I need to be sure, she thinks, grimacing. I need to know for sure.
Deanna opens her mouth, trying to find the words, and then she’s sobbing too, the big whoops that she had thought were all gone a month after her father’s death. It’s like her chest is cracking down the middle, her guts twisting around shards of glass. In that moment, she hates her mother, her father, the world.
She thrusts her mother away and runs for the car, ignoring her mother’s cry.
Why can’t you leave me alone? Why couldn’t you just leave each other alone? If I hadn’t been born, I wouldn’t hurt like this. I wouldn’t feel anything at all.
Wednesday afternoon, school not out early this time, and Deanna edges past her mother’s rusty Chevelle, stepping carefully to avoid the loose gravel in the driveway ruts. She stops at the basement door and checks her coat pockets again. The iron knife’s still there, as is the packet of herbs. The words she will need are burned into her brain after days of staring at them every spare moment, scrawled on an index card gone soft and velvety from repeated handling.
She lifts hard on the basement door knob and pulls, the door swinging open silently. She steps inside and crosses the space. Boxes of newspapers in one corner, the hidden fort of a pirate queen; the furnace and its verdigrised copper pipes, the dragon she’s jousted with a thousand times; the old coal chute, the cave of her dreams. Soon she’s at the top of the stairs and slipping into the living room, and then—
Disappointment.
From the end of the hall comes the unmistakable, glottal sound of her mother’s snores. The tension slips from Deanna’s shoulders, and she walks down the hall, no longer troubling to be quiet, and looks into her mother’s bedroom. Mild shock as she realizes her mother lies naked atop the covers. As Deanna’s eyes adjust to the light, she starts to pick out the clothing scattered around the room: rumpled jeans, panties hanging off a dresser knob, and the half-torn blouse that lies balled on the floor.
Then the smell hits like a storm cloud: the thick funk of her father’s cigars. For months the Romeo y Julietas have lain untouched in their box in the kitchen, slowly going stale, neither she nor her mother quite able to junk them. Somewhere in the house, someone is smoking one of her dead father’s cigars, and the unease that’s lain coiled in her stomach becomes something else entirely.
Got you now. Wherever the fuck you come from, you’re going back.
The demon is sitting at the kitchen table and facing the living room when Deanna rounds the corner. The cigar’s tip glows brightly, rafts of smoke already layered up to the ceiling. But for the purple flames, which seem not to touch the cigar, he could be the average man—a little darker complected, with brushy black eyebrows, but average.
“Deanna,” he says, looking at her, “you should think about what you’re doing.”
Stung, she takes out the herb packet, raises the knife above her head, and begins.
“Te evoco, Diabole, in forma—”
“One more word and you hurt your mother more than you’ll ever know.”
And so she pauses, the ancient words bitter like oil on her tongue.
“I’m not here to hurt anyone, child, least of all your mother.”
“I saw you, fucker,” she hisses. “You’re an amat—”
“Yes, an amator diabolicus, if you want to say it in Latin,” he says, removing the cigar from his mouth and resting it in the ashtray. “Don’t you know why I’m here?”
He’s trying to delay, fool me, she thinks, looking at his wry, earnest face. I can’t fail my mother. I can’t fail my father.
“You’re a monster,” she says as she raises the packet into the air and points her knife at him, “and you’ve been feeding on my mother.”
“Your mother called me,” the demon says softly. “Last week I passed near the place where your world touches mine, and her need shone like a beacon. She still loves him so much, Deanna, but she burns.”
She looks at the creature staring at her so calmly, and begins to wonder.
“If you banish me, I’ll leave,” the demon says. “Not because of your petty spell, but because I won’t stay where I’m not wanted. Others in this city would welcome me, but I’ve seen your mother’s heart.”
“And how do I know this isn’t a trick? That she won’t wither away to a pale husk in a month?”
The demon laughs politely.
“I’m not a vampire. I’m … you don’t have a good name for us. Think of me as a comforter. At worst, a leech sucking away bad blood.”
