Glimmering

by Elizabeth Hand

  “I better take it off.” She giggled. “Before they throw me out. That happened once, you know.”

  She dropped the raincoat over the row of seats in front of them. In the middle of the room the aged Zeiss planetarium moved up and down like an avid mantis, a huge ungainly mechanism covered with round lenses and bulging optics. Overhead the dome with its spectral colors faded to a night sky, and a woman’s recorded voice began intoning the names of constellations.

  “Aquarius,” she said. “The Water Bearer.”

  Trip stared at the false sky. He had not seen so many stars since he was a boy in Maine. Everywhere else he had traveled, the sky had been either poisoned by the glimmering or given a sickly yellowish cast by crime lights and glowing smog. Here inside the planetarium it was as though he were back on Moody’s Island. Suddenly he felt homesick. Even the chill bite of air conditioning made him think of home; though he had always hated it there, the rancid smell from the fish-processing plant and the buckled floor of the grimy little Half-Moon trailer where he lived with his grandmother.

  “It’s so cold,” a voice came in his ear, so soft it might have been his own thought. A small, very cold hand plopped on top of his. Not moving, not curling its fingers around his, just lying there as though it had fallen from the sky. He could feel her ring, the slender band of gold like a chip of ice against his knuckle. Glancing sideways he saw the girl gazing at the dome, her mouth slightly open. She turned and looked at him, not saying anything, not moving her hand. Just staring at him with those strange shadowed eyes, and smiling.

  Afterward Trip recalled that moment and knew it for the one in which his life was cleaved in two. Sitting there in the make-believe night, with make-believe peepers crying and make-believe stars, and the warm sweet dusty scent of the girl beside him with her face upturned. The Zeiss whirred and spun. Stars washed across her cheeks as the astronomer spoke their names. Algol in Perseus, Regulus in Leo, the winter sky tumbling into spring and Corona Borealis rising to shine upon her brow with such brilliance that he had to look away. When he glanced up again she was staring at him. The pixie light gave a strange luster to her skin, as though it were made of some brittle nacreous material that would splinter into dust if he were to touch it. But all he wanted to do was touch it. His lips were parted, and he was breathing hard, his heart pounding, hands unsteady, until suddenly he leaned over, crushing her arm into the seat rest as he kissed her. Her mouth so small and hot it was like some warm liquid spilling into his, her fine hair like pollen filling his nostrils until he had to draw back, sneezing. Before he could catch his breath she was tugging at his hands, pulling him gently but irresistibly toward her. He kissed her everywhere, not just her mouth but the fine soft flesh of her cheeks and chin and jaw, her throat, with its pulse beating like a trapped bird, and the rough, gnawed tips of her fingers. He could hear her gasp and feel her heart knocking in her chest; smelled her, a hot pungent scent like the inside of a winter barn. But for all that she did not stir, not once she had pulled him to her. He closed his arms about her—he almost felt they could have circled her twice, she was so small and thin—but she did not embrace him. When he kissed her, her mouth parted, he could taste her fluid sweetness like melted chocolate. But her lips and tongue did not move. Her hand did not stir where it lay upon her thigh, with the golden ring winking softly in the darkness. Trip had never kissed a girl before. In a horrified rush of embarrassment, he realized he must be doing it wrong. Abruptly he pulled away from her.

  “… the star Fomalhaut. Above it you can see Aquarius, perhaps the most ancient of all the constellations, with its alpha star Sadalmelik resting almost exactly on the ecliptic, the celestial equator. Sadalmelik means ‘beloved of the king’ in Arabic, and Aquarius shows up in all kinds of ancient myths, including several deluge myths that predate the Biblical story of the flood. As an astrological sign, it is associated with air, and danger. Now if you follow my pointer to the north…”

  The blond girl’s eyes were wide but without expression. Her arm still lay upon the velvet seat rest. As the projected stars crept across the dome her eyes would hold their light and for an instant seem to candle with passion or curiosity. Gazing at her Trip felt gooseflesh break out on his arms and the back of his neck.

