And then I caught the words “missing” and “disappeared” on the radio news report.
There was, all around the world, an alarming increase in missing-person reports. The prime minister of Canada. The CEO of Toshiba. The US ambassador to the UN. The populations of whole villages in Africa. Hundreds of Afghan women. And so on. From the most disenfranchised to the most powerful, people everywhere were vanishing.
The news that I probably was not the only victim of this peculiar condition did not reassure me, but rather filled me with overwhelming dread. I walked into the bathroom, needing the security of your presence, and sat on the edge of the tub. You had no reaction when I reached out and stroked your face. Was I that insubstantial?
I could no longer take comfort in the slight plumpness of your cheek. To my touch, your flesh was as hard and unyielding as concrete.
~
When your sister left the apartment, I took advantage of the open door – all physical objects now being immovable, impassable obstacles – and left with her. I didn’t follow her. I had been cooped up inside for so long. I needed the open air. I wandered and mulled over what I had heard on the news. I was already so used to the pain from the sensory overload that it was no longer even a distracting irritant.
Were all the vanished in the same situation I was? If I met another vanished person, would we see each other?
Outside I discovered that rain, even the mildest precipitation, knocked the strange substance of my nearly insubstantial body to the ground, raindrops hammering into me like nails. Yet, for all that I had some, if almost negligible, physical presence, I cast no shadow. I was truly invisible.
There were fewer and fewer people about every day. Obviously, we vanished could not perceive each other. What people were left acquired a haunted or persecuted look. They knew that their time would soon come.
Less than a week after I escaped from the apartment, civil order broke down. Vandalized and overturned police cars burned on street corners. All the stores I passed had their windows broken, their stock looted or destroyed.
The city grew quiet, as traffic dwindled away and industry stopped dead.
The silence was occasionally punctuated by bursts of gunshots and quickly silenced screams. Those sounds filled me with more dread than my inexplicable vanishing ever did. I was always careful to walk away from such noises and never discovered exactly what was happening.
Dogs wailed and wandered everywhere, searching for their vanished human companions, scavenging through garbage for food.
I saw stray cats hunt some of the smaller wildlife that was reclaiming the city. They gave the bears a wide berth, though. Often, I thought I saw George, but the cat was always gone before I could be sure.
During that time, I returned to the apartment only once. The door had been torn off. Everything had been trashed. A raccoon family was living in our bedroom. By then you must have vanished, like me. I wanted to find you, hold you. But you were beyond my reach.
~
I was following a bear around, excited by what would have been in normal circumstances suicidal behaviour, when a giant shadow fell over me. I looked up. Swift grey clouds covered the afternoon sky. Scraps of old newspapers were being blown every which way. There was so much wind – wild, chaotic wind. Before I could think to take cover, I was hit on all sides – by a ragged shirt, a torn magazine, a broken beer bottle, cigarette butts, gum wrappers. I was jabbed and crushed and flattened and stabbed and twisted. It hadn’t hurt this much since that first morning.
The storm erupted; the sharp, heavy rain felled me, knifed through my prone body.
~
The storm ended; the clouds parted and revealed the moonlit sky, glittering with stars. I lay on the ground, recovering from the storm, and gazed at the sky. There were more stars visible than before: when people had vanished, so had the city lights that had made the nighttime too bright for starlight.
I stayed like that until dawn, and then someone stepped on me.
I looked around; the streets were filled with people. Naked as newborns, they walked calmly but with a sense of purpose, murmuring softly to each other, casually touching each other, sharing complicit glances.
I recognized a few faces – no-one I knew well, but people I’d seen in shops or cafés.
Still wobbly, I stood up. Was this ordeal finally over? Was I back, too? A quick test – trying in vain to see my hands or any part of my body – told me I wasn’t. I tried to call out to the people around me, but I was still mute.
What about you? Could you have returned? I ran to our apartment.
~
When I neared home, I saw them. They were also heading there: hand in hand, smiling and laughing, so obviously deeply in love with each other.
