by Robert Gluck
The jailer’s wife: a hot flash—sweat broke out across her brow. She set a ladder against the window and brought Margery a pot of wine and a cup and asked her to conceal them. Margery filled the cup so high she had to lean over to drink. She plucked hair from her chin, between her breasts, and on her upper thighs. Sometimes her physicality seemed like an eruption through the feminine rather than into it.
She sat by the window and imagined Jesus. He’s talking about her to Mary, to a saint. He wants to please her. Children played tag into the dusk on a lawn, in an alley beside it, and up a wall they scaled with a ladder permanently left there for them. Their mild shouts echoed on the green. (When Margery was a girl she ran so fast her legs didn’t support her and she collapsed. This memory seemed to occur outside the social order. She had felt extraordinary power in running, a feeling her body could not sustain.)
The air was soft and chickens settled in the boughs of the apple and quince. The scene was timeless because it had no shadows. The more chaotic Margery’s life became, the more she longed for Jesus. Her anticipation amplified the world as it took a last look at its own blue sky with the greed of the visible. She raised her palm in his rather somber salute. A few stars appeared, serenely actual, and a few bats. Her longing was so direct it seemed kinetic, a power expanding on itself. She sat up in bed in the darkness. Her heart beat painfully. She was surprised to be alone. He owed her what she needed, the commitment of his nakedness for her to endlessly unveil.
•
A loud voice blew a chill into her bones: Margery. She awoke clammy and spooked and lay still. Jesus glided out of the dark with underwater fluency; he was resplendent in a short crimson gown, a large velvet hat trimmed with lynx, a golden girdle around his waist, and a golden baldric trailing behind. He wore a sassy expression, head tossed to one side, shoulders cocked. His sap green breeches were so tight she thought his asshole appeared when he bent over; she was more aware than Jesus of that blurred red light in the darkness. What began as a fashion show ended as a striptease.
When they were about to come, Margery spit in his open mouth.
“That’s gross,” Jesus whispered with a look of grievance.
“Of course it is,” Margery replied in a normal voice as Jesus began to spasm with a weak unwilling groan, shifting beneath her slightly. Margery was giving Jesus something to remember but it was Margery who remembered it. “We had exchanged so much spit but let some fly through the air . . . It was just something I wanted to give him.”
41
People do not like Margery during their lifetimes but want her to weep when they are dying and she does because she thinks of Jesus dying. Jesus shapes her dread and expresses the ecstasy of the present.
She pushes her finger into his asshole as though he’s a pie. She encounters shit—well, it’s Jesus’s shit; she just slides it out of the way. She nudges his prostate while pressing down on his groin with her palm, mixing the inside and outside. This makes Jesus moan though Margery isn’t sure if he’s responding to the sensation or the idea. Only his asshole has odor—a dragon guarding the cave. Once inside, she’s elsewhere—underwater though able to breathe. My cathedral is built for a god to see so even secret places have ornament.
His pubic hair looks adolescent; his cock looks big, big, big—big head, big shaft, lots of skin, and looks like it could get bigger.
It’s my cock Bob is describing. Bob licks his lips to articulate its pleasure. I put a “do not” sign on the door . . . turn the lock . . . tip him over. His body an Eden . . . his mind inhabits . . . illegally . . . till I enter. I fill his ass . . . yet stay soft . . . till the moment . . . I come . . . pliable . . . spongy . . . big enough . . . to strike . . . all his nerves . . . as though . . . a tongue pushed . . . in all directions . . . against . . . his inner walls . . . larger . . . than history . . . now . . . he’s completely . . . awake . . . yet free . . . of dread . . . groaning . . . continuous . . . release. Cramped in . . . that position . . . his legs . . . go to sleep . . . to his waist. As they wake . . . I wonder . . . do his neighbors . . . think . . . his groans . . . are bliss? He laughs . . . in confusion . . . his ass . . . clenched . . . his head . . . wobbling . . . a top . . . slowing . . . the possibility . . . of falling . . . sperm on . . . the old carpet. I can’t reconcile . . . the tenderness . . . of my flesh . . . with the coolness . . . of my manner. He’s agitated . . . broken . . . attentive. I don’t know . . . how to be . . . around this . . . remain loving . . . while continuing . . . to assert . . . we are breaking . . . up. I ascend . . . foreshortened . . . the air . . . is hot . . . dust . . . from the ceiling . . . makes me sneeze . . . my ears . . . itch. Bob is . . . still vibrating. To infer . . . long from short . . . is pleasant . . . but he can’t . . . do without . . . me on earth.
