The Book of X

by Sarah Rose Etter

  “Yes, new,” I say to her while staring at him.

  “You’ve got a lot to learn about it here...” she rattles on, but I can now feel the axis of gravity. I can sense the planets rotating in their orbits. Now that I have seen him, I can see the pyramids, all the intense deep secrets of our distant lands and all of the world’s history.

  I turn and leave.

  I HUNCH OVER THE SMALL SILVER GUT OF the sink. I cut the lemons down the center one by one, arms shivering against the knife. Then, I run the yellow halves over the walls until they glisten at a higher voltage, until the house radiates the smell, until it smells as if my mother is beside me.

  HOW’S THE COUNTRY TREATING YOU?” comes my father’s voice over the line.

  How to say it: The sunrise could cripple your heart, the lake glistens better than the eyes of all men, the moon is larger than all moons combined and stands on the mountains each night to keep watch over my body?

  “It’s great. I love it here, I really do.”

  “Well, you know we miss you.”

  “Tell her we miss her!” comes my mother’s voice from the background.

  “Do you want me to put your mother on?”

  “No, not right now. Next time.”

  I climb into bed alone, the world vibrating around me, the silence and moonlight. I picture again the flash of his eyes.

  ALREADY, LOVE HAS SEIZED ME. A NEW light prisms through my chest. I move through my daily motions drugged, dazed, the world tinged by the sensation: Pink trees, pink grass, pink clouds, pink sky, the sweetness of the world finally shown to me.

  ◆Love can occur in a fifth of a second

  ◆Falling in love produces several euphoria-inducing chemicals, stimulating 12 areas of the brain at the same time

  ◆One symptom of hypopituitarism, a rare disease, is the inability to feel the rapture of love

  ◆Upon looking at a new love, the neural circuits typically associated with social judgment are suppressed

  A FEW NIGHTS LATER, I CANNOT SIT STILL. I walk the road through the small town to the small bar. The small bar is built of thin metal, even the door, which I push open.

  Inside, two men hunch over their beers. I sit down two stools away and order a drink.

  “You’re the new city girl, huh?” one of the men asks.

  “I guess that’s me.”

  “You won’t last long out here.”

  The other man cackles.

  “Last one only made it three months. Might’ve had your cabin if I recall.”

  “Sure did,” the other one coughs.

  In the silence after, I stare into my glass. The sad song my father used to play in the car comes through the jukebox in the corner. A sad feeling floods my heart, and my eyes well up with tears. I blink them back.

  The door opens and the man from the grocery store steps in. The air exits my lungs and I cough as he takes the stool to the left of me.

  “Rye,” he says, and the glass appears. He keeps one hand in his jacket pocket, the other around the rye.

  We sit like that for a moment, sipping our drinks, before he turns to me.

  “You’re the new girl.”

  “That’s what they keep calling me.”

  “What’s your real name?”

  “Cassie. Yours?”

  “Henry.”

  “Nice to meet you.”

  We don’t shake hands.

  “Where’d you move from?”

  “The city.”

  “You got the red cabin, then?”

  “That’s me.”

  “I saw you moving in. Few days ago, right?”

  The sentence hangs there. I will treasure it and examine all of its intricacies later: The way his eyes must have been on me and my boxes full of my life.

  “What do you do?” I ask.

  “Mostly fix every engine in town. What about you?”

  “I’m not really sure yet. I just quit my job.”

  “Must be nice.”

  “I grew up at The Acres,” I blurt out.

  “Out by the Meat Quarry?”

  “You know it?”

  “Of course, that place is a legend around here. I’ve never seen it. What is it like?”

  His eyes peer into mine. It is live wires when he does that, the voltage between us.

  “It was beautiful. I used to harvest meat with my father and brother.”

  He sits back.

  “I’m impressed, a young kid doing that.”

  “I was great at it. Why do you love motors?”

  “You’re changing the subject.”

  “I am.”

