that already. But then, she isn’t mine, either.
I spend the evening sweating through my dress, nearly dropping my chopsticks. I can’t stop staring at the ugly thoughts, dropping from her lips like swollen beetles. They skitter over the tablecloth toward me, whispering obscenities at odds with Seo-yun’s gentle voice, hissing what they’d like to do to me. It takes everything in me not to pluck them from the table and crunch them deep between my teeth right then and there, to pour into her lap and rip her mind clean.
Seo-yun is too much for me, but I’m in too far, too hard; I need to have her.
She smiles at me. “Not hungry?”
I glance down at my plate. I’ve barely managed a couple of nigiri. “I’m on a diet,” I mutter.
“I understand,” she says earnestly. The ugly thoughts crawl over the tops of her hands, iridescent drops spilling into her soy sauce dish.
When the waiter finally disappears into the kitchen, I move in to kiss her across the table. She makes a startled noise, gentle pink spreading across her face, but she doesn’t pull away. My elbow sinks into the exoskeleton of one of the thought-beetles, crushing it into black, moist paste against my skin.
I open my mouth to take the first bite.
“So, I’m curious,” murmurs Seo-yun, her breath brushing my lips. “Who’s Aiko?”
My eyes snap open. Seo-yun smiles, her voice warm and tender, all her edges dark. “She seems sweet, that’s all. I’m surprised you haven’t had a taste of her yet.”
I back up so fast that I knock over my teacup, spilling scalding tea over everything. But Seo-yun doesn’t move, just keeps smiling that kind, gentle smile as her monstrous thoughts lap delicately at the tablecloth.
“She smells so ripe,” she whispers. “But you’re afraid you’ll ruin her, aren’t you? Eat her up, and for what? Just like your mum did your dad.”
No, no, no. I’ve miscalculated so badly. But I’m so hungry, and I’m too young, and she smells like ancient power. There’s no way I’ll be able to outrun her. “Get out of my head,” I manage to say.
“I’m not in your head, love. Your thoughts are spilling out everywhere around you, for everyone to see.” She leans in, propping her chin on her hand. The thoughts twisted around her head like a living crown let out a dry, rattling laugh. “I like you, Jenny. You’re ambitious. A little careless, but we can fix that.” Seo-yun taps on the table, and the waiter reappears, folding up the tablecloth deftly and sliding a single dish onto the now-bare table. An array of thin, translucent slices fan out across the plate, pale and glistening with malice. Bisected eyes glint, mouths caught mid-snarl, from every piece. “All it takes is a little practice and discipline, and no one will know what you’re really thinking.”
“On the house, of course, Ma’am,” the waiter murmurs. Before he disappears again, I catch a glimpse of dark, many-legged thoughts braided like a bracelet around his wrist.
Seo-yun takes the first bite, glancing up at me from behind her glasses. “Your mum was wrong,” she says. “She thought you were alone, just the two of you. So she taught you to only eat when you needed to, so you didn’t get caught, biding your time between meals like a snake.”
“You don’t know anything about me,” I say. The heady, rotten perfume from the dish in front of me makes my head spin with hunger.
“My mum was much the same. Eat for survival, not for pleasure.” She gestures at the plate with her chopsticks. “Please, have some.”
As the food disappears, I can only hold out for a few more slices before my chopsticks dart out, catching a piece for myself. It’s so acidic it makes my tongue burn and eyes itch, the aftertaste strangely sweet.
“Do you like it?”
I respond by wolfing down another two slices, and Seo-yun chuckles. Harvey is bland compared to this, this strangely distilled pairing of emotions—
I gasp as my body starts to warp, hands withering, burn scars twisting their way around my arms. Gasoline, malice, childish joy rush through me, a heady mix of memory and sensory overstimulation. And then Seo-yun’s lips are on mine, teeth tugging gently, swallowing, drawing it out of me. The burns fade, but the tingle of cruel euphoria lingers.
She wipes her mouth delicately. “Ate a little too fast, I think, dear,” she says. “My point, Jenny, is that I believe in eating for pleasure, not just survival. And communally, of course. There are a number of us who get together for dinner or drinks at my place, every so often, and I would love it if you would join us tonight. An eating club, of sorts.”
