Bloody Sexy Anthology

by Carmilla Voiez

  “I asked first.”

  “Okay, I’m tired.”

  “Okay, let’s get some sleep.”

  “Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  “I love you.”

  “Good night.”

  ****

  The mother was a fat woman. She was exploited for her loving, vociferous capacity to listen, to speak, to respond. Gentle, she made breakfast: eggs, waffles, coffee, syrup, strawberries. There was gracefulness to her hands, her legs, her shoulders that swivelled softly, trance-like around the kitchen and to the table, back to the stove, into fridge and back to the table. No one ever aided her with breakfast. No one ever spoke to her after they had eaten. They ate hoarsely, selfishly, and returned upstairs or outside and she cleaned, washed the dishes and turned the iPad on that was connected to the houses’ sound system. But she never sang, simply listened, oblivious to the rest of the house. She hummed sometimes and made the space clean, orderly and welcoming. She was a fat woman with a grand, liberal smile, and her kids thought her weak, fragile, not worthy of their absolute love. I liked the fat woman. I liked her dearly. I liked her because she never complained. I liked her because she spoke, talkative when she could be, but never raised her voice. If there was solace, undaunted commitment, it was in the fat woman’s voice. It was in the fat woman’s movements. It was in the fat woman’s love for her kids. I liked her and if she was fat then I was fat and the whole world must be fat. Fatness, in the fat woman’s presence, became wholesome. It altered, shifted, and seemed benign. A part of me loved the fat woman. I admit: all of me loved the fat woman.

  In the morning, the house was placid, unbraided. The morning light was feral, hot and ripping into the living room. It encased the black television screen, the two leather couches and the maroon coffee table where the latest copy of Vogue lay, untouched, idle, and irreverent. Benito, the father, had gone for work.

  I waited for Della, pushing my podgy eggs into a puddle. The mother, Cardina, handed over the ketchup and mustard. She returned to the kitchen counter, fidgeting with the syrup, croissants in a transparent box, edible, delicious, a tease.

  “Is there anything else I can get for you?”

  “Oh no, this is great. Thank you. I really appreciate it. I mean...the food. It’s delicious.”

  “Is Della still upstairs?”

  “Just doing her makeup. I think she’ll be down in a few minutes.”

  “Oh, no. There’s no rush.”

  “But, seriously...these eggs, good lord are they tasty.”

  I watched the corners of her lips drawback, movable and flaccid. I scratched my nose. I did not want to seem impolite though I knew Cardina wouldn’t care...she was simple, magnanimous and kind, the way neglected people were.

  Cardina grasped a pitcher of water, poured into a cup and placed on the table. She did this efficiently. She seemed to do everything efficiently. Then Della came downstairs. She wore scarlet lipstick, a red and white striped shirt that accented her breasts, and a long, puritan black dress. She confided to me that she liked looking posh, stylish, grunge. A joke, we called ourselves pseudo-hipsters, somewhat ironically, somewhat not.

  “Are we ready to go?”

  ‘Where are we going, Bella?”

  “Don’t call me that.”

  “Come on, Delly.”

  “Mom!”

  “Yikes.”

  “Huh?”

  “What?”

  “What?”

  There was the air of calamity in the kitchen. Like something ready-made, constructed, a possibility of inflammation, when Della spoke to her mother. As if their relationship were constructed on nuances, subtle expressions. The disregard each showed the other had a terrible repercussion. Della, I supposed, thought herself foolish when embarrassed by her mother. But, the fat woman, I saw was hurt, provoked, at a loss. I saw Cardina struggle to react to her daughter’s lack of propriety. The brutal indifference Della inflicted, seemed to chip at Cardina; with every brash comment, the twitch in her face, her essence disappeared. Cardina, I saw, was missing. She couldn’t relate to her young daughter. She couldn’t improvise like so many of us who were reared by friends, television and the internet. Either way, I sensed that these dialogues were deliberate, rehearsed even when the dialogue seemed most raucous and ill-defined. I knew it was not my place to console, unify or mediate. Instead, I sat munching waffles and drinking water.

  “I don’t think it’s fair for him to be wearing that sweater.”

  “The Dal one? Why?”

