Abominations of Desire

by Vince Liaguno

  Mark looks down to this cigarette he’s saved. This cigarette he plucked from death’s fingers.

  “I feel like we’re in some kind of a play here,” he says, pulling the cigarette to his lips, dragging in as much as his lungs will hold, and then a little bit more.

  And then he steps up into Kissyface’s space, the toes of Mark’s sneakers nudged right up against Kissyface’s theatric combat boots.

  Kissyface doesn’t flinch back—of the two of them, he’s the mad-dog killer here—but he does free the gaff from Chrissy’s head.

  Mark reaches over with the spare fingers of his cigarette hand, touches Kissyface’s wrist to keep that gaff there. To show him that’s not what this is about.

  What it is about is leaning in, leading with the mouth.

  His trembling lips just brush Kissyface’s mangled ones.

  The way those cheeks are safety-pinned together, there’s no way for the mouth to close enough for the suction a proper cigarette drag needs.

  There are ways, though. There are always ways.

  Mark breathes out gently, passing the smoke from mouth to mouth, and it’s the single most intimate act he’s ever engaged in.

  Kissyface takes all that he can, and holds it inside, savors it.

  When he breathes it back out, it’s twin streams from his nostrils.

  Mark reaches up with the back of his index finger to dab a smudge of Chrissy’s blood from Kissyface’s cheek.

  “When you first showed up,” he says, “when you stood up from that pulpit, started preaching down fire and brimstone on the graduating class, man. I thought you were a ghost.”

  Something glimmers alive in Kissyface’s eyes, behind the contacts.

  “I’m glad you weren’t,” Mark adds, and then, faint but definitely happening, there really are sirens screeching up.

  They don’t unlock Kissyface’s eyes from Mark’s.

  He reaches out, dabs at a spot on Mark’s cheek that’s probably Chrissy’s blood too, and it tickles enough that Mark has to rub it in deeper.

  “Think they’re playing your song,” he says, nodding out front, at the sanctuary doors already creaking from a shoulder, or a wall of shoulders, or a battering ram.

  Kissyface faces that direction, his fingers whitening on the shaft of that gaff, and when Chrissy’s left foot spasms, they both look down to it.

  It stops a breath or two later.

  Kissyface’s one clear eye darts up for Mark.

  “Ha ha ha,” Kissyface says, and it’s such a slowed-down, creaky-sick parody of a laugh that Mark knows instantly that Kissyface is distinctly not laughing about what happened on the playground all those years ago.

  But he still remembers. Every detail. Every slice of an instant.

  Instead of extracting an oversized black treble hook from some pocket or bag or case—a hook like that would still be too hot to touch, for him—he presses his right boot down on the side of Chrissy’s face, working her mouth open. Using just the grabby part of the gaff, he reaches in, snags her tongue way at the back, and gives the gaff a good hard twist, her teeth cracking at first to accommodate, and then the hinge her jaw.

  The tongue pops right out, trailing a white tendon and bright red blood. It’s longer than Mark would have figured. And still writhing, the gaff probably pinching something in the muscle.

  Kissyface and Mark give Chrissy’s tongue the solemn spotlight moment it deserves, and then Kissyface does unlimber something from a cargo pocket.

  At first Mark thinks it’s an Easter Egg, the kind that open in the middle to reveal their prize inside.

  That’s not far off.

  It’s a plastic bubble, clear on its round top, with a black base. It looks like a 1950s cartoon UFO. Just, without any aliens slavering behind the glass.

  Not until Kissyface thumbs the tongue into that space, clicks the bubble shut decisively.

  “Well then,” Mark says.

  Kissyface nods, has to look away to the front door, splintering, but he doesn’t look away fast enough that Mark misses the new sheen on his eyes. Collecting at the bottom of his eyes.

  He wipes at it as if embarrassed to still be that much human, and manages to dislodge the slipped contact, and—that eye, both his eyes, surely, they’re ice blue, were engineered to look across endless expanses of tundra, always with dustings of snow skirling up.

