Rachel Swirsky

IF YOU WERE A DINOSAUR, MY LOVE

and Other Stories

Black, Red, White

On her wedding day

she is red and black and white:

cheeks flushed with desire,

dark hair spilling over bridal gown.

She sits before her mirror,

toasting the best man.

He smiles, tips scarlet tablets

into her ruby wine. “To celebrate,”

he says. He is the huntsman, dark

burning before her wild, confused brain.

Slashes, wails — now, he is dragging her

through black forests of lamp-posts

toward a white-walled hacienda,

skylights shining down on

alabaster vases, cement sculptures,

carpets pale as innocence.

Into her ear he whispers desire

for her secret, inevitable ruby

cut from her chest and stowed

in a box beneath his pillow.

Drugs distort his face:

huntsman, dwarf, neglectful father,

he could be any of the men who’ve trailed

black wounds across her soul.

Her prince was a mirage

dreamed between bloodthirsty men.

This story is red with her own blood.

To live it is to bleed.

He pulls away, drags her

to a bedroom lined with mirrors

glittering colorless

diamond facets like coffin walls.

She hallucinates witches

black in mirrored depths,

cackling at her and her and her and her

in a thousand refractions.

She is fairest of all.

She is white as diamond.

She hitches her wedding gown

and runs into the mirrors

to shatter the coffin

to slip into a tale

of beige and pink

and grey.

May 17, 2011

Decomposition

PART ONE: LIVING

New Year’s celebrations crashed through the streets of Whitcry in a din of masks and swirling petticoats. Pottery smashed against cobbles, women’s shouts echoed from garrets, men groaned and fought and pissed. Sour smells of alcohol and vomit mingled in chill air. Revelers danced through alleys, tripping over each other’s feet and smashing into walls, laughter constant beneath the chaos.

In its midst, Vare stood solitary and composed, leaning against a small but expensive townhouse. It was the kind of home owned by the kind of man who wanted others to believe that instead of squandering his wealth, he was using his privilege over the poor for some noble purpose, the kind of man who used the phrase “noblesse oblige” without a trace of irony.

The owner was Berrat deLath, known to those who’d fought beside him as Berrat the Just, again without a trace of irony.

Berrat was the scion of a merchant house who, as a young man, had set out to prove that despite his lack of title, he still epitomized the ideal of “nobility.” He’d funded his own division of the church’s army, the Eagles and Hares, and used his own resources to fund the investigation and cleansing of villainous dens where other men flouted church law.

One such den had been a large and prosperous magitorium in the nearby city of Bitterbite which trafficked in the mundane, if illegal, business of charms, as well as darker things. Vare had been a procurer for the magitorium, one of a few hundred men who earned status and riches by supplying the needs of the dozen mages who were too busy casting and carving to gather their own metals and blood.

And what had been the magitorium’s crimes? Child sacrifice, yes, but only rarely. Berrat decried the enslavement of innocents, but what did the church care about such things? They had their own workhouses.

On a bright summer’s day, the Eagles and Hares broke into the magitorium, killed everyone they found inside, pillaged the goods, and left the remains in fire. All the mages died. The only survivors were those in the magitorium’s employee who, by lucky chance, had happened to be away at the time, among them Vare.

In one stroke, Berrat “the Just” had deprived Vare of both his wealth and position, his two most valued possessions. In return, Vare looked forward to depriving Berrat of his. The plan was some ten years in the making.

On this crucial night, Vare wore a red leather half-mask, sculpted into a hawk’s beak. He was certain that no one—not even his adversary—could recognize him bare-faced these days; the past decade had sunken his skin and turned him wan. But caution paid, and Vare was a man of deliberation.

With his ear against the carved limestone and a listening charm beneath his tongue, he tracked the movements of those within the house. During his months-long reconnaissance, he’d kept careful account of how many servants worked in Berrat’s house, along with their usual schedules. A young maid and footman were supposed to stay the night indoors despite the holiday, but Vare was certain their youth would be all the distraction he needed. What young person could resist the call of the revelries outside?

Sure enough, within the hour, he heard the careful footsteps that marked the servants’ departure. His enemy’s house was empty but for the girls upstairs—and soon, for him.

With the aid of a peppery balance charm, he scaled the wall in anonymity as, below, a pair of drunken sluts braced themselves against the wall where he’d been standing. He reached the girls’ balcony, withdrew the key he’d pilfered three days ago from the cook’s spare apron, and slid it silently into the lock. The doors clicked open and he was inside.

Life is a strange balance. Consciousness believes it controls the body, but even when the waking mind is numbed by sleep, the body remembers to salivate and digest and perspire. Its heart beats. It inhales. When exposed to the light, its pupils dilate or contract as appropriate.

Berrat’s girls lay side by side on their single mattress. Pale hands and faces emerged from their blankets. A candle nub burned on a bedside table–no doubt to comfort the girls against night terrors–though, of course, it was only the demons of childhood that could be vanquished with a little light.

Their eyelids fluttered with their dreams. Their chests rose and fell with the steady intake and exhalation of their breaths. Their stomachs churned to finish digesting their holiday desserts; their mouths produced saliva to lubricate their tongues. Their bodies functioned harmoniously, flawlessly. Two perfect girls.

Slipped beneath their tongues, poison charms spelled silent death into their bodies. First the older one, Delira, and then the younger one, Ayl. The older never even woke. The younger gasped and tried to scream, but magic silenced her. She clutched her throat, wide and terrified eyes fixed on Vare. He admired Ayl for the hate in her gaze, but he loved her fear more. It was a delicate and delicious morsel. It was the sweetness of penultimate satisfaction, both delightful in its own right, and thrilling with promise.

Ayl’s struggles weakened, though the hate in her eyes did not. A moment later, she died, and Vare achieved his ultimate satisfaction.

He stood back to admire them. Their cheeks held a rosy bloom even as they grew cold. Ayl’s angry eyes remained open. Delira lay contorted as if caught in a nightmare, dead fingers stretching out for comfort.

Lightly, Vare touched Delira’s lips. He traced delicate curves, soft beneath his fingers. He drew back the blanket and saw the rest of her, all curves and new womanhood. An expensive mix of floral perfumes scented her skin: jasmine and lilac and lavender.

He withdrew the blanket further and examined the juts and angles of boyish, bony Ayl. She would never flower as her sister had done, was cut off forever from the softening of womanhood. She smelled like the childhood that kept her: like a skinned knee, soil and exertion with a hint of blood beneath.

His enemy’s two dead girls. Vare had never seen anything so beautiful.

He rolled them off the bed, thunk onto the floor, and stripped a blanket off the mattress. He wrapped it around the two corpses, swaddling them together as if they were a single babe. With rope he’d brought for this purpose, he bound the bundle together and strapped it to his back.

