Nightbitch

by Rachel Yoder

  Wanda White says the mysteries of the universe are revealed in the mundane, the body, this day, the grasses and the sky. Forget civilization. This is just woman and nature, her very own nature.

  My god, Jen murmured then, in the moonlight, face streaked with mud. Oh my god. You. It’s you.

  * * *

  —

  PERHAPS, HONESTLY AND TRULY, it was that Nightbitch had wanted her husband to discover her secret. Perhaps, since she had already recruited Jen into her art, her project, her plan, it now felt even more underhanded to be working outside of the knowledge of her husband—her husband, who had been the one to first show her the Japanese ladies peeing on the octopus and other such delights, and wouldn’t he, actually, be amazed at his wife rather than repulsed should she reveal to him her true nature? Additionally, Nightbitch—the project of Nightbitch—was edging closer and closer to a public airing, and it felt right to introduce this personage to more and more people. And hadn’t her husband proved, in the past, even with her most bizarre projects, to be her biggest proponent? Despite all her rage over the past months, despite the countless ways in which she might have indicted him in her mind, could it be that he might be her ally, perhaps even her greatest supporter? Surely these sorts of thoughts had been working on Nightbitch as she developed her performance, as she read Wanda White and prepared to show herself in one way or another.

  On an ordinary Saturday night, Nightbitch innocently went outside to take the trash to the can, but while she was there, a particularly sinister stream of air brought the smell of the decomposing bunny she had buried some weeks earlier, for certainly it was not the cat, which they had given a proper burial, four feet deep. No, the bunny had been laid to rest in a shallow grave, and, ah, that smell! So thick and black and pungent, redolent of blood and dirt and shit and rot. She had been avoiding that smell because she found it irresistible, and this night, with her husband upstairs doing night-nights, she certainly had at least a bit of time to go take a little look-see, right? No harm in toeing about the still-loose soil beneath the crab-apple tree, beneath the wide leaves of the hostas. Not a big deal to kneel down in the wet earth and sink her hands down even farther, searching for a bit of fur or bone or sinew. And entirely reasonable for her to remove all her clothes, since she wouldn’t want them getting dirtied beyond repair or infused with the stench of the carrion. Certainly not!

  She just wanted to…see the bunny. To smell it. Perhaps to roll around a bit in it and then, of course, to take a long hot shower with lots of soap and other things people used to maintain their domesticity.

  She unearthed a bit of muscle that had been marinating in the mud. Was that a touch of fermentation she smelled? A mineral tang of the dirt and old blood? The almost sweet rot of the flesh itself? Just a small bite, she considered. Not even a mouthful, more like a nibble. It would be almost a jerky of sorts, she reasoned, dried and chewy. Succulent. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply, holding the scraps of carrion in her hands.

  Then her husband was there, beside her. Silent in the twilight.

  Where she assumed panic would have been, a vast vista of sublime calm extended instead. He knew. He was seeing what she was. Well, this was it, then, wasn’t it? Might as well get it over with. She had once been a girl, then a woman, a bride, expectant, a mother, and now she would be this, whatever this was. A wild, complicated woman with strange yearnings. Stubborn and angry—soft and sweet, though, too. She was creator and then also the dark force that roamed the night. She was part high-minded intention and part instinct, raw flight.

  Hello, she wanted to say to him. I am your wife. I am a woman. I am this animal. I have become everything. I am new and also ancient. I have been ashamed but will be no more.

  Your new project, he said, then laughed. This dog stuff. The midnight excursions. I get it.

  Yes, she said, then plummeted down deep into a blank, open space inside her, where she stared at the long and forever sky. She was trying to remember something. It was so far away. Her husband waited. The dark wound around them. It shifted and clicked. Above them, animals jumped between branches and the leaves bounced heavily.

  Yes, she said a moment later. She looked at her husband as if she had only just met him. Yes, with dogs. A project.

  She left the bunny scraps in the dirt and crawled to him, then crouched and growled and pawed at the ground. She lunged to his right and took off, raced the perimeter of the lawn to feel the power of her body, to feel the cooling night air against her skin and in her hair. She leapt over the short fence and rolled in the overgrown grass of their neighbor’s lawn, scratching every last spot on her back and haunches, her legs, before meandering over to a fringe of wildflowers, to pee on them.

  She was aware of her husband as a dark spot in the dark lawn and ran back to him, hopping the fence again in one elegant movement, then jumping onto him, placing her hands on his shoulders and nuzzling the dirt and dank and dog of herself into his neck, and knocking him down to lick his face, his neck, his tummy, sniff his crotch deeply, then take the hem of his boxer shorts in her teeth and pull.

  He laughed. He laughed and laughed and laughed, and soon they were both dogs and they were in love.

  Later, in the shower, her husband placed his hands on her scratched shoulders, looked into her eyes.