  Mark can almost see it himself.

  And then, hours too soon, Kissyface steps forward, into that sanctuary doorway that’s no sanctuary at all, his gaff-hand to the doorframe like to pull himself through into this next act.

  But partway through this final gesture, he stops, looks back for one more moment as if considering whether a thing can work or not. Evidently it can, because he tosses that clear bubble of tongue meat across to Mark.

  Mark catches it soft like you would an egg.

  The tongue’s not just longer than he thought it would be, but it’s heavier too. With a lifetime of words Chrissy’s never going to get to speak, now.

  “Where does it go?” he says, and when Kissyface just stares, Mark nods, knows: into the throat of whatever quarter machine he finds next. So it can salmon its way up the tube, back into the rattle of plastic bubbles.

  Because it never stops, this kind of cycle.

  Waiting days or months or years in that machine, Chrissy Carlton’s tongue will desiccate and contract, then, with a single quarter, bloom into something perfect, something fun, something that doesn’t know how to die.

  Mark holds the plastic bubble up, waggles it, then drops it into his chest pocket, to show how close to his heart he’s going to keep it.

  “Go already,” he says to Kissyface, and Kissyface—Derek—ducks through the doorway just as some assault team flunky out in the sanctuary leans down on the keys at the low end of the organ, giving the night its sombre theme music, the reverb dialed all the way up.

  Mark nods about this, raises the cigarette to his lips, then closes his eyes, pulls in deep, waits for the rest his life to start happening.

  The Shell

  Norman Prentiss

  My first year after college, my best friend Maddie headed out of state for two weeks and needed someone to watch her cat. I couldn’t do it because of my allergies, but recommended that place your sister used a couple times for Nisha: a nice family, so the cat would be in a home instead of a cage at the local “Pet Hotel,” and they were easy on the budget, too. When Maddie got back in town there was a message on her home phone. The woman said something along the lines of, don’t be alarmed when you get here, your cat’s lost a little weight, and Maddie just freaked out. Two weeks? How could Tab lose weight in two weeks? Why didn’t they call sooner? —that kind of thing, and I had to go with Maddie to pick him up because she was in no state to drive. The whole way, she worried me with questions: I’d given them the number for my vet, so why didn’t they call him? What could have happened to Tab, bad enough for a stranger to notice? What if I don’t recognize him, Jay?

  “You will,” I assured her then. “Look in his eyes.”

  We parked at the curb, and Maddie got the plastic cat carrier from the back seat of my Escort. The carrier had been too big to set in her lap as we drove, because Tab was a sweet, fat thing and needed an oversized case: it actually had a Labrador’s picture on the product sticker, but that’s the best fit she could find in those days when people our age bought most everything at Target.

  The house was pleasant enough, split level with lots of shade trees on the property, and a fenced-in back yard. Dogs barked from that area as we approached, different breeds from the sound of it, and I wondered how many animals the family boarded on a given day.

  The empty carrier bounced against Maddie’s right hip as she walked out of balance up the stone pathway. I stepped ahead of her to the porch, opened the screen door and rang the bell. Another variety of barks responded, then the cautious opening of the main door—not for fear of a strange visitor, but from worry that some animal
might hurry out. A teenage boy stared past me at Maddie, saw the carrier at her side, and shouted Mom! without turning his head. He had a leash looped in each hand and he stepped between us, dragging his charges outside to fertilize the lawn. The smaller dog could barely keep up: the boy looped more of that leash over his palm, nearly pulling the well-groomed Yorkie off the ground after him.

  I didn’t really want to go inside the house, but we couldn’t stand there with the door open. The smell of Glade stick and spray fresheners hit me immediately, not strong enough to cover the musk and litter box odors. The skin along my exposed arms started to itch, and I imagined I could see pet dander floating with dust motes, ready to tickle my breath into a fit of sneezing. Not yet, though. I held it back, for my friend’s sake.

  Maddie set the cat case on the braided rug circle—multi-colored tubes of cloth stitched together, worn down by sneakers and padded feet, soon to be cut in strips and knotted for a dog’s growling tug-o’-war.