It was you and me. More beautiful, more in love, more confident, more at peace than we’d ever been. Serene.
But it wasn’t you, was it? No more than it was me. You must still be vanished like me. Neither dead nor alive. And so it must be for everyone.
Do you, like me, spend your time watching our doppelgangers? Are you frustrated at being unable to understand their language? Are you jealous at how much better they are at being us – at loving each other – than we ever were? At how much even George seems happier with them? Are you envious that all these new people have made the world a better place?
I want to end my life, but I don’t think I can. I’ve tried jumping off roofs, but all I get out of it is more pain – never death.
Are you here with me, my love?
I long to die with you.
To be really dead. Together. Forever oblivious.
Scenes from the Skoobie Revolution
A nun got on the bus and sat in the empty two-seater facing Correy and Norman. The two white boys had been holding hands, whispering pervy jokes, and giggling, but they instinctively let go of each other as soon as they caught sight of her.
(The bus driver, Ralph Solomon, was a Jewish man in his late thirties; we’ll get to him later.)
The nun was a Latina, and looked approximately thirty years old, give or take. Although Norman hadn’t been to church since elementary school and even though he no longer believed either in God or in the authority of the Church, the nun’s presence called up childhood reactions he thought he’d long ago discarded. He felt cornered and guilty – as if he’d been doing something wrong. He tensed in his seat, waiting for her eyes to scrutinize his tats, his facemetal, his hair, his torn clothes, waiting for her patronizing, disapproving sneer.
Not only was this Norman’s first date with Correy, but it was his first date with another boy – ever. He felt exposed and more than a little vulnerable, particularly because things were going so well. He’d been with a few girls, and he really liked girls, too, especially the smell of the skin between their breasts. But with Correy it was different and more exciting. And not just because he was a boy. Simply the sound of Correy’s voice soothed him deeply – as if it filled an abyss he had never known was there, resonating to infinity inside him. The feeling had swept over him during coffee, almost as soon as they’d started talking. And Correy was way, way hot. Totally droolworthy.
The nun smiled at the boys, with a subtle nod to each of them. Norman noticed then how beautiful her mouth was. She wore no lipstick or makeup, but her luscious lips begged to be kissed. He locked eyes with her, and all he could think was how infectiously beautiful her smile was. Fuck it, thought Norman, entwining his fingers through Correy’s and nuzzling his neck.
Norman stole a glance toward the nun, and he caught a conspiratorial glint as he met her eyes. He didn’t remember nuns being this cool.
But, when Norman tried to nibble on Correy’s lips, the other boy stiffened and pulled away, leaving Norman feeling humiliated and a little irate, but not sure if he was angry at himself or at Correy. Maybe both.
A few stops later, Correy leaned in and said, “I’m sorry,” squeezing Norman’s hand. “Let’s get out of here. I need to talk to you
. Now.” Norman didn’t like the bossy tone in that last word. Without waiting for Norman’s response, Correy pushed the signal button and walked to the exit door.
By now, the magic of their date had faded away. Anger and disappointment roiled in Norman’s belly. Nevertheless, he resignedly stood up and followed Correy.
Outside, the air was brisk with early autumn chill, but the sky was clear and there was no wind. A nice evening. Perfect for a romantic walk, hand-in-hand with someone hot and witty. What a waste of good weather, thought Norman, as he contemplated how quickly it had all gone south.
Correy didn’t say anything. Now he was nervous and rigid. Totally different from the boy Norman had been falling for all evening.
It was Norman who broke the silence. “So, what did you have to tell me? Why are you fucking freaking out on me? Was it the Sister? Did you know her?”
“Who—? Oh. No, no. This has nothing to do with the nun.”
Norman saw that Correy’s hand was trembling. His anger thawed a bit at that.
“I might as well blurt it out. I’m HIV-positive, Norman. You could’ve split my lip with your teeth. I couldn’t let you take that risk. Even if the risk was minimal.”
Norman exploded. “When the fuck were you going to tell me this? How dare you not tell me!”