  Your best work, he said, something in his face softer and broken. An astonishment, maybe. A person he hadn’t yet shown her, though they’d been together over a decade. In that face she could see that he loved her and was in awe of her, of what she had made. That he had never meant for her career to be quashed. That he had always wanted for her happiness, and art, and that now he saw all she had become and saw it was hers, saw that she existed as a creative force independent of him or their son but also in control of them. That he would do for her whatever he could, because of his love and devotion, his near-childlike adoration of her, which had gotten lost in the ho-hum of every day after day for years and years.

  The mothers came in groups of twos and threes. They were dressed in clothes reserved for nights away from small sticky hands: a flowy silk blouse, their most expensive handbag, an off-the-shoulder sexy thing, white white pants. They each looked lovely, these mothers, and had about them an air of ease.

  It was the end of a season, with a universe of cicadas in full voice, inspiring in each mother that long, sad pull that arrives when the air touches their arms warmly, then departs with a chill, when disheveled schoolchildren wander the sidewalks each mid-afternoon and the melancholic, hazy weight of all the years past arrives at once, the what ifs and should have beens, the memories of beautiful, shirtless boys at the lake and a wet beach towel against the cheek, the high white sun, a cold, green grape bursting sweet in the mouth. Yes, it was the perfect time, the perfect night, for feeling and for drinking and for forgetting.

  They came to the house of Nightbitch not knowing precisely why, only that there would be wine. Jen was the event ambassador, as she dubbed herself, authoring the Evite they all received and talking incessantly about how groundbreaking and totally avant-garde the event would be. These were the Book Mommies—every last one of them—the herbal-remedy crew, those committed to leggings and essential oils. Yes, perhaps it was nearly all the most ardent mommies in town, for a great horde of women arrived that night, much to Jen’s great pleasure. She stood by the rickety archway overgrown with honeysuckle that led to the backyard, clipboard in hand, wearing a form-fitting suit from her old PR days. How easily the silky lining slid over her curves! How efficient and capable she felt within its beautifully tailored confines!

  Hi. Hello. Welcome, she said as each mother filed past. Help yourself to refreshments, please, she directed with a newfound solemnity, a professionalism that had been absent from her unrestrained herb presentations, for this was hers, hers and Nightbitch’s, whom she would not let down. In this she had a deep investment, a desire to build something all
her own, so they could both succeed and flourish.

  Jen took special note when Nightbitch’s old grad-school friends arrived, the working mother and the videographer, for she knew that Nightbitch would want them to have the very best seats.

  All the mothers were tickled to find that music lofted from the open French doors on the back of the house, and that a table set up on the back patio, covered in a white cotton cloth embroidered with the sweetest of little blossoms, held bottles of chilled rosé and Pinot Grigio and little plastic cups stacked in straight towers.

  There were crystal bowls heaped with nuts, and entire chocolate bars nested in a basket, freshly cut vegetables for those who were so inclined, sparkling waters. There was an irresistible bowl of fat, glistening blueberries that seemed to replenish itself magically, no matter how many handfuls the mothers took. Another basket held still-warm baked goods, all the carb-rich indulgences the good mothers refrained from, trying to get that post-baby weight off, trying to slim those thighs and calm that muffin top, but perhaps tonight, just one.

  They all sat in the backyard, in three rows of white folding chairs arranged in lines with an aisle running down the center. Why, it almost looked matrimonial, these chairs and the hors d’oeuvre table and the little wooden stage arranged at front. Yet the tiny stage would not host a wedding, No, indeed. The mothers whispered in hushed tones, hands over mouths: Look at that, what is it? It couldn’t be. But it was, at the center of the platform, a thick red steak, raw, covered with a glass bell jar. The mothers sat and tittered and drank and laughed and whispered. They looked for Jen, to inquire as to the details of the performance, yet she was no longer by the gate and had, it seemed, dematerialized into the growing dusk. How odd, they murmured, sipping wine. They theorized this or that about what was or wasn’t going on. And isn’t it rude that the performance hasn’t yet begun, whatever it is? How odd—I mean, do you even know who the performer is? I can’t really place her, but I don’t care. At least there’s wine. And then laughing and sighing, and I’m tired, and I got a sitter for this? Seriously, what the fuck? But then a syncopated thud wafted through the open French doors—I hear the drums echoing tonight, the man sang—and the mood changed entirely to one of ultimate relaxation. One of the mothers closed her eyes and sang along quietly, and another mom leaned back too far in her chair and toppled over, and they all started laughing—cackling, really—as they righted the drunken mother, telling her, Don’t worry, and It’s your night, and Of course I’ll give you a ride home, and if not there’s always Uber, Do not worry about a thing, How many nights has Kevin gone out and not given a second thought to you at home with the kids. I bless the raaaaaaains, they all sang in unison, dancing now in the sparkling dusk, one mother holding her glass of Pinot aloft and singing off key, another duo swaying cheek to cheek, like lovebirds.

  After the song, they talked and talked and talked until it was late, later than they had planned to stay, and the moon was up. They had lost track even of their hostess, where she was and why she hadn’t yet appeared to greet them; perhaps she was among them right now, one particularly drunken mother suggested.

  Perhaps you are the hostess, she said, jabbing at one woman’s chest, and you’re just playing some sort of trick! By then the music had evolved to something low and throbbing, jazz but not jazz, darker and heavier than that.

