precognitive dissonance

(working title)

And I am awake.

Early mourning (i mentally add the you), the dream hasn't released its hold. He's still sleeping, the blanket moving in cadence with his breath. Dawn is creeping in around the edges of the blinds. New year's day, but no one has told the sun to do anything special. No one ever tells the sun anything. They never tell me anything, either.

A strange sense of drifting; dream-hangover? How did I get here? I guess it was last June, at the party. Strange that a few square feet of spandex led me to this place.

Fat girls don't wear miniskirts. A lifetime of being a fat girl teaches you things, aught me this. A hundred pounds away from it, I still believe, still live by fat-girl rules. Loose blouses, flowing skirts, low necklines to distract people from how the neck has been absorbed into chins. Doesn't matter that I've regained collarbones; the old rules apply, just in case the fat finds me somehow, tracks me down and crawls back under my skin.

Nancy said this was silly, superstitious, and bad for the social life, and decided to take me in hand. So the day of a party (just an ordinary party, rather boring, watching the usual crowd guzzle the usual drinks before heading off for another round of musical beds; I once calculated that every person in our crowd could be linked sexually to every other person with a maximum of two intermediaries) Nancy appeared bearing makeup, black stockings, impossibly high heels, and the aforementioned spandex tube. Two hours later I wasn't sure my cats would have recognized me. I know I didn't.

The transformation seemed to work. Apparently all my friends had been under the impression that I levitated through my days wearing jeans with nothing in them. At least, the most common remark was "You have legs!" Needless to say, this wasn't news to me, though the notion that they were anything remarkable possessed a certain novelty. I floated through the evening on a Cinderella high, blushing and giggling and generally enjoying the attention. Aside from one guy who remarked, "Wow, you're not bullet-shaped anymore," everyone was saying things i'd hungered all my life to hear.

I was getting a glass of water in the kitchen when he arrived (empty calories aside, alcohol tends to make me forget my dislike of cheap meaningless sex). We'd been friends for more than a year and for the last few weeks he'd been vaguely flirting with me, trying to steal kisses at parties, that sort of thing. My playful resistances had been more than just a way to flirt; I could sense the beginnings of a shift in my hierarchy of friends. He wouldn't fit into my pattern of insubstantial one-nighters with dicks-with-bodies-attached and I didn't know if I wanted to give up that habit yet. Starting things with him would mean tacitly accepting him as real, not just another paper-doll vibrator substitute. Opening that door would put me in danger of the l-word, a terrifying prospect.

The Wednesday before the party it became clear that things would have to be resolved one way or the other pretty soon. That afternoon, my friend Heather drove me to an appointment; he tagged along for the ride. Quietly, from the back seat, he reached for my hand, held it in both of his, caressing palm, knuckles, wrist with gentle fingertips. For once, I made no jokes and didn't pull away. He kept my hand until we arrived and I had to leave the car. I hadn't been sure what to make of it and tried to pass it off lightly. "Well, I'm gone now, so you can flirt," I told him as he got into the front seat.

"What do you think I've been doing?" He closed the door and they took off. I'd refused to think about it much since then. Trying to figure out what it meant would release too many things, things I'd put quite a bit of effort into penning up.

I don't think he recognized me when he first came into the kitchen at the party. He glanced at me with casual interest, assessing the fresh meat, then took a second, closer look and jumped backward a step, shock on his face as he questioningly said my name.

"Problem, dear?" I grinned.

"No problem, no, it's just that you... I mean, wow... I just never... it's so strange, that's all..." I laughed and left him in the kitchen still tripping over his words. This stuff could get addictive, I decided. Who needed booze when just being attractive was so much fun? I didn't want to ever come down and I drifted from group to group showing off the new me.

Eventually, though, people got tired of bestowing compliments and the shock of my altered appearance wore off. I settled into a corner of the sofa to rest my feet and regroup before beginning the weekly search for a ride home from the party, a task that had been much easier in the days before I realized I didn't like cheap meaningless sex. This, of course, was when he found me, sat next to me on the sofa and ran a hand over my nylon-encased thigh. I swatted him. "Hey, aren't you the guy who's been claiming sex is boring?"

"Aren't you the woman who said I just wasn't doing it right?"

"Am I sposed to do something about that? Sounds like a personal problem to me."

"Ah, but you're a kind and compassionate soul, right? And since you discovered the problem, you're obligated to help." The hand he'd left on my knee moved up to my waist and he brought me to him for a kiss, soft then thorough and by the time it ended I wasn't even sure who I was anymore.

And that's how I ended up leaving with him that night and spending five hours in his bed showing him how to do it right.

[page break]

He walked me home as the sun rose, holding hands, stopping every few blocks to kiss. That morning, in a dawn-clean world, we began.

this is how chapter two begins

food is evil you are what you eat food is evil you're a hippo and don't need food and i am the only one who can control what you eat, you have no self control, you're weak and food is evil you are evil you are food

i'm standing in front of the stove, stirring a pot full of leftover spaghetti, thinking about how the night stretches out in front of me, warm taffy, pulling at me, sticky, entangling, light glistening off the greasy film that's supposed to make it manageable but only compounds its sins. the spoon clanks against the pan, the heating coils glow red, the spaghetti gives off steam. i've not eaten today, none of us have, this will be good. my stomach gurgles companionably, agreeably.