His spine hurt with the good, dead weight of them. Bent, he shuffled to the door and down the stairs, biting a burn-you charm in case a servant should return early and discover them. No one came and he escaped into the darkness, one more reveler, though carrying an odd, heavy load.

PART TWO: FRESH

Once outside the city gates, Vare had planned to deposit the girls in some lonely place where wild animals would devour them before they could receive a decent burial. But in the morning, as he bowed beneath their bodies, he found himself unwilling to part with them.

Each ounce of their weight upon his back gave him a thrill of rich, red pleasure, the kind he’d never thought he’d feel again. Ayl’s bony elbows jutted into his shoulder blades. The uneven pressure of Delira’s curves created a jigsaw of pain across his back.

Their deaths had been his life’s obsession; their corpses were his prize.

He carried them out of the villages that surrounded wealthy Whitcry and onto the plains. Rosy-cheeked do-gooders, seeing an old, sunken man bent beneath his load, stopped to offer help. Vare grinned as he watched them discern the shapes in his pack, their internal arguments written on their faces: “Is that—? It couldn’t be—A sweet old man—”

“My daughters,” he’d lie with a terrible grin. ‘Dead of the plague.”

The word plague filled their eyes with alarm; shuddering with horror, they’d stumble back and flee. Their terror was almost as savory as the sweet rot of his girls’ flesh.

As the sky turned from navy to black, Vare crossed away from the road, cutting across fields to find a small, sheltered niche where he could set down his pack. He untied and unrolled the blanket, revealing Ayl and Delira lying side by side just as they had in their father’s house.

Blood pooled in their limbs, leaving their faces an ethereal blue. Rigor held their arms by their sides, their fingers curled as if reaching for something they’d never grasp. Blisters rose across Delira’s neck and face. Vare waved away the flesh flies that swarmed toward the girls’ scent, looking for places to lay their eggs.

He pressed his lips against first one mouth and then the other. Their lips were soft but cold. “Goodnight, my lovely,” he said to each, brushing his fingers across chilled cheeks.

He could have done more, but there was no need. Their bodies were already giving up their secrets to him. He would be there to watch as their flesh softened and broke down. He’d peel them back, layer by layer, revealing their viscera, and below that, their stark, delicate skeletons. They had no coffins to preserve their maidenly modesty. Throat and heart and stomach, they were all his.

He lay between them and prepared to sleep, one arm wrapped around each dead girl’s shoulders.

PART THREE: BLOAT

Compared to noisy and colorful Whitcry, Houndsmouth was drab and soundless. The effects of countryside famines echoed through the city. Refugees crammed the slums, bringing filth and disease. As more mouths competed for the city’s depleted food supply, paupers fought bloodily in the streets, clawing each other for coins and scraps. The losers starved, eyes huge in their desiccated faces.

For several years, Vare had rented a decaying manor house in what had once been a wealthy part of the city. Now the building faced tenements and the river view which had once distinguished its location looked down on one of the most polluted bends in the city, choked with trash and starved corpses.

When he arrived at the once-grand façade, Vare pushed through the creaking doors and slung his package onto the parlor floor.

Hearing his arrival, his housekeeper rushed in. She balked at the parlor entryway, clapping her hand over her nose to protect herself from the stench. Horrified eyes tried to discern what in the hells Vare had brought home with him, but the girl knew him well enough to still her tongue.

She saw the package’s contents soon enough as Vare unwrapped the girls and demanded the housekeeper’s help shifting them. Ayl went onto a threadbare daybed. Delira lay across the thinning velvet of a loveseat, still-growing mahogany curls draping over the arm.

The housekeeper spoke hesitantly. “Should I fix them a room…?”

Vare looked the girl in the eye. She was forgettable, broad-faced and middle-aged. Drab, blondish hair fell out of her bun and across her face. Worried hands clenched at her sides. She’d been in his employ for years—the last of a small group of worn-out servants he’d found cowering near the burned-out magitorium—but he didn’t remember her name. Her face recalled a vague memory of what she’d been like ten years ago as a maid, younger but equally anxious, always scouring and scurrying.

“I haven’t decided yet,” Vare said.

“They won’t be… I mean, how long do you think they’ll…” The girl choked down vomit. “They aren’t moving in, are they, sir?”

“For now, of course they are.”

Vare sat on the loveseat, settling lovely Delira’s legs across his lap. Flowery perfume still hung on her skin, blending sickly with the rot.

“Some brandy,” Vare demanded. As the housekeeper turned to go, he added, “And hot milk for the girls,” just to watch the frightened hitch in her step as she hurried from the room.

Ah, at last, relaxed at home and alone with his girls. Vare stroked Delira’s plump calves. Their cold stole the heat from his palms.

Day by day, since their deaths, his girls had continued to change. It was as if their bodies remembered that they needed to rush toward womanhood, but since the girls had lost the warmth of life, they’d also lost their way. They felt the urgency of metamorphosis, but each transformation away from girlhood led them toward something very different from their original destination.

Their bloated stomachs pushed, bulbous, against their nightdresses. The effect was much more pronounced on skinny Ayl’s frame; she looked as if she was pregnant, ready to give birth to whatever horrors grow inside dead girls. Their mouths frothed. Strange liquids oozed from their noses, their anuses, and any other orifices from which they could escape. Grey, veined flesh resembled marble.

How perplexing, the matter of what to do with these hard-worn trophies. Display them? Perhaps. He could have them stuffed and mounted. In any guise he liked. As servants… as prisoners… as whores, all painted and teasing… Or perhaps he should leave them as they were, rosy and innocent, swaddled in lace and white linen, to emphasize what he’d stolen.

No, the idea seemed—like taxidermy itself—too contrived.

He needed something else. Something clever and unique. Something suitable for his girls.

PART FOUR: LARVAE

Late at night, Lano arrived, knocking, at Vare’s manor house. The housekeeper opened the door but refused to admit him, not knowing whether her master would want a visitor to see the two corpses, still sitting in the parlor.

Vare, roused by the knocking, descended the stairs in his nightclothes. When he saw Lano, he smiled. They’d known each other a long time, since before the sacking at the magitarium. They’d been unfriendly then, but now that they both belonged to the tiny fellowship of survivors, their interests had come into alignment, bringing friendship along with them.

Vare shooed the girl out of the entranceway and led Lano inside.

“I saw you were back,” Lano said, doffing his coat.

Vare clapped his old friend on the back. “Good to see you. Are you overrun with famine rats?”

Lano straightened his collar. “My cook sweeps them off the porch in the morning.” He glanced at the housekeeper, who stood on the threshold between the parlor and the adjacent hallway leading to the kitchen, waiting to see if they had an order. “Sad though, isn’t it? Watching the children go off into the gutters to die? I have to keep an eye on the larder or the servants would throw half of it to the brats and then we’d all be starving.”

