Skin Folk

by Nalo Hopkinson

  Once her shaking hands had managed to pick up the shards of plastic casing, Samantha headed for the garbage can in the kitchen.

  She froze in the living room. The lilies were bare stalks, dried petals scattered all over the room as if they had been windblown. Like dead men’s hair, withered wisps clung to the cotton-plant stick. The odour of water-rotted vegetation seeped into Samantha’s nostrils.

  “Your daddy sorry he didn’t get to see you before he leave. He fly to Ottawa this morning, some conference or something. How things at work, sweetheart?” Samantha’s mother fed layered squares of cloth and quilt batting under the sewing machine needle. Her sewing room took up half the basement, ceiling-high shelves of patterned cloth towering over a high-tech sewing machine encrusted with knobs, flashing lights, and diagrams. Samantha could remember any number of Sunday afternoons like this, herself and her mother cutting squares and triangles of fabric for quilts, chatting in the rhythms of her parents’ birthplace that felt so easy in her mouth.

  “Work okay. Not too nice sometimes. Come weekend, I don’t feel to do nothing but sleep. But at least I have a job, right? Mummy, you know that song? The one that go, ‘Sammy dead, Sammy dead’?”

  “I used to sing it to you when you was small.” Her mother snapped the pressure foot of the sewing machine down to hold the quilt in place, stood up, and arched her back to relieve the soreness. “You want some pimiento liqueur? Your grandfather just bring me some of his latest batch.” Samantha nodded. Her mother walked over to the wet bar on the other side of the room and lifted out the cut-glass decanter. Ruby liquid sloshed inside it. When she removed the stopper, a warm, spicy scent floated up from the bottle.

  Samantha’s mother poured a measure of the liqueur into each of two brandy glasses. Sam accepted one, took a sip. The sweet, musky brew slid heavily down her throat, calming her. “What that song about, Mummy? Where it come from?”

  “Is a old Jamaican song. I not too certain what about. It come from slavery days, and Papa tell me he think Sammy was a slave who had to work so hard it kill him. You should ask your grandfather—I teach maths, not history. Why you want to know?”

  “No real reason. I just keep thinking about it a lot nowadays.”

  Mrs. Lewis smiled. “That song is so sad, but I loved it when I was a girl. Is Papa used to sing it to me. He tell me when I have children, I must sing it to them, so they wouldn’t forget. It make me think of home. When I get pregnant with you, I tell your father that we was going to name you Sam or Samantha.”

  Great. Poor Sammy, worked to death.

  Her mother’s dinner had been wonderful, as usual. Samantha had lingered late, nibbling at the leftovers and hoping that if she just waited another half hour, she’d have room for that last slice of fried plantain. Replete, she dozed on the subway ride home, and didn’t wake up until Dundas, one stop too far south. No matter. It wasn’t a long walk. It was after 11 P.M. when she came up out of the subway station and started walking in the direction of her building.

  Although never quite deserted, the downtown streets were still and quiet tonight. The windows of the roti shop were dark. As Samantha passed the fountain of the Polytechnic, she had the odd sensation that cotton wool had been stuffed in her ears, so softly did the spray of water fall back into the pond. The hookers strutting in front of the all-night burger place seemed morose, their usual banter with each other and their customers lacklustre. The long, empty stretch of pavement gleamed in the streetlight. It spooked her. Samantha decided to cut through the small park instead. It would be quicker, and it was brightly lit. She stepped onto the park grounds. There were the usual straggly knots of people gathered around the various benches under the trees; smoking up, cruising, or just hanging out. Sam started to feel a little better for having people around her. She kept going, left the section where the park benches were. In the dark, she could just make out the row of brass rectangles embedded along the perimeter of the park, plaques dedicated by people who had planted trees in memory of loved ones who had died. The trees danced and waved eerily at her. Samantha sped up. She rounded the big tree growing at the park’s edge. She turned to check for traffic before crossing Carlton Street, and tripped on the uneven ground. She tumbled. Felt a sharp pain across the side of her skull as it cracked against a root of the tree. Then blackness.