the door opens, it's her. she's mad. "hippo!" fists descend, the pan flies, red sauce streaking walls like blood. all you ever do is eat, you're so fat, you're gross, just a huge mound of flesh, you're into a size 12 now, you're disgusting, if it weren't for me you'd weigh twice what you do now. i don't care what i told you, if i told you you could jump off a cliff, would you? you should, you know, just kill yourself and get it over with...

the words screech in my ears, their dissonance vibrates my eardrums and makes them tingle and itch. helpless, an onslaught, the eye of the storm has passed and now i have no shelter. redfaced monsters with spittle drooling from their mouths, wild black hair a satanic halo around her head, distended stomach belies the gospel of slimness she preaches. don't slip in the sauce, the walls are bleeding in sympathy, the floor secrets blood, everything bleeds except me.

she's sucked me dry. no blood, no tears, no saliva, no urine, not even moisture in my virgin cunt. dust connected by pins and strings and welts and bruises and there's no point to it all, no point, no reason, why bother? pointnorth, a compass, encompass, how can i get out of here, where do i go?

Breakfast was the first to go.

"You don't see me eating breakfast, do you?" she demanded. Well, no, not unless beer and cheap wine count in place of sausages and eggs. "You kids eat too fucking much anyway. All I ever do is buy food. No one needs breakfast." Apparently she'd missed all the public service announcements burbling about the importance of breakfast -- or maybe she hadn't. Hard to say. At any rate, just like that, the morning ritual of cornflakes with milk and fighting over who got to read the cereal box came to an end.

My stepmother constantly contradicted herself over food. Actually, her personality got its shape from a subtle maze of self-contradiction, an infrastructure of denial. Gifts given then revoked then given again. Behaviors earning rewards one day triggered beatings the next. Every action, every word possessed significant layers of meaning: ignorance of these was punishable but so was peeling them back. Her attitude toward food reflected her general approach toward life, moving in great pendulum swings from "you fat slob, don't eat" to "you're not leaving the table until you eat everything I gave you." The latter surfaced most often after about fifteen minutes spent poking at something particularly loathsome heaped on my dinner plate. It wasn't that she couldn't cook; in the days when she still deigned to cook for the entire family, she did amazing things with food: perfect fried chicken, beef stew with undertones of herbs you couldn't quite name, an exotic stir-fry dish that changed names every time she served it. The problem lay in her philosophy of feeding children: give them what you think they should eat and force-feed them if they balk.

Sauerkraut. My jaw automatically locked at the approach of sauerkraut, slimy, smelly, cabbagemess. "I'm full, Mom."

"You've got a whole bunch of sauerkraut left to eat."

"But I'm not hungry anymore. My stomach hurts. Can I be excused?"

"You're not going anywhere until you clean your plate." She couldn't really mean that. I could outwait her. During the first hour, I amused myself by sculpting. Little sauerkraut snowmen next to sauerkraut mountains. After the second hour, my nose had accommodated to the pungent stench. My sister and brother were watching television in the livingroom, but she stayed in the kitchen sipping a beer and watching me. Midway through the third hour I began to feel an urgent pressure. "Mom, I need to go to the bathroom, please."

"I said you're not moving until you clean your plate. And if you piss your pants, I'll make you wear them on your head." At this point, I realized she was serious. I could spend the rest of my adolescence at this table staring down a mound of brine-soaked vegetables and it wouldn't faze her in the least. I managed to choke it down before my bladder burst or I wet myself. That was the last time I failed to take her literally.

I classified the incident as annoying but bearable. If I held my nose, swallowed fast, and followed up with huge gulps of water, I could get through an entire plate of sauerkraut. But I had a weakness, and I'd let her know about it before I understood what a grave tactical error that was.

Yankee born and bred like my father and late mother, I'd never even seen a bell pepper before Dad married this Texan. I decided immediately that this lack had been a Good Thing. My first bite of one made me retch and my relationship with the vegetable deteriorated rapidly from there. I tried ignoring them, picking them out of food and arranging them in neat patterns on my plate. No good; this strategy ran head-on into "you're not going anywhere until you clean your plate," and she was bigger than I was. Time for plan B, which worked so well with sauerkraut: scoop up forkfuls of diced peppers and swallow them whole, like an addict popping pills. Once she caught on to this one, though, liquids with meals joined breakfast as a fond childhood memory.

Having won the battle, she quickly followed up by introducing an assortment of pepper punishments. Sassing off? Eat this plate of raw pepper strips. You didn't clean the toothbrush holder in the bathroom, so here's a stuffed pepper. Stop fighting with your sister or i'll make you eat this plate of pork and beans with pepper chunks. Raw, baked, boiled, fried, steamed, alone and with other foods -- I ate bell peppers in every form imaginable. Even today, the smell of them makes me retch; watching a friend slice one for use in a salad, I vomited in his kitchen sink.

Food was reward as well as punishment, carefully rationed. My father's role as provider, for examples, entitled him to eat steak every night while we dined on sandwiches. Leftovers were tagged, labeled, and carefully checked every day for signs of unauthorized consumption. She baked batches of cookies and counted them daily to be sure none had been stolen in the night.

A summer's day, the grass intensely, painfully green. A bunch of kids played kickball in front of our house; I was first baseman. We had a real kickball, smell of red rubber baking in sunshine and the hollow, echoing "thwonk" sound when it contacted your foot. Every now and then the game paused as we moved out of the road to let cars pass, and during one of these pauses she appeared in our doorway, holding a bag of caramels, calling for us all to come there. Benevolent empress among the peons, she bestowed two candies on each child. I was just out of reach, so she tossed mine to me. The candies bounced off hands I'd raised more to deflect than to catch, and I scrabbled in the grass with stinging palms.