My gaze flickers up at her thoughts, but they’re sitting still as stones, just watching me with unblinking eyes. My mouth stings with the imprint of hers.
“Let me introduce you soon. You don’t have to be alone anymore.” As the waiter clears the plate and nods at her—no check, no receipt, nothing—Seo-yun adds, “And tonight doesn’t have to be over until we want it to be.” She offers me her hand. After a moment’s hesitation, I take it. It’s smaller than mine, and warm.
“Yes, please,” I say, watching her thoughts instead of her face.
As we leave the restaurant, she presses her lips to my forehead. Her lips sear into my skin, nerves singing white-hot with ecstasy. “They’re going to love you,” she says.
We’ll have so much fun, say the thoughts curling through her dark hair.
She hails a cab from the fleet circling the street like wolves, and we get inside.
* * *
I run into Aiko two months later in front of my apartment, as I’m carrying the last box of my stuff out. She’s got a startled look on her face, and she’s carrying a bag stuffed with ramps, kaffir lime, heart of palm—all ingredients I wouldn’t have known two months ago, before meeting Seo-yun. “You’re moving?”
I shrug, staring over her head, avoiding her eyes. “Yeah, uh. I’m seeing someone now, and she’s got a really nice place.”
“Oh.” She swallows, shifts the bag of groceries higher on her hip. “That’s great. I didn’t know you were dating anybody.” I can hear her shaky smile. “She must be feeding you well. You look healthier.”
“Thanks,” I say, though I wonder. It’s true, I’m sleeker, more confident now. I’m barely home any more, spending most of my time in Seo-yun’s Chelsea apartment, learning to cook with the array of salts and spices infused with ugly dreams, drinking wine distilled from deathbed confessions. My time stalking the streets for small-time criminals is done. But why has my confidence evaporated the moment I see Aiko? And if that ravenous hunger from Harvey is gone, why am I holding my breath to keep from breathing in her scent?
“So what’s she like?”
“Older, kind of—” kind of looks like you “—short. Likes to cook, right.” I start to edge past her. “Listen, this box is heavy and the van’s waiting for me downstairs. I should go.”
“Wait,” Aiko says, grabbing my arm. “Your mom keeps calling me. She still has my number from . . . before. She’s worried about you. Plus I haven’t seen you in ages, and you’re just gonna take off?”
Aiko, small and humble. Her hands smell like home, like rice flour and bad memories. How could I ever have found that appealing?
“We don’t need to say goodbye. I’m sure I’ll see you later,” I lie, shrugging her off.
“Let’s get dinner sometime,” says Aiko, but I’m already walking away.
* * *
Caterers flit like blackbirds through the apartment, dark uniforms neatly pressed, their own ugly thoughts braided and pinned out of the way. It’s a two-story affair, and well-dressed people floc
k together everywhere there’s space, Seo-yun’s library upstairs to the living room on ground floor. She’s even asked the caterers to prepare some of my recipes, which makes my heart glow. “You’re the best,” I say, kneeling on the bed beside her and pecking her on the cheek.
Seo-yun smiles, fixing my hair. She wears a sleek, deep blue dress, and today, her murderous thoughts are draped over her shoulders like a stole, a living, writhing cape. Their teeth glitter like tiny diamonds. I’ve never seen her so beautiful. “They’re good recipes. My friends will be so excited to taste them.”
I’ve already met many of them, all much older than I am. They make me nervous. “I’ll go check on the food,” I say.
She brushes her thumb over my cheek. “Whatever you’d like, love.”
I escape into the kitchen, murmuring brief greetings to the guests I encounter on the way. Their hideous dreams adorn them like jewels, glimmering and snatching at me as I slip past. As I walk past some of the cooks, I notice a man who looks vaguely familiar. “Hey,” I say.
“Yes, ma’am?” The caterer turns around, and I realize where I’ve seen him; there’s a picture of him and Aiko on her cellphone, the pair of them posing in front of a display at a big event they’d cooked for. My heartbeat slows.
“Aren’t you Aiko’s coworker?”
