“Bastard. Fuck off. Fetch the cart.”
She rolled her head toward the indistinct flurry of red and blue. Robbie was bobbing and weaving his scarlet head, clipped and impotent azure wings flapping madly. He was rattling the entire cage, unable to fly or run he sidled back and fore, raising first one foot, high and to the side, and then the other, like some exaggerated parody of dance, and all the while screeching his abusive mimicry. Something had him agitated beyond his usual state of squawk and blasphemy.
She turned her head toward a lower, deeper sound, and was face to face with Chomi.
“Shit!” She leapt to her feet. “Fuck!”
The cat didn’t move beyond a slow blink of its bronze eyes.
Molly grabbed one of her sticks from beside the chair and swiped. Chomi skittered across the tiles, scrabbling for purchase on the cold and shiny surface and once still, crouched, hissing and clicking her anger to the room in general – seemingly confused and disorientated, as cats seldom were.
Molly realised her options were about as limited as Robbie’s repertoire. Chomi always dealt with whatever came her way in the cat fashion of total disdain, but an angry Chomi, one intent on doing harm, was new; and, she felt, potentially lethal. Hurting any animal went against everything Molly stood for; but was this a cat at all? She had no idea.
Whatever it was, it wailed pure displeasure, lashing its thin black tail from tip to base one moment, and the next it launched straight toward Molly.
The girl dodged it, thrashing her stick from side to side, missing her target as wholly and completely as Chomi did not. Scythe-like claws raked across her face and chest, neat and clinical - yet inflicting no pain.
The cat bounced onto the cage top with back arched and fur ruffled into fuzzy haloes. She clawed through the bars at Robbie, who pounded at her with his wings, sending a shower of seed and grit and small feathers raining to the floor. “Fetch the cart. Bastard cart. Fetch the bastard.” He flapped at the paws sliding between the bars and bobbed frantically. “Fuck cart off. Robbie. Robbie. Hello. Hello.”
In another time Molly might have smiled at the mixed phrases born of Robbie’s panic, but his frenzy was too close to her own. She looked down the corridor and saw Beth walk across to Reception with only a brief glance in the direction of sudden noise. People were used to the bird squawking. It did not warrant her attention.
Molly spun back just in time to deflect a fresh attack. She hoped she’d got in a hit when the animal flashed past her, a long, furry streak of noise. It landed close to the door, sliding through it, gaining traction, and headed toward the exit. Molly followed.
Molly yelled at Beth: ‘Stop it!’
Half way along the stretch, the door to the cleaner’s store stood open by a few inches and Chomi veered into it.
Molly pumped her legs a little faster, still screaming at Beth to: “Catch that bloody cat!” If she could only shut the creature in...She held both hands out, ready to slam the door. A few more paces — and the door flipped open as though kicked by some unseen mule. A white barrier, blocking her view of both desk and nursing staff.
Molly halted, resting a hand against the wall to steady her momentum.
Calmly, with no hint of concern, Mrs C stepped from the store room. An M&S raincoat was draped over her left arm, a voluminous shopping bag dangled from her right hand, as anonymous as anyone, on any street, anywhere. She fixed Molly with coppery eyes, as dark and shaded as the fresh bruises deepening on her forehead and bare right arm. She said nothing, only smiled, bowed politely and gestured toward the Residents’ Lounge.
Molly looked back along her gaze and saw a head showing above the chair back; saw the shadow of legs beneath it and saw the crutches laid alongside on the floor. She saw herself. Molly glanced down at sturdy legs unsupported by stick or wheel for the first time in months. “But...”
Mrs C drew her hand down the side of Molly’s face. The touch was ephemeral - as though she were not there; except that she was. The woman closed the cupboard door, very softly, and strolled toward the front exit. She was calling out some mumbled thing to Beth and then paused to smile back at Molly one final time before she drifted into the night.
Molly barely noticed the crash cart plough through her.
D Is For Djunga
John Palisano
The sweetest voice.
Are you awake?
Fan blades thinner and rounder than you remember.
