By the time I get her outside and into a taxi, I'm excited, sure, but also angry. I'm so sick of women who think they're goddesses, just because they have perky tits or a flat stomach or a penchant for painting.
No more.
* * * *
I get Nadia upstairs to my apartment and prop her up on the couch. She's stirring a bit, but still pretty much passed out. There are noises coming from her exquisite little lips, but nothing that qualifies as words or sentences.
I take off my suit jacket and head into the bathroom. Opening the medicine cabinet, I consider my options. Potential winners. Margins of loss. Decisions, decisions.
One bottle of Vicodin. Fifteen pills, oblong, white, 500 mgs. Side effects may include light-headedness, dizziness, sedation, constipation, nausea, and vomiting. Prescribed for a racquetball injury last summer.
One bottle of Zoloft. Twenty-six pills, oblong, baby blue, 50 mgs. Combining with alcohol may cause depressed respiration and blood pressure. Prescribed for depression, feelings of low self-worth.
I don't take the Zoloft anymore. It took the edge off my emotions. It dulled me.
* * * *
I go back into the living room. Nadia's head is tilted back. Her legs are positioned knees together, ankles apart. She's snoring, just a little.
I head to the kitchen, where I take a candy dish out of a cabinet and set it on the counter. The pills clink against the glass as I empty each bottle in, the blue and white tablets mixing together.
I make myself another martini. I'm out of olives, so I slice a lemon and twist one wedge into it, savoring the procedure. I return to the living room with my drink in one hand and the candy dish in the other. I sit down on the low coffee table, facing Nadia.
Even passed out and drunk, she's still pretty hot, long elegant fingers spread wide on either side of her hips, her neck extended backward to her head, pushing her tits up. She has a silver choker on. I like that.
I slap her. She moans. I slap her again. She tries to talk, fails miserably, her eyelids fluttering. I grab a handful of pills out of the candy dish and shove them in her mouth.
I say, “Swallow."
She doesn't. I hold her jaw shut with one hand, pinch her nose with the other.
"Swallow."
Finally she does, her throat convulsing for air, gulping down the pills. I have to repeat this several more times before she's swallowed them all.
She's passed out again when I let go of her, her head slumping down toward her chest. I stand up, looking down at her. Pull my cell phone from my pocket.
I dial. The phone rings.
* * * *
Like I said, I know Raquel because we used to date, a long time ago, when I first moved to New York. We were both freshmen in college, both newcomers to the city. She was beautiful and smart and made me deliriously happy. Unfortunately, she was also an art student trying to be taken seriously. We lasted six months before she moved in with some guy with a beret and space for canvases. Raquel said he was good for her art, leaving unsaid the fact that I wasn't.
That would have been all right, except that by then I was absolutely in love with her. We've managed to stay friends throughout the years, and I've never been sure if that's a curse or a blessing. I still can't tell, because every time I see her, I want her to be mine again.
Tonight, for the first time, I see a way to make that happen, if only she'll answer her phone.
* * * *
Finally, she does.
"Where the hell are you?” she says, obviously irritated with me.
I say, “Where am I? Where were you the whole party? I never saw you at all, and you brought me."
"Jesus, Greg, I figured you could handle yourself. I ended up in the bedroom with Angelo."
"Who the hell is Angelo?” I mean, obviously, he's an artist, with a name like that. I don't think I've met him, though.
"He's the guy who's throwing the party.” Oh. “Where are you?"
"My living room. You should come over."
"Why? The party's just really getting going here. I mean, it's only midnight."
"Really, Raquel, you should get over to my place. You might find it interesting. I mean, as far as your art goes."
"No offense, Greg, but what the hell does your apartment have to do with my art?"
I say, “Dead people, right? That's what you paint."
"Yes.... “She's hesitant. Confused. Of course she is.
"Well, that's quite the common interest we share. I'm killing someone. Like right now."
"What the fuck are you talking about?"
"You'll see."
"I don't know what's going on, Greg, but I'll be right over, okay? Don't do anything stupid.” The phone clicks and I put it down on the coffee table.
