The Rental Heart and Other Fairytales

by Kirsty Logan

  Well? he says, flicking the Zippo in that cute way he has. It makes her notice his hands, the shape of his thumbs; she’s always found guitar-players’ hands sexy. Maybe she’ll kiss him later, if he stops being so annoying. She holds the hot smoke in her lungs then blows it into his eyes.

  I don’t know, she says.

  Witch

  I met Baba Yaga at the end of childhood – past pigtails and fairytales, but not quite ready to give up on make-believe. We had always known that she was there. She was the centre of every scary story our parents told us. They said she had a thousand eyes and watched us as we slept; she had goat’s feet and a rooster’s beak and creepy-crawlies in her hair. She had a fence made of bones and a huge cast-iron oven for roasting nosey children. Every detail made us want to see her more. I dreamed of breaking through her hedge of thorns to find out what she kept at the top of her chicken-legged hut.

  I dare you, said my friend Emmy one night, and that was all it took. No double dare needed. At sixteen, it was very important to be louche.

  Sure, I said, my mind exploding with the secrets of the chicken legs and the goat’s feet. I could already picture Baba Yaga’s face, waxy lipstick smeared and hair a rosebush tangle.

  I knew Emmy only dared me to get a reaction. We’d fooled around a few weeks before, and now she was being all weird, playing mindfuck games. The way I saw it, she had started it all, plying me with her mum’s stolen booze and sucking my tongue on the roundabout in the children’s playground. Everything was spinning so fast, I’d had to kiss her back to keep from falling off the edge of the world. Her mouth tasted of schnapps and peach lip-gloss. She kissed like a bank robber, like she was trying to get in and out as fast as possible. Even with the grope up my top and through the zip of my jeans, she was done before the roundabout had slowed to a stop. I’d wandered home, streetlit and frustrated, then rubbed my clit while thinking of Emmy straddling me on the swings. The heat of her. The soft skin. The secret wet places. And then it wasn’t Emmy but someone else, a woman not a girl, older and stronger, knowledge seeping out of her and into me like the sweet drip of honey, and I came so hard, gasping out a name, and ever since then it had been weird between Emmy and me.

  The dare came two weeks later, a Tuesday night towards the end of the summer holidays. We were bored. It was August, still warm in the twilight of 9pm. We’d made the most of a bottle of Jack, sipping back and forth as we wandered the suburban streets. For a while we’d peeped in windows, but it was too early for anyone to be in bed, and that was the only room that interested us.

  It didn’t take long for us to bump up against the woods. They weren’t even woods really, just a few acres of scrubby trees bordering the town.

  That’s where Baba Yaga lives, said Emmy, her voice thick and slow from the alcohol. In my mind, Baba Yaga was the bitch goddess warrior queen. She terrified and fascinated me.

  I dare you, said Emmy, and I was lost.

  When I come back, you’re buying vodka.

  If you come back. Emmy drained the bottle then pressed her lips against mine. The whisky burned, and I pulled away and walked into the woods without looking back. I pictured Emmy, so small among the trees with the empty bottle in her hand. She’d wait for me.

  I planned to walk to the other side of the woods, then come around the edge and creep up on Emmy to give her a fright. She was pissing me off, but I still wanted to fuck her, and I figured making her squeal and jump into my arms was a good start.

  It should only take about twenty minutes to walk around the edge of the trees. I grinned at the thought of Emmy, still waiting there. She’d already be regretting her dare. She was probably wishing we were back at hers, sprawled on her bedroom floor, smoking joints and sliding our tongues into each other’s mouths. Even though we had to jump apart every time her mum thumped up the stairs, messing around with Emmy still did it for me. Once I’d given her a good scare, maybe I’d let her take me home.

