The stepmother was cruel to the young girl and made her life miserable. She kept her in the house, away from society.
I CAN GUESS what you think I’ll answer. It’s too easy. We have become predictable, you and I, caught up in your tragic expectations, your self-made drama. You never liked me, and I could never love you. What are you to me, after all? It is blood that sings true. Even if you gave me more than three numbers to fill, you will never find your name there.
1. Myself. If someone tells you that they love themselves least, you are speaking to a liar. You may accuse me of many things, as you have, but I have always spoken the truth. If I coerce myself to love you, as you no doubt have dreamed, ask yourself this: is love, forced, still love?
2. My daughters. After all, part of me lives within them, and I am responsible for both. What mother leaves her children? You know the answer, of course. It is to her that all the bitterness of your youth, everything, should be directed to. Not to me, not to mine.
3. Your father. I found him broken and entered the marriage knowing I could never replace your mother. But I did love him, in my way. Do you think it foolish, to give with little expectation? Perhaps. But it was enough. Unlike you, some of us have to work for what comfort we get to keep.
The young girl longed to attend a ball but was prevented from going by her stepmother. But her godmother gave her what she needed to go.
THIS REQUEST, I must confess, I find rather odd. What sort of woman asks people questions like these? It is a good thing I am not the sort to take offense. I loved you from the moment I was asked to love and protect you. If I could be your mother, I would. But I am not, I cannot, no matter how much I wish. There is, sadly, a limit to what wishes can bring.
1. You. My darling child, my little girl, my young lass, my princess. I know we have talked of my absence through your early years, but as I said then, it was only because I had other godchildren to look after, and you had your parents. When your mother left, I was the last to know, and, as I told you, I made haste to see you. But this body is old, and all the will in the world cannot change geography. I’m just thankful I made it in time to make a difference. That means everything to me.
2. My other godchildren. They are all special to me, as you are special to me. Even as I write this, I am on my way to another sad child, a boy this time, or more properly, someone who wishes to be a boy. Circumstances like these are why I cannot stay in one place for long. Too many children need love, and I find them, give them all my heart can give, and then move on. I miss you, like I miss the others, but I need to move on. It is not abandonment, when part of my heart stays—I know you’ll understand in time.
3. Wishes. I know, what an odd thing to list. But wishes are expressed hopes, released into the air. They make the world spin. They keep me alive.
At the ball, she met a prince. They fell in love and lived happily ever after.
WHY EVEN ASK me? This is silly, and little bit of, well, an entrapment. Have I not proven myself by looking for you? By marrying you? If I begin with you, you wouldn’t believe me, even if it’s true. If I place you anywhere else on my list, you will be hurt. I know you will. So better disbelief than pain.
1. You.
2. Me. This is somewhat important to me, that you let me love myself—not that your love is inadequate. But while I can choose to love you all the time, there are times you are not in my mind at all—when I read, when I work, and sometimes, even when I dream. You don’t mind, do you?
3. My work. You know how it is. My father once told me that love for country would come in time; at that time, I didn’t believe him. But he is getting old, and soon it will be my turn. It’s sad but true. But I am learning to love the land, my people, and I know you’ll understand when the time comes, when, my love, things must change. But that is yet tomorrow, and what we have is today. It isn’t exactly forever, but as close as I can make it.
MESSIAH
SHE LIES ON her bed thinking about the angel, trying not to think about the baby. The baby, the baby, the baby in the cradle at the other end of the small rocky chamber. Her baby; no, his baby. The angel’s baby that she bore, for him. Everything for him.
She holds her breath, holds it like a stone she can clutch in her fist, and listens. She listens for the baby’s breathing, because if the baby dies, if the baby dies—she is struck by possibility, the horror of what could be. The horror of what could already be. In her mind’s eye, she has already gotten out of bed and traversed the thousand miles to the cradle, the baby’s cradle, his baby’s cradle. She is already looking down at the tiny form, all of three months old, wrapped and unmoving, perfectly still, still as stone, still as her held breath. She is familiar with the sickening helplessness: she will touch the child, yes; she will move her cheek to the infant’s mouth and listen and hear nothing, yes; she will raise the baby, his baby, to her arms, to her breast, and she will cry out only then, yes; she will rage against injustice and death and time and how she could not have protected him, yes. Yes.
Then perhaps he’ll come back. The angel; her angel.
She expels her breath in a slow extended manner and listens. She hears nothing but everything else: the beating of her heart, the wind against the morning’s washings suspended outside, the erosion of rocks, the moon as it is pulled by night’s invisible chariot across the sky. She does not hear the baby, his baby.
She rushes out of bed, her ears deafened by the thundering of her heart. She tastes sourness in her mouth, an emptiness waiting for validation, and the sharp edge of guilt as she stands next to the cradle. She looks at the infant, looking down for miles from where she is, down a path of months turned to years, down the future, and sees the baby’s chest move. The baby is alive, of course. The baby is always alive. She feels the sting of tears in her eyes as she gently tucks the infant’s arms back in the wrapping. She knows it is to stop the baby’s delicate fingernails from clawing at his small eyes. She moves without trembling and manages not to wake him up. She brushes away a shock of black hair from the baby’s peaceful face, carefully, carefully, yes. Then she moves back to her bed and thinks about the angel.