The housekeeper paled but said nothing. Vare eyed her, mentally noting the need to revisit this conversation with her later to make sure that if she had been stealing from him, she would never do so again.

Now was not the time. “Is standing here the best you have to do?” Vare snapped.

Silently, the housekeeper bustled toward her tasks.

Lano strolled further into the parlor, surveying the broken mantel and hard-worn furniture. The room had been grand at one time, but now most of its floor-space lay empty, only an island by the door populated with the ruined remains of the home’s former elegance.

Lano was a tall man, the kind who always walked with a self-conscious hunch that worked to his advantage; it nudged people into underestimating him. Pulled to his full height, he looked like a line drawn crookedly on a page, spindly and precarious on slightly malformed legs.

He looked down at Delira in repose and then walked over to Ayl. “Famine rats?”

Vare grinned. “Look closer.”

Bending nearly in half so that he could reach the skinny girl, Lano pried Ayl’s clenched fingers apart. Even in their current state, the girl’s hands were unmistakably smooth and callous-free, a rich girl’s hands. Lano looked up with a query on his face.

Vare’s grin widened. “Berrat’s brats. Both of them.”

Awe brushed Lano’s voice. “You did it.”

He turned back to regard the girls again. He moved toward Delira and swept the mahogany curls away from her cheeks so that he could see her eyes, those same grey eyes that stared out of Berrat’s face in the portraits that hung in every church in the city.

“I don’t believe it,” Lano said.

“They’re mine now,” Vare answered.

“Why did you bring them back?”

“For proof!” It wasn’t the truth, or not the whole of it, but Lano seemed to accept the answer.

Lano stroked Delira from forehead to throat. Her skin moved beneath his hand, loosened by insects that lived within.

He’d been a powerful man once, Lano. He’d kept the books for the mages, his finger on the pulse of the money flowing in and out, much of it into his own pockets. He’d been at the center of a vast network of underground activity. Money-man to money-man, he’d coordinated the exchanges between magitoriums. He’d sat to dinner with dukes, been rewarded by queens, all for slipping the right charm between the right lips for the right price.

How reduced he looked in his shabby shirtsleeves, touching the face of a girl he could once have bought and sold.

“What are you going to do with them?” Lano asked.

“I haven’t decided,” Vare said.

Lano tugged his collar. “The famine rats are in everything. They fight and steal. The duke’s men are strung thin keeping them from killing us all. There’s no one to stop us trading more than minor spells.”

Vare raised his brows.

“Rusk has a shop set up on Headrow,” Lano continued.

Vare considered. “He has something for corpses?”

“He has something for everything.”

PART FIVE: MAGGOTS

Rusk’s shop was barely a few feet square. It stank of vomit, sweat, and sawdust. Probably, the space had once been the back room of some tavern where sluts took patrons who had a few extra coins.

Rusk sat on a three-legged stool, jammed in the back corner, boxes piled at his feet. Metal fragments glistened, an array of springs and tools and other things that would be completely useless if one didn’t know how to assemble them. He looked the same as he always had, short and somewhat fat, wearing an expensive suit of clothes that had been worn past repair. His fur collar looked like it wanted to strangle him.

Rusk had been the magitorium’s mechanic, preparing mage-rendered goods for use by public hands. These days, he played both mechanic and merchant, treading carefully through the shadowy stalls of the black marketplace.

He raised his hand to greet Lano and then looked at Vare with surprise. “You’re back! You whore’s son!” He got to his feet to hug his friend, but halted when he saw the wheelbarrow at Vare’s feet.  He leaned toward the strange, lumpy bundle. Gagging, he covered his nose. “The hells?”

In answer, Vare stooped to lift out the still-wrapped girls, Lano bending to assist. He unloaded them on the floor and began untying the ropes. “You won’t guess who they are,” he said.

Rusk leaned even closer, still holding his nose, and watched as Delira’s arm flopped out of the bundle. He grabbed her shoulder and tugged her free of the blanket. Her flesh made strange noises under his grip, threatened to slide off like cooked turkey skin. Mahogany curls fell aside and Rusk saw the grey eyes.

“Berrat’s!” Rusk exclaimed. “No! Both of them?”

Vare freed Ayl’s hand from the blanket so that she lay beside her sister. “Assuredly.”

“You whore’s son!” Rusk repeated. “How did you do it?”

Lano’s face mirrored Rusk’s curiosity, for in the fuss of discovering the girls and helping Vare move them, he hadn’t had a chance to ask the question himself.

Vare recounted the tale of his past ten years, including the parts to which Rusk and Lano had been witness. Rusk had provided (at cost) the mage-charms that kept Vare safe in Whitcry, and Lano had pulled his connections’ strings until he found a forger that could get Vare into the city without being questioned. The two of them sat patiently through the familiar parts of the tale, knowing that they led to the reward, the details of how Vare had infiltrated Berrat’s household, how he’d delivered the poison, and how the girls died.

“Did you see him?” Lano asked, meaning Berrat.

“From a distance.”

Lano looked disappointed.

“He might have recognized me,” Vare explained.

Lano’s brows drew down as if he didn’t believe that was the reason. In part, he was right; Vare looked so little like the man he’d been ten years ago that it was hard to believe anyone, even Berrat, would recognize him now. Perhaps it was cowardice that had kept him in the shadows, masked and silent. But still, wasn’t that why Vare had succeeded where others had failed? He hadn’t risked the thrill of seeing Berrat face to face, and unlike anyone else, he had managed to carry out his plan.

Rusk broke the uncomfortable pause. “Berrat must be bellowing. Tearing out his hair. Any news from Whitcry on how his holiness is taking it?”

Both Rusk and Vare looked to Lano whose connections made him most likely to know. The tall man shrugged his hunched shoulders.

“Ah well,” Rusk said. “He must be devastated. Any man would be. Let’s look at the beauties then, shall we?”

He pulled on a glove and began to examine Ayl. The skinny girl’s blonde hair was loose on her scalp. Where Rusk tugged, a clump threatened to come out entirely. He pried open her jaw. Fat, yellow maggots wriggled in froth that had once been saliva.

Lano turned toward the corner and retched. Rusk made a derisive noise; the mechanic had always indulged a disdain for those who gave in to fear or disgust.

“I have a pair of charms,” Rusk said. “Powerful ones. I got them in trade for an unpaid bill.”

He rapped his fingertip against Ayl’s nose, stretching the suspenseful moment.

Vare grimaced. “Out with it, then.”

Rusk lifted his hand and pulled off his glove. He examined his fingernails with mock fascination. The man would take his own damn time; he always did.

“The charm animates the body in lifelike animation. Moves it around. Like a marionette. They walk. They talk.” Slipping the glove back on, he paused to close Ayl’s right eye. “They flutter their lashes.”