42
Next morning Margery was brought by the two yeoman to the chapter house in Beverly. The Archbishop of York was presiding because the Duke of Bedford, learning of a Scottish incursion, had collected an army and marched north. The Archbishop entered the hall with his clerics. He wore a small cap and a scarlet cape with slashes for his white-sleeved arms. A few weeks before, he had marched at the head of several thousand of his tenants against the Scots. A severe man, he could still hear drums roll across the moors.
Seeing Margery’s wet emotional face, the Archbishop cried, “Why do you go around in white? Are you a virgin?”
Impatience was an ingredient in all his actions. He complained to the assembly, “I have a number of deaths to deal with. They had this woman before the Abbot of Leicester and found no fault in her. He gave one of his men five shillings to lead her out of this part of the country: they were arrested, the man thrown in prison, her gold and silver taken away, and here she is. Who says anything against her?”
A Franciscan with a huge nose stepped forward and took Margery’s wrist. He had molten bars in his cheeks but his touch was so cold she jerked her arm back to her side. He claimed she disparaged all men of the Church, that a heretic with her name was burnt at Lynn, that she was a Lollard spy, that she had never been to Jerusalem.
The Archbishop rolled his eyes.
The friar licked his teeth. “My lord, she knows her faith. Still, my Lord of Bedford is angry with her.”
“Well, friar, you can escort her to him.”
•
Later she was led into the Archbishop’s chamber. A green arras was worked with the image of three girls. His prostate ached after a strangely painful shit. Green fustian blankets covered his legs and his sheets were embroidered with dots and tendrils.
The friar came forward. His nose cast its shadow to one side. The friar saw himself as especially cooperative. He asked questions, but he was so eager to be right that he substituted the answer he wanted to hear. The Archbishop said, “Now say while she is present what you said when she was not present.”
“Shall I?”
“Yes,” said the Archbishop.
“You advised my Lady Greystoke to leave her husband, and she is a baron’s wife, and daughter to my Lady of Westmorland.”
They all turned to Margery. “I told her about a lady who gives her sweetheart a collection of miniature books—and they are delightful in his castle library. He decides to collect more and when she sees he has chosen larger volumes she runs crying from the room; her sleeves fly out and strike both sides of the doorway.”
The Archbishop was laughing and angry. His steward and household threw out their hands. “Let her go—if she ever comes back we will burn her ourselves.”
“No woman in England was ever so treated as she is.” To Margery the Archbishop added, “I don’t know what to do with you.”
“Let me have your letter and seal, and let Thomas bring me to the river.” The Archbishop returned her purse, amazed at the money it held. Actually, Margery had lost her fortune traveling with Jesus and needed supporters to give her money. Like most poor people, she carried all her savings with her.
•
Th
omas and Margery passed a rickety nag pulling an empty wagon; its owner was a ghost who clung to a spoke to keep from spilling into nothingness. They heard bloodhounds and boarhounds barking and a hunter blowing the mort. A red-faced apothecary ate spiders as greedily as nuts because he was crop sick. The long grass was green except, oddly, along the bank of the Humber where it was brown.
Thomas left Margery there, taking the Archbishop’s letter with him. The oarsman’s shadow stood on the river’s surface.
43
Margery returned to Lynn where a man threw a bowl of water on her head as she walked down the street.
•
She had dysentery; she couldn’t hold a spoon; she wandered around her room on hands and knees, hiding from stabbing pain that wrung endless cries from her while searing diarrhea exploded down her thighs. It took all her concentration to breathe. White clumps of pus formed at the back of her throat; an appetite would have been ironic since she couldn’t swallow her spit.
