Prototype

by Brian Hodge

  All this, while the DNA of Homo sapiens was still ninety-nine percent identical to that of the chimpanzee.

  With such a wrenching burst of development, might not a genetic whiplash like Helverson's syndrome at least be feasible?

  Adrienne had heard it said that Homo sapiens had ceased to evolve because there was no more need. The end goal served by evolution is success in breeding, and certainly that success was indisputable. Homo sapiens had become not only the most successfully prolific species on earth; it had become the sole species possessing the ability to destroy itself.

  Perhaps those who claimed that modern humanity didn’t need to evolve any further were just being smug about their top rung on the ladder. Maybe they'd not considered that more fine-tuning would become necessary to psychologically adapt to the world that had emerged out of their unchallenged dominion.

  Grand schemes; even bolder conjecture. But she had heard no explanation for Helverson's syndrome that made any more sense, so she would at least entertain it.

  Grand schemes. Bold conjecture. And an indifferent nature that encouraged diversity and variation, so that to the victor would belong the spoils.

  Still, in the end, it came down to individuals, who struggled to be born, struggled to live with the differences that made them mutants among their own kind, and who struggled against the death that waited for them all. Who struggled mightily, even nobly, regardless of who had made them, and how…

  And why.

  *

  At the end of the week, Sarah came home late in the afternoon with a ring in her navel. Giddy and hyper, she could have climbed walls, could have dazzled distant stars with the gleam in her eyes.

  She finally stood still long enough to pose with legs braced wide, leaning back with her hips and belly thrust forward as she tugged up her black T-shirt, the ominous Club Cannibal shirt she used to sleep in. "Don't you love it?"

  Adrienne stared.

  Sarah's navel was centered like a pearl in the firm lush swell of her belly, and the ring was skewered through its thick top lip, a simple uroboros of silver. The surrounding skin was red and inflamed, but not as much as Adrienne might have expected. A few thin streaks of dried blood were left on her skin.

  "I had it done at this piercing gallery Nina goes to for her ears, and it was so great, they're really serious about what they do there, and look at it as a ritual, and they play whatever music you'd like while it's being done, and they talk to you and hold your hand, and whoever's hanging out at the time can watch if you don't mind."

  Adrienne blinked. "Did you?"

  "Did I mind?" Sarah was incredulous, then broke into a broad smile. "Of course not, I sort of liked that I wasn't going through it alone. When people are watching it's like this encouragement to endure the pain better, it's this support system even though they're mostly strangers you'll never see again." She had scarcely paused for breath since walking in. Sarah let the shirt fall loosely back into place while twining up against her, running her hands along Adrienne's sides and breathing heavily through parted lips. "But I can't tell you how much I wanted your tongue on me when it was happening, I could have come all the way to the ceiling."

  And when they kissed, she was so deep and forceful; Adrienne had never been kissed like that by another woman, not even by Sarah in the past, a brutish kiss that she had thought the ploy of men. It weakened the knees, and then Sarah tore away with wet mouth and a wild back-toss of her head, and swept across the room to collapse upon the sofa.

  "They told me this happens to some people, they'll get this incredible endorphin rush for the next three or four hours, it's just like a drug, and wouldn't you know, I'm one of the lucky ones!" She laughed and drummed her fists upon the sofa, her feet upon the floor, then parted her legs to slide both hands down along her inner thighs. Eyes focusing back on Adrienne, alight with an all-consuming hunger. "There's still time, let's go to bed, we have to go to bed, if we don't I'm going to explode."

  So they did, and Adrienne went into the bedroom and undressed as if half-outside herself: This isn't me, this is just a shell, and the real me is across the room watching. For the first time in their relationship the sex reminded her of nights in her marriage when she had submitted not out of any genuine desire, more that she didn't have the will to say no, because there was nothing else she had to do.