“I don’t want to bring them back to life,” Vare protested.

“Lifelike imitation,” Rusk repeated. “Get them upright and send them back to Berrat. A dilemma for his holiness. Will the grieving father kill his daughters all over again? Or will he let them live as monsters?”

Lano broke in. “Will the charm do anything about the…” He gestured toward the girls’ decaying flesh.

Rusk shrugged. “Superficially.”

Vare considered. The girls’ decomposition had given him a great deal of pleasure, but the chance to revenge himself on Berrat all over again—this was what he’d been seeking, something vicious and rare.

“The best part is the question of what happens to their souls while their bodies are walking and talking. Does the soul get caught? Half here, half there? What will his holiness do about that?” Rusk snorted. “Make the gods-licker shove the church up his own ass, that’s what I say.”

Vare looked down at Ayl’s winking corpse.

“Yes,” he said. “It sounds just the thing.”

PART SIX: ACTIVE DECAY

They woke with bright, blank eyes.

It was strange seeing them restored to smoothness. Their cheeks remained pale, but the flesh was firm again, resolutely attached to the tissue below.

The housekeeper was sent out with instructions. When she returned, the girls were dressed in froths of white lace. Only the colors of their accessories set them apart: touches of green matched Ayl’s eyes, and touches of pink hinted at Delira’s nascent womanhood.

They sat, prim and proper, on the velvet loveseat, which still held the scent of Delira’s decay.

“There you go, girls.” Vare handed them a chased-silver hand mirror. “What do you think?”

Ayl gave herself barely a glance, but Delira looked lingeringly at how her curls swept under her hat and the way her bodice flattered her neckline.

“The gloves are too tight.” Ayl tugged at the mother-of-pearl clasps.

Delira swatted her lightly. “Be kind. Say thank you.” Delira set the mirror down on the table. Nodding toward Vare, she said, “Thank you.”

“Thank you, papa,” Vare corrected.

Ayl frowned, but Delira repeated, “Thank you, papa.”

Ayl had not capitulated, but this could be remedied later. Vare perched on the edge of the daybed and leaned toward the girls. “Do you remember yourselves?” he asked. “Anything from before?”

Delira paused. Her eyes clouded as if she were staring at a shape she couldn’t discern. “My name is Delira.”

“Yes, yes,” Vare said, “but do you remember anything?”

Delira’s tone was wistful. “No…”

“There was a shop,” Ayl said. “Then we came here.”

Vare gestured excitedly. Their amnesia was perfect. It made them moldable, perfectible. His girls.

He got to his feet and began pacing the room. His words came out in a rush. “There was a man, you see. Your father. Berrat. He kept you in his house. He tortured you.” Vare made a noise of disgust. “Terrible, terrible things. They don’t bear repeating. The important thing is I rescued you. Me, you understand? I snuck into your father’s house and pulled you out. No one else would have done it.”

Delira put her hand to her collarbone. “It certainly sounds like it required great fortitude.”

“So you see,” Vare continued, “You must stay with me. Your father is a bad man. A devil. You’re lucky to have me.”

“I should say so,” said Delira. Still distracted by her glove, Ayl fretted at the calfskin and said nothing.

Vare leaned in to kiss Delira’s cheek and then Ayl’s. As he did so, he realized he’d never send them back to Berrat. Not ever. “The Just” man didn’t deserve them, even dead. Wasn’t it crueler this way? To hold their souls hostage?

But Vare needed to look at them. To look at his girls. Just for a moment.

“Now hold still,” he told them. “This may be unpleasant, but it will be over in a moment.”

He reached into their mouths–in tandem so as not to scare them–and pulled the charms out from under their tongues.

There. There they were. Maggots in frenzy, beneath their skins, in their mouths, in their anuses. Flesh oozing strange fluids. His girls.

He slipped the charms back into their mouths and they were fleshed again. Ayl looked put out, bored as any child forced to sit in a parlor wearing scratchy clothes. Delira sat with her hands folded in her lap, demure as anything.

Vare patted Ayl’s shoulder. “Go upstairs. Go play. I’ll send the housekeeper with milk.”

PART SEVEN: LIQUEFACTION

By day, he took them strolling in the park with their parasols. Ayl wore a bathing gown and dangled her feet in the river. Delira sat politely on a blanket, attracting the gazes of young men. Vare enjoyed watching them watch her, imagining the expressions on their smug faces should they ever have the opportunity to kiss her sweet lips and pull out her charm with their tongues.

He took them to fancy dinners, one on each arm, and tucked them in at night with bedtime stories.

It had come to the point where even he could barely stand to be with them when he removed their charms. What had once been a trickle of strange liquids was now a veritable flood. Their stench was such that he could not inhale without feeling faint, the remnants of his last meal hot in his throat. He wore a scarf over his mouth and inhaled deeply before he pulled the charms free and often replaced them before he was forced to inhale again.

One morning, as Vare went out to hire a carriage to take the girls shopping, he was taken aback when he saw Lano and Rusk heading toward the manor house, expressions dour. He began a cordial greeting, but their scowls put him in a foul mood. Instead, he spoke abruptly. “What do you want?”

“We need to talk,” Rusk said.

Lano slipped his hands into his coat pockets and nodded.

Reluctantly, Vare admitted them to the parlor. He sent the girls upstairs and gestured for his guests to take the loveseat. Vare did not sit himself, but rather leaned against the mantel, enjoying the advantage of height.

Rusk leaned back against the cushions, opting for insouciance if he couldn’t manage intimidation. Lano, clearly more nervous, sat with his knees jammed up to his chest, too tall for the modestly proportioned furniture.

“You said you’d send them back to Berrat,” Lano blurted.

Vare feigned nonchalance. “I changed my mind.”

“You’re parading them around town! Everyone can see them. Someone will find out who they are eventually. They’ll trace them back here and then trace you back to us. I stayed the hells out of prison after they destroyed the magitorium. I’m not going now.”

Vare let Lano run his speech into silence. He allowed the following pause to grow while he considered his reply, but Rusk was the first to speak.

In a slow, even tone, Rusk said, “You’re a fool.”

Vare couldn’t mask his indignation. “Pardon?”

“You plotted against Berrat for ten years,” Rusk said. “You got away with it. Now you’re going to get yourself caught? For what?”

“Look,” Vare said, abandoning his pose by the mantel to approach the other men. “You’re right. Berrat will come eventually. And what will he see? His daughters, his horrors, living their semi-life with me. Two virgin girls and an ‘evil’ man. What do you imagine he’ll think?”

Lano looked like he was going to choke. “You haven’t.”

“No. But if you were Berrat, would you believe it?”

The answer didn’t assuage Lano’s disgust. “You’ll get us caught,” he repeated plaintively.

