My limbs are full of furious energy: I have told Rue that we will make ourselves an entire set of all-new clothing, how fun! We are ripping the seams of our frocks, fairy trifles based on patterns from my faraway childhood, all swim camps and cotillions and unremembered Easter dresses. She is laughing as she rips, the excitement of destroying filling her like bloodlust. I need to keep her occupied, away from the windows; I need to think. She has rickrack in her hair and grosgrain looped over her shoulders, and even like this, silly and childish, she is a goddess.
We are laughing. Yet I smell smoke. By the time I make it to the window, however, the boy or man, or the boy-man, of the outside is gone, and only my fury remains.
Rue is so enraptured with our project that I never see her go outside, even once, even when I plead to go to our swimming hole. But now she sits frowning over a skirt she is making, and when I look at it, I feel the frown begin to spread across my face, too. There are embroidered holes in the sides and frills in the front. It is a most ugly and excessive article, an indecent thing to even look upon.
I demand to know where she could have gotten this idea: I do know that my girl is dreamy, but there is no fire to her imagination to make it dazzle in such a direction.
Rue blushes, but shrugs. She shows me a magazine she says she found under the apple tree outside, and in it I see such horrid concoctions, such stupid, bright, strange-looking people, such horrible words that if the Ministers saw it, they would kill on sight whoever was reading it. I throw the magazine down as if it has bitten me. Rue looks at me sideways and asks what it is about the world outside that I hate so. I want to tell her about everything: the rebels who methodically destroyed me, the Ministers who imprisoned us in rules, and my own old and twisted body, my hideous jail. But I look at my daughter, whom I have worked hard to keep innocent of such things, and bite my tongue. I kiss her on the musky part of her hair, and take the magazine outside and hurl it off the cliffs, into the pounding sea.
I am extra vigilant. With great effort from my body, I wait until Rue sleeps at night and steal down the hill. With rocks I lug in a wheelbarrow, I divert a stream so the path is cut off, and the delivery boys must abandon their bikes on the far side and walk the last uphill mile in wet shoes. I can hear the slop of their footsteps from afar and am ready for them far from the house, holding their pay with my trembling hand.
At night, I hold Rue’s head in my lap while she reads her novel, and scratch her warm scalp, and watch her. Finally she puts down her book and sighs and asks what the matter is.
I cannot help myself. I watch myself lose control, I watch in horror as I blurt in French: If you left me, I would die, I say.
It is not a consolation that she sits up, her whole face an Ô. Under her breath she asks me where she would go. And now I see it and my dismay makes me ill: A spark from my own fevered brain has just landed in her, is now lighting her up.
* * *
Once her face was a window and now it is a door, always slamming shut. She disappears, and when I call for her in the old house, the ghosts maaa like old sheep in reply, taunting me. Mornings, she smells of grass and night. I lock her into her room, and she takes off the hinges with a screwdriver. I tempt her inside with cakes and creams, but she eats the salty, hard plums from the trees out back with a twist on her lips. I cry, but she only watches me, gone hard.
I blink, it seems, and Rue is gone. The house is decrepit without her, the windows shattering one by one under the gusts, the roof shedding shingles the way I am shedding teeth.
I saw her coming, the original mother, but never knew which direction she would take: I had feared the dark and angry force of her all these years, building with every day we were distant, one sudden day erupting. I imagined her stealing my daughter from me the way I first stole her away, carrying her bodily away. I had imagined the mother marching up the hill, grown mighty with age, and carrying the girl off like a wee infant in her arms, trailing Rue’s braids in the dust.
I always thought that I would grab on to those braids and ride them, down the hill, into the town, I would tie myself into them so that when they went away in the train, they would float me like a kite behind them.
But I have known for decades that the mother is probably dead. Has been, for some time. And I should have guessed that where the mother would show herself would be in my daughter’s blood. The one thing I couldn’t give her. Though I would have. I would.
Those nights when poetry would not do it for me, I lay in the pounding of my pain, under the cold rain in the mountains as the men came in, and every moment I made myself blank, and promised myself a daughter.
And now I kneel in the little nest of braids shorn from my daughter’s head with her own hands, and wait for this old, crooked body to leave me be.
I wait. In my hunger, in my thirst, the courtship rises to me with the vividness of childhood dreams. I see it as it must have happened: the first words as he emerged from behind the pear tree, that strange beast, this man. He was unintelligible to the girl, and the sounds in his mouth put such fear in her heart, all she could do, this first time, was run. All night, though, he kept stepping from behind the pear, and by the morning her body trembled with wanting to see him. Then, slower, he coaxed her out. They met at night. It took no time. One kiss and Rue’s mother awoke in her blood, the sexy young beast. It didn’t matter that those two children didn’t understand one another. Anyone would look upon my Rue and want her. And girls like Rue—too trusting, too pulsing, too unlike me in the end—never really need words in this grand world, at all.
I wait for the house to topple off the cliff, the defeated house with its defeated ghosts. And I see her in the world, shorn, feeling so light, freed from her hair, her battered house, her heavy old me, that she feels weightless in her beautiful young body, as if with one leap she would flutter into the air, my daughter turned bird.
