They send her home with a pinochle deck.
Mantis Wives, by Kij Johnson
"As for the insects, their lives are sustained only by intricate processes of fantastic horror." —John Wyndham.
Eventually, the mantis women discovered that killing their husbands was not inseparable from the getting of young. Before this, a wife devoured her lover piece by piece during the act of coition: the head (and its shining eyes going dim as she ate); the long green prothorax; the forelegs crisp as straws; the bitter wings. She left for last the metathorax and its pumping legs, the abdomen, and finally the phallus. Mantis women needed nutrients for their pregnancies; their lovers offered this as well as their seed.
It was believed that mantis men would resist their deaths if permitted to choose the manner of their mating; but the women learned to turn elsewhere for nutrients after draining their husbands' members, and yet the men lingered. And so their ladies continued to kill them, but slowly, in the fashioning of difficult arts. What else could there be between them?
The Bitter Edge: A wife may cut through her husband's exoskeletal plates, each layer a different pattern, so that to look at a man is to see shining, hard brocade. At the deepest level are visible pieces of his core, the hint of internal parts bleeding out. He may suggest shapes.
The Eccentric Curve of His Thoughts: A wife may drill the tiniest hole into her lover's head and insert a fine hair. She presses carefully, striving for specific results: a seizure, a novel pheromone burst, a dance that ends in self-castration. If she replaces the hair with a wasp's narrow syringing stinger, she may blow air bubbles into his head and then he will react unpredictably. There is otherwise little he may do that will surprise her, or himself.
What is the art of the men, that they remain to die at the hands of their wives? What is the art of the wives, that they kill?
The Strength of Weight: Removing his wings, she leads him into the paths of ants.
Unready Jewels: A mantis wife may walk with her husband across the trunks of pines, until they come to a trail of sap and ascend to an insect-clustered wound. Staying to the side, she presses him down until his legs stick fast. He may grow restless as the sap sheathes his body and wings. His eyes may not dim for some time. Smaller insects may cluster upon his honeyed body like ornaments.
A mantis woman does not know why the men crave death, but she does not ask. Does she fear resistance? Does she hope for it? She has forgotten the ancient reasons for her acts, but in any case her art is more important.
The Oubliette: Or a wife may take not his life but his senses: plucking the antennae from his forehead; scouring with dust his clustered shining eyes; cracking apart his mandibles to scrape out the lining of his mouth and throat; plucking the sensing hairs from his foremost legs; excising the auditory thoracic organ; biting free the wings.
A mantis woman is not cruel. She gives her husband what he seeks. Who knows what poems he fashions in the darkness of a senseless life?
The Scent of Violets: They mate many times, until one dies.
Two Stones Grind Together: A wife collects with her forelegs small brightly colored poisonous insects, places them upon bitter green leaves, and encourages her husband to eat them. He is sometimes reluctant after the first taste but she speaks to him, or else he calms himself and eats.
He may foam at the mouth and anus, or grow paralyzed and fall from a branch. In extreme cases, he may stagger along the ground until he is seen by a bird and swallowed, and then even the bird may die.
A mantis has no veins; what passes for blood flows freely within its protective shell. It does have a heart.
The Desolate Junk-land: Or a mantis wife may lay her husband gently upon a soft bed and bring to him cool drinks and silver dishes filled with sweetmeats. She may offer him crossword puzzles and pornography; may kneel at his feet and tell him stories of mantis men who are heroes; may dance in veils before him.
He tears off his own legs before she begins. It is unclear whether The Desolate Junk-land is her art, or his.
Shame's Uniformity: A wife may return to the First Art and, in a variant, devour her husband, but from the abdomen forward. Of all the arts this is hardest. There is no hair, no ant's bite, no sap, no intervening instrument. He asks her questions until the end. He may doubt her motives, or she may.
The Paper-folder. Lichens' Dance. The Ambition of Aphids. Civil Wars. The Secret History of Cumulus. The Lost Eyes Found. Sedges. The Unbeaked Sparrow.
There are as many arts as there are husbands and wives.
The Cruel Web: Perhaps they wish to love each other, but they cannot see a way to exist that does not involve the barb, the sticking sap, the bitter taste of poison. The Cruel Web can be performed only in the brambles of woods, and only when there has been no recent rain and the spider's webs have grown thick. Wife and husband walk together. Webs catch and cling to their carapaces, their legs, their half-opened wings. They tear free, but the webs collect. Their glowing eyes grow veiled. Their curious antennae come to a tangled halt. Their pheromones become confused; their legs struggle against the gathering web. The spiders wait.
She is larger than he and stronger, but they often fall together.
How to Live: A mantis may dream of something else. This also may be a trap.
The Snow Wife, by Kij Johnson
The research I do — into Japan, or dogs, or Arctic exploration, or comic-book theory — is research I do for love. I get interested in a topic and then obsessed with it. Sometimes I use it directly in my writing; other times it’s there in the background, where I hope it affects how I see things; or it appears in a story years later, which I thought I was past that particular fascination. This story was written for the Flight of the Mind workshop in 1999, and has not been published before this collection.
