The Pisces

by Melissa Broder

  “I think when I get high off it.”

  “Well, why not? That could be love,” he said. “Can’t you get high off of love? I don’t think I want a love that doesn’t make me feel amazing.”

  “I don’t know if that’s love or something else,” I said. “But I don’t think it’s love if the person disappears.”

  “I wouldn’t say it’s not love,” he said. “But it’s hard. That is a very painful experience.”

  I was surprised to hear him say that. I felt that surely he must always be the one doing the disappearing. Merman, fish fillet, whatever the fuck he was, I still thought of him as a surfer who worried about nothing. Someone who was very free to just disappear off into the night at any time.

  I wondered what he looked like to the mermaids under there. Were there mermaids? Was he beautiful for the sea or just average? I didn’t dare ask. Surely the mermaids must be beautiful—breathing in and out under the ocean. I imagined them long-haired with little waists and shells on their tits. I imagined them all like Aphrodite. I wondered if perhaps they all looked the same and he’d eventually grown bored of them. Maybe that was why he wanted a land woman with calluses on her feet, plain as I was. I was nothing like Aphrodite. But maybe that was the point.

  “You’re not going to abandon me now that you know what you know,” he said. “Are you?”

  “Me? No!”

  I was delighted. Did it take a mythological deformity to find a gorgeous man who was as needy as I was?

  “Good,” he said.

  He put my chin in his hand and gave me a wet kiss.

  I could smell the difference between the top and bottom of him. His head, shoulders, and neck had a clean smell, a fleshy, wet-skin smell. He smelled human, but better. Once in a while, the scent of his bottom half would waft up and it smelled like a fish market—not exactly dead fish, the way my fish-tank emergency had smelled in my youth, but it smelled like blood, the ocean, shit, seaweed…a little like pussy, actually.

  I felt almost as though his bottom half were some sort of pussy, although it was phallic in shape. Maybe because he was insecure about it, and I had always felt insecure about my pussy. Maybe it was because in seeing it, this part of him, the part he had concealed, I was, in a way, entering him. I thought about dominance and submission—how in some ways he had been the submissive one in eating my pussy. Yet in other ways I was dependent on him emotionally now that I had let him see me like that: splayed, surrendered, thrusting in his face. I was attached to him more than before, because I had opened for him like that. Maybe he felt that of me. Maybe he needed that before he could show me his tail.

  I wondered what was underneath that sash around his pelvis. I wondered if he had a cock. Did fish have cocks?

  “May I touch you?” I asked.

  He nodded.

  We began kissing again and I ran my hands through his hair, tickling the back of his neck. I rubbed his chest, smooth as a sculpture, fingering each of the nipples. I wanted to tease him, treat him like a girl a little bit, because I still felt vulnerable and also because I knew, somehow, he would like it. His nipples hardened like pellets under my fingers and he gasped.

  I touched his stomach. It was so smooth, not cut or built, but not roly-poly either. A little soft, full, but also firm. It was existing. He existed. His arm muscles felt stronger than his abdominal muscles and I wondered if this had something to do with the way he swam. He had no hair on his stomach or pubic hair sticking out up over the sash. I rubbed my hands in a circular motion over the front of the sash and felt his penis under there, strong, semi-hard, like a thick trunk. His balls felt weighty like peaches.

  “Oh,” I said. “I wondered what you had.”

  “Yes,” he said. “And an ass too. The tail starts below all that, not like human myths where the tail starts at the stomach.”

  “Where did you get the sash? Do all of you wear sashes?”

  “Shipwreck, obviously,” he said.

  “Oh, yes, obviously.” I laughed.

  “And a loincloth does make it easier. Sand, jellyfish, it can all be very abrasive.”

  “Do you know a lot about Greek myths?” I asked.

  “Some,” he said.

  “Is that how you know about Sappho? Did you, like, date her or something?”

  “I’m not that old.” He laughed.

  What did dating even mean for a merman? Tinder under the fucking sea? Swiping right on a starfish?

  “Have you…been with any other women who live on land?” I asked.

  “Some,” he said.

  “Recently?” I asked.

  “Not in a while. I’m trying to change that,” he said, and touched my arm.

  I liked that it had been some time, because I wanted to be the only one. I didn’t care what the reason was, even if he simply hadn’t been near land. Of course, the inability to be with someone else on land did not mean he loved me in a special way. And his having been with other women who had feet did not necessarily equal lack of love. But it still made me feel safe to be the only one in a long time. These thoughts, themselves, were madness. He lived in the ocean and I lived in the desert. This wasn’t going to last. Maybe there could be some magic bend in our time together, the way I felt when he was going down on me. That had felt so eternal—as though if it were happening in one moment it was happening forever. But no one could live inside a moment. It was already over. And yet, here he was, still with me. We were sitting beside each other and he had his hand on my thigh, my hand tracing his knuckles. He is still here, I kept repeating to myself.

  “I have to go,” he said, as if he could read my mind. “It’s not a great idea for me to be out of the water like this with the light coming up.”

  I hadn’t realized that it was dawn. The sun was rising over the Santa Monica Mountains, turning the water silver. I could see that a few surfers had made their way to the Venice pier, laughing with one another.