  “I’ll allow it. I love motors because working on them teaches you to think different ways around a problem. It’s personal work, meditative even. The sum of all parts makes them come alive. That’s fascinating to me.”

  I picture my young arms ripping meat from the quarry walls, a small flesh-covered machine.

  “I think I understand.”

  The sentence hangs thick between us — it is bursting with recognition, the light of our minds meeting.

  “Did you know we’re all engines, because by their most basic definition, engines are machines that convert energy into motion?”

  My heart responds with a crescendo, a wave that rises and holds high as we talk long into the night, until we are out in the midnight gravel on the road outside of the bar in the moonlight, until his lips are on mine and a new song begins.

  I WAKE IN BED ALONE, IN LOVE, NUDE. I grind my bare body into the soft bedding, the comforter warm on my bare skin. I picture his face and grin up into the morning light.

  ◆An engine is designed to convert one form of energy into mechanical energy

  ◆The first internal combustion engine was built in 1807 and was used to power a boat up a river in France

  ◆Karl Benz is credited with building the first car engine in 1886

  ◆A large engine can have up to 1,400 different parts

  VISION

  Henry and I take our heads off in order to be intimate.

  “Be gentle,” I say.

  I am nervous, heart racing, eyes fluttering as Henry slides my head from my neck.

  I see the world from strange new angles: flashes of the ceiling, then Henry’s face, then the lower half of his body.

  I look up at our bodies from my new place on the floor. I can feel the wood against the newly raw end of my neck.

  A body can control itself without a head and mine does. I slide his head off of his neck and place it next to mine on the floor.

  Our two heads stare deep into each other’s eyes.

  Next to us, our headless bodies sit together with their legs crossed.

  Our bodies move toward each other without our heads. I want to touch his hand, but the scene is too intense.

  Our bodies are finally close enough. Then our hearts emerge up from our throats. Their round shapes peek out like big red pearls. I feel shot through with arrows.

  Ever so slowly, our throats find each other, and our exposed hearts touch.

  Light shoots through my limbs and head. The world is a clear morning. All fog dissipates and there we are, Henry and I, standing on a mountain near a stream, eternal.

  IN THE AFTERNOON, I READ A BOOK ON the couch. I can barely catch the sentences, I can only imagine Henry’s lips, the history of the entire world in a kiss, various genealogies of flowers blooming each time our mouths touched, how first I smelled lilac, then rose, then hyacinth, wet from the garden.

  A knock at the door shatters my trance. I open the door to find Henry standing outside, his hands in his pockets. He flashes a grin when he sees me, but there is a slight fracture to it.

  “I had to see you,” he says.

  Then I am in his arms, our mouths together, he is holding me as I have never been held, out in the bright light of day. We move into the house, to the sofa, our bodies pressing together in a furious heat. He finally disentangles himself from my limbs and we sit beside each other
.

  “I have to tell you something,” he says.

  He slides his left hand into view. A band of gold glints on the ring finger, and a tear rips through the universe. The planets quit their motion. The seas pause. The clouds hesitate, frozen in the sky. The sun, for a brief moment, does not burn.

  “It’s not exactly what it looks like. It’s very complicated between us right now. There’s been no love there for some time now.”

  “But you kissed me...”

  “I wasn’t expecting to meet you.”

  “But what...”

  “We don’t sleep in the same bed,” he blurts.

  The sentence hangs there. I stare at the curious shape of it, the strangeness. My heart is a cavern, dug out with the shovel of the fact.

  “It’s not that I want to stop seeing you,” he says. “I just had to tell you the truth.”

  His eyes voltage into mine again. I picture a wife in the distance: She is older, her face sagging, her body collapsing.

  “Do you want me to leave?” he asks.

  But then our mouths are together. Everything he’s told me is erased by the glow of it, the electric thrill tunneling through me.

  He presses me down into the couch, our hands searching each other’s bodies, his fingers tugging my dress up. My scars chill in the new air.

