The Pisces

by Melissa Broder

  Or, like Claire, would I just keep getting worse? It was so hard to reconcile fantasy with reality. It was hard to believe that something as beautiful as the way Theo made me feel could put me in the hospital or kill me.

  Did chasing the light inevitably lead us here? If we didn’t chase the light, did people like us just end up here anyway? If Claire had never left her marriage, where would she be now? She said that she was depressed during her marriage and ended up here once before. And that was before she began her odyssey of love and sex. If you were just going to end up here, regardless of what you did, it seemed worth it to really push things like she did. The nothingness was going to eat you alive anyway. It was going to be mashed potatoes at the end no matter what. So why not just grab for whatever you could get?

  * * *

  —

  “Well, I’ve really mucked it up this time,” said Claire. “I’m back in group therapy now, only here with a pack of sad arses who are completely catatonic—which is maybe actually better.”

  She laughed. It was good to see her sense of humor back. Her hair was still greasy, piled on top of her head, but the circles under her eyes had diminished and there was a glint in her eyes again.

  “You seem better,” I said. “Like you’re not just staring at the wall.”

  “Yes, with my last suicide attempt I woke up completely miffed that I was still alive. But this one was oddly refreshing. Maybe I just needed some sort of sorbet—a life palate cleanser.”

  My God, I loved her.

  “I get it,” I said. “I mean, not really, because mine wasn’t really a consciously active attempt.”

  “No, yours was more of a gesture.”

  “Exactly, a gesture. I’m not the suicide pro that you are. But I think I understand.”

  “Love, if I were a pro I wouldn’t be here.”

  “Right,” I said. “But I mean I’m not as, like, experienced with suicide or whatever. Like it’s not as much a part of my oeuvre. I’m more—I don’t know what I am actually. But I know what you mean by a palate cleanser. Sometimes everything is just so bleh that you need to fucking cut it with a knife.”

  I was trying to ask her in a roundabout way if it was worth it. We felt the same nothingness, of that I was sure. But I wanted to see if she knew if we were going to be okay or not. Or, at least, if I was. I was asking life advice, couched in the language of suicide, from a friend in a mental hospital. This was the direction my life had taken.

  “So are you glad about everything? Like, everything that led you up to this point where you feel okay, maybe even good about being alive? Are you glad for that trajectory of your life?”

  “Yeah,” she said. “I feel strangely good about everything. Sure, no regrets. I regret nothing.”

  “I regret everything,” I said.

  “Lucy.”

  “I’m still fooling around with that swimmer,” I said. “More than fooling around, like, I’m completely, totally in love with him. But the thing is that he’s totally in love with me. I mean, it’s the most passionate, real, most spiritual experience I’ve ever had with someone. And yet, I’m not even totally sure if the whole thing even exists.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Well, we don’t function well in the real world.”

  “The real world is rubbish.”

  “But we’re mostly relegated to a rock. We’re tied to a rock.”

  “Sounds like most marriages. At least ones with children.”

  “I just—I’m afraid it might kill me. I can’t tell if it’s a sickness or the best thing that ever happened to me.”

  “That’s brilliant!”

  “Tell me, was it definitely men who landed you in here?”

  She paused.

  “Yes, I suppose it was the men,” she said. “But really it was me.”

  41.

  That afternoon I got my period. When I saw the blood, I wept. I wondered if that was why I had been feeling so anxious and afraid. I had cramps that felt like I was being stabbed in the uterus. Usually I enjoyed getting my period, the release of it—I always had. It made me feel connected to some primal goddess energy. But today I just felt heartsick. I had only five more weeks left with Theo and now the next week would be spent bloody, unsexed. What would we do together? I supposed we could just talk. I could put his cock in my mouth.

  He was waiting for me when I got to the rocks. He put his arms on the rock and his shiny body came shooting out of the water. He looked like he wanted to stand to greet me, to come running over. I imagined him standing, how or if that could ever happen. I would have to prop something up for him, almost like a frame or a podium. I wondered how much weight his tail could withstand.

  “Guess what?”

  “What?” he asked, kissing my cheek.

  “I have my period,” I said, dejected.