Memories of her excesses nauseated her as distant roads fell into each other again and again like taffy. At the limit of exhaustion the strong bright structures caved in. She’d always been strenuously on the move by ship, on foot, on horse. Now, alone in her room, her eyes raised indifferently. Yet lying in bed wasn’t boring. Dying became an activity full of lively interest. Just observing her fragility admitted endless variations. As she gained strength she was reborn to appetite and movement.
Another illness followed; it settled in her right side below her ribs lasting all but eight weeks of eight years. Sometimes it struck Margery once a week lasting thirty hours, sometimes twenty, sometimes ten, sometimes eight, sometimes four, sometimes two, so hard and sharp that she threw up. John held her head; her lips drew back from the taste of bile.
Her priest gave her Jesus’s body hidden in bread. Her head tipped back and emitted little groans from the bottom of the throat where her membranes were shores touched by a distant sea. Then Margery cried as if soul and body parted; she screamed as much as it hurt; two men held her arms. Jesus appeared above, a thin cloud behind his bony head looked like it traveled through his ears; his neck was as wide as his face and so beautifully modeled it was also expressive. She saw Jesus turn away; she tasted Jesus restore her from within. People outside heard her: I die, I die.
Jesus looked at her, experimenting with her absence: she pulled in her shoulders, suddenly chilled by the clay she was made of; she held her breath, aroused by her own inconsequence. He told her who would die. Margery covered her ears; she couldn’t believe it was Jesus so he withdrew in exasperation, leaving inordinate lust in his place.
Rabbis, imams, and priests appeared in a grove of huge yews and showed her the tears of pre-come on their erections. Satan thundered (the shock waves hit her chest): YOU MUST CHOOSE WHICH ONE YOU WANT—NO—YOU MUST PROSTRATE YOURSELF BEFORE ALL. Satan had boar fangs and bark-colored skin; his balls were coconuts, hairy and brown, and his cock was knotted to keep it from dragging. Fragrant wild thyme covered the ground and random lights swept across their bodies. Her pubic mound itched—a maddening sharp jabbing. She liked one of the men better than the others. She could not say no; she had to do it; he plunged into her in a hollow tree, her nipples and face grinding against spongy wood, musty and sweet as testicle skin.
Satan ordered her to come; flames jumped up and down her groin and thighs and through her asshole; she wriggled and jerked against her will like a manic puppet, her muscles tugging the man’s cock so hard it passed the point of no return. When his straining body also reached the breaking point, his helpless cries began and Satan made her moan, “It’s heaven!”
She laughed with shame yet excitement made everything arousing seem normal. Out of sheer spite a demon did a backflip. Satan’s voice almost ripped her ears off: AS HIS DAUGHTER YOU DISAPPOINT, AS HIS MOTHER YOU EXASPERATE, AS HIS SISTER YOU ARE BULLIED, AS HIS WIFE YOU ARE ABANDONED—so deafening it killed the world.
A cuckoo echoed far off, then near. Satan’s furnace-mouth gaped wide and the terror of being swallowed drew her on a conveyer towards his jaws as her feet whirred in front like a clown on ice.
“Jesus, you said you would never abandon me!” Margery felt like a balloon full of water, easily punctured, webbed with a tangle of charged nerve endings, prickly in the slightest breeze—an unbelievable pressure inside that wanted to slosh and disrupt. A demon thrust a squirming naked man down the devil’s throat; the roar of fire drowned his cries. Margery covered her breasts in an attempt to hold herself together; the dark tips ached as invisible fingers pinched them. Another demon helped push in the man’s flapping leg with a pitchfork. She felt terrified of collision, bloated as a cow’s udder, tit pink and squinting.
Jesus sat with his elbows on a table. “I’m not angry with you,” he said, “although I allow you to feel pain.” Margery felt like she was visiting a childhood home, smaller than remembered. Satan had mauled her for twelve days.
“And I, I—” She shook her head, unable to go on; she sat down and hid her face in her hands. Margery owned little of the world but felt responsible for that portion and more. How strange that the owner of everything felt no responsibility. She was bone weary; the thought rose: How can I get rid of him? He walked away, but slowly. His broad ass was hairless as an egg. She discerned a blindspot behind the clarity of events, an obscurity that jumped and shifted.