  “I agree with your mother.”

  Cardina laughed, heavy-eyed. I studied her rolling laugh. It was like a commission, as if on-lease and I waited to hear that laugh, to cradle it. It had the high pitch of a happy woman. It wasn’t a shrill, but it carried that same desperation, the same openness. When Della laughed, it was less sparse. She always laughed freely, jovially with her chin receding back into her wide neck.

  “It’s not right,” Cardina said.

  “Mother, stop.”

  “It’s warm and comfortable. I have no regrets,” I teased.

  Again, Cardina laughed, her hands placed on her hips, her hair touching her shoulder blades. No one said how the sweater had been one of Della’s ex-boyfriends. No one said that.

  “You got the girl,” Cardina said.

  “You’re god damn rights, I did.”

  “Stop, you two.”

  ****

  He has not been back at the graveyard since he was young, with his father, standing over the marble slab that read: Annabelle and Jorge. Two names, far removed, that represented something indistinct, maudlin and hereditary...discussions of Europe, World War Two and the chosen dead who now had been canonized in prototypical textbooks he had labored over during his undergraduate years.

  He stood, with his girlfriend, inside the mausoleum. She directed him to a mural of Christ. Pained glass reflected the outside light and illuminated the halo that levitated above Christ’s head. The sun was hot, the weather abrasive, the room spoiled. The smell of asbestos lingered. He was sweaty, his neck creased.

  She was laughing, slapping him on the wrist. She said, “What do you think?”

  He said, “Looks nice.”

  Looking at the mural, crusted in bronze finely traced with sapphires and rubies, he would not concede. He would not confess that he felt flawed, deranged and beautiful. He said he was an atheist, she said that was fine, but why could he not like the mural? He said he hadn’t done ‘it’ because it was trendy, but because he used to pray, for forgiveness and worth, and hadn’t been given any such thing. It hadn’t worked, he said. Besides, he didn’t like to kneel to pray. He didn’t like to hunch and clasp his fingers. He didn’t like to peer, above, feel his body’s languor, discomfort and irritations. If he were to worship, it would be lying in bed, comfortable, with his laptop and bag of chips and water bottle. In bed, he could dream. He could listen to Oasis and Youth Lagoon and see his own world envelop, castrated and futile and harrowing, but also resilient, brave and undaunted. He could peruse news reports and blogs and random articles. He could stream television shows and movies. He could read reviews on books, restaurants, cars, women and men. He could learn about his own sexuality and the meaning of words: noun, adverb, adjective, syntax. There, in bed, he didn’t have to think on philosophy. Instead, he could savor his thoughts. He would see himself doing things, see himself live and love and - But Christ was beautiful and made him uncomfortable.

  He was not the first to have been here. He was not the first to have fucked, made love, under the mural of Christ. He was not the first to have pissed on the marble walls, defecated under Christ’s two dimension image, out of the carved eye’s vision. He would not be the first to have died.

  “Fucking A!”

  “What?”

  “What?”

  “Would you want to be buried?”

  “Ashes, I want to be scattered.”

  “I’d like to be buried. Have my kids
come visit.”

  “Do you hear that sound?”

  “No?”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “Christ Almighty.”

  “We’re in a church.”

  “Oh, relax. They’re just words.”

  “Words are still offensive.”

  There was a pounding from the other side of the stone slab. He heard the sound from inside the grave where Cardina’s parents' cadavers lay buried. Cardina stared at the pictures...her mother, old and her father, old - framed and laudable. Lacquered in gloss, their bodies made to be preserved. Their faces hoisted in old age, fastened onto the mausoleum’s wall. The mural of Christ, forgotten, arches overhead as they talked about ashes and burials. He did not know why he was here. He felt anxious. The sound echoes filled the mausoleum. He heard its throb.

  ****

  Cardina drove. Della and I sat in the back, hands twined, our legs grazing. During the ride, I either slid my hand in between Della’s crotch or kissed along her neck. She never protested, even when I caught Cardina staring through the mirror, smiling.

  “Mom, show him Aberdeen.”

  “Why, honey?”

  “I want him to see Ravencliffe.”

  “Ravencliffe, what’s that?”