  “Who are you really?” he whispered. But then the dome grew pale, the lights came up, and he was blinking painfully. “Oh,” he said, neither disappointed nor relieved, just confused. “I guess it’s over.”

  “I want to see it again.”

  Trip laughed, thinking she was joking, and started to reach for her raincoat.

  “Really,” the girl said. “I want to see it again. Can we stay?”

  Trip looked around, shaking his head. “I don’t think so. I mean, yeah, we can see it again. If you really want to. But we’ll have to get tickets…”

  He waited for her to say Jeez no, once is enough, it was so boring! Instead she slid down in her seat, the front of the chair folding up so that her legs hung over it like a child’s. “I like these seats. Let’s just wait here, okay?”

  He stared at her. “Okay.” His throat was so dry it hurt to speak. “If you want.”

  “I do,” she murmured, smiling; and he knew he was doomed.

  No one cleared the room after the first show. Marz remained half-hidden in her folding seat, but Trip sat bolt upright beside her—that way, he thought, if anyone confronted them it wouldn’t look like they were trying to sneak in without paying. Trip’s amazement at his own obliquity had faded to a sort of stunned bewilderment. He still had a hard-on, but he did none of the things he’d been taught to do in such a terrible circumstance: think of his mother, recite some bit of Scripture, get up and leave the room and wait until he was married to her to touch the girl again. Instead he found himself staring at the white skin above the cleft of her lavender sweater, the way her legs hung over the edge of her seat and her pants bunched up at her crotch. A flush had spread across her cheeks, the skin so fine he could see the cellular array of crimson dots, as though she had been spattered with red ink. Her eyes were closed, her mouth barely parted; she looked as though she were asleep. He thought he would go mad, watching her. He was certain he would come in his pants if he stayed there looking at her, but he no longer cared. Dimly he was aware of the soft drone of music, doors opening, and people entering, another school group from the sound of it. Still he couldn’t wrench his eyes from the girl.

  The school group took their seats on the other side of the room. The music paused, then swelled. Overhead the dome grew dark. A panpipe wailed as sheets of green and gold swept across the sky. Without a word Trip grabbed the girl by the shoulders and pulled her toward him.

  She was as passive as before, but he didn’t care. He thrust his hands under her loose sweater, kneading roughly at her flesh until he found her breasts, so small he could cup each in a palm, her nipples burning his hands. He kissed her; her mouth moved slightly beneath his, and she moaned. He drew back, gasping, but before he could touch her again she slid from her seat to kneel on the floor in front of him.

  “What?” Trip whispered hoarsely, shaking his head. “What? ”

  Of course he knew what she was doing—he may have been a virgin, but he wasn’t an idiot—but this was so far beyond anything he had experienced that for one awful moment he was certain that he had gone insane. Then he heard the sound of his fly being unzipped. He felt the girl’s fingers fumbling with the loose fabric, and then the exquisite softness of her hair brushing across his cock as she withdrew it from his shorts. He couldn’t breathe. He sat absolutely rigid, every atom of his body keeping time with his heart, as he stared straight ahead and felt the girl’s small hot mouth close upon him. His hands clenched his knees as her tongue fluttered up and down the length of his cock. He moved his head imperceptibly, gazing down upon the silvery corona of her hair, another star blooming between his legs. For an instant he caught the violet flicker of her eyes as she stared up at him. Then he came, exploding into her m
outh as she lowered her head, and her fingers pressed against his groin. He felt as though his heart had burst; he must have cried aloud because suddenly she was back in the seat beside him, making soft shushing noises as she stroked his cheeks and kissed his mouth, silencing him. He pushed her away, gasping for breath, then quickly pulled her back.

  “You,” he whispered. Her hair was like water in his hands as he kissed her, the soured sweetness of her tongue and her small teeth clicking against his. He kept his eyes open, because he had never seen anything like this before, could never in his life have imagined this strange girl with the white hair and amethyst eyes, curling into his lap with her delicate fingers flexed against his chest, moving the heavy gold cross aside to feel his heart beat. “You…”

  She tilted her head to gaze at him, unsmiling. Her eyes were wide. They caught the reflected shimmer of the constellations processing across the dome: Canes Venatici, Coma Berenices, Virgo. He could see her small front teeth, a spark of saliva glinting upon her lower lip. Her chest moved in time with his and her hands pressed against his belly; but her expression was coldly, almost malevolently, ferine. It should have frightened him. Instead he was getting hard again.