At the sound of footsteps on the stair, Vare looked up and saw Ayl, dressed in a green day gown, one hand on the railing as she stared down at the parlor.

Vare took the opportunity to move toward the door. “Gentlemen,” he said, pointing the way out.

They stood off in the entranceway, Lano and Rusk glaring at Vare while he glared back. They could all see the calculations written on each other’s faces. They knew too much about each other to be taken lightly. If one of them crossed another… With men like these and pride involved, any action could lead to mutual destruction. All three reached the same conclusion; it was safest to part on bad terms and avoid each other, for now.

A few days later, when Vare heard through other sources that Lano and Rusk had sold their belongings and left the city, he was not surprised.

He was surprised a few days after that when he woke to find that his housekeeper had also disappeared, taking the lion’s share of the larder with her. When Vare asked the girls if they’d seen anything, Delira confessed, “She was in our room last night, papa. She took out the charms, the way you do, and when we came back, she’d thrown up on the floor. She said she didn’t care about your threats, not anymore. She called you an abomination.”

Delira covered her mouth with one discreet gloved hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Whore,” Vare muttered, meaning the housekeeper. He’d kept his servants bound to him for years with threats detailing the charms in his possession. With the right charm under his tongue, he’d find the escaped harridan, wherever she’d tried to run.

He would—but perhaps after he took the girls to dinner. They ate roasted chicken and drank white wine. Afterward, they listened to a violinist by the river. On the way home, Delira fell asleep with her head on his shoulder. Life was too pleasant for Vare to bother with an old, menial shrew.

PART EIGHT: DRIED

In the morning, Delira led the way down the stairs, Ayl trailing behind. “Papa,” she said.

Vare looked up from his perch on the loveseat. He set down his brandy among the scattered glasses on the table, all used and filthy, much like the rest of the house now that the whore of a servant had fled.

“Yes, child?” Vare asked.

“We heard someone talking about our father,” Delira said, descending to the floor.

“About me?”

“About Berrat,” said Ayl.

“That maniac,” Vare said. “That devil.”

“They said he was a good man,” Delira continued. “A man of the church.”

Vare pulled her into his lap. She sat like a girl half her age, smiling innocently. Ayl waited silently behind them, her fingers on the edge of the loveseat, digging into the velvet.

“This is something you should learn,” Vare said. “Some men put on a good front for the world, but they’re evil in their hearts.”

Delira nodded. “Just so,” she said, as if she’d had more than a few scant months’ experience in the world.

A noise called Vare’s attention up to Ayl. Typically fidgety and bored, she’d begun to pull the charm from her mouth. For a moment, she flickered into corpse-form. Jagged bone fragments jutted like teeth through her dry, shrunken skin.

Delira screamed. She swung her arms around Vare’s neck, clinging for safety. He pushed her roughly aside as he reached for Ayl, shoving the charm back into her mouth.

Ayl was back, frowning at Vare’s harsh treatment. She moved out of his reach. “That hurt.”

“Never do that,” Vare said. “You hear me?”

Delira’s gaze dropped to the floor. She rubbed her arm where he’d pushed her. “Yes, papa,” she said.

Ayl said nothing. Vare chose to ignore her.

PART NINE: REMAINS

It was night when they came to him, all warm hands and loose, white gowns. Eyes shone in the near-dark, Ayl’s green and Delira’s grey. Fingertips ran up Vare’s spine. He felt his skin heating. His girls. That which had been a whispering breeze began to howl. His girls.

“You shouldn’t,” he said, pushing them away. He meant it. He did not want them to be like that.

With only candlelight behind her, Ayl looked paler than she did during the day, and even more slight. The fingers that reached across Vare’s chest—his girls—were as narrow as sticks.

Ayl’s fingertips brushed against Delira’s mouth. Her lips parted, red and wide—his girls!—and Ayl reached inside.

“Stop!” shouted Vare, but it was too late, Ayl’s fingers had already slipped under Delira’s tongue, already withdrawn the charm. It glinted between Ayl’s fingers, polished with Delira’s spittle. Ayl smiled as Delira shrank into corpse-form. The dead girl didn’t smell any longer, was too dry and brittle for that. Her flesh had withered away, exposing the white branches of her skeleton, which lay over Vare’s lap like a strange blanket. Through his clothing, he could feel the contours of her vertebrae, her pelvis, her femurs. Her skull lay against his shoulder, empty nose nestled against his collar.

Despite the nettles creeping along Vare’s skin, it felt good, it felt right, holding his girl, his girl as she was, bare and bleached and defenseless.

Ayl stared down with hard, green eyes. “Why?” Vare asked.

“She wasn’t brave enough,” Ayl answered, charm still shining in her palm.

She was on Vare before he could react, her fingers prying open his jaws, her unnaturally strong body pinning him in place even as he flailed, her dead hand impervious to the pain of his biting as she lifted his tongue and thrust the metal beneath it.

Sweet like cinnamon. Stinging. And then a strange shift. A malformation.

He wasn’t himself anymore, didn’t even remember what himself was. Memories gone, he sat slack, a blank figure, waiting for someone to tell him what to do.

The skinny girl in front of him took his hand. “Come on,” she said, handing him a coat. “Button up.”

He stood. Bones scattered to the floor.

“Where are we going?” he asked.

“To our father,” the girl said, pulling him forward. “To Berrat.”

May 1, 2012

The Crows and the Witches and the Window

I’m probably going to die

at midnight.

Don’t worry—

I’ll set the timer on the coffee pot

before I go.

The crows will be up with me

and the witches.

I’ll watch them through the window

and they’ll watch me back.

I’ll crack the window

so I can smell

stew simmering in cauldrons.

I’ll give some thought

to how it might taste—

boiled lizard eyes

& toad brains

& fingernails of newt.

You’ll be asleep

but that’s okay.

The crows will bob their heads

in time to your snoring.

This morning, a witch came to our door.

She didn’t seem gloating or gleeful

or even wicked.

Not much.

She had a card with my name on it.

She gave it to me.

She tipped her black hat

and went back down the drive.

We thought you might want to know,

the card said.

Don’t worry too much.

It happens to everyone.

Maybe the witch had cast

a calming spell on the card

because I’m not concerned

about dying.

I’m ready to settle in with the crows

and smell the boiling hummingbird’s feet.

I’m ready to leave you with a clean oven

and coffee ready in the pot.

I’ll miss you

but I suspect the crows

will keep us up to date.

They talk to the dead, I think.

They must be watching something

with those keen, staring eyes.

Oct 2, 2012

Thirteen

Jacob’s wife is always screaming: Cheat! Scoundrel! Layabout! Scrooge!

Jacob takes solace in the mausoleum. Girls there are quiet.

He finds a dead woman, worms in her mouth. They court, cavort.

Three dead fetuses swell her dead womb, born blue and silent.