  The empty case. I feared she might not have something alive to put in it.

  Some doors opened and closed upstairs. “You must be Madeline,” a voice said above us. Her shoes echoed like wooden clogs along the uncarpeted stairs. She cradled a bundle in the crook of her right arm. A towel was wrapped around what would have seemed a human baby, if it weren’t for the orange ringed tail that hung limp out one end.

  “I left you the message.” The woman spoke as she descended, the voice of a mother from a distant room warning her son to wash up before supper. “Your guy hasn’t been feeling too well. Came on all of a sudden.”

  I sniffled a little, the dander starting to agitate me, and Maddie sniffled too. She was holding back tears, of course, and I thought for sure that woman was delivering Tab’s corpse in a rag-scrap blanket.

  More clog steps, and that booming voice didn’t get quieter. “He’ll get better, sweetie. Get him home.”

  She wouldn’t say such things if Tab had died. The tail twitched slightly.

  “Too small,” Maddie said between sniffles. “Too small.”

  There it was. Now, I hadn’t spent much time around Tab. Maddie usually came to my apartment, and for my brief visits to her place she’d vacuum the hell out of the living areas and shut the cat in her bedroom for the duration. Still, I saw him now and then from a distance, galumphing behind a door or, more likely, a furry orange and white smear sprawled atop the down comforter on Maddie’s bed. Tab was a heavy cat, even with the diet kibble Maddie got from her vet: he just ate more of it. An animal that big, and this woman—with, well, a cat-lady’s physique, short and a little flabby, none too strong—she clomped down the stairs with him cradled in one arm, effortless.

  She reached the landing, held the bundle out for Maddie to accept. “You can keep the blanket, dear.”

  The cat was all covered up, including a flap of cloth over his head. “Look in his eyes,” I whispered to Maddie.

  She took the bundle. Surprised at how light it was, she burst into tears.

  Maddie reached to lift the flap.

  “Look in his eyes,” I repeated. “You’ll recognize him.”

  I kept saying that, even as Maddie kept crying, as she stared daggers at the woman—who had the nerve to mention the balance due after the deposit, and I wouldn’t let Maddie pay, practically threw two twenties at the woman to keep her from asking again—as Maddie lifted the flap of cloth, saw her beloved pet’s frail thin head, the animal weak but still alive; as she opened the carrier and placed Tab inside, along with that woman’s stupid blanket, and the cat so small in his big container, sending Maddie into a fresh burst of tears.

  Look into his eyes.

  Later, after she’d taken him to the vet’s office, and Tab died there the same night, Maddie spoke to me about her first look beneath that blanket.

  “I did what you said. I looked in his eyes. He wasn’t there.”

  *

  I had that same thought when you came back to me.

  *

  At some point or another, everybody has a sampling of what it’s like to be in a long-distance relationship. A college girlfriend spends a semester in Italy; a spouse attends a week-long training conference or visits an ill relative for a fortnight. Go ahead. I’ll be fine. Maybe playing up the sympathy a bit, a ploy for better treatment when the other half returns home. All the while secretly thinking: This might be fun. I’ll have the apartment to myself, won’t need to clean or follow his schedule, can indulge in fast food dinners without her disapproving glances. I’ll catch up on my Newsweeks or finish that shelving project in the garage. And here is what actually happens: you begin in optimism, the temporary bachelor days planned full of activities, but the first day you do nothing, and because it’s strange sleeping alone, you read in bed until 3am. You’re exhausted the next day, practically sleepwalking at work, and accomplish nothing of note that evening. That night, sleep will again be difficult. You simply miss him or her too much.

  At least, that’s how it always was for me.

  So, when SureTech needed you in India to supervise the IT installations for their new branch office, I began with my usual optimism.

  “I’ll fix up the home office, like I’ve been meaning to do.”

  “Good idea,” you said, clearing our plates from the table. I hadn’t finished my asparagus, but you chose not to comment.

