protests I might have uttered, they were about as sincere as ol’ Brer Rabbit begging Brer Fox not to throw him into that briar patch. I could say I was bewitched, but it would be a lie.
She mounted me then, and I didn’t argue.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“Now I fuck you,” she replied. “Then I’m going to talk to my grandmother.” And, with that, the world fell out from beneath me again. And the ginger-skinned eunuch moved along to the next tableau, that next set of memories I couldn’t recollect on my own…
…Stars were tumbling from the skies. Not a few stray shooting stars here and there. No, all the stars were falling. One by one, at first, and then the sky was raining pitchforks, only it wasn’t rain, see. It was light. The whole sorry world was being born or was dying, and I saw it didn’t much matter which. Go back far enough, or far enough forward, the past and future wind up holding hands, cozy as a couple of lovebirds. Ellen had thrown open a doorway, and she’d dragged me along for the ride. I was so cold. I couldn’t understand how there could be that much fire in the sky, and me still be freezing my tits off like that. I lay there shivering as the brittle heavens collapsed. I could feel her inside me. I could feel it inside me, and same as I’d been lost in Ellen’s beauty, I was being smothered by that ecstasy. And then…then the eunuch showed me the gift, which I’d forgotten…and which I would immediately forget again.
How do you write about something, when all that remains of it is the faintest of impressions of glory? When all you can bring to mind is the empty place where a memory ought to be and isn’t, and only that conspicuous absence is there to remind you of what cannot ever be recalled? Strain as you might, all that effort hardly adds up to a trip for biscuits. So, how do you write it down? You don’t, that’s how. You do your damnedest to think about what came next, instead, knowing your sanity hangs in the balance.
So, here’s what came after the gift, since le godemichet maudit is a goddamn Indian giver if ever one were born. Here’s the curse that rides shotgun on the gift, as impossible to obliterate from reminiscence as the other is to awaken.
There were falling stars, and that unendurable cold…and then the empty, aching socket to mark the countermanded gift…and then I saw the unicorn. I don’t mean the dingus. I mean the living creature , standing in a glade of cedars, bathed in clean sunlight and radiating a light all it’s own. It didn’t look much like what you see in story books or those medieval tapestries they got hanging in the Cloisters. It also didn’t look much like the beast carved into the lid of Fong’s wooden box. But I knew what it was, all the same.
A naked girl stood before it, and the unicorn kneeled at her feet. She sat down, and it rested its head on her lap. She whispered reassurances I couldn’t hear, because they were spoken as softly as falling snow. And then she offered the unicorn one of her breasts, and I watched as it suckled. This scene of chastity and absolute peace lasted maybe a minute, maybe two, before the trap was sprung and the hunters stepped out from the shadows of the cedar boughs. They killed the unicorn, with cold iron lances and swords, but first the unicorn killed the virgin who’d betrayed it to its doom…
…and Harpootlian’s ginger eunuch turned another page (a ham-fisted analogy if ever there were one, but it works for me), and we were back in the black room. Ellen and me. Only two of the candles were still burning, two guttering, half-hearted counterpoints to all that darkness. The other three had been snuffed out by a sudden gust of wind that had smelled of rust, sulfur, and slaughterhouse floors. I could hear Ellen crying, weeping somewhere in the darkness beyond the candles and the periphery of her protective circle. I rolled over onto my right side, still shivering, still
She mounted me then, and I didn’t argue.
“What happens now?” I asked.
“Now I fuck you,” she replied. “Then I’m going to talk to my grandmother.” And, with that, the world fell out from beneath me again. And the ginger-skinned eunuch moved along to the next tableau, that next set of memories I couldn’t recollect on my own…
…Stars were tumbling from the skies. Not a few stray shooting stars here and there. No, all the stars were falling. One by one, at first, and then the sky was raining pitchforks, only it wasn’t rain, see. It was light. The whole sorry world was being born or was dying, and I saw it didn’t much matter which. Go back far enough, or far enough forward, the past and future wind up holding hands, cozy as a couple of lovebirds. Ellen had thrown open a doorway, and she’d dragged me along for the ride. I was so cold. I couldn’t understand how there could be that much fire in the sky, and me still be freezing my tits off like that. I lay there shivering as the brittle heavens collapsed. I could feel her inside me. I could feel it inside me, and same as I’d been lost in Ellen’s beauty, I was being smothered by that ecstasy. And then…then the eunuch showed me the gift, which I’d forgotten…and which I would immediately forget again.
How do you write about something, when all that remains of it is the faintest of impressions of glory? When all you can bring to mind is the empty place where a memory ought to be and isn’t, and only that conspicuous absence is there to remind you of what cannot ever be recalled? Strain as you might, all that effort hardly adds up to a trip for biscuits. So, how do you write it down? You don’t, that’s how. You do your damnedest to think about what came next, instead, knowing your sanity hangs in the balance.
So, here’s what came after the gift, since le godemichet maudit is a goddamn Indian giver if ever one were born. Here’s the curse that rides shotgun on the gift, as impossible to obliterate from reminiscence as the other is to awaken.
There were falling stars, and that unendurable cold…and then the empty, aching socket to mark the countermanded gift…and then I saw the unicorn. I don’t mean the dingus. I mean the living creature , standing in a glade of cedars, bathed in clean sunlight and radiating a light all it’s own. It didn’t look much like what you see in story books or those medieval tapestries they got hanging in the Cloisters. It also didn’t look much like the beast carved into the lid of Fong’s wooden box. But I knew what it was, all the same.
A naked girl stood before it, and the unicorn kneeled at her feet. She sat down, and it rested its head on her lap. She whispered reassurances I couldn’t hear, because they were spoken as softly as falling snow. And then she offered the unicorn one of her breasts, and I watched as it suckled. This scene of chastity and absolute peace lasted maybe a minute, maybe two, before the trap was sprung and the hunters stepped out from the shadows of the cedar boughs. They killed the unicorn, with cold iron lances and swords, but first the unicorn killed the virgin who’d betrayed it to its doom…
…and Harpootlian’s ginger eunuch turned another page (a ham-fisted analogy if ever there were one, but it works for me), and we were back in the black room. Ellen and me. Only two of the candles were still burning, two guttering, half-hearted counterpoints to all that darkness. The other three had been snuffed out by a sudden gust of wind that had smelled of rust, sulfur, and slaughterhouse floors. I could hear Ellen crying, weeping somewhere in the darkness beyond the candles and the periphery of her protective circle. I rolled over onto my right side, still shivering, still
Similar Books