In Fisher’s village the snow falls until it buries everything. After certain storms, the villagers must climb into the rafters and out through the open eaves onto the roofs of their great dark houses to see the sun again. Tunnels are dug from house to house, but this is hard work, and they collapse sometimes in snowstorms. In a village of a hundred people, in winters such as these, your neighbors may keep you sane, or they may drive you mad. The balance is delicate.
Fisher lived alone in a small house at the village’s edge, too plain and too awkward and with too little choice to have a wife. Snow fell; already as high as the walls of his house, it drifted into the thatch. He drank hot wine by the fire.
Fisher didn’t notice how the snow-wife came in. He was alone, and then he was not. She was pale and wore white silk robes, layered for warmth. Her hair was as black as smoke-dark rafters. Her hands, when he gave her rice, were cold. She didn’t say much, which was fine with Fisher, who had few words and did not spend them easily. His life shifted pattern: still simple but sweeter.
It is not hard to marry in the village — three nights and shared wine will do it. But it seemed very serious to Fisher who had always been alone: he wept with happiness when they drank from a single cup.
He did not think about his wife’s nature. She was clever and kind, joyous in sex. If her hands were always cold, it was no surprise, here in a village where the snow drifts over the roofs of the houses.
After three days, the storm eased, and the first neighbor arrived.
“Brrr,” Carter said, and stamped his straw over-boots. The tricolor cat that followed Carter everywhere began looking for frozen mice by the walls.
“The roof on Blacksmith’s storage collapsed — the only bar iron he’s going to have until spring is the stuff he had in the forge. Weaver had the baby two days ago — it’s a girl and they’re both fine. How was it for you?”
Fisher led his wife forward to meet Carter. She smiled and bowed and offered them wine, then retired to mend a worn robe.
“Hmm,” Carter said. “When did she get here?”
Fisher flushed. “She arrived during the storm.”
Carter looked at Fisher for a long time, strokin
g the tricolor cat when it came to his hands. “Hmmm. Well, good luck to you both,” he said.
News spread and others came to greet his pale wife. Visiting was frequent when the tunnels were safe, but Fisher loved the times when the storms made them dangerous, and he was alone with his kind, clever wife. If she looked older and a little tired, this was no surprise, for village winters are hard.
Snow fell, and blew away, and fell again. The sun returned and the days grew long. Snow melted on the roof; the thatch dripped until Fisher pushed it clear. When he got the front door open and led his wife into the thawing courtyard, he saw her robes looked plainer in the daylight, and there was a streak of silver in her hair. His heart ached, and he held her cold hands against his face. “I will never leave you,” he whispered. She said nothing.
Spring came: flowers slipped through cracks in the snow, which dwindled from fields to patches. Fisher’s wife could do less now, for she had fallen sick. The neighbors helped when they could, bringing roots from their dwindling supplies. Fisher and his wife walked each day, she close in the curve of his arm. He gave no sign of how carefully he chose their path, so that they might always step in snow. Her hair was as white as her worn robes.
She died.
Fisher sat in his small house. It was spring and warm, so there was no fire. Carter entered, the tricolored cat by his bare foot. “I’m sorry,” he said, and he sat down. “But she could not have stayed.”
“You knew she was a demon,” Fisher said, not looking.
“We all knew,” Carter said.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
“Why should we?” caster said. “Happiness is rare. We did not want to stand in the way.” The tricolor cat came to Fisher and pressed against his hand.
“She was a demon,” Fisher said again, and stroked the cat’s ears. “She might have destroyed us all. That is the way of demons.”
“No,” Carter said, and stood. “Even a demon grows lonely, and she loved you. Happiness is rare,” he said again, and left.
Spar, by Kij Johnson
Hugo Nomination for Best Short Story 2010.
Nebula for Best Short Story 2009.
In the tiny lifeboat, she and the alien fuck endlessly, relentlessly.
***
They each have Ins and Outs. Her Ins are the usual, eyes ears nostrils mouth cunt ass. Her Outs are also the common ones: fingers and hands and feet and tongue. Arms. Legs. Things that can be thrust into other things.
The alien is not humanoid. It is not bipedal. It has cilia. It has no bones, or perhaps it does and she cannot feel them. Its muscles, or what might be muscles, are rings and not strands. Its skin is the color of dusk and covered with a clear thin slime that tastes of snot. It makes no sounds. She thinks it smells like wet leaves in winter, but after a time she cannot remember that smell, or leaves, or winter.
Its Ins and Outs change. There are dark slashes and permanent knobs that sometimes distend, but it is always growing new Outs, hollowing new Ins. It cleaves easily in both senses.
It penetrates her a thousand ways. She penetrates it, as well.
***
The lifeboat is not for humans. The air is too warm, the light too dim. It is too small. There are no screens, no books, no warning labels, no voices, no bed or chair or table or control board or toilet or telltale lights or clocks. The ship's hum is steady. Nothing changes.
There is no room. They cannot help but touch. They breathe each other's breath — if it breathes; she cannot tell. There is always an Out in an In, something wrapped around another thing, flesh coiling and uncoiling inside, outside. Making spaces. Making space.