“And why should I believe that?” she says, hands starting to shake.
“Has your mother seemed ill in the last week? Unhappy? Has she even vaguely looked like she’s wasting away? Deanna, she doesn’t even remember I’ve been here after I leave. One day she’ll be whole again and I’ll move on, because her need will … not taste as sweet,” he finishes, shrugging awkwardly. “Your kind hates the sound of that, but it’s the truth.”
“Why did you have to come?” she whispers.
“That’s not what you want to ask, is it?” the demon says, a compassion greater than human lighting his face. “You want to know why your father died. I don’t have the answer.”
Deanna sits down opposite the demon, planting her elbows on the table, dully watching the purple flames dancing around his head. A minute passes, then another. After a time he looks away from her, eyes shifting nervously from side to side. He picks up the cigar and twiddles it back and forth.
“And this isn’t hurting her,” Deanna says at last. “Not in the slightest.”
“I’m not saying that, but it sure as hell isn’t hurting her worse than the smokes,” he says. “Those are going to be the death of her—not me.”
Silence for a moment, and then she nods.
“All right. But be more discreet. And keep your damn hands off my father’s things from now on. You’re not my father.”
“Never said I was,” he replies promptly. “Look, if there comes a time you want me to go, I’ll go. Columbus has plenty of grieving, solitary widows. There are car accidents. There’s cancer. There’s a war on.”
Deanna nods again, stone-faced, though she feels the smallest bit of relief inside.
Things could be worse. At least I don’t have to deal with an asshole stepfather.
She reaches into her father’s cigar box and takes out a Romeo y Julieta, twirls it around, sniffs it. Then she picks up the trimmer and tries to judge the right place to cut.
“Not too far up,” the demon says gently. “You want to leave most of the cap on, or it’ll unravel.”
“Shut up,” she mutters.
At last Deanna snaps the cutter closed and the tip falls to the table. Then she lights a match and rotates the cigar like her father used to do. Eventually she puts it in her mouth and inhales, trying not to cough. She tries again, this time only puffing on it, and the demon nods once. They sit at the kitchen table and watch each other warily as the light changes and afternoon becomes night.
Tears For Lilu
Martin Rose
A rusty scalpel, pruning shears, and a chainsaw.
They line a dirty and uneven wooden table while a long shadow stands above the man and asks him to choose. He taps one foot against the chair and considers his options. Rope grates the bones of his wrists and greasy hair falls over his forehead where a bead of sweat forms and drips into the creases of his brow.
The guard in the hot room with the sweating concrete walls does not hate or resent his captive but waits for him to make a choice between the three implements, which he should choose for vile amputation. For this guard, this is business and likewise, it is business for the man as well.
“Might I have a cigarette?” he asks.
The guard hesitates. He knows he should not but the captive is bound to the chair with his arms stretched behind his back and his chest puffs out like a drab bird in his brown suit. The guard sighs before he unties the captive’s left arm and offers him a hand rolled f
rom his own pocket and lights it for him.
Bitter smoke envelopes him and the captive thought it would be so.
“You know how I got here, right?” he asks.
The guard shakes his head.
“Well, why don’t I tell you,” he suggests, “and if you know of Scheherazade, then you know what I am doing, what I am up to.”
Prince Khosrow had the poor taste to fall in love. This is his love story, not mine.
The oldest royal family in the region possesses me; through wars and the shifting sands and political turmoil, the palace remained, with its perfumed gardens of jasmine and rose and the many splendored rooms of marble and gold. A person can lose themselves for a thousand years in such a place; and so I was lost, until the prince remembered me and found record of me in the sealed palace room where things should remain forgotten.
Lilu.
Khosrow unshackled me with a word. He conjured me and I was catapulted from the dim cosmos to the palace as I had known it a century before. I opened my eyes to the syncopated beat of a bare foot tapping against marble flooring.