  Their lips and tongues and fingers lacked for no heat, but five minutes in she knew what the problem was: She had been left behind. Sarah was soaring, on a high all her own, and both the blessing and the curse was that Sarah was too far aloft to notice. They had to be careful not to grind upon her stomach, but still Sarah was electrified and wild, so sensitive a feathery touch could turn her convulsive with rapture. Her head would thrash side to side, its cascade of thin braids became whips. And with Adrienne's mouth buried between her thighs, never had Sarah's legs felt more powerful as when they clenched together, as if to crush the head that had brought her so shudderingly far. She had become more than mortal; it was like making love with a force of nature. To deny her anything she wanted would be to risk death.

  Somewhere in the shadow of it Adrienne lay exhausted. There might not even be enough air in the room for them both. How sore she would be tomorrow. This would be how the servants of savage deities would feel: beloved meat, knowledgeable and privileged, but meat nonetheless.

  In the interim, one tiny misgiving had grown, and burst from her mouth before she even knew it would.

  "If you didn't want to go through that piercing alone," she said, "then why didn't you take me along? I didn't even know you were planning on doing it."

  "I don't know. Nina was there, and…" She turned onto her side, facing inward. Calmer now, what a relief. "I didn't want to bother you. You had a session with Clay earlier."

  "You couldn't have waited until I didn't?"

  "You had your work, and … and I had mine."

  Work. She'd really said that.

  Adrienne's hand stole over to Sarah's belly, touched the hot red skin around her navel. The ring. A bit of clear fluid was oozing from the piercing. For weeks, Sarah would daily have to doctor this with antiseptic until it healed.

  "This was work to you."

  Sarah nodded. "I wanted to know what it was like, getting a body piercing. Ears don't count, everybody does their ears, that's nothing."

  "Your thesis."

  "Yeah." Sarah grinned, salacious and heavy-lidded. "There's no rule saying I can't enjoy it, too. What, don't tell me you don't like it. You like it, don't you?"

  Her gaze tracked to Sarah's navel again. It drew the eye naturally, and part of her wanted to lower her mouth to it, trace her tongue around the little folds, like tiny pudenda, taste the metal. Too soon, though, let it heal. Yet the ring felt intimidating. Neither of them wore a thing at the moment, yet it seemed as if Sarah were more naked, somehow, her bared body all the more emphasized. Naked and strong.

  "I like it," she whispered. "I just wish I'd been there."

  "Don't be mad" — stroking Adrienne's hair — "I had to do this for myself. For them, too, it's so much more prevalent a part of their culture. Graham has nipple piercings — I bet you didn't know that about him, did you? Nina told me that Twitch went in twice to get his cock pierced and chickened out both times." She laughed. "Erin was there too. This afternoon. I had her tape it."

  Videotape, too. Why hadn't she just sent out invitations?

  "I understand why they do it now," Sarah said, the carnal beast sated for the time being, the inquisitive Sarah emerging. "It's an experience you just can't compare with having your ears done. These people — Nina and Twitch and Erin and Graham and Clay, and the others I've met at the clubs and all around — they're so low in the social strata, they're forced to assert some control in their lives in other ways, and this is one of them. You never feel more alive and in control of yourself as when you trust someone else to run a piece of sharp metal through you. I never would've believed how strong that feeling comes through when
you're lying there if I hadn't done it myself."

  Adrienne tracked a finger through the sweat between Sarah's breasts. "It sounds like a rite of passage."

  "That's exactly what it is. You know what they are out there? I mean, think about them all, at the clubs, and on the streets. It's tribal. They don't formalize it, but it’s still a tribal society." Sarah rolled onto her back, staring upward. "I miss the ceiling fan from home. That always feels so good now." A shrug. "That's all most everyone is these days, just a collection of isolated tribes, finding more and more reasons to be suspicious of each other. In primitive cultures there's only room for one view, really, just to survive, but ours … hundreds, thousands maybe. And we're not any different back home in Tempe. All our friends, just about, are just like us. You, me, them, we're this little tribe of muff-divers."

  Adrienne frowned. "Don't confine me like that, all right?"

