Circe

by Jessica Penot

  “You don’t respect me because I believe in something outside the confines of the natural universe. Because I believe in a power higher than myself? Then you must hate 90% of this country. Most of us believe in something beyond ourselves, God, Allah, and Buddha.”

  “This isn’t faith. This is…what is this? Why did you bring me down here? What the fuck do you want from me? You led me to believe that you felt something for me. And now I find out what? That you wanted me to be in your occult club? What? I can’t pretend to understand what is going on or what has gone on between us. I’m leaving and our relationship, whatever it was, is over. Oh, and my wife and I won’t be coming to dinner at your house tomorrow night.”

  I headed towards the door, but turned back as I realized I had no light to guide me out. Cassie sat quietly with her back pushed up against the wall. She seemed as calm as ever. She could just as easily have been in her office, rather than sitting surrounded by a mess of archaic symbols next to an altar decorated with a skull.

  She stood up suddenly and threw something on the floor. It was a jar of something I couldn’t make out in the dying light. The glass shattered on the hard ground and Cassie whispered something under her breath. She took her hair down and looked at me with her blinding blue eyes. She smiled as she whispered and walked towards me as sweetly as a cat approaching its prey.

  “You need help,” I said.

  “This isn’t what you think. What I do here isn’t some hippie Wiccan love rite or petty Satanic pledge. There is power here and it wants you. It chose you.”

  “I don’t need to hear this. I don’t need to know this. I don’t want to know this. Why did you bring me here? Did you think I would join in? Appreciate the artistic beauty of your faith? I have no faith, and I believe that holding odd cultist sanctuaries beneath your patients is unethical and completely inappropriate. What could have possibly possessed you?”

  “It chose you, Eric.”

  “How can someone so educated be so irrational? Do you entirely lack the capacity to reason?”

  “It’s already too late, Eric. The wheel has turned. You aren’t the first and you won’t be the last. You're one of us now.”

  “What the hell are you talking about?”

  She moved forward slowly, dropping her clothes as she approached. A mixture of emotions rose up in my gut. Hate, disgust, fear, apprehension—but foremost was lust. Her tiny, lithe figure appeared to be carved from ivory in the dim light. There was no fat on her body, every rib stood up in aching testimony to her perfection. Her breasts were perfectly formed and her waxen hair spilled over them like the ocean rippling over a sandy beach. Her pale blue eyes glowed with a preternatural aggression on the white slate that was her face. She was sublime.

  “You see,” she whispered into my ear. “Every rational part of you is now telling you to run. But you’re only a caged animal, so you’ll fuck me right here, in this place you detest, while your pregnant wife weeps alone at home.”

  She bit me and spat my blood on the floor. I hit her and she fell backwards. She was so small I felt like I was hitting a child. She stood up and placed her cold hand on my leg.

  “Why are you doing this?” My question had become a dry sob. I didn’t want this. I hated her and I hated myself. Every other woman I had cheated on Pria with had been an unknown fling. Cassie was my boss. Cassie was crazy. Cassie was the embodiment of everything I despised and everything I had grown to desire. It didn’t matter. All I could taste was the blood in her mouth and all I could think about was the way her hand was slowly crawling up my leg. I couldn’t breathe or think. I could only feel. Her breath in my hair, on my chest. My hand on her hard body. She felt so different from Pria. She was all rough angles and bones. There was no give, no surrender. Only bone and muscle with a little bit of flesh. It ended so quickly I hardly knew it happened. She came and I followed and then she sighed.

  “It’s done,” she whispered.

  “You’re a nasty little bitch,” I said.

  “I’m a monster, just like you.”

  “I’m no monster.”

  “How can you believe that? After all the pretty girls you’ve used and broken? How can you say you aren’t a monster?”

  I pushed her off me and started to put my clothes back on. My head was throbbing and my legs were weak. Every bone in my body ached. Cassie hadn’t been tender. There were bruises on my arms and bite marks on my shoulder. I felt drained. I closed my eyes and put my head in my hands.

  “You should get home to your beloved wife,” Cassie said as she lit a cigarette.

  “Fuck you.”

  “I just did.”

  “I need you to take me out. You have the flashlight.”

  “Give me a minute to enjoy the quiet after the storm.”

  “How many men have you brought down here to do this?”

  “Only you.”

  “Well, at least I’m special.”

  “Why don’t you come to a conference with me next weekend in New Orleans?”

  “I’m considering telling Babcock about this.”

  “It’s three days on nonpharmicological treatments for the negative symptoms of schizophrenia. You could benefit from a refresher.”

  “We can’t do this.”

  “Why can’t we? What’s the problem here? What do you really want? It isn’t me you’re angry at. Be honest with yourself. If you could have anything in the world right now, what would it be?”

  I could see my wife going away in my mind and the baby with her. I wanted to be free again. I wanted to be free of everything. I longed for a place of peace, where there was no Pria or baby. I wanted to climb mountains. I wanted to climb and summit. I didn’t want her behind me gasping for air. I wanted Cassie. I wanted her hard places and bony angles. I wanted her tight, pale flesh. All these images flashed through my mind. I knew that for a long time I had wanted to be rid of Pria. I didn’t want to be a father or a husband. I wanted to unleash the worst parts of myself.