  “It’s a really nice street with these old, brownstone homes.”

  “Why do you want to go there, honey?”

  “Because I do. What difference does it make?”

  “Okay, okay, honey.”

  “What’s the rage about Ravencliffe?”

  ‘The rage?”

  “The rage.”

  “It’s nice, you’ll like it. I just want to show you, why are you getting irate?”

  “Irate? I’m not irate. I’m ebullient!”

  “What?”

  “Excited.”

  “Honey, dear, should we go after the book store?”

  “No, now!”

  “How far is it?”

  “Like, five minutes. See, just over there. That spire, that’s the Ravencliffe castle.”

  “Benito’s uncle used to own the castle.”

  Five minutes later, the car pulled into a cul-de-sac lined with colossal homes - English Tudor, French Baroque, Modernist, Italian Romanesque.

  “This is Ravencliffe,” Della said.

  I peered out the window, craning my neck so that I could view wholly, advertently, uncompromisingly. I didn’t want to ignore what they seemed proud of, what elevated their moods. Della’s state of being seemed to improve when we slowly edged our way up the street. She appeared more vital, alive. I didn’t want them to think me snobbish, arrogant for having grown up in Vancouver.

  “Just this one street?”

  Della turned to me, pinching my stomach. “Yep.”

  It was a grand, expensive street. The houses had been erected several feet behind the curb - gaudy, looming structures with manicured lawns and superlative walkways. Hedges groomed, meticulously. The pillars seemed to cascade, lush and full of eminent muscle. Grandiose architectures jutted at your eyes. They catered in an unassuming, docile way. They didn’t move, but they seemed to. Each home purported that you wanted to notice them. You, not they. A part of me viewed them as submissive, unless goaded, provoked. Just homes, brick, wood, steel: materials. Unnatural: human. Falsely sublime. The other part saw those powerful enigmas that resided in the homes, roused and attentive. I imagined them: lawyers, doctors, CEOs, high-balling at dinner parties, charities, and political functions. Cocaine, prostitutes, Catholic mass, Anglican mass, booze, cigars, sports cars, foreign suits, private jets...all the adulated drivel that wouldn’t make you any happier unless you already leaned that way. But I wanted to become them, to have myself, young, looking in when I was old, and feel as curious and confused and aching. Perhaps I would disprove him, or enable him. Perhaps our trajectory would be linear, cogent, aligned and we would find ourselves in the same place, only years apart, and he would give me youth and I would give him wisdom. Perhaps then we would laugh at the ire of the universe. So austere, indifferent, but, us: victorious, essential. More so, I wanted to buy one of these homes for Della and force her to love me, unfailingly, until I was dead, impotent, or maimed.

  “Isn’t it beautiful?”

  “We’re going to live here someday,” I said.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Look just ahead. There’s the castle. In the middle of the street.”

  “Which one?”

  “The one in front of you.”

  “It’s the one with the spire, dear.”

  “Oh, gotcha.”

  “You see it?”

  “Yep. Right there?” I pointed with my hand.

  “Right there.”

  The castle was malevolent. Handsome and expensive and repugnant. I felt weird, like it was an astral globule, a planetary setting. It held an intangible sense of gravity, pull: force. The castle seemed in a state of flux, disagreement...two vying forces in a state of opposition. It did not seem harmless like many of the Eastern European castles I had seen on image websites. It was malicious, garish, and evil. Brutalist, only because it was black and gray and coated with a white and Spartan trim. Black gates, the maroon spiral that summated the cul-de-sac. It was serene in the middle of the street. But also ugly, out of place and very handsome. You were disparaged when you observed Ravencliffe castle.

  “That’s the one my father’s uncle used to own.”

  “What happened?”

  “I think he went broke or something. Probably at the Casino.”

  “Yes.” Cardina laughed. “Honey, dear.”

  “It’s so ominous.”

  “It’s one hundred and seventy years old, I think.”

  “Yeah, it’s old. I think some railroad guy built it.”

  I studied the black steel railing on the balcony. It didn’t hang, there was no veranda. I inspected harder, more closely, and saw that there were gargoyle faces...contorted, ugly and disfigured...as if they were wrought into the steel screaming, agonizing when seared and melted. Bruised, hideous, animate faces, I could grab at them.