  “I know,” he said.

  “What do you mean you know?” I laughed.

  “I just know. I know because I just intuited it. I could feel it. I’m in sync with your vagina. We’re always in contact,” he said.

  We were both laughing but his eyes seemed serious.

  “Also, don’t forget,” he said. “I’m an oceanic creature. I’m always with the moon. I can tell these things.”

  “Well, I guess we won’t be able to fool around for a while,” I said.

  “Oh, I don’t care. I’d be happy to be covered in your blood.”

  “You would?”

  “Yeah, I want your blood all over me. I want your blood on my face and in my hair.”

  “You’re crazy,” I said.

  “No, it’s true.”

  And with that he began to kiss me down my body, lying between my legs with his face up my skirt.

  I felt scared. Did I smell? Jamie had never gone down on me with my period, and certainly no one before him. I had a tampon in and no blood was on the outside of me, but even still. I was shocked.

  But after a minute or so he sighed.

  “I can’t eat you the way I want to with this rock under me. And I’m certainly not going to be able to fuck you here. It’s cutting me up,” he said.

  I could see that some of the scales near his sash looked irritated and misshapen, like a fish that had been packed at the bottom of a full grocery bag.

  “What should we do?” I asked. “Do you want to get back in the water?”

  “No,” he said. “I don’t know. I guess you’d better get the wagon.”

  “Oh my God, really?” I squealed.

  “Yes,” he said. “But keep that creature in there under full lockup. And throw away the key.”

  “Of course,” I said. “I’ll be right back!”

  I went skipping away. Or maybe I was running. My joy of having him again, being near him, was unabashed. You could not separate me from it. I was the happiness and the happiness was me. The nothingness was nowhere near. It couldn’t touch me. I felt no need to be or do anything other than the way I felt. And if I did, it wouldn’t have been possible anyway.

  I tripped on a dune and skinned my knee running across the beach. I cut it on a shard of shell. That made me pause for a moment. Was it a sign that being with Theo was deeply misguided? My knee hurt and there was sand in the cut. But all I wanted was for him to take care of my knee. I wanted to show it to him and be babied.

  When I got back to the house I didn’t wash or bandage the cut. I wanted him to see what happened—to know that I hurt myself and needed to be taken care of. Even though he was entering my world, it wasn’t all easy for me. I was making sacrifices and taking risks too. He wasn’t the only one for whom this was difficult. I’ve always felt that injuries are a bit romantic, in the sense that you’re forced to be vulnerable and have someone else take care of you. I wanted to stay vulnerable.

  I wondered if he wo
uld suck the blood out of the wound like a vampire, the same way he wanted to lick my menstrual blood. Of course, he wasn’t a vampire, he was some other kind of mythic creature, but it didn’t matter. Even if he had legs, no tail, and was a real vampire, I wouldn’t care. I would put my knee to his mouth and say, “Drink, please. I hope you enjoy it.” I wanted him to help heal and soothe me, even if it meant consuming me away. I realized I was tired. I couldn’t be more tired.

  Dominic was already whimpering. I guess he could smell Theo on me.

  “It’s time to take a nap now,” I said, and got the tranquilizers from the cupboard. I didn’t know how I would explain to my sister where all of the tranquilizers had gone. Maybe she wouldn’t notice or maybe she would think that I had taken them. Perhaps I could score some more tranquilizers to give to him, or go to the vet and get more. Maybe a different vet so that no one would know what was happening. I gave him the tranquilizers in a pill pocket and put his head on my lap.

  “Nothing is beautiful and everything is nothing,” I said to him. “Everything is nothing and everything is beautiful.” I had no idea what I was talking about but I felt hypnotized with joy and potentiality.

  When his sighs deepened, I closed the pantry door and tiptoed away. Walking back across the beach with the wagon, I was limping.

  This is how we get injured for love, I thought. This is how love can hurt us.

  I felt great and noble, like a woman coming to claim her man in battle, or perhaps a man who was coming to rescue his woman. I had to be the rescuer, because he was more handicapped than I was. His legs were in worse shape than mine. At least mine could move on earth. Why was I even comparing the two of us? Was this a competition, a competition for pain? Besides, when he was licking me he was entirely my rescuer. He was strong in his softness. We could take turns.