She is always wet. She cannot tell whether this is the slime from its skin, the oil and sweat from hers, her exhaled breath, the lifeboat's air. Or come.
Her body seeps. When she can, she pulls her mind away. But there is nothing else, and when her mind is disengaged she thinks too much. Which is: at all. Fucking the alien is less horrible.
***
She does not remember the first time. It is safer to think it forced her.
***
The wreck was random: a mid-space collision between their ship and the alien's, simultaneously a statistical impossibility and a fact. She and Gary just had time to start the emergency beacon and claw into their suits before their ship was cut in half. Their lifeboat spun out of reach. Her magnetic boots clung to part of the wreck. His did not. The two of them fell apart.
A piece of debris slashed through the leg of Gary's suit to the bone, through the bone. She screamed. He did not. Blood and fat and muscle swelled from his suit into vacuum. An Out.
The alien's vessel also broke into pieces, its lifeboat kicking free and the waldos reaching out, pulling her through the airlock. In.
Why did it save her? The mariner's code? She does not think it knows she is alive. If it did it would try to establish communications. It is quite possible that she is not a rescued castaway. She is salvage, or flotsam.
***
She sucks her nourishment from one of the two hard intrusions into the featureless lifeboat, a rigid tube. She uses the other, a second tube, for whatever comes from her, her shit and piss and vomit. Not her come, which slicks her thighs to her knees.
She gags a lot. It has no sense of the depth of her throat. Ins and Outs.
There is a time when she screams so hard that her throat bleeds.
***
She tries to teach it words. "Breast," she says. "Finger. Cunt." Her vocabulary options are limited here.
"Listen to me," she says. "Listen. To. Me." Does it even have ears?
***
The fucking never gets better or worse. It learns no lessons about pleasing her. She does not learn anything about pleasing it either: would not if she could. And why? How do you please grass and why should you? She suddenly remembers grass, the bright smell of it and its perfect green, its cool clean soft feel beneath her bare hands.
She finds herself aroused by the thought of grass against her hands, because it is the only thing that she has thought of for a long time that is not the alien or Gary or the Ins and Outs. But perhaps its soft blades against her fingers would feel just like the alien's cilia. Her ability to compare anything with anything else is slipping from her, because there is nothing to compare.
***
She feels it inside everywhere, tendrils moving in her nostrils, thrusting against her eardrums, coiled beside the corners of her eyes. And she sheathes herself in it.
When an Out crawls inside her and touches her in certain places, she tips her head back and moans and pretends it is more than accident. It is Gary, he loves me, it loves me, it is a He. It is not.
Communication is key, she thinks.
***
She cannot communicate, but she tries to make sense of its actions.
What is she to it? Is she a sex toy, a houseplant? A shipwrecked Norwegian sharing a spar with a monolingual Portugese? A companion? A habit, like nailbiting or compulsive masturbation? Perhaps the sex is communication, and she just doesn't understand the language yet.
Or perhaps there is no It. It is not that they cannot communicate, that she is incapable; it is that the alien has no consciousness to communicate with. It is a sex toy, a houseplant, a habit.
***
On the starship with the name she cannot recall, Gary would read books aloud to her. Science fiction, Melville, poetry. Her mind cannot access the plots, the words. All she can remember is a few lines from a sonnet, "Let me not to the marriage of true minds admit impediments"— something something something — "an ever-fixèd mark that looks on tempests and is never shaken; it is the star to every wand'ring bark...." She recites the words, an anodyne that numbs her for a time until they lose their meaning. She has worn them treadless, and they no longer gain any traction in her mind. Eventually she cannot even remember the sounds of them.
If she ever remembers another line, she promises herself she will not wear it out. She will hoard i
t. She may have promised this before, and forgotten.
She cannot remember Gary's voice. Fuck Gary, anyway. He is dead and she is here with an alien pressed against her cervix.
***
It is covered with slime. She thinks that, as with toads, the slime may be a mild psychotropic drug. How would she know if she were hallucinating? In this world, what would that look like? Like sunflowers on a desk, like Gary leaning across a picnic basket to place fresh bread in her mouth. The bread is the first thing she has tasted that feels clean in her mouth, and it's not even real.
Gary feeding her bread and laughing. After a time, the taste of bread becomes "the taste of bread" and then the words become mere sounds and stop meaning anything.
On the off-chance that this is will change things, she drives her tongue though its cilia, pulls them into her mouth and sucks them clean. She has no idea whether it makes a difference. She has lived forever in the endless reeking fucking now.
***
Was there someone else on the alien's ship? Was there a Gary, lost now to space? Is it grieving? Does it fuck her to forget, or because it has forgotten? Or to punish itself for surviving? Or the other, for not?
Or is this her?
***
When she does not have enough Ins for its Outs, it makes new ones. She bleeds for a time and then heals. She pretends that this is a rape. Rape at least she could understand. Rape is an interaction. It requires intention. It would imply that it hates or fears or wants. Rape would mean she is more than a wine glass it fills.
Anthology of Speculative Fiction, Volume Two Page 251