  But even as the thoughts entered my mind, I pushed them pack. I hated them and I hated myself for them. “I just want to be happy with my wife,” I said.

  “Who do you think you’re kidding? You didn’t sleep with the peacock in New Orleans because you loved your wife.”

  “How do you know about the peacock?”

  “Circe told me.”

  “Please stop this shit now. If I go to New Orleans with you, will you stop all this magic crap?”

  “Of course.”

  I leaned over and stroked her cheek. She looked so small and alone. She was sitting in the middle of the floor, completely naked, surrounded by cold tile and filth. If I had walked in upon her without any knowledge of events, I would have thought she was a rape victim. There was a bruise on her cheek where I had hit her. It occurred to me that maybe she was just a lonely middle aged woman. She could have been someone who had given up love and family for work, and now all she could do was lure the few men she made contact with to her insane shrine in a feeble attempt to seduce them, to force them to love her.

  “I’m sorry about that,” I whispered as I touched her bruised cheek.

  “It was only foreplay,” she said as she began to get dressed. She turned to me with an impish grin. “I like it rough.”

  “I’ll go to New Orleans with you next week, but I can’t bring my wife to your house for dinner and I can’t see you like this again between now and then.”

  “Why not?”

  “This setup you have here. It bothers me. I can’t say enough how unethical and wrong this is.”

  “Let’s go.”

  The walk back was as silent as the walk there. I parted from Cassie without saying anything. I couldn’t think of anything else to say. As I walked to my car, I saw a young woman sitting next to the peacock. She was dressed white and smiled at me as I walked by. She seemed vaguely familiar so I waved. She waved back. I didn’t stop to talk to her, but I will never forget her face. She was plain, but startling all at the s
ame time. Her skin was so pale it glowed in the moonlight, and her black eyes caught the light that rained down from the stars.

  I drove home alone, missing Andy’s endless prattle. I pulled up in front of my house and sat staring at the door for a long time. I couldn’t bring myself to go in and explain things to Pria. I couldn’t think of a believable lie. I couldn’t even think of an unbelievable lie. After a while, Pria’s form appeared in the doorway. She was wearing a track suit and her hair was tied back in a braid. She walked over the cold earth in her bare feet and tapped lightly on the car door.

  I opened the door and grabbed her, burying my face in her belly. She stroked my head. When I looked up at her, I could see shadows under her eyes. She looked tired and she had lost weight. She put her hand in mine and pulled me into the house. The house was messy. The dishes hadn’t been done and there was a potato chip bag on the coffee table.

  We sat on the sofa for some time just holding each other. I knew she was crying, but I couldn’t think of anything to say. I couldn’t imagine what she was thinking or feeling and I certainly didn’t know what I was feeling. I had never had much time for introspection. I didn’t like to sit around and question what kind of man I was. I believed in action. At that moment, I became lost in introspection. I couldn’t stand who I was or what I was doing to her. I was beginning to break down.

  “Where did you get the bite mark?” Pria asked.

  “A patient attacked me at work today. That’s why I’m so late. I’m just a little stunned. It was at the end of the day and I was doing an intake when, boom, this chick just launched at me from across the room. I must have really fucked up with her. I don’t know. I’ve got bruises and claw marks all over my arms and shoulders too.”

  “Oh, God!” Pria began to sob. It wasn’t like her to get so worked up. “I’m so sorry. You were hurt and I should have been worrying about you, but instead I’ve just been sitting here thinking about how you must be having an affair, and hating you. I’m so sorry! I always think the worst of you.”

  I pulled her so close to me I could feel her heart beating through her shirt. “You should never be sorry. You should never apologize to me. I’m not the man I should be and I have not helped you as much as I should. You’re pregnant, we’re having a baby and all I’ve done is mope around here feeling sorry for myself. Never apologize to me.”

  “No. It’s all me. I knew you didn’t want a baby. But, Eric, I wanted this baby so much that I was purposely forgetting my pills. I put this on you without even talking to you. I’ve just been so lonely lately. You’ve been so distant and I don’t know what’s going on. I just wish we could go back to being the way we were.”

  “I have a conference to go to next weekend, but after that I promise it’ll get better. I have a long Christmas holiday and we can go someplace and just get away from all this work. And this weekend we are going to the beach to see my brother and we can just sit in the sand and watch the waves crash.”

  “I thought we had to go to your boss’s house for dinner.”

  “Screw her. You’re what’s important to me.”

  She climbed on top of me and hugged me, pushing her face into my neck. “I love you so much. I’m just pregnant and I think I’m having some sort of hormone surge, I don’t know, I just don’t feel like myself. I’m sorry I’m so hysterical.”

  “You’re not hysterical. I shouldn’t work so much. I shouldn’t leave you alone so much.”

  “You know, while you were gone I think I started going a little crazy. Isn’t there some kind of pregnancy dementia? I think I had it.”

  I pushed her back so I could look at her face. “What do you mean?”

  “I was throwing-up in the bathroom and I washed my face and when I opened my eyes I saw this insanely hideous thing behind me. I knew pregnancy would be tough, but I don’t think it’s this hard on most women. I even called my mother I was so afraid.”