Four beady eyes stare.
Care to speak to me about a few things?
Seems we have something in common.
Monica.
Sonic boom takes the air from the room.
The fan on the ceiling unfolds like a spider crab.
Grab a broom but it’s not fooled.
It’s got you.
It stands upright.
Bright lights reflect off its black eyes.
Smile, it says. Today’s your lucky day.
***
The meanest voice.
Are you asleep?
Fury and rage like you’ve never encountered.
Two tragic hearts broken.
Why can’t we talk about this?
Can’t we come to some common ground?
Monica?
Sonic boom sucks the sound from the room.
The phone on the dresser rings like a death rattle.
Grab a tissue but she’s not fooled.
She’s left you.
You sit down.
Bright tears reflect on your cheeks.
Smile, she says. You got your wish.
***
The sweetest look.
Are you game?
Bring her back like nothing ever happened.
Two lovers back together.
Why can’t you just say yes?
Yes! You want to see her again.
Monica.
Demonic laughs fill the corners of the room.
The bowl on the counter falls and shatters.
Grab the walls but it’s too late.
She’s come home.
She’s sits down.
Black eyes reflect inside her own.
Smile, it says. You got your wish.
***
The meanest look.
Are you surprised?
Make me whole like you didn’t kill.
My body’s back together.
Why couldn’t you let me leave?
Didn’t you want to be with her?
Djunga.
Electronic pulses - suffering images - tear apart your skull.
Her hand on her knee beckons you closer.
Hold your ears but it’s too late.
You’re driven closer.
You sit down.
Terrible blackness takes away your soul.
Smile, you say, and plunge into abyss.
E Is For Eisheth
Late for Eisheth
Tracie McBride
I should never have become a psychotherapist. Ask any of my peers why they took up the profession, and they’ll spout the party line—“I just want to help people”. Puh-lease. I went into it for a whole host of reasons, but that ain’t one of them. Mostly, I did it because I love to know everybody’s dirty little secrets; the dirtier, the better.
Problem is, most people’s ‘secrets’ are banal and boring. My wife doesn’t understand me, blah blah blah. I wet the bed until I was in high school, blah blah blah. I like to wear women’s clothing, blah blah blah. My uncle abused me when I was ten, blah blah blah. Sometimes I have dreams that I’m fucking a goat, blah blah blah. After a while, they all start to blur into one.
I used to think that I was pretty good at faking sincerity, but word must have got around that I’m a crappy therapist; I guess there are only so many scripts you can write for anti-depressants before your patients get wise to you. My practice has been dwindling steadily over the past few months, so Reason Number Two—the money—isn’t stacking up anymore either.
So, I’m dayd
reaming about an alternative career (Racehorse owner? Professional gambler? Hitman?) when Joe and Glenda Henry show up for their 4pm appointment. Precisely on time. Perhaps I could tick the box marked ‘Obsessive Compulsive’ for at least one of them and fob them off with that diagnosis for a few sessions. They’re an unremarkable-looking couple, late fifties at a guess, dressed in drab, shapeless clothes that inadequately conceal drab, shapeless bodies. Joe looks like he’s afflicted with more than just a naturally aging body and an indifferent lifestyle; his skin has an unhealthy grey hue to it, and he carries himself with a certain delicacy, as if he is in constant pain. I don’t hold out much hope that these two will provide much in the way of entertainment value.
“And what can I do for you today?” I ask, plastering on my best professional smile.
Glenda looks down at her lap and twists the hem of her blouse. “Mr Peterson…”
“Please. Call me Adam.”
“Okay, Adam,” she says tentatively, rolling my name around her mouth as if it is a new and not entirely welcome flavour. “My husband…Joe…has been unfaithful.” I resist the temptation to roll my eyes; of course he has. That’s what brings most couples to my office. Although boring old Joe doesn’t look like he has it in him. I start to wonder if they are wealthier than they look—money can be a powerful aphrodisiac—and I sit forward a little in my chair.