He grins and nods. “Yes, I’m Jimmy. Aiko’s my business partner. Are you looking for her?”
“Wait, she’s here?”
He frowns. “She should be. She never misses one of Ms. Sun’s parties.” He smiles. “Ms. Sun lets us take home whatever’s left when the party winds down. She’s so generous.”
I turn abruptly and head for the staircase to the bedroom, shouldering my way through the crowd. Thoughts pelt me as I go: Has Aiko known about me, my ma, what we can do? How long has she known? And worse—Seo-yun’s known all along about Aiko, and played me for a fool.
I bang the bedroom door open to find Aiko sprawled out across the carpet, her jacket torn open. Seo-yun crouches on the floor above her in her glorious dress, her mouth dark and glittering. She doesn’t look at all surprised to see me.
“Jenny, love. I hope you don’t mind we started without you.” Seo-yun smiles. Her lipstick is smeared over her chin, over Aiko’s blank face. I can’t tell if Aiko’s still breathing.
“Get away from her,” I say in a low voice.
“As you wish.” She rises gracefully, crossing the room in fluid strides. “I was done with that particular morsel, anyway.” The sounds of the party leak into the room behind me, and I know I can’t run and grab Aiko at the same time.
So I shut the door, locking it, and mellow my voice to a sweet purr. “Why didn’t you tell me about Aiko? We could have shared her together.”
But Seo-yun just laughs at me. “You can’t fool me, Jenny. I can smell your rage from across the room.” She reaches out, catches my face, and I recoil into the door. “It makes you so beautiful. The last seasoning in a dish almost ready.”
“You’re insane, and I’m going to kill you,” I say. She kisses my neck, her teeth scraping my throat, and the scent of her is so heady my knees almost bend.
“I saw you in her head, delicious as anything,” she whispers. Her ugly thoughts hiss up my arms, twining around my waist. There’s a sharp sting at my wrist, and I look down to discover that one of them is already gnawing at my skin. “And I knew I just had to have you.”
There’s a crash, and Seo-yun screams as a porcelain lamp shatters against the back of her head. Aiko’s on her feet, swaying unsteadily, face grim. “Back the fuck away from her,” she growls, her voice barely above a whisper.
“You little bitch—” snarls Seo-yun.
But I seize my chance and pounce, fastening my teeth into the hollow of Seo-yun’s throat, right where her mantle of thoughts gathers and folds inward. I chew and swallow, chew and swallow, gorging myself on this woman. Her thoughts are mine now, thrashing as I seize them from her, and I catch glimpses of myself, of Aiko, and of many others just like us, in various states of disarray, of preparation.
Ma once told me that this was how Baba went; she’d accidentally drained him until he’d faded completely out of existence. For the first time in my life, I understand her completely.
Seo-yun’s bracelets clatter to the floor, her empty gown fluttering soundlessly after. Aiko collapses too, folding like paper.
It hurts to take in that much. My stomach hurts so bad, my entire body swollen with hideous thoughts. At the same time, I’ve never felt so alive, abuzz with possibility and untamable rage.
I lurch over to Aiko on the floor, malice leaking from her mouth, staining the carpet. “Aiko, wake up!” But she feels hollow, lighter, empty. She doesn’t even smell like herself any more.
A knock at the door jolts me. “Ma’am,” says a voice I recognize as the head caterer. “The first of the main courses is ready. Mr. Goldberg wants to know if you’ll come down and give a toast.”
Fuck. “I—” I start to say, but the voice isn’t mine. I glance over at the mirror; sure enough, it’s Seo-yun staring back at me, her dark, terrible dreams tangled around her body in a knotted mess. “I’ll be right there,” I say, and lay Aiko gently on the bed. Then I dress and leave, my heart pounding in my mouth.
I walk Seo-yun’s shape down the stairs to the dining room, where guests are milling about, plates in hand, and smile Seo-yun’s smile. And if I look a little too much like myself, well—according to what I’d seen while swallowing Seo-yun’s thoughts, I wouldn’t be the first would-be inductee to disappear at a party like this. Someone hands me a glass of wine, and when I take it, my hand doesn’t tremble, even though I’m screaming inside.