  “Looks like a Vampire coven.”

  “Like a really well-maintained halfway house.”

  “You two,” Cardina said.

  Imprisonment, banishment, abnormality; looking at Ravencliffe, I recalled words from when, as a young boy, I had read books I now considered silly and inappropriate. Pioneers, goblins, trolls, vampires, poets, warriors, wistful creatures and ruthless warlords... I could imagine them here. Christ fuck, I thought, you old friends.

  A castle, how long had it been since I had seen one? It was fantasy, gregarious, and laughable, childish visions. Brooding and melancholy and fun-loving individuals, similar to the ones I had witnessed on old VHS tapes. Hollywood extravaganzas, constructed personae that, now, everyone knew and could iterate with a montage. I was an adult, but I saw them, the silly bastards. They were ostracized, fantastic, and individual, unlike their persecutors - critics, lame writers, pedants, hack directors, serious academics - who were uniform, dull, and monotone: their neighbors. Trapped, enclosed, yet perversely free. But, then, who wanted such anxiety? Never to be free? Always to be free?

  The rest of Hamilton was so unlike Ravencliffe or Aberdeen. Hamilton was industrial. It seemed to have never developed beyond the 1950s era of reciprocity and domestic profusion. Now there were few jobs besides the steel mill whose smog broke into the city. The red flame sky was laden with what seemed a heap, moving and dense and the sounds of fatigued men and woman. Social housing complexes and identical suburban zones, a downtown that lacked infrastructure, tarred roads, restaurants, clubs or attractions, totalled, destroyed, obliterated; these were comments associated with Hamilton.

  My Oakville friend, Mark, had said: “It’s a real dump there, man.”

  Laura, my co-worker, said: “I’d never move back there. Are you kidding me?”

  But I felt I knew more about Hamilton than they di
d. Osoyoos had bled in these streets. Benito and Cardina had married in the downtown chapel. Della had lived a life, one that intrigued and made me suspicious. I wanted to be a part of this young Della, to immerse, twine, steal. I loved her and I wanted her, unfairly, and I loved young Della and I loved her always, perfidiously. I was oblivious to the old city, falling apart. I knew four people in the city, three I had met. I found it titillating because of Della. I wanted to make her happy, and had to be content with viewing the city second-hand like a rip off copy, disingenuous and canny, something I could never have.

  “One day, babe.”

  “Sorry?”

  “One day.”

  “What?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Do you like it.”

  “How could I not?”

  “Hehe.”

  ****

  Osoyoos takes her. In the bookstore. Fucks her. She is dripping. Cum. Her pussy. You don’t call it that. But Osoyoos will. The clit is red, beating. Her entire vagina is wet. There is a puddle on the floor. It splashes and rolls down the shelves. It gathers underneath her legs. You were taught to measure success with the amount of cum. He is inside of her, thick girth. Clobbering, hammering, pounding. He is insensitive. You are not. You tantalize. You mend with your foreplay. He slashes at her vagina. He is brutal, thrusting and she is crying. Crying out. Crying out for more. Crying out for she cannot take any more. But she wants it. She is bleeding. Bleeding in ecstasy. Bleeding in carnal freedom. Electric fucking. Fiery fucking. Elemental fucking. It is transcendent. You are watching. You are wanting to hold her. You are wanting to save her. But she doesn’t need to be saved. She doesn’t want to be saved. She wants more, though she can’t take it. She is crying out. She is crying out. For Osoyoos. Her eyes roll white. She gags in delight. Stop, it’s so fucking good. Give me more. Fuck! Give me more! She screams. You hear the words. You hear the doggerel sounds. Like pornography. And you are staring, watching the fucking...smack, smack, smack. You are watching the fucking.

  You are two, you are him. He is you. Della is ravaged, bleeding from the vigorous thrusts. Masculine. Feminine. Holistic. It is an orgy. But you are not participating. You want to. The fucking, it breaks your heart. You are cleaved, raw and flayed. You are passionate, more passionate than you have been in years. Take her. Take her from him. Take her for yourself. Take her for all those who couldn’t. But you don’t. You are watching the fucking.