“He’s been visiting a pr...pr...pr...prostitute!”She finally gets out, and bursts into tears. I push a box of tissues across the table towards her. Joe has the grace to look embarrassed, and ineffectually pats his wife’s shoulder as she sobs into her hands. She looks up at me, eyes red.
“He shouldn’t even be able to have sex!” she wails. “He has prostate cancer, and the treatment’s made him impotent. I just don’t understand where it’s all gone wrong!”
Or maybe he just told you he was impotent because he doesn’t want to fuck you, I think. I look to Joe, inviting him to tell his side of the story.
“It’s…ummm…complicated,” Joe says. “I love Glenda, truly I do, and never wanted to hurt her, but this woman…if you saw her, you’d understand.” His pathetic puppy-dog eyes beg me to empathise, man to man. Beside him, Glenda ramps up the hysterics.
“Don’t worry,” I say. “You’ve come to the right place. 90% of marriages affected by infidelity will survive if the couples commit to therapy.” It’s a bullshit statistic, but I need the cash, and I figured that if Joe has the funds to splash around on whores, the least he can do is send a little my way. After all, am I not a whore myself, of a kind? Paid to feign emotion and look like I give a shit.
“I’ll need to see you both separately before your next couple’s session,” I add as I write out a couple of prescriptions. “In the meantime, I’m starting you both on a course of anti-depressants.”
“Are you sure that’s necessary?” asks Glenda. “It might interfere with Joe’s other medications, and I was hoping that…”
“Oh, yes,” I say, smiling wide enough to hurt. “Trust me, I’m a doctor.”
***
Joe is the first to attend his solo session.
“You can’t make me stop seeing her, you know,” he says, his chin jutting forward in what I guess is a rare show of defiance. “Nobody can.”
I hold up my hands in a calming gesture. “It’s OK,” I reply. “I’m not in the business of making people do things against their will. That’s what wives are for, isn’t it?”
He looks at me blankly; so much for using humour to put the patient at ease. I try another tack. “Tell me about this woman.”
“I’ve been seeing her for longer than Glenda thinks—since before my cancer diagnosis, in fact. It’s true, the treatment does make me impotent. At least, when I’m not around Eisheth, it does. That’s her name—Eisheth.”
Funny name, I think. What’s wrong with good, solid, traditional hooker names like Bambi or Divine or Lola?
“That’s the thing,” Joe continues. “This cancer, it’s killing me, I know it is, but when I’m with Eisheth…”
“You feel alive,” I finish for him, and stifle a yawn; I’ve heard this story before.
“Yes!” he says delightedly. “So you do understand!” Not really, but I let him think I do.
“So…how did a supposedly happily married man come to be engaging the services of a sex worker?” I say. “Were you really as happy as you say you were, or do you think perhaps your actions were a subconscious cry for help?”
Joe isn’t even listening to me properly. He’s leaning back in his seat with a faraway look in his eye, smiling faintly. Evidently he is recalling the magical moment when he first met his beloved Eisheth. I sigh and settle back too; it looks like this is going to be a long story.
“I first met her when I was coming home from a work function. Glenda had stayed home with a migraine, and I wanted to get back to her as soon as I could. She gets nervous when she’s home alone. Anyway, the restaurant had been in an unfamiliar part of town, and I got myself turned around a little trying to make my way home. I found myself amongst all these small factories and warehouses…light industrial, you know what I mean. The streets were deserted because it was nearing midnight, so when this woman suddenly stepped out of a doorway, well, I must admit I was a little startled.
“She was dressed unusually, like she’d been at a toga party or something, in this thin, draping fabric,”- he makes vague gestures about his body -“with a braided gold belt around her waist. Her dress was white. Pure. Virginal.” He smiles in fond remembrance, and I suppress a smirk.
“It was that white dress that startled me, you see—for a second I thought she was a ghost.” He chuckles at his own superstition. “It was far too flimsy for the weather, and she was barefoot, so I stopped to ask her if she needed any help.”