Her right hand trails down from her neck, down past the valley of her swollen breasts, down between her legs where the dryness gives way to moisture, encouraged by her fingers’ exploration. She gasps when she parts herself and moves her hand back, out, up, around and around and around, finding the small bit of her that gives her joy, thinking of him, thinking of the angel, her angel, her angel, her angel. She forms a fist and kneads it against her wetness, gently first, then with increasing firmness. Her hips press upwards; the longing is stronger now, made obvious by the heady scent of her need. Her fingers straighten within her and she gasps at the welcome intrusion.
IT WAS A year ago when he came to her desolate home, hidden among the caves, three days’ walk away from the village that had shunned her. It was her face that they reviled, twisted by a disease she had failed to conquer. They called her tainted and feared that what had disfigured her still lurked in her bones, in her hands, in her eyes, in the air that she breathed, in the air that they breathed. She had begged for mercy, begged her family, begged the friends she thought she had. They responded with stones and curses, and she had wept as she stumbled away.
She was sleeping, when the angel came. At first she thought she was imagining light, a memory of a day when she was still with the people she thought loved her. She rose from sleep and saw him, the angel, her angel, bathed in incandescence that made her eyes hurt, that made her feel dirty and impossibly small. The angel wore only light and a smile. His bare arms were corded with muscle, his chest dusted with fine dark hair, his folded wings were grey and pinioned, his cock thick and heavy, his face handsome in a way that was possible only in dreams. When he spoke, his words were expressed silk.
“Blessed are you tonight.”
She covered her face, and could not find her voice, when she felt the angel touch her trembling head.
; “Do not fear,” he told her. “You are chosen among all women.”
When the angel moved her hands away from her face, she was already engulfed by tears, sobbing and heaving as her mind and body strove to accommodate fear and awe and shame and an inexpressible delight at being chosen for something.
“Listen,” he said, his lips so close to her ears that she felt like she was burning. “You will bear a child.”
“M—me?” she managed to ask, in a whisper than sounded crude and muddy.
“Yes,” the angel told her.
“But I—”
The angel stopped her words with a kiss. She felt the softness of his lips against hers and responded with a hunger she did not know she possessed, permitting his urgent tongue entrance to her mouth, tasting him as she was enveloped by his wings and his brilliance. His hands caressed her breasts, coaxing her nipples to hardness before he moved his mouth to engulf them, one at a time, as her old garments surrendered to the pull of the earth. She pressed against him, raking his sweet-smelling hair with her fingers, as he parted her legs, first with a slender hand, next with his tongue, causing her to cry out in pleasure and disgrace, for she had never been touched in that way by any man. She felt the roughness of her blanket beneath her and realized that he had moved her, as his hands moved all over her body, as his tongue danced between her legs. She only opened her eyes when she felt him stop, but before she could wonder, he was inside her, his cock hard as stone and as large as the world, pushing at her, unstoppable, unbearable, painful and relentless. She cried out then, and pushed against him, struggled against his impossible weight, attempting to pull her arms out from where he had pinned them down, to get away from his stabbing cock, but failed and failed and failed. Then the pain became delight, and she cried out again, as her body subjected her to a joy so fundamental that it could only be right, only be true. And she moved against him again, countering his thrusts, meeting every forward motion with her hips, rising up to engulf him, to devour him, to own him. She was riding her body’s violent bliss when she felt him stiffen, heard him cry out as if in pain, felt him empty himself inside her. When the angel began to pull himself out of her, she tried to hold him, to stop him, to keep him with her, but she could not.
Then he stood in front of her, bathed in light. “You will raise the savior of the world.”
She trembled for long hours after he vanished, unable to stop crying.
As the months passed, and her belly grew rounder, she thought of him, her angel. During the odd moments when she didn’t, she thought of the child growing inside of her and was terrified.
She gave birth alone, surviving the pain, because she knew it was what the angel wanted.
AFTER SHE MANAGES to eke out a shiver of pale joy, courtesy of her fingers between her legs, she listens for baby, his baby, and hears gentle breathing across the cave. Soon, she knows, she will stand up, cross the gulf between them, and see:
his baby, tangled in the wrappings, skin grey as stone; or
his baby, face frozen in contortions, a scorpion nearby; or
his baby, gone, missing, stolen, by something, anything, someone, anyone;
and she will cry out in horror at failing him, at failing the future, and she will collapse to the dirt floor, and the angel, her angel, will come for her, cloaked in starlight, and he will hold her and comfort her and tell her that it wasn’t her fault, that she did everything she could, that a shunned woman with a twisted face could not be expected to succeed, that it was all right, yes, that everything was all right, shh, that they would try again and that he would stay this time, with her, forever and ever. Then he will kiss her, like he did before, and she will kiss him back, and taste his glory once again, and she will trail her tongue over his chest, and she will take his cock in her mouth, and taste that most intimate part of him, and he will enter her, and she will ride him and hold him and love him and ask him his name.