If you'd questioned her motives toward us, the answer would have been immediate: she loved us, of course. "I'm doing this for their own good. I want them to be better people than they are."

food is life is love is evil bad bad girl.

i'm a chipmunk, look at me, cheek pouches bulging obscenely, stomach bulging obscenely, i won, dammit, i won. i have all the food in the universe hidden under my bed and you can't take it from me. i can eat hamburgers and chips and ice cream and cake and spaghetti redredredbloodspaghetti and tuna and steak, i can have steak every night. i plunder the supermarket, throwing items in my cart, orgiastic, orgasmic, dipping steel spoon into frozen creamy white, scoop out, cold so cold melting sweetness overpowers, richness almost chokes and it's mine.

driving from place to place, squawking speakers place your order hide the bags from the other places when you go to the window, triumphantly carry your booty home (hamburgerchickenonionringscurlyfries and a small cheese pizza, had to get out of the car for that one). she can't stop you. good girl you deserve this cramming it in so fast you can't taste anything not really but it doesn't matter. fat woman buying cookies. they're thinking disgust don't look them in the eye they don't understand. just shove the money at them. smile (eyes doggedly at collarbone level, when was the last time you saw your collarbones?) grab the sack, leave quickly, don't look back. men on the street stare in shocked distaste at the contours of my globe, me-planet, universe wannabe. i don't care, they don't have anything i want. who needs a dick when you've got a pint of macadamia brittle in the freezer? they're ants, bugs, as if i'd even have them anyway but late at night stomach straining to contain the day's feast, fat hand between pudgy thighs, pretend i'm slender pretend i'm beautiful they all want me rub until i dissolve in short sharp jerks of pleasure, ac wire in my body, then roll over and sleep, self-smell on hands to haunt dreams.

stuff here

"Do you think I'm pretty?"

Killer questions, my specialty. I mastered the art of putting people in no-win scenarios in two simple steps:

1. Ask a loaded question.
2a. If you get a negative response, you win easily. Be hurt and angry.
2b. If you get a positive response, ask again. Are you sure? Really really sure? Absolutely positive? No doubts? Enough of this and you're burrowing around the victim's subconscious, dragging thoughts he didn't even know existed up into daylight. You'll find a doubt, no sweat. Seize it triumphantly, then be hurt and angry.
The technique works beautifully, guaranteed to drive anyone up a wall in just a few minutes.

I usually reserve it for threatening moments, so it wasn't surprising that the question came up when it did. We'd been dating for two weeks, and the only time i saw my apartment any more was when i went home before work to shower and change clothes. I was working evenings anyway, so my schedule went something like: go to the office, rush back to his place, make ravenous love at dawn, collapse into tangled sleep, have more sex when we awakened, then rush home and shower and change before going into the office again. Three weeks of this had me dizzy and afraid.

I have a terror of the l-word. I don't use it if at all possible. I noticed, toward the end of those three weeks, a disturbing tendency for it to bubble up out of my throat. No way, i wasn't going to use it. One day I started counting out loud, substituting numbers for that fatal phrase.

"Thirteen."

"Huh? thirteen what?"

"Nothing, dear. Nevermind."

"you know, you're weird." And he tickled me and kissed my neck and pretty soon I was beyond counting or caring or much of anything useful.

Too cool. Too perfect. No way it could be allowed to continue. So, one night after work, "Do you think I'm pretty?" This from a woman who had absolutely no self-esteem and another 30 pounds to lose.

He tried valiantly, of course. "Yeah, you look fine." This wasn't good enough; fine isn't an acceptable synonym for pretty.

"No, but do you think I'm *pretty*? I mean, I look at you and I want to reach out and touch your face because you're just so nice to look at."

"well, yeah, I like to look at you, too."

"That's not what I asked, dammit. Do you think I'm pretty?" I could smell blood now, knew i was close to getting what i wanted. Getting them pissed always helps in this game.

"Well, you're not exactly eye-candy, no, but you're cute."

I won! "So you think I'm ugly and you're just fucking me out of pity, is that it? You think I can't get anyone else and you feel sorry for me."

"Oh, yeah, roight, like a sympathy fuck goes on for three weeks. Get real."

"well, it's easier having it right here than having to troll for it at parties, right? So you save time and do a good deed for poor little ugly me all at the same time. Bonus cookies."

He was getting red in the face, clenching his fists. "I did not fucking call you ugly. I said you were cute, I think you're cute, I'm obviously not so repulsed I can't get it up. Jesus."

"You think I'm fat and ugly. You just feel sorry for me. Oh, god." I was crying now, real tears. I was going to lose him and he was the best thing I'd ever found. I was a stupid little bitch but it was too late now.

"YOU think you're fat and ugly. I think you're cute, and if you're so goddamned fat, how come I can carry you upstairs?"

He was being logical, but I wasn't in the mood for logic. "You're strong. you're athletic. All that bikeriding and sports stuff."

"Riding a bicycle does not make you a weightlifter. What do you want from me, dammit? You want me to lie? You want me to tell you you're drop-dead gorgeous, that every man on the street is drooling when you walk past? Would you even believe me if I did?"

I made little helpless motions with my hands. "I just want you to like looking at me, to think I'm pretty, to like the way I look, to be proud to be seen with me. Why is that so outrageous?"