“Like any true gentleman would,” I supply. The irony is lost on him; he nods fervently.
“She approached the car,” he said, “and that’s when I saw them.”
“Them?”
“The other women. Three of them, and all dressed the same way. And the man.”
“Their pimp?”
Joe grimaces. “That’s such an ugly word. No, Eisheth said that he was her husband, and the other women his wives.”
Okay, now it’s starting to get interesting.
“So what are we talking here? Some extremist Mormon cult low on funds? You did say that she was a prostitute, right?”
“Not just any prostitute,” he says, his eyes shining with creepy fervour. “A holy prostitute. You know, like they used to have in ancient Greece. Making love to honour the gods.”
“And exchanging money for it.”
“Yes. That’s an essential part of the ritual, Eisheth said. I didn’t have to pay much—I only had twenty dollars in my wallet, and that sufficed, so long as I was crossing her palm with metaphorical silver.”
I whistle. “Twenty dollars…listen, Joe, I hope you used a condom, because that sounds extraordinarily cheap. As in, disease-ridden cheap…”
He laughs. It is an oddly depressing sound. “You don’t know the half of it.” He leans in to me and whispers, even although there is nobody else around to hear him.
“I think she gave me prostate cancer.”
“Umm… I’m not a medical doctor, but I’m pretty sure that cancer isn’t contagious.”
Joe’s eyes brim with tears. “I tried to say no. Told her I wasn’t that kind of guy, and that I had a wife waiting for me at home. But she was just so beautiful...Afterwards I promised myself that it was a one-time mistake, and that I’d walk away from it like it never happened. But two nights later, I was back there again. I just couldn’t help myself. It was like I’d been hypnotised.
“It’s too late for me now, Adam. She’s dug her claws in me, and I can’t get away. I mean, actually dug her claws in me.” In one surprisingly swift movement, he hauls his sweater and his T-shirt over his head and turns to show me his pale, flabby back. It is a pus-ridden mess of
scars, both fresh and faded. I choke down the bile that rises to the back of my throat. The plot has definitely thickened; that is one serious S&M fetish, and I’m willing to bet that dear, sweet Glenda doesn’t know about it.
As if reading my mind, Joe says, “Tell Glenda when she comes for her session to hang in there. She doesn’t know it yet, but I haven’t got long to live. At least this way she’ll still get the insurance payout.” He stands and leaves the office, a beaten man in all senses of the word.
***
Unlike Joe, Glenda seems to have grown a backbone since I saw her last.
“I want Joe committed to a mental institution,” she states.
“On what grounds?”
“For his own safety and protection. That…that…” Her upper lip curls, and I have the disturbing mental image of a feral dog about to attack. “That slut that he’s been seeing,” she spits, “is a monster.”
Okay, so maybe she does know about Joe’s kink. “Listen, Glenda,” I say soothingly, “human sexuality is extraordinarily complex. There’s a huge spectrum of what can clinically be considered normal, and unless Joe’s life is in danger or he’s being forced into something against his will, then I’m afraid…”
“No, no, no! I mean she’s an actual monster. With claws and fangs and a real fucking forked tail!”
I don’t know which is more shocking, Glenda’s lunatic revelation or the fact that she dropped the F-bomb. I offer her a glass of water, a diversionary tactic while I think of a response.
“What makes you think she’s a monster, Glenda?” I ask, once I’ve picked my jaw up off the floor.
“I wanted to find out what I was up against, so a few days ago, I followed him. I know that when he’s going to see her, he leaves the house around 11.30pm. That’s how I found out about her in the first place; most nights I’m fast asleep at that time, and he’s able to get out and back without my knowing, but this one time I woke up with a stomach upset…anyway, I told Joe I was going to stay at a friend’s house for a few nights, but instead I staged a stake out. Parked my car a few streets down and waited until he drove past, then trailed him just like they do in the movies.” She sounds very proud of herself, so I don’t have the heart to tell her—yet—that in my professional opinion, she’s a crazy psycho bitch.
The Demonologia Biblica Page 6