44
Jesus perched on the three legged stool in the corner, drinking a glass of wine. His face was softly masculine, almost overdone, eyesockets delicate, nose polished down. He was satisfied with the light falling through the half-open shutters and the wedge of view by now familiar, the neighbor’s roof and the hexagonal well. He said mildly, “What will you do now? There can be no more against you but the moon and seven stars. There is scarcely anyone on your side.”
“Then we will live together?” There was hatred in her question. Her fading posture and her anger put her in the wrong.
Jesus looked at Margery without recognition and waited long enough for her to feel the thrill of her own absence, as though looking back into a room she’d just stepped out of. He eliminated the particular without granting the absolute. She touched her breasts for comfort. She forgot her intelligence, the beauty of her body, her courage. In forgetting, she lost those qualities. She persisted, “Is there one thing about me that you like?” Jesus raised his eyebrows.
•
She got him aroused, kept him erect, delayed his orgasm. Just in time she let her hand fly off the end of his cock. Still, she knew her energy counted for less because she was not loved. Jesus desired to increase desire by waking and manipulating her points of arousal but they floated in a cosmic dereliction. He tended them insofar as they resembled others of their kind. Margery wanted to be engulfed but retain that loss of self in the memory of her skin. Jesus turned his face away, then allowed her his lips, then yielded his tongue.
Once sex was fully entered nothing was hidden. The skin on her hands tried to memorize a strapping young man planted on his knees waiting to fuck. He was thin from his long calves to his narrow skull yet caressing him was extravagant opulence.
They stood up at the foot of the bed. Margery bent at the waist and Jesus had to crouch. Her toes curled as he guided his cock deep inside her; she dilated and clenched. She saw her legs and those of Jesus—his were squatting and looked rather inexpressive, even comic, turned out as a frog’s. He tipped her back and forth with increasing force, thrusting back the borders of their delight; in that motion she was clarified, her giddiness transformed into rapturous calm.
Their flesh emitted fierce oscillations. It seemed odd that they didn’t echo in people who surrounded them. She looked up in surprise. It was 1420; experience was crumbling. A tension rose between the arousal that tried to be everything and the doubt that wouldn’t believe it. From her window, Margery saw a civilization that had never entirely come to life. It amazed her that pleasure was so mechanical, so located in space. She had the si
nking fear that the party was happening elsewhere. She watched herself convulse from her city’s point of view and felt isolated and estranged from her thrill. She wondered if she loved Jesus less. Their little bodies lost significance like words repeated too often. He vaporized as he fucked her, leaving emptiness vibrating in her chest and cunt walls like the blare of a trumpet.
•
Jesus didn’t memorize the serenity of Margery’s inner thigh or the jut of her breasts. Perhaps he considered her question, because later he volunteered that he did like something about her: “You have nice ears.”
“Too big,” Margery said, unbelieving. She looked down at her naked body.
Jesus conceded with a friendly willingness to lose the debate. “The less value you set on yourself, the better.”
Margery recognized the arbitrary world. Jesus gazed through her without a flicker of interest. System after system peeled back till there was nothing left but spidery bones. She sank into her grave, crying, “Jesus, don’t abandon me! Your angels offer you my tears.” She raised her head—a skull that was already empty. He looked at the sockets hopefully. They heard a two-syllabled call followed by the muffled purr of rapidly beating wings.
45
“Hello, Bob,” L. says with mild cheer. “What’s new and different?” When he speaks, it’s not about us but current events, updates—the kind of petty news heads of families xerox and send at Christmas. I listen in disbelief—my aging and death could not go forward without his consent.
My back feels tight. I am aware of the infinity of my longing and my frantic being, and of the relative blankness “outside” where clouds are parsed evenly over the night sky in exasperation. I want a hand to scatter my nipples and cock like dry leaves off my body. I look at the phone which contains his voice. His flesh and blood are sitting by a window—the tops of buildings, a loading dock seven stories down.