  “What thing?”

  “It kind of looked like a woman, but it was covered in bugs and something that looked like vomit. I don’t know. I’m probably fixated on vomiting because I can’t stop throwing up. I’ve lost ten pounds.”

  It had to be a coincidence. Something I had described to her from my dreams had manifested itself in her nutrition-deprived brain in the form of a hallucination. “What does your Ob/Gyn say about all this weight loss?”

  “He says some women just have more difficulties than others, and he gave me some medicine to make me less sick, but it makes me so tired I don’t take it all the time.”

  “I’m coming with you to your next visit. When is it?”

  “Tomorrow.”

  “I’ll call Cassie now and ask for tomorrow off.”

  The phone call was stilted and short. I told Cassie that I was sick. I lied and she knew it. She seemed happy to give me the day and didn’t ask any questions, but I knew she knew I wasn’t sick. I called Andy too and told her that I would start carpooling again next Monday. I explained to her that I had laid down the law with Cassie and that there would be no more long work days. Andy seemed jubilant and was equally as excited that I was having a baby. She even asked to talk with Pria. She offered Pria her help with anything she might need and volunteered to host a baby shower.

  I finally felt normal. I had just bragged to a coworker about the conception of my baby. I was reacting the way Pria had wanted me to react from the beginning. That night as we lay in bed I stroked Pria’s flat belly. I only had two weeks left before I was done working with Cassie forever. After that nothing would matter. We would survive this and I would work with Dr. Clement and I would become the perfect husband and father. How much could go wrong in two weeks? I would spend the weekend with Cassie and get her out of my system. I would fuck her until she was nothing but a moaning lump of flesh and then I would spit her out. I would be left with only disgust at her absurdity. The dreams would stop. The anxiety would melt away and I would help Pria shop for houses in Foley. We would move in early and decorate the nursery. Time would pass and all of this would be a joke. A testament to my moral weakness.

  I fell asleep with my hand on her belly, thinking of Pria nursing our baby. When I awoke, Pria was in the bathroom again. I got up to get her a glass of water and stood in the kitchen, waiting for her to come out. I assumed I was still asleep. The tiny creature crept up onto the kitchen counter as naturally as a cat. It didn’t seem out of place or extraordinary. It was reptilian, but also insect-like. It wasn’t monstrous, just unnatural. It looked at me with its strangely reptilian eyes and blinked.

  It carried itself like a cat and its serpentine tail waved back and forth lazily. It regarded me casually, as if it was waiting for me to give it a treat. I dropped the water glass and stood watching it, waiting to wake up. It cried a wail that sounded like a starving baby. Then the smell came. I began to cough. It was the smell of rotting flesh.

  I felt the roaches before I saw them. They were crawling over my feet and climbing up my pants. I knew where they came from. I could see her in the corner. Her smell was so noxious as to make me faint. The black blood she oozed was staining the carpet. And as quickly as they had come, they were gone. Phantoms in the mist.

  Pria screamed and it jolted me out of my trance. I ran to the bathroom and kicked the door open. She was hunched over the toilet shaking her hair violently.

  “It’s in my hair! Get it out! Get it out!” she wailed.

  She looked at me and her eyes widened in terror. “Jesus Christ you’re covered in them!” She slammed herself into the bathtub, hitting the wall violently. There was still vomit at the corner of her mouth. “Fuck, Eric, go outside!”

  I looked down and realized that there were at least ten enormous wood roaches on my legs. I ran outside and knocked them off my pants. I killed them with my bare feet, crushing them with a malice I rarely gave to invertebrates. I had no fear of bugs, but Pria did, so when I knew I was clean I went inside and killed the roach that had been in her hair.

  “Jesus
Christ!” she said in a panic. “Are there emergency exorcists? I mean terminators? You know what I mean. Can you call an all-night exterminator in emergency situations?”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “I killed them all. They’re all gone. I’ll call Orkin first thing in the morning.”

  “How can you be so calm? You were crawling in them.”

  I wasn’t calm. I was stunned and I was awake. This meant I had to be losing my mind. Or maybe I had carried the dream with me from the bed. I had only been partially awake when I came from bed and fuckin’ Cassie had filled my brain with ghosts and demons and they had manifested themselves in my waking dreams. I began to breathe steadily again. I comforted Pria. After I cleaned up the water, I brought her a fresh glass.

  “I can’t sleep knowing this house is infested,” she said. “Let’s go to a hotel. Just for tonight. Let’s just pack up and leave until the house has been fumigated. Please.”

  “I can’t sleep either,” I admitted.

  So Pria and I spent the night at the Day’s Inn. She slept like a baby and I didn’t sleep at all. My dreams had followed me and the hallucination was tearing me apart.

  In the morning, Pria called in sick to work. “They’re beginning to get mad at me,” she said.

  “Why?” I asked.

  “I’m a new employee. I don’t have any vacation and I’m already pregnant and asking for maternity leave. I have no comp time and I’m using sick leave. I hate this. I hate being the worst employee there.”

  “How could you be the worst employee there?”