Dagger Key and Other Stories

In the bedroom, where candles are pointed with glittering flames, smoke ghosts thinly rising from them, the air disturbed by currents only you can see, you sit in the Lotus posture, achieving it easily, as if the tea has made you more flexible, and when Abi mounts you, when her weight descends, the gorgeous intimacy of your union seems to have rendered you both weightless and you’re floating up from the green satin bedspread, levitating, nudged this way and that by impalpable eddies. Abi begins chanting softly, but with prayerful intensity, and the rushed rhythm of her words, impassioned utterances followed by turbulent silences, her breath shuddering out, it becomes your mutual rhythm, orchestrating miniscule squeezings and shiftings. Her eyes are wide open, all white, and you have the idea you’re making love to an idol come to life, that she’s possessed by a spirit too large to fit within her skin, compressed to the point of exploding. But the distance created by that thought closes quickly, and soon there is only her other body and yours, indistinguishable one from the other, trembling with energy, an engine harnessed to the task of salvation.

How long this goes on, you can’t say. Hours, minutes, days…your time-sense is still wrecked and that strikes you as odd, because time is flowing all around the ship built of your two bodies, a green river carrying you everywhere and nowhere, its currents visible even when you shut your eyes, so real it seems you could lift your hand from Abi’s waist and cause a splash that would disrupt its flow and destroy some yet unenvisioned future. She brings you to the verge of orgasm over and over again, but holds you from the brink, her chanting slowing, easing you down into your animal self, storing up power until it can no longer be contained and achieves maximum release. It’s almost painful, this denial, but pleasure and pain are blended together, even as you and Abi are blended, and your mind admits only to delight. She kisses you, tongue of idol flicking forth to taste your soul, and her fingertips fit to ten familiar places along your spine. Your hands glove her breasts. You’re enthralled by their softness, by her dress of vines, her white-eyed stare, her scarlet mouth and Halloween hair. It’s a mental snapshot you’ll keep forever…or wherever it is she’s about to send you.

You’re in and out of consciousness for a while. Mostly out. Your eyes open once and you see her standing at the foot of the bed, head bowed and arms upraised, like a diver preparing for her big finish, the air watery and rippling around her. Your dreams are muddled images and vignettes, nothing special, and when you wake, cracking an eye to see a faint lightening of the sky, thinking you haven’t slept all that long, you realize that you’ve moved your legs. Not only have you moved your legs, you have no pain—your back’s sore, but it’s always a little bit sore in the morning, and you feel incredible. Strong and well-rested, as if you’ve slept for a week. You test your legs again and lie there for a minute, thankful that you’re not crippled and that you didn’t make a mistake in trusting Abi…which seems an upset, because what she did earlier, it felt as if your nervous system short-circuited. You swing your legs onto the floor and, keeping one hand on the headboard, afraid that you’ll collapse, you stand and stomp your feet, bounce on your toes. All good. You pull on pants and a shirt, and go looking for Abi…and for food. In the kitchen, you cut a thick slice of bread, a hunk of cheese. You cram it in. Shit, you’re hungry. You hope Abi’s okay. It might be that you’re going to have to buck her up. Boost her spirits. Because the chances are, all that Yab-Yum boogaloo abracadabra worked out to be was a great fuck. Chewing, you push open the door to the living room.

Abi is there.

Either you’re still high, and why wouldn’t you be? you only were out a couple of hours and the world’s still as unstable as a mirage, flocked with pinpricks of actinic light…either you’re high or else you’re still asleep and dreaming you’re awake, because what you see can’t be real, and yet you deal with it as if it is, you try and understand what’s happening.

Let’s say once again, metaphorically speaking, that time is a river, a green river consisting of separate and discernable currents, and that seven of these currents have pierced the walls of your living room, penetrating windows and walls, bookcases and doors, visible as six translucent scarves looping through the air, liquid spokes joined to a central scarf, which is much thicker than the rest, a column connecting ceiling to the floor. In sum, a vaguely treelike shape, an exotic anomaly among the thrift store furniture and cheap oriental rugs.