  Then I saw him under the moon and it was like the first time I had seen him. He was just meant to be mine. In my mind I heard more words, and they said, No one knows what they are doing on Earth or even off it. The gods didn’t even know what the gods were doing, assuming there were even gods. Did the void know what it was doing? Did it know itself? Maybe the void didn’t even know what to do with itself and didn’t even like itself. Maybe the nothingness knew only to fill itself with people, and in that way was a creator of sorts. Maybe the nothingness was a god, but not intentionally cruel—not confident in itself. Maybe it was not evil or saying ha-ha to me, just lonely, hating itself, wanting something else to stick inside itself to relieve itself of itself. It seemed as though Theo didn’t know what he was doing. I obviously didn’t either. In that way maybe we were like gods.

  “I fell,” I said. “I cut myself.”

  “I know,” he said. “I saw. I tried to climb up onto the rock and then drag myself to help you. I wanted to call your name but a jeep came onto the beach and I had to drag myself back into the water.”

  That he wanted to protect me felt good. I didn’t want to be the weak woman, but really it had nothing to do with femininity or masculinity anyway. Simply as a human being, I liked that someone else was worried about me—someone as beautiful as him. There had already been plenty of people worried about me, more than enough, and I didn’t like that. But having Theo worry about me felt sexy.

  “Let me help you onto the wagon,” I said.

  “No, I can do it. You’re hurt,” he said.

  He dexterously slid off the rock right onto the wagon that was underneath it.

  “Here, just help me adjust the blanket,” he said.

  His arms were so strong and thick, like marble, only supple. I couldn’t help but think, This is mythic…what you are seeing is mythic. You injured yourself for him, an injury for love, and he is injured too. But his tail was only a handicap on earth. On land he was half a person, but in the sea he was complete. On earth I felt like half a person too. But I didn’t know if there was anywhere I was whole. On earth he was like the god Hephaestus, the clubfooted, cuckolded blacksmith. He needed me. But underwater he was as powerful and graceful as Poseidon, only younger and gorgeous. Maybe he was the son of Poseidon, the wayward son. Maybe he was Aphrodite herself.

  “Let’s go,” he said. “Let’s get you back to the house. Then I can kiss all your wounds.”

  42.

  Dominic was sprawled flat on the floor of the pantry like a pancake and didn’t stir. I wanted to take Theo upstairs to the bed, but didn’t know how. So I moved the wagon over to the sofa and let him haul himself up again.

  “I want all of your blood,” he said.

  I wasn’t sure if he meant from my pussy or from the wound, but I sat on top of him on the sofa and kissed his mouth. He flipped me over, kissed me down my body, then gently kissed around my scraped knee.

  “I’m so sorry,” he said.

  “It’s okay,” I said.

  He went up and down my leg until he was licking the crevice between my pussy and my thigh, then peeling my underpants off and licking my pussy. He flicked his tongue on my pussy, in the front, on my clit. Then he put his finger inside of me. It felt like two fingers were there because of my tampon.

  “Can I take this out?” he asked.

  I nodded and he pulled out my tampon and put it on the glass coffee table. The colors were both red and brown with a clump of purple blood on the side. I felt embarrassed. But he just kissed me and slipped two fingers in my pussy. Then he kissed down my belly back to my clit. Looking into his eyes, I thought, I will never forget this. He licked my blood off his fingers. He loves me, I thought. He completely and totally loves me.

  Soon there was blood on his face. I closed my eyes and rode his face. I came very quickly, for me. He had my blood dried and smeared across his cheek. I put my fingers in my pussy and smeared blood under his eyes like No Glare. It was funny to be dressing him up in my blood. Here he was, a man with a tail, and I was making him look even more bizarre. I was used to the tail by now. To me he was just a man or a boy or a boy-man, and I wanted to paint him with so many of my fluids: sweat, spit, blood. I wanted to brand or mark him.