She blinks back tears from her eyes, gets up from her bed, and walks toward the cradle.
The baby sleeps; the rise and fall of his breath is hypnotic, intoxicating.
And she reaches out a hand to the baby’s, his baby’s, dark crowned head.
THE MANY LOVES OF RAMIL ALONZO
ONE
KIM, THE CAT girl, is the first. I notice her at the convenience store in New York, attracted by the peculiar things in her shopping cart—as well as by the way her brown mane is kept in an unruly ponytail, her sunglasses never quite slipping down her forehead, leaving her large brown eyes unobstructed.
“I’m throwing a sort of Halloween-slash-birthday-slash-despidida-slash-book launch,” she explains, in the aftermath of a fast friendship at the checkout counter. “Listen,” she says, flashing an enigmatic smile that makes me hard. “Why not come over to my place tonight?”
I do. After meeting her friends, eating the food, listening to the sampled music and helping her clean up her tiny apartment, I go down on her and taste her pussy on a Japanese-style mattress on the floor, her tail entangling our legs and arms. Her spiciness is wet on my lips, when we fuck. I tell her I want to come on her face. She closes her eyes when I do.
Bliss lasts for all of two weeks, before the riddle questions begin.
I arrive at her apartment, a little late for a visit, and she asks where I was.
After watching one of her chick flicks on DVD, she asks if I think of family as important.
After a blow job, my come still dripping from her lips, she asks if I love her.
I look into her eyes and realize that the only correct answers are the answers she’s already determined in her head, and that there is no way to tell her the truth. So I say and she says and I say and afterwards I watch her brave, brave face crumple and crumble. I zip up and leave.
Later, inspired, I write:
Sphinx
never question the reason
I question where you
were last night
sand does not carry
the truth of footprints;
the wind rearranges
every grain as if
you never left
my side
(that’s the riddle, really)
listen
I need to know if
you loved me
as a girl
as a woman
or when my breasts hang dry
if anything
ever mattered
as much to
you as it mattered
to me
repeated words become
hollow (it isn’t what
you say but how
you say it) all that is left
between us is how you
answer the question
two
I FALL IN love next with Karen, when I hear her sing at a videoke club. I’m at the bar with no one important, when her voice, amplified and echoed by the sound system, permeates everything. I try to follow the melody, entranced by the promise of the husky tone, and open the door of every room until I find her. She’s in the Grotto, splashing her mermaid tail in the shallow pond as she sings into a wireless microphone.
I smile, and she smiles back without missing a note, and I think, at last, this is it. I push my way into her circle of male admirers jacking off around her and sit on a rock. So what if I get a little wet, I think to myself, freeing my cock from my pants.
Karen is slippery as a fish and she favors me for all of a minute, locking eyes with me. I jack off for her, one hand, two hands, furiously pumping, and then I let myself go and come hands-free. She raises an eyebrow then turns away, smiling at another man, another cock.
In retrospect, I must have been out of my mind.
You can’t fuck a fish.
I write a poem for Karen too. I begin to think maybe I have something there. Perhaps a collection?
Siren
excuse me, but you
have to move over
to another rock
I’m sorry if I led
another ship is nearing
no, don’t give me that
look, as if I promised
something more than a song
what we had was lovely
for a time but as you
well know, all songs end
(every singer has to take
a breath once in a while,
long notes notwithstanding)
now, please, give me some
room, I don’t mind if you
listen but understand
this next number’s
not for you
three
EVERY MAN HAS a twin fantasy, and Erika and Aida are twins, so I am half-in-love when I meet them at the coffee bar. I have to admit, though, that they are very intimidating at first—beautiful women are like that—and it takes all of my resolve to approach their glistening body.
I take it as a good sign when, in the midst of the usual getting-to-know you segment of things, Erika’s serpentine head twists close to mine and says, “Do you think you can fuck us at the same time?”
When my only response is an idiotic grin, Aida’s head laughs and extends to close the gap between us and says, “Better men have tried.”
“I think I’m love,” I say happily, thinking I’ve hit the jackpot.
They take me to their loft in a high-end condo nearby, and we begin to fuck. I don’t know how to explain it, but it is the most frightening fuck of my life; it’s a wonder I am hard at all. I am not into biting and bloodletting and asphyxiation and domination, and all I want is to get out of their embrace. When they sit on me, I feel the weight of their single body crushing my bones, while their heads coil and uncoil. Their pussy is cavernous; my cock, for all its hardness, feels small and insignificant. Pinned down, I fuck to escape. It just isn’t my scene.
At least I get a poem for the collection (if you can call three poems a collection).
How to Traverse Terra Incognita Page 12