  … well, those tombs arounn the cottn tree, and I inside the cottn tree lay down. And at night-time I see the cottn tree light up with candles and I resting now, put me hand this way and sleeping…

  “Hey, girl, you all right? That was some fall you took.”

  The chill of the icy earth made Samantha shiver. She opened her eyes to find two women bent over her. She was sitting with her back against the trunk of the tree that had tripped her. Stunned from the blow to her head, she stared bemusedly at the Day-Glo pink micro-mini one of the women was wearing. Hot pink was not her saviour’s best colour. “I think I’m okay. Can you help me up?”

  … and I only hear a likkle voice come to me. And them talking to me, but those things is spirit talking to me, and them speaking to me now, and say now:

  “Sure.” They helped her to her feet, their six-inch stilettos sinking into the thawing earth as they did so. The throbbing in Samantha’s head was incredible, like someone pounding behind her eyes, trying to get out. Strangely, though, she could now hear very clearly, and the night had a pellucid clarity that let her see right to the other side of the park, even through the darkness. The gently swaying oaks and maples now seemed venerable, not threatening. Samantha took a few deep breaths. The headache began to lessen. The woman in the Day-Glo mini smelt like apple blossoms. “I’m going to be all right. Thanks for helping me.”

  “Is a likkle nice likkle child, and who going get she right up now in the h’African world?

  “Because you brains, you will take something, so therefore we going to teach you something.”

  “You sure? Maybe you should go to Emerge?”

  Emerge. Oh, the emergency room. “’S’okay. If I start to feel sick I will, promise. But my home’s right over there.”

  Samantha crossed the street safely this time. Five minutes later, she was in her apartment. The headache was completely gone, but she was still chilled and a little shaky.

  Well, the first thing that them teach me is s’wikkidi; s’wikkidi lango, which is sugar and water, see? And them teach me that.

  S’wikkidi lango. Yeah. At that moment, Sammie knew what to do for her chills. She went to the kitchen, put the kettle on to boil, fetched the ginger root from the crisper of the fridge and the Demerara sugar in its cookie tin from the cupboard, along with the nutmeg. As she waited for the water to boil, she heaped the sticky brown crystals into the bottom of her largest mug, then grated ginger and nutmeg into it. She filled the mug with boiling water and took it into her bedroom, where she changed into an oversized T-shirt while the infusion steeped. Sitting up in bed, Samantha clutched the mug to her and inhaled the spicy steam. She looked through the pages of the book while she did, at gold and silver, brass and copper: beauty made by hands, like her mother’s quilt. Like the empty vase that now sat on her coffee table. She wondered what she could fill it with.

  She sipped slowly at the tea until she had drunk it all, then put the mug on her bedside table and drifted into peaceful sleep.

  Samantha strolled into work at 10 o’clock the next morning. It had taken longer at the university temp agency than she’d thought. She didn’t worry about it. Because you brains.

  Camille smiled and shook her head as Samantha walked by the reception desk. “Barnes has been asking for you. You were supposed to be in at eight-thirty.”

  “Yeah, I know.”

  As she passed Grant’s cubicle, he stuck his head out. No cotton this morning. “Were you sick or something?” he asked.

  “No, I’m fine.” She went into her cubicle, dumped her coat, turned on her computer, started typing. The counsellor at the community college had said she stood a good chan
ce of getting in, that it was never a very full course.

  We going to teach you something. And them teach me my prayers, which is:

  Dear Ms. Barnes: It is with regret that I tender my resignation…

  She printed the letter, slid it under Barnes’s door. From inside, she could hear the creak of her boss’s chair as she got up to investigate. Samantha went back to her cubicle, fished the course calendar out of her purse, and started to leaf through it. Two years to a certificate in goldsmithing, and she could take an elective in forging iron.

  Toronto bags its trees in winter; New York ties theirs down. Tree bondage must be some kind of weird city thing.

  WHOSE UPWARD FLIGHT I LOVE

  That fall, a storm hailed down unseasonable screaming winds and fists of pounding rain. The temperature plummeted through a wet ululating night that blew in early winter. Morning saw all edges laced with frost.

  In the city’s grove, the only place where live things, captured, still grew from earth, the trees thrashed, roots heaving at the soil.