  “… most famous are those of the sixteen th-cen tury French medical doctor known to us as Nostradamus. His prediction that ‘in the New City the sky burns at forty-five degrees’ has been interpreted by many as a warning of the destruction of the ozone layer here above Manhattan and of the atmospheric disturbances that followed…”

  Trip scanned the rows in front of them. They seemed to be empty, as were the two rows behind them. On the other side of the circular room, he could barely make out the shapes of schoolchildren staring raptly at the dome.

  “… also spoke of plagues that would devour man and animals alike. Millennial cultists such as the Wheel of Light and the New Puseyites believe that Nostradamus’s references to ‘The Last Conflagration’ dovetail neatly with the famous apocalyptic visions of Saint John the Divine, and that these in turn point indisputably to the celestial special effects dubbed ‘the glimmering’ by Stanford astrophysicist Francis Partridge. Scientists, of course…”

  “Come here,” Trip whispered. He slid from his chair to the floor, crouching. The blond girl sank deeper into her chair, so that her disembodied head seemed to rest upon the points of her skinny knees. “Come here,” he repeated more urgently.

  She went to him. Without a word, seemingly without even moving. One moment she was there above him. The next he was staring into her huge eyes, and her hands were upon his knees.

  “Hey,” he whispered, startled. “I—”

  She shook her head, raised her hand, and brushed it across his lips. Her fingers smelled of earth, her touch was oddly damp. But her mouth was hot as before, and tasted like buttermilk. He put his arms around her and drew her to him, clumsily. She was so frail, he could feel her bones like the spars of a kite. If he handled her roughly her skin might tear.

  “Marz.” He kissed her cheeks, her eyes, the wisps of hair at her temples. “Marz—”

  “Shhh,” she said, then murmured, “I love you.”

  She tilted her head, staring at him. Her hair held the restless sheen of leaves in moonlight. Her pale eyes gleamed as she drew away, and he could see her pupils, not swollen and black as they should be in this darkness but mere specks, like the dark pistils at the heart of a myrtle blossom. Her gaze unnerved him, it was so detached, but before he could say anything or even look away she smiled, her little white teeth glinting.

  “Come here,” she whispered.

  Trip’s breath caught in his throat. He started to back away, but her hand closed upon his wrist, surprisingly strong. “No. Wait,” she commanded, and dipped her head and in one smooth motion pulled off her sweater. Then she leaned forward and took his hands in hers.

  “Like this,” she murmured.

  He shook his head, glancing up at the rows of seats, the spinning stars overhead. “Hey—n-no, we can’t, I’m—”

  “Don’t be afraid,” she whispered. He wanted to pull away but she was too close, she was everywhere, it was too late. He was lying upon her, and she was unbuttoning his shirt, so that he could feel her flesh against his, so warm and yielding it was like floating in a tepid pool. Her hands tugged at his pants, unzipped them, and pulled them down until his cock sprang out, nestling between her thighs. He groaned and pressed his face against her throat, tasting her skin, the soft prickle of her hair across his mouth. He moved his hands slowly, as though trailing his fingers through still water, until he found her breasts. Their nipples hardened, and he thought of plucking flowers from the water, hyacinths and wild iris. A sweet musky scent filled his nostrils; he moaned, and seemed to hear from very far away a childish voice saying They called me the hyacinth girl.

  The musky fragrance grew stronger, choking him. He tried to raise his head but could not. The girl’s hands had tightened around his back and she was pulling him close, her legs coiling around his, the heat of her groin pushing against his cock. She was making mewling sounds, unh unh unh, her eyes shut tight as she buried her face against his breast. Her scent was everywhere, his legs were trapped by hers but it didn’t matter, she had found him somehow, her cunt another greedy mouth upon his cock as she swallowed him, and he could feel the sharp jolt of her hipbones as she thrust against him, again and again and again, until with a hoarse cry he came inside her.