SUCCUMB
by John Mcllveen
OPEN YOUR EYES.
Yes. That’s right, baby.
Oh, I startled you … even though I’m using my sexy voice. Sorry. Do you like it, though? Even Marilyn Monroe couldn’t purr like this.
Let you go? Why? What would that accomplish? Besides, honey, you don’t want me to let you go.
Don’t fight. Save your energy. I don’t want you to waste it. I’m going to want every bit of it.
Here, let me turn the light on. Yeah, that’s better. The soft lighting is nice, you little Romeo, you. Very romantic.
Hmmm. I’m not what you expected, am I? I can see you’re confused, but I can feel something under me that says you’re not exactly put off, either. I am quite the looker, aren’t I?
Who am I?
You don’t know? Odd, you’ve mentioned me often enough.
No? Well, maybe it’d be better if you asked what I am. Ooohh, furrowed brow. Okay, here’s a little hint; in Latin my name means “To Lie Under,” and that’s exactly what you’re doing now.
To lie under.
Another thing I am is … I am exactly what you would want for your ultimate fantasy.
No reason to be shy, just admit it. I know what you look at on the Internet; I’ve seen what you like. You store the images in hidden folders, blondes, brunettes, redheads, so many pictures … Thousands. Dominatrix, gay, eighteen and older …
… under eighteen.
Oh, don’t worry about me! I’m not the Judge.
But I do know what turns you on. Long hair turns you on; long red hair really turns you on. The redder the better, isn’t that what you write, Mister i-1-2-do-U at livemail-dot-net? And hey, you’re in luck! I have both, long and red!
How’s this? Is this red enough for you? No dye jobs here. This fire is all me.
Come on, feel it.
Yeah, I know, I’m kneeling on your arms. That’s what happens when you’re saddled and straddled. Here, feel it on your face, then. Do you like how it feels? Oh, I think you do. I just felt Mr. Happy jump up and nudge my ass.
&nb
sp; Here, feel my …
… you’re looking at my tits.
It’s all right. Take your time and enjoy the view. I’ll tell you what, this black leather is so confining, let me unzip, that way you can feel them, too.
Oh yeah, your hands. Well, you really don’t need them right now. Let’s just reposition them down here a bit. Look at that, perfect for holding my ass.
Now tell me, aren’t these the breasts you like best? D-cup. Dee for delectable? No silicone, no saline, just soft, perky pleasure. Feel it on your face? Hmmm. You like it playful, don’t you?
Oh! You’re a nipple man! Can’t refuse, can you? Oh, and you like to bite, you devil! I love the teeth. Oh yeah, a little harder, that makes me want to … I want to grind … in.
Can you feel my heat? I feel yours, even through leather. Undo the snaps. Can you feel them, right where I’m hottest? That’s right, open them. Oh, huh, oh, that’s good. Use your fingers in … me. Ohhh … do you feel that?
Wet.
Wet helps when … it’s time to … slide you in … slooooowwwly.
So hot.
Hmmm, I think you like it, you certainly like something. Is it the heat, the intense fiery … or is it when I squeeze you like this …
Wait. Slow down, not so fast, baby. It isn’t time yet. Just settle down and feel me on you, around you.
Mmmm, you like it when I bite your ear; when I whisper?
Let me tell you a secret. I’m going to fuck you like you’ve never been fucked before. Wow, the way you just grew inside me … throbbing. You want that, don’t you?
All right, here’s another secret. I’m going to fuck you … to death.
Yeah, that’s right, and you won’t even try to stop me. I’m going to rip you inside out, and you’re going to beg for more.
Awww, you’re dwindling. Not a problem, I’ll give you a special little clench from inside me … and I can grip you tighter than any human hand.
See? You’re back with me … completely. Aren’t you, preacher man?
Oh, you’re surprised that I know who you are, Mister Holy? At least that’s what you tell them, your followers.
No, you can’t pull away.
Try.
See? Not once I have a hold on you. Not when I can make you feel this good. I own you. Feel me milking you, massaging you from inside me, like little tongues licking you all over.
If your herd only knew you, your mindless minions. If they knew your sins and your weaknesses, all the ones you have always blamed on me. All the lonely wives you used, the clueless little boys, the whores, the needy runaways, all of them your toys.
Now you’re my toy … my toy to ride.
You called me the seductress. You even told them you met me face-to-face and defeated me. You had no clue. You took me for granted. You saw me as a joke and you didn’t believe. I thought you were a man of faith.
Well, here I am, and it seems … I’m winning. I’m sucking the life from you, and you can’t resist.
Hold me to you. Hold on to me while I kill you. That’s good. Good little preacher. Hold me tighter and wrap your arms around me.
Can you feel them? Feel the wings?
What? You’re disgusted? But you can’t let go, can you?
Do you feel your soul being torn from you? Isn’t it amazing how giving up your life feels so much like pleasure, how giving up your soul seems like ecstasy?
You’re dying, holy man. I grind into you faster and faster, but what if I … were … to … stop?
Stopping will save your life. But you can’t stop; can you? Even when I stop, you keep going.