"What's outrageous is how you're trying to *make* me say things. Why is this such a big deal all of a sudden?"

Hurt, pissed, not thinking, I made a fatal error and told the truth, screamed at him, "Because, goddammit, I'm falling in love with you, asshole!"

He looked at me. Not a word, nothing. I was scared. Now you've blown it, now you've ruined things. I waited for a response, any response, and he still said nothing. Tears welled up and ran down his face. One balanced on the end of his nose, a single clear salty drop that fell silently and was absorbed by the cloth futon cover. I panicked.

"no, no, it's okay, really you don't have to love me it's okay it's my problem not yours don't cry i won't be a problem about it you'll never notice i won't bother you with it again..." I trailed off into silence, terrified, unable to think of the words that would make it better, wishing I could take the outburst back.

He looked at me, sniffling. Wiped his nose with the back of his hand, touched my face gently with his other hand. Still crying, he said, "Don't you *know* that I love you?"

sweat mixed with tears mixed with saliva until you can't tell which was whose and it doesn't matter, love is salty and often bitter, bitter as semen in the first tiny drop that balances precariously on the end, like the tear on his nose, beautiful crystal he made for me, both of them. futon at dawn and the sun rising just to see us, peering in through the open blinds watching our contortions watching us devour and sending warm tendrils out, joining the feast. jealous sun, hungry but unsated even as we're feeding. rough canvas under my knees i kneel over him, my hair makes curtains i peer through watching as my mouth makes his face change. i bury my nose in curly him-smelly wiriness, run my tongue from hipbone to hipbone, watch him squirm. he wants more but is powerless to act; i'm in control here. sitting back, feeling slipperiness on the heel i'm half-sitting on, my want as swollen as his, my need *there* and he knows it, sits up, takes my hands, his tongue finds the right place on my neck his hands have multiplied and i moan, i need him, try to pull him down over me, into me, but he wants to wait, wants to torture, sweet love, my love i need you now please he relents, gives me himself, he's so long and cool and smooth over my fever, and i close my eyes sink into it, writhe myself into him wanting to go deeper than we can, deeper past the root and finally, i scream and i can feel him beginning so i open my eyes and watch his face dissolve into agonizedpleasure and he falls quietly upon me and our hearts beat in the rhythm we just abandoned and his breaths match mine and i am here and i am real and i am loved, really loved.

[lots of stuff goes here]

Another Saturday night, another party, four endless hours of music and beer. Why did we even bother, anyway? Adam mattered, I guess, and he'd never thrown a party before. I'd gone with him to pick up a keg that afternoon, and when we got back his mom called. He spoke to her for five minutes, then hung up, grabbed my hands, danced me around the room. "She talked to Sandy! She thinks I'm straight!" Jumping up and down in pleasure with him, I reflected that his mom must be the only one who thought that. But he was pleased; his life had suddenly smoothed out considerably. When we left the party around 3 am, he was still exultant, still being exaggeratedly queeny. About two beers away from drunk, I hugged Adam goodbye and left with my lover, back to his apartment.

Watching him brush his teeth, vaguely buzzed, I had an inspiration. "hey, can I borrow your t-shirt?" I tugged on the oversized tie-dye he still wore.

"Huh? It's 4 am, you sleep naked anyway, whaddaya want with it?"

"I just wanna borrow it for a second. I won't hurt it, promise. I wanna try something."

He looked at me warily but relented and peeled the shirt off. I promptly donned it; it smelled of sweat, soap, and him and reached to about mid-thigh. "Thanks, dude. Catch you later."

"What the fuck?" He followed me out into the hallway, naked now.

"I'm going swimming." I tossed my hair over a shoulder for effect and walked somewhat unsteadily out the front door. Down three flights of stairs, the apartment swimming pool was deserted. Perfect. I ran along the wooden walkways, down the steps, never looking back. Didn't have to, either; i could hear him in pursuit. He'd almost caught me by the time i reached the pool and jumped into the deep end. It was amazingly cold, colder than you'd think a pool would get in Texas in August. But sensual, this near-skinny-dipping, water all around me, chlorine-smell everywhere. I saw him as I surfaced, naked on the concrete pool edge, ready to dive in after me. I figured I could outswim him, though, and I would have, too, if i hadn't inhaled under water. I came up gasping, coughing, standing in water up to my neck with his shirt floating up around my hips.

Concerned, he came up behind me, held me gently while i hacked and spewed water and wiped my runny nose on the drenched shirt. Standing there I could feel him hard against me and I turned and wrapped my legs around his waist. The thought of doing it, right there in the pool where anyone who happened to be awake at 4 am could see sent hungry shivers through me. I wanted him. Immediately. I didn't have to ask, either; he slid into me without a word, mouth coming down over mine, making gentle waves with our bodies.

But chlorinated water is a lousy lubricant. After a few minutes, the sensations went from pleasure to pain, and it was obvious we'd have to finish elsewhere. Without bothering to withdraw, he headed for the pool steps and carried me, still impaled, to the concrete deck.

[and here]

So that last summer before my escape I worked two jobs. It was better that way, actually; I worked 6 pm to 1 am four nights a week and 5 am to 1 pm five days. I ate a lot of Vivarin that summer, but at least I worried less that she'd make good on her threat to shoot us all in our sleep. The second job had been her idea, naturally. Twenty-eight hours a week was nothing. Any decent teenager would have another job. Especially one who was insisting on that college bullshit. And so on, until she told me to leave the house and not come back home until I had a second job.