  It was darker here among the trees, and the sounds of the town were muted. I could smell wet earth and woodsmoke. At first my progress had been stilted, every other step kicking into a bit of litter or clump of twigs, but the further I got into the woods the clearer the way became. The humidity was getting to me, my T-shirt sticking to the small of my back. I wiped the sweat off my forehead with my palm, feeling the burrs and bits of dead leaf stuck in my hair. Without realising, I was walking more carefully, trying not to make the leaves crunch under my feet. The woods looked the same in every direction, and it seemed like darkness was falling faster. I started to wonder if I’d somehow turned myself around. Digging my feet down into the carpet of leaves, I closed my eyes and listened. Maybe if I could hear some noise from the town, I’d be able to figure out where I was. Soon I heard something that was not a night bird or a burrowing rodent or the distant murmur of traffic. It was the noise I had dreamed of Emmy making.

  I opened my eyes and crept towards the noise as quietly as I could. The moans and rustles grew louder, and I ducked down when I saw the gleam of naked skin. I held my breath and watched. Through the screen of thin branches I couldn’t tell what combination of male and female I was watching, but I knew the rhythm of that motion. The moaning turned into words, a vague mumbling, oh-god-oh-god-oh-yes-oh-fuck. I shifted my position, squatting so that my heel pressed up against my swelling clit. I rocked as I watched, thinking about how Emmy was going to make those noises later when I slid my fingers inside her. I imagined the sweat on the couple’s skin, bellies sliding together as they thrust, the feeling of being filled, of slickness and hardness, and I pressed my heel harder against the knot of fabric in the crotch of my jeans, and I thought about sucking earlobes and kissing throats and biting lips. I felt a pressure building, the air catching in my throat, the throbbing growing to a peak, and as orgasm shuddered through me like a wave across a rock, my foot slid out across the leaves.

  The couple stopped abruptly, jerking up like lions interrupted while feeding. Oh shit, I’d been spotted. I tried to make my exit with the speed of running and the silence of creeping, somehow managing neither. After a few minutes I dared to look back – I was alone. I let out the breath I had been holding, then inhaled the musty smell of the woods. For a while I leaned against a tree, feeling grounded by the bark scratching against my palm, until I was ready to move on. Sure, I had almost got busted for peeping, but that had only made me more eager to get back to Emmy and re-enact what I had just seen. I let a smile slide onto my face, and headed off in what I thought was the right direction.

  In front of me stood a concrete hut, long abandoned, covered in ‘Danger of Death’ signs. The council must have forgotten it years ago – it had the unmistakable squalor of 1970s’ architecture. I barely glanced at the greying bricks before continuing. I was eager to get back to Emmy for our night of scaring squealing kissing fucking. And that would have been that, except as I was walking past the door of the hut, it opened. Outlined in the doorway was a woman with a head of heart-red curls and arms full of chopped wood.

  Oh, she said. She looked at me for a moment, then stepped back inside the hut and closed the door.

  I stood stupidly, breathing the smells of rotting leaves and cool air, and stared at the closed door. Every time I blinked, I could see the after-image of the woman: her red hair, her purple dress, her dirty bare feet. My head throbbed with alcohol and heat. For all I knew, there was probably some awful reason why the woman was lurking about in the woods in the dark. She could have been burying bodies; maybe she had a bloody axe to go along with that wood. Maybe she was waiting in her hut for some stupid kid like me to come along and be worm-food.

  None of this stopped me from knocking on the door. For a long time nothing happened, and I was suddenly aware of how ridiculous I looked, slack-jawed and half-drunk in my dirty jeans, knocking at the door of an abandoned hut in the middle of the woods. I looked like an artist’s reconstruction of a scene from a true crime bo
ok. Then the door opened.

  The woman was still holding the chopped wood in her arms. The lights behind her lit up her hair like a bloody halo.

  Yes, she said, you saw me. You weren’t expecting it, and neither was I. So let’s just get on with our lives and pretend that this never happened. She frowned, and it was the most beautiful thing I’d ever seen. I couldn’t let her close the door on me again.

  You’re her, I said. Baba Yaga.

  The woman raised her eyebrows and looked down at herself. Do I look like I have goat’s feet and a rooster’s beak? This hut may be ugly, but it’s not on chicken legs. And I assure you that I don’t spend my nights riding around on a giant broom.

  Those are just stories they tell kids. Probably so we don’t come here and find you. Because you . . .