Stupid? Of course not. This is the smartest thing I've ever done.
* * * *
An hour later, me and Raquel are sitting on two of my kitchen chairs, except we're in the bathroom. Nadia is naked now, propped up in my bathtub, facing us. Her breasts are moving up and down, very, very slowly. She's having trouble breathing.
Raquel's shaking her head. “I can't believe you're really doing this,” she says, sipping from the martini I made for her. “Wow."
I check my watch and say, “How long do you think it'll take her to die?” I'm looking around for my cigarettes. They're in my pants pocket. Good. I light one for Raquel, then one for me.
"What did you do to her again?"
"Two or three bottles of champagne. Seventy-five hundred milligrams of Vicodin. Thirteen hundred milligrams of Zoloft. Stripped her naked. Put her in the bathtub."
"Wild. I've never seen anyone die before."
I say, “I thought you'd like this."
"Yeah. But why her?"
I say, “She deserves it."
I say, “I did this for you. I wanted us to share something special, something for just you and me.” Raquel doesn't say anything right away. We sit and smoke quietly, watching Nadia. I tap ash into the bathtub, some of it falling on her naked thighs.
"I've seen her at Angelo's before. Snubbed you at the party, I take it?” Raquel smiles, leans over. She takes a long look, then reaches up to fix an errant strand of her own hair, like Nadia's a mirror, like she sees herself in the other girl's face. “She's pretty."
"Yeah, well, not for long.” My voice is calm, controlled. I know what I'm doing.
Raquel stands up, starts to leave the room. I tremble at her touch when she runs her hand through my hair and says, “Mind if I get my camera?"
* * * *
Raquel takes a picture of Nadia every ten minutes. She tells me that she hopes there are minute differences between the photographs so she can paint a series of portraits of Nadia dying. Her next exhibit—she tells me she'll call it something special, name it after some private joke we shared long ago. I'm pretty sure she's kidding, but it still makes me smile.
* * * *
When Nadia finally dies, it's completely anti-climactic. Around three in the morning, she just stops breathing. Me and Raquel, we've propped her up on the edge of the bathtub, sitting on either side of her. We're leaned over, close, listening to her final, shallow gasps. Our fingers are wrapped around her wrists when her pulse stops. Her body is still warm, clammy from its struggles to keep breathing.
For a moment, we both look up at the ceiling as we place her gently in the bottom of the tub. I think somehow we were expecting to see Nadia's soul leave her body and rise up through the ceiling. We don't see anything, but I know I would have liked to.
I leave Nadia in the bathtub and walk Raquel to the door. She kisses me goodnight, on the lips for the first time in years, then she says, “Thank you. No one has ever done anything like this for me before."
I tell her, “Now that we've shared this, we can share anything."
She kisses me again, tells me she'll call me later in the day. Her fingers brush down my arms as she walks out, giving me goose bumps and sending a pleasant chill
down my spine.
I smile the whole time I'm in the kitchen washing the martini glasses and the candy dish and putting them away. I smile while I fold Nadia's dress on the bathroom floor. I place her shoes on top of it, her panties underneath, and put the empty pill bottles next to the sink.
I even smile as I lie in bed, waiting until morning, when I can call the cops and report Nadia's suicide.
I'll tell them, I brought her home from a party because she was too drunk to drive.
I'll say, Yes, she wanted to fuck me, Officer.
I'll say, Sorry, I don't mean to talk that way about the dead, but Christ, the poor girl was practically gagging for it.
No, we didn't have sex. I told her no. We went to sleep instead.
When I woke up this morning, she was dead in the bathtub. I can't believe she took all those pills. It's tragic, really.
You know how these artists are. They're scared, sad people, with feelings of low self-worth. It's terrible what can happen when someone like that is rejected. Just terrible.
I'll say, If only she could have found true love, Officer. Then maybe this wouldn't have happened. And yes, Officer, I really do believe in true love, and I believe you have to be willing to do anything to make it happen in your life.
Anything.