About 3 that afternoon I came back.

"I thought I told you to find another job, dammit."

"But I did, Mom. At Burger Chef, working breakfast shift during the week. Full-time." I was proud of the job and of the fact I'd found it in just a few hours. Hadn't I done what she'd said, and efficiently?

But this was a bad thing. "You shouldn't have found one so fast, you bitch. I wanted you gone longer." In my confusion, I didn't even have time to flinch before the first blows landed. "I did what you said, I got a job, I don't understand..."

Even though it didn't prevent that beating, the new job was kind of interesting. And if you didn't count the night I got carried away with the Vivarin (2400 mg of caffeine in one night will make you very very sick) the schedule posed no real problems. If nothing else, I learned to appreciate the concept of days off, especially when they were days off from both jobs.

I remember one of those days. Not like it was an event or anything, not like I had a life and plans and things to do, but it was nice to get off work at 1 am and realize that no one but me owned my time for the next 28 hours. Well, in an ideal world it would have worked that way. Shows what I knew, even after seven years of intensive training, to think the adjective in "free time" was meaningful, naively expecting history not to repeat itself even though I'd been trapped in an infinite loop of pain for most of that time. Still, I thought that if I sat in my room with the radio on softly and played solitaire nothing bad could happen. The room was clean, I had no chores, I wasn't doing anything subversive like writing. The latest welts hadn't faded yet. When my favorite song came on, I closed my eyes and leaned back, singing along in my head. Just then, she walked past my room.

"Wake up, you lazy slut! What in the fuck are you doing, sleeping in the middle of the fucking afternoon? If you're so goddamned tired, go take a shower and get in bed and don't let me see you up again until morning. Now." Having pronounced sentence, she turned to leave.

But it was 4.25 and I couldn't bear losing my day. "I wasn't asleep, I wasn't, I swear. I was listening to music, call the radio station and ask they'll tell you the song please I don't want..." My voice trailed off as I realized my stupidity.

"Are you trying to make a liar out of me?" Deceptively calm, as if what was about to happen might still be avoided, even though rituals begun must proceed to their end.

I shook my head violently. "No, no, no, it's just that I was really awake, really." Crying now, as if tears would help. Trembling, but perversely unwilling to concede the point and go to bed quietly.

"You cocksucking little bitch, you don't even know how good you have it here, how lucky you are. After all I've done for you kids and your father, you stand there and try to make a fucking liar out of me."

her hand comes toward me slow motion stop action done what, you bitch? made us hate each other, destroyed our house? but the words are inside and i feel the heat of her body and instant before impact then feel the heat of her body handshaped on my cheek but one isn't enough for her, the dragon has awakened and must be fed. it loves to gorge on my tender virginal flesh. slaps aren't satisfying anyway because i refuse to cry out refuse to give any ground. silky brown hair, i'm so proud of it, now a handle as sh jerks me around the room and i feel bumps rising on my scalp. she throws me to the floor and facedown at her feet i whimper. first blood. she's scored, gotten a reaction. mad physicist demented priest she repeats, experiments, jerks up and down. my forehead bounces on plaid carpet (god, what an ugly carpet, i hate it hate this please stop please) and i wonder how to explain carpet burn but make no sound; thwarted, she drags me to my knees, shoves me at the bed where i land with a thump and huddle against the wall watching spittle run from corner of mouth down tomato-face to chin she wipes with back of hand.

she sees the cards on the floor, i was winning the game dammit and she stoops, grabbing at them, tearing everything she reaches in half, grotesque clown filling the air with clumsy confetti, bulbous red nose flowerprint caftan but no floppy shoes. as if reading my thoughts she's on me again, fists now, raining blows in places that don't show. she learns. no evidence for the neighbors, never another cut under my eye to draw comment, back and stomach and breasts and ass. staccato pounding on my back makes me breathe in hiccups when i can breathe at all. i feel my heart speed up to match the rhythm of her fists driving into me, the beat of an insane song. i refuse to give, refuse the screams that will save me or at least shorten the punishment. it hurts, god it hurts please make it stop so scared make it over i'll be good and never lie again and be nice to my sister do all my homework please let her just die make it stop god please let me just die

she stops for a moment, arms tired, winded, panting heavily but her eyes never stop, she's looking for something else, it's not enough yet why can't i just beg her for mercy? her gaze settles. my radio. they gave it to me for christmas, should have known it wouldn't last six months. she grabs it, waves it at me. my god, she's really going to kill me this time. i will be very small, very tiny, try not to breathe, maybe she won't notice me cockroach in the corner before woman with shoe please no. and this time not a weapon, just a punishment: she brings it down hard on my night table. shattering plastic, splintering wood, it comes apart cleanly into two halves like a walnut, entrails visible. fingernail scrape on plastic, she rips its guts out, vulnerable wires no match for her fury pieces of circuit everywhere, screws and small metal bits and plastic buttons flying around, she brings it down on the table again and again, got to be sure it's really dead, i envy it, i do. empty shell finally tossed in disgust into far corner and i can see the dragon wants more, needs more. she remembers my presence, turns to me who is contracting in hopes of being overlooked but she knows, sees me, no second chances. a sacrifice is needed. i must pay. fists won't get it, hair didn't work, what's left? a weapon, she needs a weapon and she looks about. there, on a shelf, the brown glass bottle my grandmother gave me years ago, purple desert flowers painted on the side. perfect -- meaningful and capable of inflicting damage. it's in her hand, above her head, aimed for mine. "please god no pleas don't dear god please i want to live don't kill me please" i cry, beg, give her what she wants, concede game set match afraid this may really be it and i huddle, whimper, scream for mercy.

it's enough. the bottle gets no stay of execution, but i'm spared for another day's sport. bottle descends on violated night table, crashes into hopeless jumble on floor. braver than i, it fights back, protests this senseless killing. as it dies, a small piece of brown glass slices through her right index finger. bellow of outrage and she's in my face, grabbing my shirt, smearing blood on it, on my forehead, on my lips, drink my blood, bitch, you've made me bleed, taste what you did after all i do for your own good this is for your own good i only punish you because i love you even though you don't deserve it you worthless bitch. but the fury's gone. i can see now that the dragon's sated, she's finished. for today.