  City parks department always got the leavings. Their vans were prison surplus, blocky, painted happy green. The growing things weren’t fooled.

  Parks crew arrived, started throwing tethers around the lower branches, hammering the other ends of twisted metal cables into the fast-freezing ground to secure the trees. Star-shaped leaves flickered and flashed in butterfly-winged panic. Branches tossed.

  One tree escaped before they could reach it; yanked its roots clear of the gelid soil, and flapping its leafy limbs, leapt frantically for the sky. A woman of the crew shouted and jumped for it. Caught a long, trailing root as the tree rose above her. For a second she hung on. Then the root tore away in her hand and the tree flew free. Its beating branches soughed at the air.

  The woman landed heavily, knees bowing and thighs flexing at the impact. She groaned, straightened, stared at the length of root she was clutching in her garden glove. Liver-red, it wriggled like a worm. Its clawed tip scratched feebly. A dark liquid welled from its broken end. “We always lose a few when this happens,” she said. The man with her just stared at the thing in her hand.

  The tree was gaining altitude, purple leaves catching the light as it winged its way to its warmer-weathered homeland. She dropped the root. He tried to kick dirt over it, his boot leaving dull indentations in the earth. Then he gave a shout, not of surprise exactly, rushed to another tree that had worked most of its roots whipping out of the soil. She ran to help. Cursing, they dodged flailing foliage, battened down the would-be escapee.

  He panted at her, “So, you and Derek still fighting?”

  Her heart tossed briefly. She hogtied the faint, familiar dismay. “No, we worked it out again.”

  And Derek would stay, again. They would soldier on. And quarrel again, neither sure whether they battled to leave each other or stay.

  A burgundy gleam on the powder-dusted ground caught her eye. The severed root was crawling jerkily, trying to follow in the direction its tree had gone.

  The song “Weakness for Sweetness,” copyright 1996, is quoted with the gracious permission of singer Natalie Burke and composer Leston Paul.

  GANGER (BALL LIGHTNING)

  Issy?”

  “What.”

  “Suppose we switch suits?” Cleve asked.

  Is what now? From where she knelt over him on their bed, Issy slid her tongue from Cleve’s navel, blew on the wetness she’d made there. Cleve sucked in a breath, making the cheerful pudge of his tummy shudder. She stroked its fuzzy pelt.

  “What,” she said, looking up at him, “you want me wear your suit and you wear mine?” This had to be the weirdest yet.

  He ran a finger over her lips, the heat of his touch making her mouth tingle. “Yeah,” he replied. “Something so.”

  Issy got up to her knees, both her plump thighs on each side of his massive left one. She looked appraisingly at him. She was still mad from the fight they’d just had. But a good mad. She and Cleve, fighting always got them hot to make up. Had to be something good about that, didn’t there? If they could keep finding their way back to each other like this? Her business if she’d wanted to make candy, even if the heat of the August night made the kitchen a hell. She wondered what the rass he was up to now.

  They’d been fucking in the Senstim Co-operation’s “wetsuits” for about a week. The toys had been fun for the first little while—they’d had more sex this week than in the last month—but even with the increased sensitivity, she was beginning to miss the feel of his skin directly against hers. “It not going work,” Issy declared. But she was curious.

  “You sure?” Cleve asked teasingly. He smiled, stroked her naked nipple softly with the ball of his thumb. She loved the contrast between his shovel-wide hands and the delicate movements he performed with them. Her nipple poked erect, sensitive as a tongue tip. She arched her back, pushed the heavy swing of her breast into fuller contact with the ringed ridges of thumb.

  “Mmm.”

  “C’mon, Issy, it could be fun, you know.”

  “Cleve, they just going key themselves to our bodies. The innie become a outie, the outie become a innie…”

  “Yeah, but…”

  “But what?”

  “They take a few minutes to conform to our body shapes, right? Maybe in that few minutes…”

  He’d gone silent, embarrassment shutting his open countenance closed; too shy to describe the sensation he was seeking. Issy sighed in irritation. What was the big deal? Fuck, cunt, cock, come: simple words to say. “In that few minutes, you’d find out what it feels like to have a poonani, right?”