  Because I what?

  Because you’re the bitch goddess warrior queen, I thought. Because you want to be left alone, I said.

  And yet, here you are. Not leaving me alone.

  I smiled with one side of my mouth, in a way that Emmy had told me was extremely fuckable. This seemed to be a universal feeling, because Baba Yaga smiled right back.

  You might as well come in, she said.

  Baba Yaga showed me around her home, the walls hung with saris and the cupboards full of books. She explained to me how she had soundproofed the walls and stolen a generator from a poorly-guarded building site. Most of all, she told me how she had come to be the wicked witch: an eviction from her flat, a girlfriend running off with her boss, a three-days-drunk stumble through the woods. An empty hut, a new life. She told me how she had sewn stories around herself: a shroud of children’s nightmares to protect her from the world.

  I told her stories too. Her stories were about building things, making a life; mine were about emptiness and drifting. Just sixteen and done with school, done with parents; living in a squat and drinking my way along the suburban streets until the lights started to blur. I had come unmoored, but now I’d bumped up against her.

  When we’d finished talking, Baba Yaga kissed my throat and dragged me to bed. I had spent my childhood fantasising about her – the images left in my head after my bedtime stories. I had dreamed of fairytales, and she was better than all of it.

  I pulled off her dress, the bright fabric catching in her curls. I fumbled, laughed, was silenced by her mouth on mine. In one movement, she shook off her clothing and tore off mine. Her skin was hot and smooth. She licked her way down my body, her tongue as rough as a cat’s. I wouldn’t close my eyes, desperate to see every moment of her. She slid her hands under my hips and lifted me. I wrapped my ankles around her head and pulled her into me, but Baba Yaga only gave what she wanted to give. She pulled away, teasing me. On her knees at the end of the bed, she stretched her body out for me. The pink of her nipples, the soft weight of her breasts, the angles of her chin and wrists and calves. I could smell her cunt, a scent like the ground after rain.

  I crawled towards her on the bed, sliding my body under hers, pulling her down onto me. She was honey on my tongue. She was the poison apple, the kiss that would wake me. When she finally slid inside me, I knew the end of my story. I never wanted to leave my bitch goddess warrior queen. I knew what happily ever after was, and I wanted to be a wicked witch too.

  By the time I got to the edge of the woods, Emmy had gone. I only went to tell her not to wait for me any more, so when I saw that the street was empty, I turned around and went right back home. Back to Baba Yaga. Over the years, I sometimes wondered what had happened to Emmy; how long she’d waited that night before turning away from the woods; whether she’d come in after me or just got bored, wandered off, and forgotten. I wondered if she remembered that night in the children’s playground; those sticky, blurry kisses. I wondered whether she’d ever found her own witch to love.

  Parents still tell their children bedtime stories: two wicked witches, perched in their chicken-legged house, hiding away from the world.

  All the Better to Eat You With

  ‘Once upon a time,’ the big one said, ‘this was all ice.’

  ‘All of it?’ the little one said. ‘Even the bits trapped up on shore with the crabs and beasties in? And the waves coming in and the white bits all the way out? And those faraway bits past the islands?’

  ‘All the way out to sea it was,’ the big one said. ‘But there was no sea, you see, only ice. There were wolves too, and the wolves would prowl around on the ice and nose right into the door of your house, bold as you please! What do you say to that?’

  ‘They wouldn’t come in our house,’ the little one said. ‘Because in our house there’s you.’

  ‘Well,’ the big one said, ‘that may be so. But what if those hungry wolves managed to get a wee nip at you anyway, hmm? Because as you know, my tidbit, the wolves love nothing more than the crunchy-munchy bones of little ones – just – like – you!’

  ‘I think that would be not so bad,’ the little one said. ‘Wolves’ bellies are soft, I bet. And I have sharp nails. I could claw my way out.’

  ‘Oh yes, my morsel?’ the big one said. ‘And if the wolf bit off your fingers?’

  ‘I’d bite his right back. My teeth are even sharper.’

  ‘And if he pulled out your teeth?’