So I sat on the bed for an hour, crimson stripes drying on my face, swelling on my back, afraid to move, breath shallow, quiet. I could hear her in the other room, though, on the telephone, calling my father. He needed to be told of my iniquity, after all.

[more plot here, too]

The first thing I noticed was edges.

it's noticeable, especially if you're nearsighted like me. you get used to a world of fuzzy outlines, softened boundaries. objects are only sharply delineated during the first hour of a new prescription and the first half-hour of an acid trip. corners sharpen. things stand out as if drawn in coloring-book fat black lines. this clarity brings an urgency, impatience -- but for what? doesn't matter. bite your thumbnail to keep from jittering. they'll know you're tripping they'll stare bite harder control, dammit.

this intensity transforms after an hour. less pressure, less need to *do*. why do when there's so much to see, to feel? slippery fluid perceptions slide through my brain, glass beads coated in oil. when i think they've arranged themselves into a pattern, an event tilts the edge of my mental table and they roll into another configuration. champagne in a red plastic cup. bubbles are funny, the way they tingle in your mouth. almost stinging but not quite painful, complementing the acidity of the wine. dryness from wet: how strange, strange as the way the cup is contracting, look down it, like looking down the twists in the barrel of a gun. rifling. rifle through your brain, find the write words. cup smooth as bullet in my fingers. it breathes, i feel it swell and then drop, it narrows, tapers, bubbles rise to the surface, trying to escape as their home becomes a prison, walls closing in on them. it frightens me. i reach over to set the cup down. feel of arm cutting through molasses-air captivates me. the atmosphere has thickened, i feel it in my breathing now, thick heavy viscous air. vicious air. out to get me. slows me down, slowing my mind. heavy regular beat of my pulse dragged down by syrup air. i cry out in slow motion. you move me to another room.

sitting crosslegged on the futon and my knees so close to yours the hairs touch. no contact. i close my eyes and my body dissolves into molecules, soap bubbles in rainbow colors streaming out from where i was into space, extending in a straight line to the sun, dissipating to make a beautiful cloud. no ache no need no pain. just life at the basic level. colors and stars and the blackness of space. the center holds. my center holds the universe. pregnant with the world but no fear, i know what to do...
you touch me and everything snaps back into place. muscles, nerves, bones reassemble, brilliant hues pale to sickly salmon-pink skin. i open my eyes and see the music, each note a crystal tear hovering in air then shattering on the ground. in the midst of the debris you sit and i stare at your face. it softens, flows. you've become claymation, shifting your face for my entertainment. cheekbones are higher now. thick eyebrows, long thin nose, beard a goatee. you're satan. my demon lover. i'm supposed to be afraid, but i know that's what you want so i laugh and your face is yours again. i look at you before me, your long smooth body so familiar, the muscles under your skin so tight, inviting. you reach for me eagerly, ready. i touch you, fingers glide over softest skin. i feel a drop and rub it into your velvet rawsilk skin over hot iron core iwantyounow.

i need to pee.

i don't know where i am. i've lived here for six months and i don't know where anything is. it's grown in the last few hours; the rooms have moved into new constellations. you guide me to the darkened bathroom. i need your help to find the place to sit, cold plastic hot skin release. you stand before me, find my mouth (it aches for you, salivating). as you slide in i let go. not sure if it's my urine or yours, i imagine that you extend through me and push this stream from inside, bitter over my tongue, you move past my solid smooth teeth and lose yourself in sensation of fleshy soft hot tongue moving over you, around you. i taste you, feel rush of fluid leaving my body (sickly-sweet yellow smell mixing with secretdeepme smell drifting up). aroused beyond comprehension, beyond reason. i need you *now*. here. falling from the seat onto my knees on the tiled floor rolling over pulling you down over me, in me, so good, so much, yes, please god please now i rise to meet you pushing back yes cold tile oh i need this hours years lifetimes pass a spasm i scream single clear sound splitting darkness you split my darkness pieces fall in a heap and i come and come and come forever lost in waves that drag me under to a place without time caruso holding a sweet note for eternity. you shudder, i feel you pulsing inside me (we're that close) fall gently on the shore hold me i need your realness.
we struggle to breathe. i am completely open to you. all that i am lies in utter vulnerability underneath you now. you speak, words i've heard before, but this time the stark truth of them is a spear, tip stained with your love. you drive it into my heart and it releases and i *know* deep in my core. esprit de corps, we fight together, we belong together. not a decision; just an expression of reality. i am known.

later we stand outside. lightning flashes behind clouds, catching us unaware and the rain begins, soft warm drops like notes of music. the smell of wet concrete again. the rain on my face a baptism. we stand until we're soaked. the descent has begun and we return indoors. the apartment has missed us and welcomes our return. it's familiar, known, trustworthy. mother-gentle you toweling me off, lying by my side on the futon. no light except the flashes through the window; the storm continues. the music carries us gently down as the drug wears off and we drift into exhausted sleep.