[Back to Table of Contents]
Torso twenty-one by Christopher S. Cosco
* * * *
* * * *
[Back to Table of Contents]
Women of the Doll by Nisi Shawl
Josette admired the countertop's sheen while she waited for the desk clerk. Black marble, veined with green. Like endless Niles etching dark and fertile deltas, she said silently to the stone. Like malachite feathers resting on a field of night.
The surface was interrupted by a white rectangle sliding towards her: the charge slip for her room. She signed dutifully. It would get paid; it always did.
The clerk had hair like black rayon. Her smooth brown face was meticulously made up, copied exactly from some magazine. “Twelvethirteen,” she said. “Elevators are across the lobby to the left.” Then she noticed. “Oooh, how cute! Does she have a name?"
Automatically, Josette tried to tuck her doll further down into her handbag. She wouldn't go.
"Viola,” Josette told the clerk. She settled for pulling a bright blue scarf over Viola's long woolen braids. The painted eyes stared enigmatically from a cloth face caught midway between sorrow and contentment. “I love her very much."
"I'll just bet you do. Can I hold her?"
Josette didn't want to be rude. She ignored the question.
"What time does the gift shop close?"
"Six p.m."
Plenty of time to get rid of her luggage first. She wheeled her bag around and started towards the elevators, crossing alternating strips of that same wonderful marble and a whispery, willow-colored carpet. “Enjoy your stay,” chirped the clerk.
Mirrors lined the walls of the elevator. Once that would have been a problem, but Josette had reached the point where she could make an effort and see what pretty much anyone else would have seen: a woman with a soft, round face, short, curly hair, a slim, graceful neck. Breasts rather large, hips, waist, and legs like a long walk through the dunes. Blue cotton separates under a dove-grey woolen coat—knits, so they wouldn't wrinkle. Golden skin, like a lamp-lit window on a foggy autumn evening.
There was nothing wrong with how she looked.
Room 1213 faced east. Josette opened the drapes and gazed out over parking lots and shopping malls. Off in the distance, to her left, she saw a large unplowed area. A golf course? A cemetery? The snow took on a bluish tinge as she watched. Dusk fell early here. Winter in Detroit.
There was a lamp on the table beside her. She pressed down on the button at its base and fluorescence flickered, then filled the room. A bed, with no way to get under it—less work for the maids, she supposed. An armchair, a desk, a dresser, a wardrobe, a TV, and a night stand. Nothing special, nothing she hadn't seen a thousand times before.
She sat on the bed and felt it give under her, a little more easily than she liked. Her large handbag, which doubled as a carry-on, held a few things to unpack : a diary, a jewel case, handmade toiletries. Bunny was scrunched up at the bottom. She pulled him out and sat him next to Viola on the pillow. He toppled over and fell so his head was hidden by her doll's wide skirts.
"Feeling shy, Mr. Bun?” she asked, reaching to prop him up again. She knew better than to expect an answer, with or without the proper preparations. Bunny was a rabbit. Rabbits couldn't talk. Anyway, he wasn't really hers; he belonged to Viola.
The clock radio caught her eye. Three red fives glowed on the display. Oh no, she thought, and rushed out, leaving her doll behind. Probably Viola wouldn't care. She might not even notice. Certainly she'd be safe alone for just a short time.
Josette made it to the gift shop with a minute to spare, but it was already closed. Frustrated, she stamped her foot, and was rewarded with a stinging pain in her ankle and a lingering look of amusement from a passing white man. She ignored both and quickstepped back to the elevators.
There was a wait. The lobby was suddenly filled with people, mostly men, mostly white, mostly wearing name tags. A convention of some sort. She let a couple of cars go up without her, but when the crowd still showed no sign of thinning, Josette resigned herself to riding up in their company. The amused passerby joined her load just as the door began to close.
The elevator stopped at nearly every floor. The men all stared at her, surreptitiously, except for the late-comer, who smiled and was quite open about it.
There was nothing wrong with how she looked. She stared right back.