  A snatch. He looked shy and aroused at the same time. “Yeah, and you’d, well, you know.”

  He liked it when she talked “dirty.” But just try to get him to repay the favour. Try to get him to buzzingly whisper hot-syrup words against the sensitive pinna of her ear until she shivered with the sensation of his mouth on her skin, and the things he was saying, the nerve impulses he was firing, spilled from his warm lips at her earhole and oozed down her spine, cupped the bowl of her belly, filled her crotch with heat. That only ever happened in her imagination.

  Cleve ran one finger down her body, tracing the faint line of hair from navel past the smiling crease below her tummy to pussy fur. Issy spread her knees a little, willing him to explore further. His fingertip tunneled through her pubic hair, tapped at her clit, making nerves sing. Ah, ah. She rocked against his thigh. What would it be like to have the feeling of entering someone’s clasping flesh? “Okay,” she said. “Let’s try it.”

  She picked up Cleve’s stim. So diaphanous you could barely see it, but supple as skin and thrice as responsive. Cocked up onto one elbow, Cleve watched her with a slight smile on his face. Issy loved the chubby chocolate-brown beauty of him, his fatcat grin.

  Chortling, she wriggled into the suit, careful to ease it over the bandage on her heel. The company boasted that you couldn’t tell the difference between the microthin layer of the wetsuits and bare skin. Bullshit. Like taking a shower with your clothes on. The suits made you feel more, but it was a one-way sensation. They dampened the sense of touch. It was like being trapped inside your own skin, able to sense your response to stimuli but not to feel when you had connected with the outside world.

  Over the week of use, Cleve’s suit had shaped itself to his body. The hips were tight on Issy, the flat chest part pressed her breasts against her rib cage. The shoulders were too broad, the middle too baggy. It sagged at knees, elbows, and toes. She giggled again.

  “Never mind the peripherals,” Cleve said, lumbering to his feet. “No time.” He picked up her suit. “Just leave them hanging.”

  Just as well. Issy hated the way that the roll-on headpiece trapped her hair against her neck, covered her ears, slid sensory tendrils into her earholes. It amplified the sounds when her body touched Cleve’s. It grossed her out. What would Cleve want to do next to jazz the skins up?

  As the suit hyped the p
leasure zones on her skin surface, Issy could feel herself getting wet, the mixture of arousal and vague distaste a wetsuit gave her. The marketing lie was that the suits were “consensual aids to full body aura alignment,” not sex toys. Yeah, right. Psychobabble. She was being diddled by an oversized condom possessed of fuzzy logic. She pulled it up to her neck. The stim started to writhe, conforming itself to her shape. Galvanic peristalsis, they called its ability to move. Yuck.

  “Quick,” Cleve muttered. He was jamming his lubed cock at a tube in the suit, the innie part of it that would normally have slid itself into her vagina, the part that had been smooth the first time she’d taken it out of its case, but was now shaped the way she was shaped inside. Cleve pushed and pushed until the everted pocket slid over his cock. He lay back on the bed, his erection a jutting rudeness. “Oh. Wow. That’s different. Is so it feels for you?”

  Oh, sweet. Issy quickly followed Cleve’s lead, spreading her knees to push the outie part of his wetsuit inside her. It was easy. She was slippery, every inch of her skin stimmed with desire. She palmed some lube from the bottle into the suit’s pouched vagina. They had to hurry. She straddled him, slid onto his cock, making the tube of one wetsuit slither smoothly into the tunnel of the other. Cleve closed his eyes, blew a small breath through pursed lips.

  So, so hot. “God, it’s good,” Issy muttered. Like being fucked, only she had an organ to push back with. Cleve just panted heavily, silently. As always. But what a rush! She swore she could feel Cleve’s tight hot cunt closing around her dick. She grabbed his shoulders for traction. The massy, padded flesh of them filled her hands; steel encased in velvet.

  The ganger looked down at its ghostly hands. Curled them into fists. Lightning sparked between the translucent fingers as they closed. It reached a crackling hand towards Cleve’s shuddering body on the bathroom floor.