“But I am telling you. I’m telling you right now. Listen, tonight was great. I really want to be with you. But you had to know before we ... before things g—”
“Fucking hell. AIDS. You’ve got fucking AIDS. And you didn’t tell me.”
“No, it hasn’t developed into AIDS yet, but whatever. That’s not the point, Norman.”
“How dare you! How dare you. You should have told me before, man.”
“Would you have gone out with me if you’d known?”
Norman paused before answering. He didn’t want to shout. He wanted to sound reasonable. “But that’s the point, man. You played me. You manipulated me. Look, I thought I really liked you, but I don’t want to put my life at risk like this. Shit. I’m nineteen. Nineteen! I don’t want to catch some lethal incurable disease at nineteen. Do you enjoy seducing guys and then dropping this nuclear dealbreaker on them once you’ve got them hooked?”
“Come on, it’s not like that. And there’s tons we can do to minimize the risk.”
“‘Minimize’! Screw that. Screw you, man. Don’t call me, okay?” Norman accelerated his pace. He didn’t look back at Correy as he left him behind. Norman was already crying, chastising himself. It was just one date, I shouldn’t care this much. I barely know him. Fuck it, fuck it, fuck it.
~
Every night, Sister Margarita lulled herself to sleep with thoughts of kissing, which led to kiss-filled dreams. Not the chaste cheek-on-cheek type of kisses, but the full mouth-on-mouth kind, with tongues, lips, and teeth playing, biting, probing, tasting, devouring. Every morning, she woke up with her thighs clammy from her nightly secretions. Tonight, after seeing those two boys on the bus so obviously in love, the yearning was even stronger. She worried that her appearance had burst the romance bubble of the night for them. But, from the way they looked at each other, she felt confident they could overcome any bump in their road together.
She should confess her nocturnal trespasses, but she never did. Despite her desire for the mouths of men, she never regretted entering the orders, pledging her life to Jesus, the Holy Spirit, and the Virgin Mary. She liked the good she did in the world, counselling immigrant women at the Holy Mother of God Free Clinic. Especially, she was glad to see how many teenage girls came to see her and trusted her in ways they could never trust their own mothers. The pride she felt was a sin, she knew, and that, at least, had become a familiar refrain at the confessional.
There was little privacy in this life, and she treasured the dreams. They were hers, and nobody else’s. That, too, was sinful attitude, but she hoped her good deeds would outweigh this small transgression. She never acted on her dreams, after all. And she was planning on seeking absolution when she was older, when her dreams would finally die along with her lust.
Tonight, though, the dream was of a different order of magnitude, and of a different quality, than any of her previous dreams – which tended to focus on sensation rather than contextual detail. Also, she wasn’t usually aware that she was dreaming, nor there was ever a hint of nightmare to her dreams. All unlike tonight.
This time, she imagined bathing in a mist that made her entire skin tingle. Then she was roused by a swarm of hand-sized succubi and incubi. They pulled the covers off; peeled the clothes from her body; slithered all over her; ran their smooth, tiny tongues over her goosepimpled naked flesh; their warm, spongy bodies probed her orifices. Then they slid off her and coalesced into the form of a man. A beautiful young man that she recognized instantly. She never allowed herself to remember him. Why was she dreaming of him now? He was the reason she had abandoned her former life. No – that was unfair. God had punished her because she had sinned. God had sent him to test her, and she had failed. She tried to wake herself up, but the dream would not stop.
He knelt before her and tenderly nibbled on her lips. She responded in kind, and each nick of tooth against lip, every brush of tongue against tongue escalated their ardour. Her entire body shivered, as if she’d never been kissed before.
He stood up, and her eyes fell on his penis – which she had foolishly taken into her mouth one hot and bright spring afternoon, hidden in the bushes of the park – and she gasped at how it looked now. When she had sucked him off fourteen years ago, she had never before seen a real, live penis. She had been foolish and careless. She hadn’t stopped to question those red blotches that covered his cock, had been too eager to please him, to finally know what it was like to blow a guy. Soon after, she’d learned that herpes was incurable. It rarely flared up, but when it did the sores spread to the outside of her mouth, and she always sequestered herself in shame.