Fifty pairs of eyes on me, the caterers’ glittering cold in the shadows. Do any of them know? Can any of them tell?
“To your continued health, and to a fabulous dinner,” I say, raising my glass. As one, they drink.
* * *
Seo-yun’s apartment is dark, cleared of guests and wait staff alike. Every door is locked, every curtain yanked closed.
I’ve pulled every jar, every container, every pot and pan out of the kitchen, and now they cover the floor of the bedroom, trailing into the hallway, down the stairs. Many are full, their malignant contents hissing and whispering hideous promises at me as I stuff my hand in my mouth, retching into the pot in my lap.
Aiko lies on the bed, pale and still. There’s flour and bile on the front of her jacket. “Hang in there,” I whisper, but she doesn’t respond. I swirl the pot, searching its contents for any hint of Aiko, but Seo-yun’s face grins out at me from the patterns of light glimmering across the liquid’s surface. I shove it away from me, spilling some on the carpet.
I grab another one of the myriad crawling thoughts tangled about me, sinking my teeth into its body, tearing it into pieces as it screams and howls terrible promises, promises it won’t be able to keep. I eat it raw, its scales scraping the roof of my mouth, chewing it thoroughly. The more broken down it is, the easier it will be to sort through the pieces that are left when it comes back up.
How long did you know? Did you always know?
I’ll find her, I think as viscous black liquid pours from my mouth, over my hands, burning my throat. The field of containers pools around me like a storm of malicious stars, all whispering my name. She’s in here somewhere, I can see her reflection darting across their surfaces. If I have to rip through every piece of Seo-yun I have, from her dreams to the soft, freckled skin wrapped around my body, I will. I’ll wring every vile drop of Seo-yun out of me until I find Aiko, and then I’ll fill her back up, pour her mouth full of herself.
How could I ever forget her? How could I forget her taste, her scent, something as awful and beautiful as home?
ABOUT THE RHYSLING AND DWARF STARS AWARDS
The Rhysling Awards are given each year by the Science Fiction Poetry Association (SFPA), in recognition of the best science fiction, fantasy, or horror poems of the year. Each year, member
s of SFPA nominate works that are compiled into an annual anthology; members then vote to select winners from the anthology’s contents. The award is given in two categories: works of fifty or more lines are eligible for Best Long Poem, and works shorter than that are eligible for Best Short Poem. Additionally, SFPA gives the Dwarf Stars Award to a poem of ten or fewer lines.
This year’s winners (in order of their appearance in this anthology) are: Rhysling Award for Best Short Poem, “Shutdown” by Marge Simon (page 117), Dwarf Star Award, “abandoned nursing home” by Greg Schwartz (page 119), and Rhysling Award for Best Long Poem, “100 Reasons to Have Sex with an Alien” by F. J. Bergmann (page 243).
RHYSLING AWARD WINNER
BEST SHORT POEM
SHUTDOWN
MARGE SIMON
Marge Simon lives in Ocala, Florida and is married to Bruce Boston. She edits a column for the HWA Newsletter, “Blood & Spades: Poets of the Dark Side,” and serves as Chair of the Board of Trustees. She won the Strange Horizons Readers’ Choice Award, 2010, the SFPA’s Dwarf Stars Award, 2012, and the Elgin Award for best poetry collection, 2015. She has won the Bram Stoker Award ® for Poetry, the Rhysling Award and the Grand Master Award from the SF Poetry Association, 2015. Her new collection with Mary A. Turzillo, Satan’s Sweethearts (Weasel Press), is upcoming in 2017. Marge also has work in the anthology Scary Out There, a story and poems in You, Human (Dark Regions Press), and fiction in Chiral Mad 4. www.margesimon.com.
They barred the library doors today.
Men in uniform stand patrol, armed and ready
their lantern jaws firm, lips a straight line.
Stoic women, also armed, jog up and down
the block, buttocks moving like pistons.
Someone dashes from a building
a hand-held reader clutched close.
Shots are fired; I don’t stay to find out more.
I’ve packed the car with books, little room for else.
Nebula Awards Showcase 2017 Page 12