  “What is that noise?” From across the room, a child’s whisper. “What is that noise?”

  Trip gasped, in a panic yanked at his trousers, shoving the girl aside and fumbling for his shirt, his fly, buttons, and zipper. He crouched in the narrow space between rows, holding his breath and waiting for some terrible rector to descend and make public his disgrace.

  But no one appeared. The planetarium show continued without interruption. Someone on the other side of the room loudly blew his nose, and children giggled. He heard the muted hum of a child monitor, the clash of cymbals accompanying a nova bursting overhead. Finally he started to grope his way back into his seat, but stopped when he saw the girl already there, gazing at him.

  “Oh man,” he said, and sank back down. She looked so tiny, sitting there. So goddamn young.

  She’s just a kid, you know.

  Shame like a fever surged through him; he thought he might pass out, as his stomach churned with guilt and fear. Had he gone insane? John Drinkwater’s face loomed in the darkness before him, and Peter Paul Joseph’s plump pale hands, holding Trip’s morality contract and the results of a lab test.

  For the lips of a strange woman drip as a honeycomb, and her mouth is smoother than oil: but her end is bitter as wormwood, sharp as a two-edged sword.

  Trip ground his knuckles against the rough carpet. He knew nothing about her, but Nellie Candry had the scars from petra virus, and the girl had come from some foreign place… He could die now, as surely as if he had walked into a radiation chamber; bones and blood poisoned, and all his magic gone, that clear white veil he had carried about himself for twenty-two years torn beyond hope of repair.

  Woe is me! For I am undone: because I am a man of unclean lips…

  Yet as he groaned he could feel once more the girl’s moist warm skin, the lilac musk of her hair seeping into his nostrils, and her small mouth pressed against his. The stars shifted in the sky above him, the astronomer’s voice purred on.

  “… along with the glimmering an increase in the sightings of other previously rare phenomena, parhelia or sun dogs and the refracted moonlight called paraselenae which sometimes appears in the darkness…”

  He forced himself to look at the girl. Her sweater had slipped from one thin shoulder, and he could see a small bruise there, like a dark thumbprint. Otherwise, she seemed utterly composed. He had expected her to be angry, or scared. Instead she hunched down into her seat. Her eyes opened wider than he would have thought possible, and it seemed they held neither iris nor pupil, only an awful empty whiteness.

  Trip
’s hands grew cold, his cock shrank to a damp spot between his legs. He glanced away, then back again. Still she stared at him, her expression unchanged. The stars faded, and with them the reassuring recorded voice of the planetarium’s narrator. For an instant the room was absolutely black, save for the dull crimson lozenge of an EXIT sign. Trip could hear snorts and nervous laughter from the schoolchildren, their teacher’s loud hush. In the silence the air-conditioning’s breath became the sound of waves receding from an infinite shore. He stared at the darkness where the blond girl sat, trying to muster up some memory of what he had felt just minutes before. But his desire was utterly gone. In its place he felt a desperate queasiness, a growing certainty that if he were to extend his hand to her chair, he would find it empty. He felt like an idiot, but that’s just what he did, willing his hand to be steady as he groped tentatively at the seat.

  There was nothing there. His neck prickled as his fingers ticked along the edge of the chair, the plush cloth like cool skin, but she was not there, she wasn’t there, and in a horrible moment of clarity he knew that she never had been there. He looked around frantically. Could she have left without him seeing? Had she crawled over the back of the seat and fled? His fingers clawed the soft velvet as he pulled himself up. His mouth opened to call out when he saw in the darkness before him two pale glowing orbs. At first he thought they were astral images projected upon the wall behind the rows of seats. But then they moved closer to him, and he knew that they were her eyes.

  “No,” whispered Trip.

  He had no hint whatsoever of a face or body. Two deathly white globes. A bit of nonsense spurted into his consciousness, something he had heard or read in school—