As a teenager, she had loved kissing boys more than anything. She would spend hours every weekend making out with the cutest boys. But she always refused to go any further than that. She was a good Catholic, and she wanted to save herself for her future husband. She didn’t even remember why she relented that day.
She did not want to risk spreading the consequences of her sin to others. The fault was hers, and hers alone. She would spend the rest of her life atoning, praying for God’s ultimate mercy.
But now that same cock was pristine, without the slightest hint of disease. Despite herself, Sister Margarita was wet, craving the beautiful body before her.
After all, she told herself, it was only a dream.
She took the erect, glistening penis into her mouth, pulled back the foreskin, and playfully licked the lower edge of the glans. Within a few minutes, the cum exploded into her mouth, making her cunt even wetter. She squirmed, rubbing her thighs as tightly as she could.
Sister Margarita slid the cock from her mouth, and it was still rock hard. She lay back on the bed, and the man from her dreams – he who had turned out years ago to be her worst nightmare – fell on her, slid his erect cock into her pussy. She screamed at how delicious, how right, how perfect it felt.
It only took a few seconds for a retinue of Sisters to burst into her room in their nightgowns, to witness the man fucking Margarita dissolve into a swarm of demons and fly off faster than their eyes could follow.
~
Naked, Ralph, son of Rabbi Judah Solomon, booted up his computer. While he waited, he took a sip of coffee, then wiped the sleep from his eyes. He sniffed his fingers. They still smelled of pussy. He loved that. He thought he could distinguish between the girls’ odours. What had been their names? Kate and Summer? Kitty and Winter? Something like that. He absentmindedly stroked his cock, pulling the foreskin back all the way then back up again, to cover his newly sensitive, glistening glans.
Ralph had often wondered just how different it would feel to have an uncut cock. In college, before he’d been forced to drop out, hi
s best friend, Georgio, an Italian exchange student, always shuddered in pain at the mere mention of circumcision. He couldn’t understand how any man could withstand having his glans constantly chafing against his clothes. Was there any feeling left at all in a circumcised man’s penis? How could such men enjoy sex? Ralph had reassured him that his penis was not numb, but the intensity of Georgio’s disbelief had left lingering doubts in Ralph’s mind. But now he knew that Georgio had been mostly right. Ralph even wondered if the sensations would be even more intense had he never been circumcised at all.
He resented his parents – and his culture – for subjecting him to such a brutal mutilation, for so curtailing his sexuality. Many men he knew had rushed to get recircumcised, only to be eventually revisited by succubi and incubi in their sleep, the erodroids’ oral attentions once again restoring their mutilated shaft to its natural state. Ralph, though, had been curious to explore this change in his body. Besides, it would be one more thing that would piss off his judgmental, tyrannical, asshole father. After six months of bathing in his regrown foreskin’s moist embrace, Ralph’s glans was like a whole new body part. Now, the thought of having anything rougher than skin come into contact with his glans again filled him with horror. It was much too delicate, which is why nature had provided it with a protective sheath in the first place. The range and intensity of sensations it now afforded him was beyond what he could have imagined before. Even the foreskin itself was tipped by a ridged band of mucosal tissue that was itself highly erogenous. Before, sex had been goal-driven – to achieve orgasm. Now, the entire experience was exponentially heightened. He savoured every delicious, subtle sensation. In fact, it was like being a teenager again, but much, much better. Not only was his cock restored to all it could be, but he knew how to fuck a woman now – compared to the fumblings of his youth. He was constantly aroused, masturbating even more often than he had when he was sixteen – partly because having a foreskin increased both the ease and the pleasure of masturbation – on top of now having sex nearly every day and night. Getting laid had never been this easy, now that the “skoobies” (as incubi and succubi had been collectively baptized on the internet) had eradicated all STDs.
Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes Page 13