Dagger Key and Other Stories

Of course no one would name their daughter Abimagique. It’s a self-chosen name, a name that, when you first heard it, caused you to harbor derisive thoughts, to imagine her the victim of some Wiccan delusion, and this appears to be more-or-less the case. On the walls of her house hang classic representations of the angels; Tibetan and Native American masks; curious constructions of dried vegetable matter and silk ribbon; ankhs, crosses, backwards 7s, and other symbols less readily identifiable. Long strings of beads—silver and amber, topaz and lapis lazuli—drape the bedroom mirror, carving reflections into slices; herbal sachets that yield peculiar odors are strewn everywhere; scraps of paper bearing inscriptions hand-inked in a Tolkienesque script are tucked beneath pillows, in the backs of drawers, under potted plants, inside tins and jars, many of these featuring a backwards 7. After you’ve been friends with her for a month (you’ve insinuated yourself into her life as a client, seeking treatment for back problems you suffered in an automobile accident years before), you realize that these arcana don’t announce her character, they merely reflect it; they’re natural expressions, like sprays of foliage from a central trunk. When she talks about God, gods, spirits, ghosts, miracles, monsters, the magic of animals, of plants, the circles of Hell, the potency of angels, the entirety of the mystic landscape she inhabits, she expresses herself neither defensively nor assertively, but with a calm certainty that inspires you to argument. You want to debunk her beliefs not because you’re such a huge fan of empirical truth or because you’re so locked in to your science-geek grad-school thing, but rather because a vague male reason demands it. She refuses to argue, she merely submits there may be some things you’re not yet aware of, and that’s not something you can argue, though you try.

Just past the turn of the year, you become lovers. Rain falls intermittently and the firs enclosing Abi’s house lend the pewter light a greenish undersea opacity in which her skin glows. You discover a backwards 7 tattooed on the inside of her right thigh, close to her sex; you trace the blue ink with a finger, puzzle over it a moment, then make gentle play with her genital piercing. She tells you that she loves you, but her tone is oddly dispassionate and, once you’re inside her, though you experience the ferocity of desire, your feelings seem muted by a tranquil energy you recognize as uniquely hers, as if you’ve penetrated that protective envelope you sensed, that atmosphere, and now it surrounds you. You’re lulled, cradled by her acceptance. It’s like you’re adrift on the undulations of a tide, not moved by female sinew and bone. But the instant before you come, she breaks the languid rhythm of your lovemaking; she places her hands on the small of your back and presses down hard with her fingertips, manipulating the nerves and muscles there. Electricity snaps along your spine, heat floods your brain. You cry out from spasms of sensation so violent, they take you to the brink of unconsciousness. Once you recover, you ask with a degree of anger (because it hurt), but with a greater degree of wonderment (because you’ve never experienced such an intricate orgasm), what the hell was it that she did to you?

“It’s a massage technique,” she says. “Didn’t you enjoy it?”

You start to say “no”—you’re accustomed to having more control in bed than, in retrospect, it appears you had, and you’re annoyed. “I would have enjoyed it a hell of a lot more if you hadn’t sprung it on me,” you tell her.

“That doesn’t say much for your sense of spontaneity.” She fixes you with her green gaze. You’re startled by how specifically it communicates her disappointment; you suspect that her emotions may be more deeply held, more genuine than your own, and thus easier to read. Whether true or not, the thought that it might be increases your annoyance; but then she cuddles against you, her softness a distraction, and says, “I won’t do it anymore if you don’t want.” You’re coming to understand that’s how things work in your relationship, and how they probably always will work—she cedes control to you when control is no longer an issue.