  ‘I’d kick and hit and headbutt him all to pieces.’

  ‘And if he bit off your legs and your arms? What of your pretty head?’

  ‘Oh, don’t make me say it.’

  ‘You must say it. You must say it so that I know you know.’

  ‘I’d use you as a distraction so I could escape. You’re my secret weapon.’

  ‘That’s right, my delicacy. And what must you care about?’

  ‘Nothing. Only myself.’

  ‘When the time comes, you’ll remember that, won’t you? For the seas are no longer ice, but the wolves are no less hungry.’

  The Man From the Circus

  1

  I stepped out for a cigarette halfway through the girl-on-the-pony show. I liked the idea of the girl-on-the-pony show, but the reality of it depressed me. I could see the gobs of glue holding on the horse’s plume, and the girl had lipstick on her teeth.

  It was all ‘no smoking’ here, even round the backs of the tents, so I had to go all the way to the main entrance. It was quiet there, the music and applause muffled through layers of canvas. The night smelled of popcorn and diesel fumes. A ticket collector lurked in the background, his booth lit with strings of Christmas lights. He probably hadn’t seen anyone for hours; no one would arrive at the circus this late.

  I was down to my last cigarette. I patted all my pockets before remembering I’d left my lighter in my other jacket. I went to pluck the cigarette off my lip when a lighter flickered, spotlight-bright in the darkness. I know, right? It’s like something off the Classic Movies channel. I leaned forward and lit my cigarette, closing my eyes so the smoke wouldn’t burn.

  Thanks, I mumbled around the filter. The lighter snapped shut, and I could see who had offered it. His features were uneven: his nose a little too flat, his eyes a little too small. He was TV-ugly – imperfect, not the romantic lead, but still attractive.

  I didn’t say anything, just exhaled some smoke rings. I was playing it cool, my cigarette in one hand and the other tucked in my back pocket, my hips tilted towards him. His pick-up routine was lame; but hey, I was eighteen.

  Would you like to go for a ride? he said.

  I flicked away the stub of my cigarette: it hit the gate and rebounded with a flicker like a Bonfire Night sparkler. He took that as a yes, and walked away from the gates.

  The man from the circus whistled a tune as he tapped his fingers along the row of cars by the kerb. Maybe he thought that if he distracted me, I wouldn’t notice that he was breaking into the car rather than unlocking it. I knew that shiny red Subaru well; I watched Willy Murdo polish it in h
is driveway every Sunday.

  I couldn’t stop staring at the man’s earlobes. I know it’s a weird thing to say; they were just so big, stretched out like doughnuts with wooden things in the holes.

  He opened the passenger door and stood beside it. Did he want me to drive? He looked impatient; if he’d had car keys, he’d be jangling them. I opened my mouth to make an excuse, then realised he was holding the door for me. Another Classic Movies act. It made me wish I was wearing a fancy hat and very shiny shoes.

  He pushed the driver’s seat back as far as it would go, but his knees still barely fit under the steering wheel. He didn’t look that tall out under the sky, but he looked huge folded inside the Subaru. He fiddled around under the steering wheel, then spun the wheel and roared into the night.

  The town was pitch black: no stars, no house lights. Everyone was inside the circus tents. The only lights were from the Subaru, directing us through the hills. I hoped none of the sheep had wandered into the road. I didn’t want to die with only a sheep and a very tall man from the circus for company.

  The silence stretched, longer and darker than the road ahead of us. I opened my mouth to tell him to watch out for sheep, but it sounded stupid even inside my head. I ran through other possibilities: what kind of music did he listen to, where was he from, what was the circus like? I could tell him about how bored I was at school, how much I secretly hated all my friends, the way my eyes itched every time I looked out at the mainland. I didn’t want to say any of those things.

  Last week, I said, on the radio, there was a competition. The DJ played a sound-bite of a car going over a cattle grid, and people had to phone in to guess which cattle grid it was. I didn’t phone in, but I knew the answer.

  I waited for the man to tell me that in the circus there were no radio competitions, no DJs, no cattle grids. He didn’t say anything. I watched him and he watched the road.