  I imagined that in the ocean, blood would never stay in the entrance of a pussy. When I took baths with my period, or went swimming, my blood always stopped. We learned this in junior high school at swim practice: that your blood stops in water. Perhaps it just slowly dissolves, or maybe it stays up in the uterus. Maybe it trickles out so faintly that time slows down and that’s why you never see any trail of pink in the bathwater.

  Did mermaids menstruate? Perhaps this was part of Theo’s attraction to me, my feet in the dirt and the blood in my pussy. My feet on the desert sand, dirty feet, dirty legs, bloody legs, blood dripping down my legs and onto all the earth. Both of us dry on our chests, but me wet in the pussy like a red hearth: the only wetness for days, no other water. Did mermaids even get wet in their cunts? Was it hard fucking them in the water, as beautiful as they were? I remembered trying to fuck in a pool years ago at a motel in Phoenix. It wasn’t easy. You got dried up from the water and couldn’t slide around right. So what would happen in the ocean? What did they use for lubrication?

  I gasped when I saw his cock. It was harder than I’d ever seen it, thick and pink, aiming straight at me like a meaty arrow. I gasped again when I saw the pool of blood on my sister’s white sofa. I was not so blinded by passion that I didn’t care if I had ruined it. I couldn’t destroy Annika’s house just because my new boyfriend was a merman with a penchant for period sex.

  But Theo saw the stain as a memento and looked proud: as though we should both autograph it. Saltwater stained boats, but in a beautiful way—weathering them, rendering the wood a soft, gray color. So too was our stain to him an act of nature. Perhaps he saw it as a triumph, even, a miracle marking our existence together on land, rather than any cause for alarm. And so I pretended to own my bodily secretions, as though I was proud of what we had made, instead of feeling inwardly ashamed
. I pretended to celebrate by kissing him. With his tongue in my mouth and little bits of dried blood flaking off of his cheek, he put his dick in me. I couldn’t believe how strong it was.

  “Fuck me,” I said. “Fuck me with your Triton spear.”

  We both laughed. We were looking in each other’s eyes and he was rubbing my organs from the inside. My flow was very heavy and he was sliding in and out, pumping inside me. I had never come from sex before, but maybe I would this time. Maybe I would.

  “Oh my God, I’m either going to come or piss,” I laughed. “I’m either going to come or piss, I don’t know which one.”

  “So come and piss,” he said. “Come and piss!”

  But I couldn’t. I just couldn’t let go, or maybe I wasn’t about to come—only piss. Whatever it was, I couldn’t reach it. But it felt so good to fuck him and I felt so connected to him and to all of the lovers throughout time. Missionary was so classical: simple, romantic, and ancient.

  I can’t believe his dick is inside me, I kept thinking, that it is his dick inside me, that it’s your dick inside me. A beautiful look came across his face: flushed cheeks, glazed eyes, lips wet and full. He looked intoxicated, and I felt so proud to be the one intoxicating him. Or was it simply being in a pussy, a wet pussy—not dry-wet from seawater, but wet with secretions—that made him look so drunk? Could it be anyone’s pussy? I wanted to believe it was me and that he felt about my pussy like I felt about his cock: amazed, because of who it belonged to. It was me alone: my body and my spirit that made this beautiful creature look so high. In that way I felt that I was beautiful now too.

  And then his expression changed again. Now he looked more pained, or perhaps engulfed in a pleasure that overwhelmed him. He was moaning “ungh, ungh” into my mouth, but not like the guys in porn saying stupid, phony lines like “Fuck me, bitch.” This was pure sound. It was as though his mouth emitted pure nature. His mouth was like a shell that you could put to your ear. Or maybe we were nature together? Were we shells or were we animals? Or one shell and one animal? No, we were two fish swimming in circles around each other, playful and spared of memory, unaware that we had ever been born and that we would ever die. We were connected now not only with all of human history—all the human lovers of the past—but with animal history as well. I’d been having sex for years. I’d had it hundreds, maybe even thousands of times, but now it was like I finally understood what sex was. There were only so many things in our lives that connected us to all of our ancestors, to all of humanity and to the animals. Poetry was one thing that bridged generations. But this was the big thing. This encompassed every species. Otherwise what was there? There was birth and death. There was eating food, drinking fluid, pissing and taking shits. There was this.