He was tall. And thin, not all slabby like over-bred beef. A runner's body, nervous and sensitive. He wore black sweats, actually sweaty sweats, she noticed. His unusually long brown hair hung in curls over one shoulder, held loosely in place by a rubber band.
His smile broadened. He thought he was getting somewhere. They were on the tenth floor. All the other passengers were getting out. “Join me for supper?” he asked.
"I'm sorry, I have so much work,” she murmured politely as she edged through the closing doors. Tomorrow, Sunday, would be the best time to find her place here. Before that she'd have to go through the papers, eliminate and prioritize the ads, consult a map.... Not much time for that if she got involved with a client. She located the stairwell and walked up two flights to her floor. He was attractive, though.
Everything was just the way she'd left it.
She opened up her toolkit on the bed and added recently-scavenged supplies: rum from the airplane, salt-packets from various restaurants. From her handbag she took the small jar of urine she had collected this morning. She was ready.
Salt first. Between the bathroom and the bedroom, there were surprisingly many corners. Josette put a square of toilet paper in every one and dumped a packet of salt into the center of each square.
Next, she swept down the walls above the squares with her rum-sprinkled whisk broom. Little bits of dirt and straw and flakes of dislodged wallpaper fell into the salt. She picked up all the debris and flushed it down the toilet.
She turned on the tap at the wash-basin, splashing her fingers through the water till it ran as hot as it was going to get. Which wasn't very. But she was used to that. She let the sink fill while she added her other ingredients: brown sugar, which melted into the warm water like sand into glass, golden piss, and a swirling white cloud of perfume.
She soaked a hand towel in the mixture, wrung it out to dampness.
"Now I will cut the green myrtle tree
To build a bower for my love and me...."
Her voice was high and clear, and sweet as the scent of her wash-water. Getting down on her hands and knees, she began to sponge the room's royal blue carpet, continuing:
"Rose in June, rose in June,
I will enjoy my rose in June...."
* * * *
She
built her altar in the center of the room. It didn't take long. She used the round table from in front of the window, covering it with her shawl. Between the printed wreaths of lilies, roses, and forget-me-nots, she laid out the stones: a moss agate from Mexico, a white egg-shape covered with barnacles from Whidbey Island. Polished, flat, black, red, rough, round, brown, the stones and their stories circled the cushion where Viola sat, a new white votive candle at her feet. A bowl of water before it trembled with light as Josette struck a match. The candle spat and crackled, flaring up, dying down, then steadying as the wick pulled up the melting wax.
"Is it safe?” Viola's voice was dry and whispery, cloth rubbing against cloth.
"Yes, honey, I promise. It's as safe as I can make it,” Josette answered her.
Viola had no neck, and her stitches were tight, but she managed to turn her head enough to survey most of the room. “Hi, Bunny.” She waved to her toy where he waited on the bed.
The pearls dangling on the doll's flat chest gleamed as she twisted her stocking-stuffed body, still looking for something that wasn't there. “What about the flowers?"
"I, uhh, I couldn't get any yet, Viola honey. I'm sorry...."
"But you said we were gonna have flowers this time.” The painted face showed bewilderment and betrayal. “Can't you just go out and pick some?"
Josette sighed. “No, darling. See, it's winter, and we're way up north, and—” She broke off. It was so hard, Viola was so little.... If she'd gone to the gift shop first instead of dawdling in the room, she wouldn't have had to try and explain all this.
She checked the clock radio. It was eight-thirty, not terribly late. “You wait here, honey, and I'll go get some flowers for us.” Somewhere. Somehow.
* * * *
Josette tried the bar first. From the moment she walked in, though, she knew it was not that kind of place. Grey plastic upholstery, murky purple neon. Artificial twilight trying to pass for atmosphere.
She glanced around at the table-tops. They were decorated with some sort of oversized Crazy Straws or something. No flowers.
She turned to leave. Someone was blocking her way. The man from the gift shop, from the elevator. He was smiling again. “Join me now?” he asked.
GUD Magazine Issue 1 :: Autumn 2007 Page 14