  “Are you like a vampire?” I asked. “Are we in one of those teen vampire movies, only you’re a mermaid?”

  “Ha, no, nothing like that,” he said. “It’s just not a great idea for anyone to see me out here. I’ve gotten harassed before. I’ve gotten hurt. I could be taken to the Venice freak show. I can’t exactly run. So it’s always dangerous for me to be out of the water.”

  “Will I see you tomorrow?”

  “Not tomorrow, but how about the following night? You should wear a skirt again like that.”

  “Ha-ha. Okay.”

  Two nights sounded so far away. It seemed endless.

  “Also, you shouldn’t tell anyone about me,” he said. “As we discussed. Mostly I say that for you. I don’t want you ending up in a psychiatric hospital or in rehab and that’s what people will think if you tell them you met a man who lives under the sea.”

  “But you’re just a boy,” I said.

  “I’m not Sappho-old but I’m older than you think. The salt has preserved me. Also, maybe I’m immature.”

  He kissed me on the forehead and on the hand. Then he dove back into the water, parting the seaweedy murk.

  “Wait!” I called. “What time in two nights from now?”

  But he was already swimming out into the sunlit waves. I saw a few flicks of his tail on the surface, like a dolphin fin in the distance. Then he disappeared completely, fully submerged under the water. He was showing me what he was, no longer afraid for me to see that he could go under and not come up for breath. I waited a long time in silence. But he never resurfaced.

  31.

  I decided to skip group. I was too deeply involved with Theo now. What would I even tell them? I’d met a merman who might disprove all of their theories about love? And why would I choose to recover unless everything was total and complete shit? If there was one sparkle, one possibility of getting as high as I could get off a p
erson, why would I throw that potentiality away? You had to hold out for these moments until you knew for sure they were gone and never coming back. I didn’t want group to ruin the way I felt.

  I saw this in Diana, with whom I still spoke. She had been in pain but couldn’t surrender—not until she knew it was truly over between her and the objects of her affection. It wasn’t enough for the tennis boys to ignore her texts. They would have to go further. They would have to tell her she disgusted them and it was never happening again. Even that might not be enough. In truth what she needed was to have no remaining options at all, no one left to fuck. She would have to burn through all of the tennis boys in Los Angeles, maybe in the state of California.

  Perhaps again in the future, the pain of not hearing from her conquests—the pain of waiting—would outweigh the potential for sparkle itself. Diana would come back to group and get strong for just a day or for a few weeks. But the moment she got a text, the moment that glitter reached out to her, she would forget what that pain had felt like. She would want only the glitter. Euphoric recall of past glitter would blind her to the suffering it had caused. Then, the group would become just an afterthought: a place for sick people to go, but not for her. She was not so bad off as the sick people.

  When she called me I could hear it in her voice. Who could blame her? Somehow she had gotten another taste of sparkle. Now that she had a taste or saw its potential she was going for it again. When she looked back at the group she saw sick, miserable humans, something she would want to block out having ever been a part of. But the women in the group would see her as the sick, miserable one. They thought she would either come back or face devastation. But they’d forgotten the sensation of what it was like out there, to be in the throes of madness. I didn’t tell Diana about Theo, either.

  I took Dominic for a quick walk. He began pulling me in the direction of Oakwood Park, but I didn’t have the energy for it. I held the leash tightly as he yanked and skipped in place, whimpering with his head pointing in that direction. I knew that I should give him what he wanted, a little piece of that effortless happiness, but I couldn’t play wolf woman today. My mind was too much elsewhere, already on the rocks, waiting, waiting for Theo to surface and transform my perception. My mind was already in the ocean.

  I decided I would call Claire.

  “How are you doing, dearest?” I asked.

  “I’m better,” she said. “David called. I’m seeing him tomorrow. I told him he isn’t giving me enough of what I need. I haven’t hung myself from any silk scarves. So I guess that’s progress?”

  “Good,” I said.

  “And you?”

  “I’ve done it again,” I said. “I’ve fallen hard. Only this time I think it’s real.”

  “The surfer?” asked Claire.

  She sounded skeptical, and I wondered what right she had to be skeptical when she had just been in a bottomless pit.

  “Swimmer,” I said. “All we do is talk. Or all we did was talk until last night when he went down on me for forty-five minutes.”

  “Nooooo,” she said.

  “Yes. At least forty-five. What does it mean when a boy goes down on you for forty-five minutes? I feel like it has to be love. Like, I feel like he loves me.”

  “Either he loves you or he loves pussy. One of the two.”

  I laughed.

  “No, he doesn’t seem like that. He isn’t a pussy hound. Well, I can’t tell. I mean, I think he is gorgeous, but he isn’t typically gorgeous. But if I think he is gorgeous then probably a million others do too.”

  “Usually that’s the way it works,” she said. “Still, I’m glad you’re getting shagged properly. It’s important. I think it’s very important that you be well fucked.”

  “We haven’t fucked yet,” I said. “I haven’t even seen his dick.”

  “Oh really?” she said. “Then it could be love on his part.”