Dead triplets nurse blood from Jacob’s nipples. Their mouths become ruby

studded with dagger-sharp pearls. As they decay,

Jacob fixes them with pieces of mama’s skeleton.

Her finger bones provide baby-sized vertebrae. Her left scapula

replaces a brain pan. Every part of mama is useful:

stomach acid kills maggots, hair sutures flesh. Soon, Mama’s gone.

Jacob packs corpse babies in his truck. His wife comes to the door.

Meet your new step-mother, kids. She stares—outraged, confused, then afraid—

as triplets rush to claim spare parts.

Oct 2, 2012

All That Fairy Tale Crap

I was supposed to go to the ball, but I spent the night licking out my stepsister instead.

Bethesda moaned and rustled mulberry silk high up her thighs. “There, there, no, faster, come on, faster, please…”

The friendly mice put out their eyes and ran out in trios to join a different fairy tale.

§

Never marry a prince when you can eat a pussy.

Never ride a pumpkin when you can steal cab fare.

Never wear a ball gown when you can slink in snakeskin pants.

Never listen to a fairy godmother.

§

Bethesda and I went clubbing. Everyone gave her the oddball eye for wearing ruffled silk with fucking puffy sleeves. I laughed back at all of them.

I seduced some refugee from the eighties who had a rainbow mohawk. Bethesda glared at us and bought herself two shots of tequila, one of which she threw in my face.

Well, what do you expect from an ugly girl?

I danced until the eighties mohawk guy got tired and went home, and then I danced until the bartender tried to close everyone out, and then I danced more until it was sunrise, and the bartender still hadn’t managed to get away because I was dancing with him, our eyes locked across the room, him swaying like a hypnotized snake to the flute of my body.

Outside, it was pink and gray over endless city. I chose a street at random.

§

“Eat my body,” said a house that belonged to a witch.

“Look at me,” said a mirror with a voice.

“Do you want some boots?” asked a man exchanging new shoes for old.

I pulled off my heels and traded them in for knee–high go–gos.

“You look very intelligent,” said the man. “I bet you could scam an ogre.”

I grinned and gave him a dollar I’d stolen off the bartender.

§

The heroes of fairy tales are straight. And skinny, too, so they’re straight and narrow.

People think this is because of heterosexism and beauty standards. It isn’t. Snow White takes a cock in her scrawny cunt because she can’t imagine how to be twisty.

§

You start out with three tools. You’re pretty. You have small feet. And you can do housework.

Now become a princess.

Go on. Laugh. Shatter glass class ceilings? Yeah, right. There’s a reason they call it the American dream. It ain’t gonna happen while you’re awake.

§

I find a hotel all lit up neon even though it’s half past five a.m. Slip inside because why not? A place still partying through dawn’s likely to have someone in it who’ll try to pick you up by buying breakfast and staring at your tits.

Inside, it’s all tattered chiffon streamers and tumbled confetti glitzing up the rug. Martini glasses are scattered on ottomans, couches, in the pots of fake rubber tree plants, half of them smashed to shiny bits.

And there: the prince. What the hell? Thought he was throwing a ball not a prom. But you can tell he’s the prince on account of the epaulettes. He’s tongue–spelunking down some girl’s throat. Grope, slip, grope, they change angle, and shit — that girl’s face! Sharp and blunt in all the wrong angles. Hell if it’s not my other stepsister, Griselda.

Suddenly, the prince’s hangover pall goes from jaundice to chartreuse. His abdomen clenches. Then comes the retching. Griselda can’t jump back fast enough. He spews puce chunks of half–digested pâté all down her mint green frills.

She shoves him off — “Fuck! You got some in my mouth!”

But he can’t hear because he’s slammed on the floor, passed out like a pine board.

Griselda gives me the stink–eye when I go over to help which I can’t blame since I’m the one who just last night threw her over for her sister. But when I turn over His Blotto Majesty so I can rifle through his pockets, one of his epaulettes falls off, and underneath there’s a label for a costume shop on 44th.

“Fuck!” Griselda shouts. “A fucking fake!”

Her rant zooms off and I’d kiss her to shut her up except for the vomit.

“You’re uglier when you’re angry,” I say.

“Bitch. Where’s my sister?”

“Jealous snit. Stormed off.”

“You’re an entitled little slut, Cinderella.”

“You want this guy’s wallet or not?”

Griselda sets her mouth in an ugly snarl. Hard to describe the kind of ugly she and Bethesda’ve got. Everything in the right place, technically, but goes together nine kinds of wrong.

She stays all frozen grimace — can’t say no, won’t admit yes — till I take mercy and throw his billfold at her. He brought enough to play prince for another couple hours. Won’t set her up for life, but it’s not nothing. She glares at me as she rifles bills with her thumb.

“You’re still a bitch, Cinderella,” she says, but her bark is out of bite.

§

There’s this thing happens when you’re growing up, narrative an anvil on your shoulders, when you know you’re supposed to pull yourself up by the bootstraps of your Lucite stripper heels. And that thing is: you cease to give a fuck.

Worse when everyone and her hairy–legged sister’s busy telling you what it is you mean. Smashing you with a hammer and turning the bits into symbols, grabbing a ballpoint and writing you into a hundred ink–stained girls in diamond ball gowns screaming bra–burning opposition to becoming passive, powerless, pampered princesses.

And what’s wrong with pampering? Sounds good to me. Better than wearing the daily jewels of five–fingered bruises bestowed by the cunt who calls herself mother. Better than inhaling bleach and ammonia every morning while you’re on your hands and knees scrubbing other people’s muck.

Better than the taste of coal, the real taste of it, when the char’s gone deep in your tongue, scorched every bud, turned all that supposed–to–be–pink into scalding black. After that, there’s nothing doesn’t taste of burning.

I tell you: when the whole world is charcoal, you take whatever bullshit they’re serving because even shit sandwiches are better than fire.

§

Deeper in the lobby, there’s a she–bear sitting on a loveseat. You can tell it’s a she–bear because she’s wearing a ruffled apron.

Beside her, there’s a passed out girl. Like last night’s champagne, she’s gone flat. Tongue lolls; limbs sprawl; hope she had a ball ’cuz today’s gonna be a long–ass haul.

She–bear opens her paw. Inside, there’s a tiny tea cup — on second thought, not tiny; her paw’s just enormous. Silver tray on the ottoman in front of her, bone–delicate porcelain tea service painted with pastel roses. She raises the cup to her snout and, I swear, her fucking pinky claw is raised.

“What are you at the ball for?” I ask. “You someone’s dancing bear?”

I shove the flat–champagne girl onto the floor and take her place. Girl grunt–snores as she tumbles onto the rug, golden ringlets flipping over her face.

She–bear rumbles disapprovingly at my incivility but won’t be rude in return. Gestures with her free paw to the other cups on the tray.