  "No, I guess I can't, can I?" Sarah propped herself up on her elbow. "Because you can't make the commitment. You've still got one foot on the other side of the fence."

  Her voice sounded hurt all of a sudden, and angry, and where was this coming from?

  "And you tell me I have trouble making up my mind?"

  "I —" Adrienne tried. Anything she could say would be wrong, but silence would be worse. "I never pretended to be something I wasn't. It's the way I am. My inclinations just didn't fall exclusively one way or another."

  "Oh, that's so analytical," Sarah groaned. With her hair still in those braids, she looked feral and wounded. "You know, there are times you seem one step removed from your life."

  And it didn’t bear arguing about, for there was no right or wrong here. Each of them was what she was, and true to that; made differently, and perhaps only half-compatible, and it was that other half that could potentially bring so much pain. Pain over what one might long for, that the other could never be.

  As quickly as she had launched into it, Sarah drew back out. With downcast eyes and creased forehead, she squirmed in closer to Adrienne's side, radiant with body heat and sheer presence, one arm thrown across Adrienne's shoulders, one leg draped across Adrienne's knees. She might have no words left; her body would say all. That was the thing about arguing naked: There was nothing behind which to hide, only raw truth.

  So Adrienne lay in her possessive embrace, even returned it, but felt alive with questions. What will happen to us? — this was the big one. How will we see each other in a year, or two, or five? It could work between us, always, but will our hormones let it?

  They left the bed later. When neither felt like cooking, Sarah volunteered to go for Chinese take-out. A peace offering, it felt like, her suggestion made almost sheepishly, I know how much you love Chinese.

  The condo suffered for her absence, some vitality missing, and Adrienne tried to fill the void with music, turning the stereo louder than it needed to be.

  She sat on the sofa with one leg folded beneath her, holding the rainstick that was supposed to remind her of San Francisco, and had when at first, but no longer did. New meanings had supplanted old. She turned it end to end to end, listening to the delicate showers. Whether or not Sarah had covertly intended it, the sound now conjured up her more than anything, from her wide knowing eyes to her peasant feet, and everything between. The gift had become the giver.

  And what might the giver become? Adrienne had been worried at first by this evolving Sarah, with the whiplike hair and the navel ring and the penchant for new friends more pessimistic than those she had at home. But these were only affectations. She was the same Sarah, just doing what she had been schooled to do: live amongst the savages, and take them to her heart.

  It was entirely possible that the fear on display in the bedroom had manifested itself backward, that her own issue was not whether this was the same Sarah or some darker twin. Perhaps fear of abandonment lay in both their hearts, and only one of them had courage enough to admit it.

  She's so alive and absorbs so much more than I do. There, it was good to admit it. In a year's time, or two, or five, will I seem like enough for her? That's the question.

  But nobody could answer it now, and sometimes the best anyone could do was sit and listen to the rain. And in lieu of the real thing…

  Make her own.

  Twenty-Four

  Word spread fast: Graham announced that not only did he plan on unveiling a new piece — his largest and most complex yet, he promised — but tonight would be a first. Tonight he would actually confer a name on something.

  Adrienne and Sarah both thought it significant. All those paintings and not a one of them named … like illegitimate children he might have been ashamed of and would rather have forgotten. Perhaps he was entering a new phase. Like Picasso and his blue period, maybe Graham was leaving his bastard-offspring period behind. Although they might as well offer Vegas odds on what lay ahead. Nina thought it had something to do with whatever he was keeping locked in that storage room, and was being so secretive about.

  Graham said he didn't want to do it until everyone could be there, which included Uncle Twitch, so that meant they would have to wait until he got off work. From there it was a short hop to the suggestion that they all pass the night at The Foundry.

  Did she really want to be here? Adrienne had yet to decide, every decision borderline these days, it seemed, not necessarily to be trusted. Ulterior motives might be veined beneath their surfaces.