  It was then the creature appeared, what some would describe as a dog-type thing or kind of a small bear or a werewolf? I don’t know what the fuck it was.

  It moved through the aisles carefully, slowly, and none of the mothers cringed or pulled back as you might expect. No, none of them reacted as we might surmise an ordinary mother would react. The working mother and the videographer leaned in, straining to see it as it came toward the stage.

  They all watched. They were drunk and brazen and horny and rude, but they were also all quiet—reverent, even. They were perhaps the best mothers they had ever been.

  Queen, one of the mothers murmured as the beast strode past her.

  Another, deeply moved, fell to her knees, then crawled behind the animal. Another. Another. A few of the less hale mothers grew frightened and uncomfortable and worried whether their rabies boosters were up-to-date and had to leave.

  Good riddance, the other mothers said.

  This is some sort of cult, one said, and another replied, I just listened to a podcast about stuff like this. And another one: I am so drunk, oh my god. But still they stayed.

  The ones who stayed…they stayed because they understood, understood the movement of Nightbitch, the hair riding the peak of her spine, her teeth bared against the moonlight, each movement made of power and darkness and anger and survival.

  This mother, this dog, will fuck you up, and the moms knew this and they loved it.

  One mother tipped her head back and howled at the moon. Another curled next to a rotting stump and slept.

  The others rent their vestments from their bodies, and in the cool splash of moonlight watched as the dog, this Nightbitch, slunk onto the wooden stage. A spotlight that had been shining since they arrived, originating from an upstairs window, lit the platform, and the creature snarled and snapped. She pushed the bell jar from its place, smashing it, then hungrily devoured the steak laid out for her. It took quite some time for her to eat, but they all sat patiently, transfixed, and watched and watched.

  Silence. She turned her eyes to the mothers, blood smeared over her face, her cheeks and chin, her eyes alight with what? With madness? Power? Ecstatic knowing? Feral femininity?

  One mother screamed and broke the spell, and then another mother yelped, and it was done: whatever balance had been reached was now horribly off kilter. The animal lunged from the stage into the fray of drunk and naked mothers, and they screamed and ran from the backyard to their dark cars lining the street. Only the working mother and the videographer remained in their seats, speechless, awestruck, crying softly from the sheer drama of it—the sheer, magnificent artistic drama—and holding one another’s soft hands.

  My clothes! one mother said.

  My keys! another lamented.

  Fuck! yet another mother spat.

  Nightbitch chased each and every last one until they were gone, off to catch Ubers en masse and try to joke away their nakedness, and then grabbed in her maw a cupcake from the dainty table, devoured it, disappeared into the underbrush of the neighbor’s overgrown backyard to find a small, beating heart and stop it.

  * * *

  —

  WHEN NIGHTBITCH’S SON HAD been born, what most surprised her was that she had not recognized him. She had thought for sure that the boy would look like someone she knew by heart, but he had an angry red face and a wide nose and a mouth like an old man’s. It had taken years for him to age into her son, the one she now knew. When she looked at him now, she often thought, Oh, there you are. Yes, I recognize you, for he looked like her and like her husband as well, but then again, in certain moments he was precisely her father, and then, in turn, precisely her father-in-law.

  In the very deepest moments of it, she could not tell herself apart from her son who was so evidently a part of her, physically, that she could not shake the vertigo that overcame her at times, this feeling of sameness paired.

  She considered how one day she might be called upon to care for her parents, who, still in wonderful health in their seventies, would certainly at some point make a turn for the worse. She imagined them living in the guest room and, each morning, emerging skinny and rumple-haired, still sleepy, sitting down for breakfast next to her son for pancakes and vitamins. They would nap like infants in the morning and afternoon. Perhaps, near the end, she would need to bathe and change them. And though this would certainly be a burden, there was, it seemed, a place of great love that had opened in her heart, which looked on such tasks with gratitude and reverence when done by choice rather than by inertia. To cleanse her
mother’s back lovingly with a warm cloth. To suds her father’s thin hair. It would be an honor to nurse them, for they were parts of her.

  This must be what it means to be an animal, to look at another and say, I am so much that other thing that we are part of one another. Here is my skin. Here yours. Beneath the moon, we pile inside the warm cave, becoming one creature to save our warmth. We breathe together and dream together. This is how it has always been and how it will continue to be. We keep each other alive through an unbroken lineage of togetherness.

  * * *

  —

  WANDA WHITE IS NOT a person. Wanda White is a place at which a person finally arrives.

  Nightbitch, this mother, stands behind the heavy velvet curtain, in darkness, smelling her own rosy musk. Yes, she is here, at Wanda White, in anticipatory ecstasy, just before she ascends to whatever is beyond that darkness and that stage—invincibility or air, something.

  The squeak and pull of the curtain ropes. A darkness, and then a small light. She smells every single person in the room.

  There, on a stage, in the dark. A pelt of hair bristles down her back. She turns her closed eyes toward the ceiling and inhales deeply. The hairs on her face move gently within an unseen draft.