I slept for twelve hours straight.

[more stuff here; the following is a fragment]

How do you do, he said.

I stood, transfixed, unable to speak. The dance begins.

how do you do? how do i?
how?
brittle fingernails snapping as i claw for purchase, handholds (will you hold my hand as i die?) on sheer rockface, friction burns and i slide, scraping knees raw, bright red smeared on gray, dirt streaks on pale skin. knees and fingernails hang on, why?

i wander through life, black hole of yearning. time stops within me. i'll trap you in my event horizon and the only event is yearning. i sing, write, create, fuck, cry bleedeatsleepshitbathesweat understand, i ache for understanding, scream for it, words echoing forever in emotional vacuum. hiding to be found, finding only to hide again, craving burns within (frozen heat, icy pain). utter need freezes my blood, paralyzes, i watch and can't touch, can't reach, no words to beg. only my eyes, hazel pools of need, desire, fear.

you walk past. even the air is permeated with the scent of my craving. i breathe it in, shocking chill, fine powdery substance coating my lungs, which fill with pain. i resolve to stop. as if not-breathing will diminish the hunger, warm my soul, give me heat. as if i could not-breathe until the world shuts off and i lose hold, body splotchy purple and sticky red dropping away from this boulder i call a life, dizzying spirals, red into black into nothing... obliterating self, switching off the one who speaks, even as bursting lungs relax, release, take in the air that brings me back.

and you, you know, and still you go merrily on your way, popcorn and peanut shells under your feet, cotton-candy smell wafting from your skin, the calliope plays and you walk along, past the body, past the mountain, past. i hate you. i need you.

Fine, thank you, I said. And you?

[next two sections actually will appear in this order, as they are]

"I think it's all about edges, boundaries. I want to be in love because I want to be brought up *hard* against my edges, to be reminded they exist, that I exist, that I can't ever completely merge with the other. I crave the sensation of raising barriers and letting someone into my secret places, all the while knowing we can never really touch, that we're children with our faces pressed to opposite sides of a window. We know that removing the glass would be ego disintegration, dissolving of self in other until differentiation is impossible, no separation, no identity, only madness. Knowing that, with a corner of my mind, a tiny piece of my soul, I want it anyway."

I paused, drank some water. I could see he didn't understand. It didn't really matter, not at this point.

"What if you could make the boundaries go away?"

"Dunno. If you were into Zen, I guess you'd call it satori and rejoice in the removal of all artificial divisions between you and creation. But I like my divisions, my Me." I stabbed at some lettuce, brought it to my mouth. "Besides, if I were you, would I have to give up honey-mustard dressing?"

"But if this is all true about merging not being possible or even all that desirable, why does it hurt like hell to break up? Why have we been clinging to this?" He gestured vaguely with his fork.

I bit my upper lip, trying to focus and organize my thoughts. "Maybe because as long as we can pretend it's there, we can pretend that we really understood each other and had something deep and profound. We weren't alone in our heads, not living in an empty room where the only sound is the echo of your own voice bouncing off walls." I shrugged helplessly. "Maybe we needed so desperately to feel a connection, any connection, that we were willing to ignore the damage being together caused. The beauty of the other, of loving and inviting someone in, outweighed the destruction of our souls." I stopped, looked at him and grinned. "Or I'm full of shit and we're just masochists. Does it matter anymore?"

He sighed. "Probably not." He seemed about to add something but an approaching waiter killed the moment. After fresh coffee had been poured, he looked up from his plate. "You're writing now, aren't you? In your head? I hated that, knowing that you took everything and made it unrealistically real. I hate it. I wish I could do it."

I tried to drink some coffee but merely burned my tongue. "I'd rather be ANYTHING but a writer. Well, okay, I couldn't stand being entirely unable to create, but I'd rather dance or sing or paint or compose music or anything else. It never stops. I never get a rest. When I'm walking down the street, all the things I see become phrases, sentences, analogies. Experience translates into images that become words in my head. Sometimes I put them down, get them trapped in amber, solid. Sometimes they leave but come back and insist on their birth. Sometimes they just slink off and never come back."

"And that's just another piece of writing, dammit. Don't you ever let go of the words and just *feel*? Are you real? Am I just another fucking story?" He was angry, and he was closer to the truth than I cared to admit. Maybe if I'd tried less to process him and more to just experience him... but that wasn't really an issue anymore. He didn't care if I was real or not; he just wanted me to acknowledge his reality. As if I could by wishing make him wink out of existence, leave me alone at this table with a salad and a cup of too-hot coffee. As if I would even if I had the power.

"You always gave me too much power, y'know?" I prowled the salad with my fork, looking for answers and finding only chicken pieces and cucumber slices and cherry tomato halves. Realism was never my strong suit in these situations. No luck, though, only garbanzo beans. "I did let go of the words once. You were there. It was amazing, beautiful, and when you said you loved me, I took your words and wrapped my soul around them. Look where it got me."

In the kitchen somewhere, a glass dropped. The next sound you hear is my heart breaking, marching feet crunching through the remains, sarcastic applause from the other diners. Should I stand up and take a bow? No, too obvious.