  “That’s what I think,” I said.

  “But what about you?”

  “I’m smitten,” I said.

  “Of course you are. It’s especially intoxicating when there is an expiration date. Aren’t you going back to Phoenix in a month?”

  “Six weeks,” I said.

  “Well, there you go. That makes it perfect! A summer romance.”

  “But what if it’s more? He doesn’t know I’m leaving,” I said.

  “But you do,” she said.

  I thought about this. All I imagined I wanted was the love of someone beautiful like Theo—the kind of love where it stayed young and glittery and never got old. One way to keep it shiny was to have an end date on it. I’d thought it was Jamie who didn’t want to commit. But the group was right—it was me who was really the unavailable one. I was picking people with whom I couldn’t have that ultimate intimacy: Jamie, who couldn’t make enough room for me in his life, and now these younger men. Their age made it safe to pine for them, to torture myself, because it ensured I would always be pushing against some sort of friction, an inability to really be together. And no matter what any of them felt for me, I would never have to see it grow old, because I would be returning to Phoenix. Even in the case of Theo, where he seemed to actually like me, I would be leaving. I was in control of the way things would end.

  32.

  Dominic was not doing well. He had started peeing indoors no matter how often I took him outside. I didn’t know if it was because he was sick or because he was angry at me for being away so much. I was afraid to tell Annika what was going on, but just to be safe I took him to the vet. The vet ran some blood tests and said that it was further issues related to his pancreas and kidneys, and that his blood sugar was very high. His insulin dose would have to be increased.

  I emailed Annika, in part to relay the news, but also because I couldn’t afford to pay the $1,300 vet bill. I was scared. Immediately my phone lit up.

  “Where is he? Put him on,” she said.

  “He’s right here,” I said, aiming the phone at his face.

  “Oh no, I can see it in his eyes. Something is not right.”

  “They gave me a higher dose of insulin to give him.”

  “I mean besides that. He looks depressed. Hold on, I’m looking up depression symptoms in dogs. Okay. Is he lethargic? Has he been sleeping excessively or showing signs of clinginess?”

  “No, that’s just me,” I said.

  “Lucy! I’m serious. Loss of appetite?”

  “Definitely not.”

  “Weight loss?”

  “No, it’s just been the peeing. That’s it. Which I think is directly related to the insulin.”

  “How long has this been going on? Why didn’t you tell me that something was wrong right away?”

  “Only a few days. And I didn’t want to worry you.”

  “Lucy, he is my child! You have to tell me when anything like this happens. Are you able to give him the care he needs? What did the vet say specifically? Should I come home?”

  “No, no, don’t come home. The vet said he is going to be totally okay as long as we adjust this insulin to the new amount. I can do that. It’s easy.”

  “I still think he looks depressed,” she said.

  “I’ll take him to group.”

  The vet hadn’t exactly said it would all be fine, but she didn’t seem particularly concerned either. I felt strangely jealous that Annika would come home to see the dog. After my mother died, I longed for my sister to take some time off from college to be with me. I verbalized this one time, a few days after the funeral, that maybe she might delay her return to school. She was sitting on my bed behind me, playing with my hair, which was something my mother used to do every night before I went to sleep. It was very quiet; the only sound I could hear was the gentle brush of her fingers against my scalp.

  “Please stay with me,” I said. “I need you.”r />
  But she told me she had exams, and while she wanted to stay with me, she had to go back or she wouldn’t complete the semester. I felt totally rejected, but I did not judge her. I looked up to her, and my world had already been so destroyed by the death of my mother that I couldn’t afford to be angry with her. But it hurt, nonetheless. So instead I judged myself. I made myself wrong for needing someone, for revealing that need. I needed more than the universe could give me. Clearly my feelings were too big for the universe to hold, too disgusting. I would not put them out there like that again. I didn’t even want to have to feel them myself.

  Well, now I was feeling again and I did not want Annika coming home. If she returned there was no way I could just wander out to the ocean alone at night. I guess I could still go to the rocks and not tell her where I was going—I could lie and say I was going across town or to a café to see some acoustic guitar bullshit. But if she saw me out the window, what would I say I was doing? She would start asking questions.

  Also, I had a new fantasy. I wanted to ask Theo if he would maybe come with me to the house and stay for a night. I didn’t know how I would get him there. Certainly he couldn’t drag himself across the beach. I doubted he would want me to carry him. But maybe I could get one of those little sand-wagon things, or a bicycle with a wagon on the back.

  I had already planned this visit, fully, in my head. I wanted to have sex with him on a bed. I didn’t even care if he slept over or not. I just wanted a place to be with him where we could relax that wasn’t freezing and where we weren’t looking around for people to catch us. The way I felt when we kissed or when he went down on me—I wanted to create that feeling and live in that for as long as I could. I wanted to build a tent of it in the warmth of my sister’s house: a container where I could bottle the feeling, like a little ship, and hold the glow.

  Here was a bit of magic that could happen in my life. After all the nothingness, maybe this fantasy was worth living for. I suppose that whenever you’re addicted to something, this is what they mean when they say you forget about the consequences and don’t care about the other side. All I cared about was my plan.