  His mouth roves down to my stomach, and I catch my breath: Soon he will see the marks on me. He pauses over the lines and looks up. Our eyes meet.

  “It doesn’t matter to me,” he says.

  He slides back up and our mouths meet again, then our clothes are gone, our skins pressing, our bodies becoming the same trembling arch.

  ◆He grew up on the coast

  ◆His parents are still married

  ◆He has a garage at the edge of town full of parts of engines. I smell grease on his hands when he comes to me. In the garage, the metal parts gleam even in the dark. I watch him work: Squinting eyes, rapid-fire tooling, the precision with which he moves until it roars to life

  ◆He is an only child

  ◆His favorite color is silver

  ◆He once climbed the world’s greatest mountain

  ◆He tells me an octopus has three hearts, nine brains, and blue blood, then he runs his hands over my body

  WHAT THEN IS A WIFE? I TWIST THE word over in my head.

  I try to find her in town. I check the post office, the grocery store, the small shop which sells both jewelry and pipe supplies. The husband and wife each own half, eye me suspiciously over their metals.

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Nothing,” I say and leave.

  I spend nights picturing her: Brunette, then blond, then raven-haired. She has phases like a moon.

  STILL, WE PERSIST. WE MEET AT THE small bar or he arrives at my cabin with offerings: Small donuts, wines, fresh cherries by the handful.

  It begins the same way each time: My door opens, then I am in his arms, our mouths against each other, unable to speak, only the rushing pink language of our bodies.

  I stare up into the wild sky of his face and a new chamber of my heart expands, a fresh gust of wind through the red chambers.

  THERE ARE SIMPLE SCENES TO COMPRISE a love: His body against mine, another definition of skin and pleasure. After, head against his chest, his hand dangling over the small of my back, fingers trailing lightly there, a place even the wind rarely touches.

  WHEN HE TOUCHES ME, HE NEVER HESI-tates to touch my scars.

  ◆The word wife is of Germanic origin, from Proto-Germanic wībam, meaning woman; unconnected with marriage

  ◆The word adultery derives from the French avoutre, which evolved from the Latin verb adulterare, meaning “to corrupt”

  ◆In parts of the world, adultery may result in honor killings; women who committed adultery were often stoned to death or given 100 lashes

  ◆Men who committed adultery were often imprisoned for one year

  ◆In pre-modern times, it was unusual to marry for love alone

  I AM IN BED WITH HENRY IN THE SUN-light. His hand is on my hip. We face each other. I slide my hand onto the side of his face.

  We stare into each other’s eyes. I have never done this before and it makes my breath catch.

  “I am completely infatuated with you,” he says.

  VISION

  I am about to bloom, I can feel it. I have always been seasonal in this way. I wait on the bed. Waves of warmth rush through me, small fevers that build and recede.

  “What are you doing in there?” Henry calls from the living room.

  “This happens every few months,” I say.

  I have been keeping track on a calendar.

  “What happens?” he calls. “What are you talking about, babe?”

  My skin has already begun to green. Another blast of warmth tears through my body.

  “It’s too late,” I say.

  I begin to bloom.

  Leaves pierce through then grow up out of my skin. Vines bloom then wind their way down to the floor. Ferns and grasses sprout beneath my armpits, between my legs. It hurts but nicely. Near my upper thigh, a single fragrant blossom emerges from a bud, peeling open to reveal deep purple petals.

  I power the whole scene. My body is a rainforest conduit, an entire new ecosystem in our bedroom. I flourish like Brazil.

  Henry steps into the bedroom and finds me wild, green, lush. His jaw drops.

  “What the fuck, Cassie?” he asks.

  But I stay silent to let him see me this way. Then he does the right thing. He takes a step closer, then presses his face into the blossom. I hear him inhale, nodding his face against the softness.

  I LOVE HIM WITHOUT THOUGHT or regard. The sky has never been so wide or so blue.

  THE NEXT DAY, WE STAND BESIDE THE lake.