“Lilu, spirit of lust. You are mine to command.”
Built slim in his long embroidered robes. Naked toes poked out free beneath the hem and retreated to an expansive rug decorated with cavorting fish and he did not wait for me to speak but rose from the throne and took my hands in his own. He was warm. I smelled citrus on his hands. In the corners of the room beside sumptuous tapestries, the curious gazes of discreet servants watched us.
“I served your father. And his father, and so on, until the beginning of time.”
I did not care for his grin.
“Serve me again, Lilu. I would have the most beautiful woman in the country as my second wife.”
“This is your command?”
“Drive her mad with ecstasy. Fill her dreams with thoughts of me until I win her favor.”
At the time, I did not think to ask about the first wife, his only wife.
Prince Khosrow fell in love not once, but twice.
The first time he married Azru, the daughter of a textile business man with holdings counting into the millions of American dollars: a prized business match before love. Khosrow set his heart before his head when he met Azru—and married her in haste on the basis of her gold-rimmed eyes above the veil, believing the rest of her would match. He was horrified to discover his first chosen wife was in fact, ugly. A man may fantasize of what women hide beneath the cloth. They disguise seductive natures and fierce intelligence. They might wear scandalous lingerie one day and the next dowdy work clothes, and an onlooker never know. That is their clever mystery, their power—to leave everything lying beneath the surface to the imagination, driving men wild.
Or, in Azru’s case, to destroy the expectation utterly with a face so lopsided and an appearance so horrific rumor had it Khosrow was like to throw himself from the uppermost balcony to his certain death. But Khosrow was a romantic. If he killed himself he would have nothing to brood over and no one to seduce with his tragic circumstance.
How Azru felt about the match was never discussed. But it has long been a custom in Khosrow’s family for the wives to keep “tear catchers.” A sultan who leaves for war across the months and years might come back to see which of his wives wept the most in his absence.
Rumor was, Azru’s tear catcher was always empty on Khosrow’s account.
Naturally, if one wife will not suffice, a man might always choose a second.
Procuring the second wife was another matter altogether.
The woman Khosrow desired for his second wife was called Farrah; and she was beautiful and Khosrow discovered this when he spoke with Farrah’s sister, who came bearing a picture of her beautiful sister. From that moment onward, Khosrow set his heart on Farrah. He wanted her no matter what the cost but Farrah’s beauty could command better, richer suitors than Khosrow. Plus, she could command the status of first wife elsewhere. Why should she stoop to the hideous Azru when she might run her own household? She craved respect and control of her own, and would bow to no other woman.
Khosrow attempted to court her with gifts and compliments and even wretched love letters. Farrah was silent as a sphinx and the sand and would not be moved.
In his extremity, he found my name in the closed palace rooms long forgotten by time—and it fell to me to secure Khosrow’s conquest. Like a trussed animal I stood before him for his inspection in one of those uncomfortable and inelegant Western suits Khosrow so favored. I longed for the embroidered coats flowing loose and unrestrained.
I pointed out that seducing one too long without relief leads to madness and entropy.
“You are bound to my family, yes? Then you will do this thing for me. It is said you can wear the face of any man you choose. Is this true?”
I smiled, grim. “Your ancestors didn’t leave anything out when they wrote of me, did they? What other instructions did they leave? Turn widdershins three times at dawn to banish me, do not feed after midnight, hmmm?”
Khosrow snorted. “They left me enough to know how to bind you to the flesh.”
“I noticed,” I responded with acid. Not only had I noticed, but I was most uncomfortable to be made manifest in fleshly fetters. An incubus is more comfortable being of the air. Khosrow feared me and wished to anchor me to the earthly realm so my movements would be limited. I was as much a prisoner of his household as his first wife, bound to serve his family since the days of Gilgamesh.
“I wish you to visit Farrah nightly and wear my face. Haunt her until she comes to me, begging for marriage.”
“And risk driving her mad? It must be love.”
“Surely a series of visitations is hardly enough to dismantle the girl.”