Even when I reveal myself, when I lose the flesh, you can’t resist. Oh, the terror in your eyes, it’s delicious … and that, my dear, that’s what turns me on.
Beg. Let me hear you beg and I’ll finish you, you dog.
Good, very good. Keep begging.
But I’m going to play awhile. I’m going to bring you to the edge, and then ease off, again and again. I’m going to dangle you over the cliff until the need to release guts you and nearly drives you mad.
And again …
Again …
Now let it go. Feel it leave you. Feel it being torn from you, like a thousand rusty blades slashing inside of you, yet you still buck and thrust deeper into me, so willing to die.
So willing to be possessed.
So willing to succumb.
And now …
I have you.
Roll over, preacher.
Roll over and hold your wife. She’ll be pleased to know you reached out to her in your final moments, even though she knows you’ve never loved her. She’ll be pleased to know that you had nothing else to reach for.
And all that is left is for me to kiss you …
A soul kiss …
And a breath …
Good-bye.
TORN STITCHES, SHATTERED GLASS
by Kevin J. Anderson
A TINY SILVER NEEDLE, sharp point. My large fingers had grown nimble over years of practice and delicate concentration, and I could glide the moistened end of the thread through the needle’s eye on the first try, then pull the strand tight. I completed the first stitches, neat ones, no excuse for clumsy black sutures such as a mortician would use after an autopsy.
The needle dipped into the end of the torn arm socket, then emerged, and I pulled the strong thread through, binding the detached arm to the shoulder. I immediately saw that I should have used white thread, because it would have been less conspicuous. I made certain the ends were neatly aligned and continued my stitching.
I sat in my dim tailor shop in the ghetto of Ingolstadt. Some called the place cramped; I found it cozy. I was accepted here, though I wasn’t Jewish—what religion would accept someone like me? The people welcomed outsiders, understood them, and did not ask awkward, probing questions. It was 1938, and I’d been here for many years. I did not look forward to the day when I’d have to move on again.
I finished stitching around the stump of the arm, then snapped off the thread after tying a solid knot. I turned toward the little girl with rich brown hair and a bright mind who sat watching me. I handed back her repaired rag doll. “There, little Rachel—all fixed.” I propped up the doll, moving both arms with my fingers. “She doesn’t hurt.”
Rachel Schulmann was far wiser than she appeared. “She doesn’t hurt because she’s just a doll, Franck.”The child sounded as if she needed to explain to me. “She’s made, not real.”
“Of course.”
In their insular ghetto, the Jews had been suspicious of me at first—a large man with rough features and a scarred face, like a boxer who had lost too many fights. I kept to myself, showing no warmth or friendship, but posing no threat. I was tired of running, and I had almost given up on humanity because of how people hated things they didn’t understand, how they despised strangers and vented their anger by lighting torches, grabbing pitchforks. But here in the Ingolstadt ghetto, I was patient, helpful, with few needs or ambitions. I became a tailor because I liked to stitch things together, making certain the pieces fit. Ironic, that.
As Rachel took the doll from me, my sleeve accidentally slid up my arm. Normally, I chose to wear bulky jackets with thick cuffs, but now the girl’s eyes widened as she saw the line that encircled my wrist, the still-prominent scars from the old sutures where the hand had been attached—someone else’s hand, someone else’s wrist, the first two pieces in becoming me.
“Does that hurt?” she asked, more fascinated than frightened.
I gave her a quick, reassuring shake of my head. “No, child. It’s just the way I’m made.”
Now that the important work was done—repairing the girl’s doll—I could turn to the other work she’d brought me. Her father, the rabbi, had sent his jacket, a dark old suit that had been carefully but inexpertly patched many times over the years. Given a few days, I could have fixed flaws that the rabbi or his wife pretended not to see, tightened the stitches, trimmed the frayed cuff
s and collar. But the damage was more severe, more disturbing. As soon as I looked at the torn fabric at the shoulder, the mud stains, the dried blood, I recalled what had happened. No one could keep secrets here in the ghetto.
The Nazis—three of them—had beaten Rabbi Schulmann in the streets. Laughing, they had pushed him down into the mud, and he had not challenged them, had not cursed them—but he had retained his dignity. Unwise. When the Schutzstaffel district officer, Schein, and two members of his Staffeln decided that the rabbi did not look sufficiently humiliated, they knocked him into the gutter and pummeled him with nightsticks. Some of the people gasped and moaned, helpless, while others watched in horror. Rabbi Schulmann cringed, accepting the blows, and soon enough Staffelführer Schein and his two thugs grew tired of their sport and departed.
“They attack us because we’re different,” the rabbi said aloud to the stunned people who rushed to help him. “To them, we’re easy targets.” He was bruised and bleeding, and they helped him to a doctor.
I had watched part of the incident from behind the smeared glass windows of my tailor shop. The Jews pretended that bad things didn’t happen. They cleaned up all sign of the incident, erased any marks the Nazis left, as if that were the way to survive.
Now I had the rabbi’s damaged and stained jacket. I inspected it, poked my thick fingers through the tear, studied the dried blood. My dark lips formed a smile. “Tell your father I can fix this, Rachel. I promise it will be as good as new by tomorrow evening.”
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