  “There are 117 million lakes on earth, covering roughly 4% of the continental surface,” he says while our hands are clasped together and all of the doubt rushes from my mind for a moment, his wife receding into the distance, a motionless mountain, her breasts and belly part of the landscape now, nothing to do with us.

  MY JEALOUSY DOES FLARE. IN THE evenings, alone, I hurt myself with a series of harsh scenes:

  ◆Their bodies back together, familiar, gold rings flashing off the nudeness of their moaning pleasure

  ◆An undying confession of her love written into a letter which he is reading, his heart full of joy

  ◆Their bodies next to each other in bed, touching, soft and warm, her face buried into my place of his neck

  VISION

  The shop says JEALOUSY REMOVAL over the door in fat red fluorescent letters. A bell dings when I step in. The entrance gleams white and silver.

  “Hey,” comes the drawl from the old man behind the counter.

  “Hi,” I say.

  The old man has white hair, jowls, and blue eyes.

  “You here for the regular?”

  I nod.

  “You sure?”

  I nod.

  “Your first time?”

  I nod.

  “It is a permanent procedure and we cannot be held liable for any side effects or other repercussions.”

  “I understand.”

  “Well, here’s the paperwork. We do it cheap out here. Gonna cost $110, gonna need your ID.”

  I scrawl out my name and my answers, then fish my license out of my purse, pass it all over.

  “If you’re ready, I’m ready,” the old man says.

  The room is white-walled with a white table in the center. There are silver countertops and cabinets. I sit in an open-backed paper gown.

  “Now, let’s see what we’re dealing with here.”

  He steps closer to the table, and passes a hand under the gown, over the bare skin of my back. He runs his fingers between my shoulder blades until he finds the thick lump on the left.

  “It’s a big one,” he mutters. “Jesus.”

  He shifts his fingers over the lump again.

  “Now, we w
on’t need to knock you out for this, just a topical painkiller,” he says. “It’s going to hurt a bit, but it’ll be worth it in the end.”

  He gives me two injections near the bulge. Then, he moves a scalpel expertly over the lump. I cry out in pain as the skin splits and air rushes into the new wound.

  “Hold still now,” he says.

  I feel his hands on either side of the fresh wound. He applies pressure and the mouth splits. I can feel the lump sliding out of me.

  “There it is,” he says.

  He brings his hand forward to show me. All of my jealousy has crystallized into a disgusting gem, slick with my blood, shining its evil in the fluorescent light.

  He stitches me back up, puts my skin back together.

  I put my clothes back on, moving slow, wincing at the pain. I move down the long white hallway to the front counter. He’s waiting there, and in his hand is the black gem, clean and shining, sparkling less without the blood.

  “It’s yours to keep,” he says. “We don’t want all of your baggage.”

  “What do I do with this?” I ask.

  “Most people toss it in the pit up the street,” he says. “Follow the signs.”

  The signs are small and wooden. They spell out JEALOUSY PIT in sloppy black script with jutting arrows pointing the way.

  I park and get out of the car, walking up to the edge of the pit.

  Below, a quarry in the earth is full of them, jealousy gems, all black, removed from everyone in town and left here.

  I picture the whole town split open like me, their incisions like smiles. I stare down into my stone again, into that dark, awful crystal. Then I throw it down with the rest.

  “I’M IN LOVE,” I SAY OVER THE PHONE to Sophia.

  “In love? What’s his deal? Who is this now?”

  A baby cries in the background.

  “Well, it’s complicated. He’s still married.”

  The silence makes the line fizz between us, all the electricity in the wires suddenly roaring.

  “Well, this is a disaster,” she mutters.

  I’ve already done the shrinking within. The wife is small inside of me now, a chess piece, a queen carved of ivory nestled between my ribs.

  VISION

  I vomit small islands into the toilet. Then I sit perfectly still as a woman applies my makeup. She is close enough for this to be an intimacy, her proximity to my skin, my bad teeth.