  The Foundry was the same, always the same, claustrophobic and smoky and dank, thudding with enough force to twitter the stomach, and packed with Sarah's tribes of discontent and disillusion. The wall screens dished up one silent, ghastly image after another; at the moment, one was flashing excerpts from what appeared to be an old precautionary film on industrial accidents. The camera zoomed blandly in on the hand of an ashen-faced blue-collar worker being treated at a first-aid station. One finger was flayed to the bone, as if it had been ground down in a pencil sharpener.

  "I put in a special request for this tape tonight," Graham was saying. "Twitch told them it was my birthday."

  "How many birthdays does that make this year?" Nina asked.

  "Five. They never remember."

  "They would if they gave free drinks on your birthday," said Erin.

  Sarah leaned forward, elbows on the table, too far away for anything less than a shout. "Any significance to this particular tape?"

  He slid back in his chair and watched, eyes either reverent or half-drunk, it was difficult to decide. How did he view this? More carnage, a twisted leg broken in at least three places, the bends agonizing to contemplate. The screen was the mirror of the soul? Maybe that was the key to Graham's fascination.

  "It makes me think," he said. "I always wonder what the accidents sounded like. You know how bone conducts sound? I always wonder what sound these poor dumb fuckers heard that nobody else around them could hear."

  "Well, I'll tell you what they heard the next day," Erin said.

  "What's that?"

  "Weeping insurance agents."

  Most of them laughed, a good mean chuckle at the expense of State Farm and Prudential, which suddenly struck Adrienne as a telling moment. They liked tragedy and misery because of the purely random element inherent in them. Suffering was a great equalizer, respecting no money or status. If they could never aspire to the success they saw flaunted around them, what perverse comfort it must be to see that success was no insulation from life's cruelties.

  This they'd understood long before she had.

  Adrienne found her eyes returning over and over to Nina, who had undergone another of her metamorphoses. Gone were the red dye and scarves and flamboyant gypsy skirts. Her thick hair hung straighter now, black, and she wore a flowing sari draped about her chunky body. A tiny, jeweled bead glittered at the side of one pierced nostril. She looked like the world's palest Hindu.

  "How does she manage to pull this off?" Adrienne asked Sarah, discreetly, once Nina had gone to the bar. "She should look ridiculou
s but she doesn't."

  Sarah beamed. "It's the weirdest thing, isn't it? Don't you think it must be that deep down she adopts something of whatever it is she takes on? She never seems to be playing a role."

  "A serial multiple personality."

  Sarah frowned, cocking her head. "That's a bit severe —"

  "I'm joking."

  When Nina returned with drinks, she toasted to celebrate resuming her creative endeavors with mutant children's literature.

  "I know what I was doing wrong with the first ones," she said. "I really was writing for kids and trying to be as honest with them as I could be, and that's why it never went anywhere."

  "Better the little brats learn the awful truth now, huh?" Graham perked up with a cockeyed laugh. "That'll teach you the value of honesty."

  "Right, right!" Nina squeezed his arm, delighted. "See, he gets it! So what I decided I should do is write satirical children's lit for adults who know better now."

  "I like this," said Clay, laughing. It was the closest thing to enjoyment she had seen in him for too long. "You've already started one, haven't you. I can tell."

  Nina's head bobbed with excitement. "It's a sadomasochistic fantasy on the high seas. The Slave Ship Lollipop."

  Even Adrienne laughed at the idea; and Sarah, well, forget it: Sarah was howling.

  "You can publish a whole line," Adrienne told her, inspired, or maybe it was the gin, "and call the series Crib Death."

  Definitely the gin, but maybe she had needed that for a while. Two parts gin to one part anxiety, then stir. Things did feel better now, looser, and it didn't even seem so sad to think that Nina's latest scheme was surely doomed to failure, like the rest. How undaunted she seemed, something noble in the way she flung herself headlong into new identities, new projects, without a trace of bitterness over the past. If only she could hang onto that. Seeing Clay more comfortable than he had been since Fort Collins made her wonder if being around Nina was actually therapeutic for him.