There are three. Obviously.

I grab the hot one and pour it down my throat. Hiss of steam as it hits my lips. Saliva boils. Flame sears down my gullet.

Like anything’s so hot I can’t take it.

I open my mouth so she can see the skin bubbling on my tongue. “Juuuuuust right.”

Her nose twitches with amusement. She sets down her just–so cup and grabs the oh–so–cold one. One long swallow and when she opens her mouth again, icicles glisten on her fangs. Her frozen exhalation blasts my face like frostbite.

“All right,” I say. “I grant you. That was mucho macho.”

She runs her tongue across her fangs to lick off the ice, regards me with an impatient what–do–you–want stare.

“It’s paper–thin. That’s what gets me. It’s always paper–thin. Was to start with. Well, I guess it was voice–thin then. Oral–tradition–thin. There you are, you’re an archetype, and you get to marry a prince who doesn’t even have a name, and does either of you exist at all? Or are you just epaulettes and glass slippers? Not even good costumes. Oh, what the hell do you know anyway? You’re a bear who doesn’t even have to shit in the woods.”

Her teacup slams against the tray. Reverberation sends the dishes crashing into each other. I startle–leap back, but much as I want to, I can’t run; I’m transfixed by the smoldering black glare. Her maw gapes open. This time, I’m not fooled by the flowers and ruffles. Those fangs can bite down on cucumber sandwiches, sure, but they can also tear out a moose’s throat, seize a salmon straight out of the river.

Glass rings as her growl crescendos.

She says, “You shouldn’t make assumptions.”

I shiver. “I didn’t know you could speak.”

“Let me give you some advice.” She leans closer, snout foreshortened in my vision, breath a humid mix of rotten meat and blueberry scones. “Female to female. From someone who’s been in the world longer than you have. Who’s borne a cub and met a thief and slept howling winters into spring.”

I rub the goosebumps on my forearms. Her ursine stare is all crags and glaciers and white water rapids.

Along the back of my neck, where the hairs are raised, I feel a sting — not just of fear, but of hope. Maybe she has the answers to questions I don’t even know how to ask.

Levelly, she stares at me. “You look stupid in go–go boots.”

§

Here’s the thing:

You can’t win.

You can’t win if you’re a princess. You can’t win if you rescue the prince. You can’t win if you cross–dress and become the royal huntsman. And heaven forbid you try to slip into another fairy tale by pricking yourself with a spindle — in the real world, the only thing a spindly prick gets you is up the duff.

No one else is doing better. The mice always wondering if they’re supposed to walk on two legs. The prince so vapid he can only recognize the chick he’s fallen in love with by her shoe size. Your poor, ugly stepsisters who half the time are hobbling on chopped–up feet.

Animators can come in with fake smiles and truckloads of bleach and Zip–a–Zee–Do–Dah away the blood and eye–pecking birds. Post–modern lit grads in ironic t–shirts can tear you up and stitch you into Frankenstein’s femme fatale.

Still there are a thousand girls resting their heads on fireplace stones. Still a thousand streaked with ash and spit.

Still a million going to sleep each night with the knowledge that no one gives a fuck whether or not they wake up.

§

Little cinder girls, we’re raised in fire.

Either you melt and become the simpering thing you’re supposed to.

Or else you temper into something calloused and unbreakable.

§

Ditched the hotel to search for Griselda. Was hoping I could wheedle a cut of the cash, but before I can chase her down, someone’s grabbing my arm and dragging me down the sidewalk, and she–bear is right, I am stupid to be wearing go–go boots because if I’d chosen something else — something with steel toes maybe — I could kick this fucker in the shins and get away.

Instead, I’m shoved into a swarm of people. My assailant shouts, “What about this one?”

More people grab my arms. There are women in black sheath dresses and pink pearls, and men in ponchos and eyeliner, all talking rapidly over each other. “Could be the one! Could be her! She could work!” Hands push me down onto one of those folding chairs people take camping, and there’s some guy at my feet —

Oh, look. Epaulettes again.

Gently, he tugs on my left go–go boot. Leather slips down my calf. His tongue brushes the side of his mouth as he pulls, slow–as–slow. He pants, quick and shallow. Saliva pools in the corner of his mouth. His lids lower with creepy–ass pleasure as my heel pops free. He reveals my arch and then my toes. His index finger traces my sole. “Mmmmmm.”

Whole crowd’s eyes on my bare foot. The prince’s eyes. The eyeliner–and–pearls attendants’ eyes. The eyes of the encircling ranks of morning commuters in business casual who cinch in closer so they can get a better ogle.

The prince passes off the go–go boot, and holds out his hand, impatiently. Sheath–dresses and ponchos confer. “Blue doeskin?” suggests one.

“Blue doeskin!” shout the others. “Blue doeskin!”

A ponchoed ponce presents a shoebox. Sweeps off the lid with a flourish. “Blue doeskin!”

Prince lifts out a four–inch sling–back heel. “Doeskin. Mmm.”

He leans forward to slide the shoe onto my foot. I surprise him with a kick to the stomach.

He doubles over. The pearls–and–eyeliner people flutter their hands in alarm. “Five–bow wedges?” “Studded cowboy boots?” “Gladiator sandals?”

I lurch to standing, awkward with one foot bare and the other go–go heeled, and grab Prince Droolface by the collar. “I always figured a fucker that obsessed with shoe size had to be a fetishist. Look, fine by me, okay? You want me to wear stilettos and walk your spine like a runway? Skippy. But first you tell me what you’re offering in exchange.”

He sputters. I grab one of his epaulettes.

Patty’s Party World. ’Nother fucking fake.

§

It’s all so clear the day before you’re supposed to go to the ball.

Walk away and they can’t make a real Cinderella out of you.

But once you’ve washed the taste of your stepsister’s pussy out of your mouth with a tequila shot… What then?

Now you’re hungover, and your eyes are bloodshot, and you haven’t slept in thirty–six hours — and still, everything you do is heading toward some kind of meaning.

All you wanted to do was run off so you could say, “Her? That’s not me. I’m someone different.”

But Cinderella’s still the center. Everything you do is bound to what she did. You’re her marginalia. You’re the commentary on her body of work.

Everything you do is going to be read in relation to her. You can’t ever really be your own.

§

I’m still running — well, hobbling, given the one–shoe thing — away from Creepy–Ass McFootFetishist when suddenly I spot Griselda. She’s sitting on the curb, taking coins out of the wallet once possessed by Faux Prince #1, and flipping them one by one into the gutter. They make a lonely ringing sound as they clang into the sewers.

I pause, wondering if I should set myself up with a catcher’s mitt — because wasting cash? What? — when shifting clouds change the light, and my shadow tumbles over Griselda.

She looks up. Tears streak her ugly face.