  “Keep myself busy.”

  “Oh, don’t pout Jay.”

  Was I pouting? I wasn’t aware of it. “The news is a little sudden, is all.”

  “Jennifer was supposed to go,” you said, heading into the kitchen. “But then her— “

  “Her son.” Easy enough to predict, since the same thing had happened before, on a smaller scale—emergency pick-ups from daycare, sudden doctor visits, custody issues with her ex. I’d have been more sympathetic if you weren’t constantly making excuses for your lax co-worker.

  “Kid’s got an infection.” You put the dishes in the sink and ran the faucet over them briefly, speaking over the running water. “The doctor prescribed a course of antibiotics that might produce side effects. She can’t leave the country right now.”

  “Of course not.”

  I stared at the table where my plate had been, while you turned off the faucet then walked back into the dining room.

  “I’m sorry, Jay. But this is a good leadership opportunity. I was lucky they were able to change the plane tickets into my name.”

  So, it had already been decided. “I guess you couldn’t ask them to change it back.”

  “It’s a month. Tops.”

  “Melanie could take the kid with her. Don’t kids fly for free?”

  “Now, stop.” You stood behind me, grabbed the back of my chair and gave it a gentle shake. I stretched my arms up toward your shoulders, ran my fingers along the creased fabric of your work shirt.

  “I guess it won’t be so bad,” I said. “It’s not like you’d be going off to war. I know you’ll come back.”

  I stood up and hugged you—tight but quick, like one of those movie hugs at a train platform.

  There were other consolations, you assured me then. It wouldn’t be like low-tech separations in the previous decade, when we’d had to schedule brief, expensive calls from the hotel room. There were cell phones now, and plus, part of your job in India was to set up video-conferencing software: no reason you couldn’t use that same system to connect with our home laptop, and then we’d be able to see each other.

  “Great,” I said, recovering some of my initial optimism. When you said the four weeks would be over before I realized it, I didn’t contradict you.

  The cell phones and emails would help, and the video feeds as well. I hugged you again, felt my arms around your torso then stepped back to run a hand along one side of your neck. For a moment, my palm would smell like the spice and sandalwood residue of your aftershave lotion. But it wouldn’t last.

  *

  Well, we spent a nice week together before you had to head out. Two meals
at neighborhood restaurants, a movie on the weekend, and a lot of quiet evenings at home. I won’t do it here, but I really could write pages and pages of minute details—that’s how carefully I memorized those days, so I could summon them later during your absence.

  I went a bit too far in that respect, I’ll be the first to admit.

  *

  The video conferencing wasn’t as easy to set up as you expected, so it was about a week before you got it running. There was a slight lag in the Internet connection, so a couple times we interrupted each other, said sorry, then did it again. I wanted to chime “over” after each sentence, like truckers did in CB radio days.

  “It’s really you, isn’t it,” I said.

  “In the flesh.” Your face blurred when you moved, and there was a slight fishbowl distortion, but it was amazing to see you as we talked—so animated and responding to my comments. You wore a suitcoat and tie, more formal than your usual work attire to indicate your management status. The wall behind you was a clean white, with no paintings or other decorations.

  “Show me the rest of your workspace.”

  Some loud clicks and the muffle of a hand over a microphone as your image jerked out of my view, then a blurry pan across the office floor.

  “Were those cubicles?”

  “Tell you the truth, I’m not really sure.” You clipped the camera back into place, framing yourself and the bland wall behind. “Some of those might be markers for actual walls.” A stage whisper: “They can’t seem to make up their minds.”

  I took this as code to mean: you might be there longer than anticipated.

  “Hey, is that me in there?”

  At first I didn’t realize what you were saying. The technology was still new to me, so I didn’t quite register how much you could see. It was tomorrow morning for you, from the time difference, but eleven at night for me.

  I’d set up the laptop in our room, giving you view of the bed, my legs over the kicked-down covers, my back slumped against the headboard. I hadn’t been thinking, or I would have hidden the pillow that I held against me when I tried to sleep.