He knew it was pointless. No need to say the ending words. He'd always been amused by his resemblance to the standard Baptist Sunday-school Jesus, but tonight he looked like the suffering Christ. This place, once our favorite restaurant, became Gethsemane, and I was combination denier and betrayer. Peter and Judas at your service, only the thirty pieces of silver were the tattered remnants of my self-respect. Seeing the pain on his face, I wanted to touch, to comfort. Instead I ate more salad, managing somehow to swallow without choking.

Pain saturated me, too. I pictured myself dancing barefoot on the shards of my love for him, bloodstreaked celebration (can women ever escape bleeding?) slicing open the soles of my feet. Chew, swallow, select another vegetable. The last supper, our last meal. But which of us was warden, which condemned man?

Enough. I reached for the check, stood up, got my jacket. "Wait," he said. "I'll walk you to the bus."

He had been supposed to stay over, I remembered. Funny how things changed so much during the week since we set this date up. "I guess you won't be sleeping over tonight after all."

"Kinda pointless now."

I paid, we left. Walked out into the mild evening. October in Texas. A gorgeous night, nature's way of soothing our pain? Stupid thought, but it comforted me. We walked past the park, by the swings where we'd played on new year's morning, two lifetimes ago. He stopped, rummaged in a pocket, and produced the familiar little pipe. "Might as well do this here," he said. "Want to?"

I followed him into the park, wanting the pot to take the edge off my pain. We found a picnic table invisible from the street and sat, me on the tabletop, him on the bench.

breathe in, deep, so deep you don't think your chest can contain your lungs. then pass the pipe, hold your breath keep the smoke in until he passes the pipe back. exhale. repeat. feel it burning in the back of your throat, raw, harsh. you know it's working that way. your emotions detach, calm. your soul floats off into the night on some secret journey of its own. disconnect. relax. power flows through you. from your head down through your limbs, centers on your cunt. look at him, so sweet, vulnerable, think of how beautiful he is under his clothes. stare at him 'til he asks what you want. "i want to go down on you one last time. no strings, nothing changes. i just want." wait. wait forever, he's rejecting you, pain knifes through the cannabis cloud, but then without a word he shifts slightly and you see how it's pushing against the black fabric, you understand what it means when still silent he stands before you, your eager fingers trembling as you reach for him, he undoes his pants, you can feel your own throbbing in time with your beating heart. you take him and he moans and grabs your shoulders for balance. he's helpless, enslaved by your tongue, he gasps, thrusts himself harder into your face. you can't stand it, the taste, the smell, you long to have him in you, so familiar, so easy

you stop. look up. "please?"

in response, his hands on your jeans, buttons pop open, cool air on bare skin. he needs to be home as much as you need him there even though it's no longer a place of his. the table is cold under your ass. you don't care. legs around his waist, you strain into him as he pushes into you hard, harder than the concrete you're sitting on. you call out to god but there are no gods. your breath comes in gasps now, moans, you feel it building. climbing to the top, past the point of no return, shaking now, trembling every muscle tense crying biting his shoulder to stifle a scream you can't stand this much pleasure you're going to die from it he's inexorable you fall over the top with a cry release yes nothing yes incoher he's co oh breathe now he's coming, fit so tight you can feel the throbbing. no words. none needed. he holds you for a moment then with exquisitely painful tenderness kisses your forehead. benediction.

he withdraws, dresses. you stand and do the same, feeling his semen soaking into your panties. carefully not touching, you leave the park together, neither willing to break this almost-sacred silence. at the bus stop, he hugs you fiercely and with a final kiss walks off into the night.

I got on the bus and went home, not quite sure if it was absolution or condemnation.

oh baby look i'm so hip listening to bands no one's ever heard of on my digital walkman and the book in my hand is sufficiently obscure so why do you even bother, you're doomed to fail, i'm too hip for you.

it's only 4.10 and i can't believe it's not later but that's okay because there are things here, things around and the music pounds into my brain, being part of me and i crawl inside it and the rhythms rock me to sleep and i'm safe, for a while anyway.

i'm walking down the street and it occurs to me that every man i pass has a cock and i wonder what they all look like hard, velvet over steel, wonder what it would feel like to writhe above, grind into, slide down, and what if they knew what i was thinking?

everything is processed, i feed the cheese, blended words, making them shredded and safe for consumption. liquefied prose, babyfood-bland. safety-check my buffer, make sure nothing offends, nothing too strange, nothing to let them see, make them wonder.

giant shadow cast by tiny woman hiding behind a tree.

i brush these words on paper in acid. eat my story, hold it under your tongue, wait for it to hit, everything will become very clear, edges all around before they all fall away. then you'll know and understand. eat my story, eat my life, consume my soul as you peer into myworld, make judgments, then saunter away smugly, not knowing that you're carrying seeds now, thought eggs, that i'm inside your skull like a snake, tracing paths as neurons spark around. soft gray mush that decides who you are feeds me, processed brain, processed soul, but inescapably mine for at least now. you cannibalize me but i'm using you to reproduce. i win.

and halftime comes, we rush the field, carry off the drum major on our shoulders only to dump him in a puddle, squish. their skirts are short, bare blue legs in gray november wind by choice. the smell of wet leathermudsweatbloodpopcornbeer. we drink them, eat them, satiate your lust, have another coughdrop.

this makes no sense.

Some people insist that everything *mean* something, as if life were one of those clever puzzles where you fill in all the squares and reveal a hidden message. For them, what this all means: every time i inhaled, i remembered to exhale.