“Well, you know how old manuscripts are. Unreliable. Missing pages. I am poison for which the instruction has been lost. Will you gamble my use without an antidote, amir Khosrow?”
Khosrow tapped his fingers against his thigh as he pondered this. “Then see to it that should not come to pass,” he said.
I sighed, and did as I was bid.
Khosrow saddled me in the flesh of a young man; but for this dark work of sexual plunder, I could not take the body with me. I lay upon the ground and dreamed—and in this dreaming sloughed my skin like a king cobra uncoiling in the sun. Half a ghost and half a man, I plunged through palace walls calling Farrah’s name like a heartbeat. Somewhere in this city she slept in peace among the hundreds and I would find her like a beacon on the strength of a photograph and a lock of her hair between my fingers where my body still slumbered.
Yet between here and there lay a succession of empty palace rooms and cold stone—I turned and stumbled into another person’s dream like a cat burglar going from house to house.
An accident. Few would recall my blundering into their dream space and I hesitated to gather my surroundings. Indigo fabric draping the doorway, orchids arranged in a vase on the table, a woman sleeping on her pillow. Fascinated, I stared at her. I could not see her face. How curious, I thought. Even when this one sleeps, even in her dreams, she sleeps with her chador on.
The dreamer awoke. Her eyes fluttered in flecks of raw gold and fixed on me.
I realized then I had discovered the chambers of the hideous Azru, and dream-walked into her unconsciousness by accident.
She blinked once more and I was gone and evaporated from her as easily as a mist. She was not my business and in the morning she would not remember the passage of a middling demon through her nighttime hours.
One tires of romantic interludes across the span of millennia; kisses become banal, trivial. Caresses and touches become pedestrian, a means to an end serving to atrophy my passion further. And when it was over, I retreated into the shadows and left Farrah to believe Prince Khosrow had walked into her dreams and ravished her. My hard work and sweat gone to credit another man. Such is life. And for now this was the bloom of lust—poison taken in small doses could stimulate the body and the mind.
We had yet to cross the liminal space into the sickening, when my touch would corrupt instead of inspire, jaundice her skin, crack her, teeth and steal the perfume from her breath and ferment it into rot.
Even demons must rest.
I retreated once more to the distant rooms and the cold marble floors. I found the library bequeathed to Khosrow by his ancestors. Pillows piled in discreet corner where I pulled several volumes and nestled, this body bruised and exhausted as I turned the pages.
The caretaker left the windows open. Hot summer air brought me jasmine and I drifted in an idyll of burnished silence. From page to page the words lost meaning and light spiraled in with a haze. The knobs of my spine pressed against pillar stone and my feet bare and toes touching. I fell to fitful rest until a rustling awakened me.
I opened my eyes.
A woman stood before me.
I dropped the book and shot to my feet. Protocol is serious business in this region as it is in all of the country; a man and a woman must not suffer each other’s company together, alone, in solitude. Of course, she had not known I was here—none in the royal household but Khosrow was aware of my presence.
Gold-tinged eyes stared at me from a gap of embroidered cloth and the rest of her swathed in black.
Shit. Azru. The first wife.
I bowed and looked away. To stare at a woman is as like to touch her, make love to her. In this place, everything is charged and electrified when a man and a woman are alone in the room. A man does not stare a woman in the eyes. People have been killed for less. Oh, how Khosrow would laugh at that—a demon defined by lust, so modestly averting his gaze.
I hesitated. I should apologize and leave, but where would I go? I had no place.
She kneeled to pick up the book. She thrust her thumb into the pages and held it out to me and I swallowed. She did not look away. She looked directly at me. How many lashes would we be accorded for this infringement? Seventy? A hundred?
“He doesn’t love me anymore,” she said.
“I do not know what of what you speak—”
“And he’s hired you to kill me, hasn’t he? To make room for her.”
Handsome Devil: Stories of Sin and Seduction Page 21