“Oh,” she says, looking sadly back toward the gutter. “You.”

“Uh. Hi.”

A big coin that looks like it might be a Susie B. clamors its way down.

“Could you stop that?” I say.

Her face snarls up. She pulls out a fistful of change and it looks like she’s going to throw it all in the gutter at once, but then she turns and hurls it in my face.

“Take it then!” she shouts.

“Um,” I say.

I can’t help glancing at the passersby who are now giving the crazy chicks wide berth. For dignity’s sake, I probably shouldn’t bend ass to collect a few dollars in change, but I pull off my second go–go anyway and start scooping quarters into it.

Griselda grunts disgustedly. “He wasn’t even a real prince. I let him feel me up and everything. And he wasn’t even a real prince.”

She bares her teeth.

“Should have known,” she says. “Thought maybe I could get some royal nookie even if you got the veil. But no. With you around, everything’s fake.”

She throws the wallet smack at my chest. It hits me then bounces to the ground. I bend down to get it. When I stand back up, she’s gone.

§

You’re an astute reader. So let’s cut the bullshit. You’ve read enough metafiction to think you know where I’m going. And you probably do know because basically what I’ve been saying this whole time is that everything that happens from here is going to fall into one category of commentary or another.

You’ve probably become aware that I’m not exactly Cinderella. I’m not bricked up behind the fourth wall, but I’m not driving the bulldozer either… I’m going to go with the charitable angle and call my identity complex. But I won’t argue if you want to call it confused, ill–defined, or pretentious bullshit.

For the purposes of this story, you may consider me to be any one of the following, or any combination thereof. Feel free to switch up at any time.

• Cinderella

• The metafictional compilation of Cinderellas

• A prop for anachronistic jokes

• A stand–in for the author

• The pissed off ghost of the chick who told her story to some asshats named Grimm

• A caterpillar with sixteen feet wearing sixteen glass slippers, dreaming of smashing its cocoon and metamorphosing into the black hole that will devour the universe

§

Not sure if wandering the streets is such a good idea given my luck so far, but I keep pounding the pavement anyway, walking barefoot, with the wallet in one hand and the coin–filled go–go boot in the other.

Come upon a dried–up patch of grass trying to pass as a park. Asleep on a bench, there’s Bethesda. Mulberry skirt torn into a mini that makes her legs look uglier than usual.

“Hey,” I say, looming.

She wakes up. Her breath smells like the bear’s but without the trace of sweet. “Shit.” She rubs her eyes to get a bleary look at me. “I should slap you.”

“Yeah. But you won’t.”

“Nah,” she agrees.

That’s the central difference between Bethesda and Griselda. Piss off Griz and she’ll punch a motherfucker. Beth runs hot for an hour or two but can’t keep grudging.

She presses her hand against her head and moans. “The fuck did you let me drink so much?”

“I’m not your mother.”

“Fuck my mother. Where’s Griz?”

“Sulking because she made out with some dude who wasn’t a prince.”

“Fuck her too, then. But not like I fucked you.”

“Speaking of,” I say, “That’s over. No offense. Was just a one–time kind of thing.”

“Figured. After mohawk guy.” She shrugs. It turns into a full–out stretch. “So what the hell’re you going to do now?”

“Been thinking about that.”

“And?”

“Not coming up with much.”

“What happened to your shoes?”

“Sold ’em for some boots.” I lift my change purse cum go–go. “Then lost one.”

“So you’re a streetwalker who can’t even keep her heels on.”

“And you’re a recently dumped, hungover ugly chick wearing a ball gown miniskirt.”

“So you done yet?” she asks. “This all weird enough for you finally?”

“Hell no…”

Cuz it’s not, is it? Not twisty. Not really.

Even if I could somehow break us out of this place where we started… chew us free from the bear trap of our story… go someplace no had ever heard of glass slippers and running away at the stroke of midnight… how would we even recognize ourselves then?

I shift foot to foot. Sun’s making the asphalt hot. I’m regretting not having made off with the blue doeskin slingbacks.

“One idea,” I say. “We should go home.”

“So you can grab some shoes?”

“Yeah, but also, I bet if we toss the place, we can figure out where your mom keeps all her valuables before she even wakes up. Live hog–high for a week or three.”

Bethesda smirks. “Kick the figuring out what to do next thing down the road a while.”

“Correct–a–mundo.”

§

You know what? Never mind all that shit I said before. I’m none of those things.

Unless that was working for you. Then go for it. Far be it for me to tell you what to think.

But here — this is my theory. I’m not just Cinderella. Not just. Not metaphorically.

Take my situation — you could apply it all around.

Listen. We’re all trying to escape archetypes. I’m trying to be me, not just a girl who grew up with a mouthful of ashes. I don’t want to be someone that everyone thinks they already understand. Someone everyone wants a piece of.

Bet you’re trying to escape, too. Trying to be more than just mother, wife, daddy’s little girl, big sister, little sister, baby sis, granny, daft old biddy, crone, trophy wife, castrating bitch, conniving cunt, skank, vixen, hoebag, virgin, Madonna, sweetiepie. Trying to navigate the hairpin turns between bangled bikinis, apple–pie aprons, and power–bitch pantsuits.

I bet you manage it, too. Bet you’re an ice queen exec who bakes cookies on the weekends, or a demure little preacher’s daughter who takes it up the ass, or the marathon runner who’s going to smoke the world record that dudes think belong to them by right of chromosome Y.

Feel free to fill in the blanks with whatever it is you actually are.

But all that aside, at the end of the day, where do we stand? The archetypal feminine, the ur woman with a capital W, she’s this fire we can’t run from. She’s burning constantly, devouring bits of us, turning them into herself.

Here and there, we don’t burn up completely. But even our ashes are her creations.

We always exist in relation to her, no matter what we do.

§

So anyway, Bethesda and I head home.

We pass the dude trading new shoes for old, and I shout at him that his products are crappy. Bethesda makes faces in the magic mirror until it begs her to go away. We break off pieces of peppermint windowsill to eat for breakfast, and when the witch shouts at us, we flip her the bird and grab extra fistfuls of pop rocks from the driveway.

Last night’s bartender is still in the back alley, smoking a clove. In a flash of remorse for stealing his tips, I toss him the go–go full of change.

Outside a salon, we run into she–bear with ringlet–girl in tow. She–bear’s smirking. Blondie’s definitely too zonked out to choose her own haircut. Wonder if she’s due for a knee–length weave or a pixie cut.

At the coffee shop next door, the sheath–dressed women and men in ponchos are lined up for lattes. His Royal Foot Fetishist stands outside the door, licking the blue slingbacks.

“What the —” Bethesda begins.

“Don’t ask,” I say, guiding her quickly past.

Couple blocks later, we see a couple on the other side of the street, gropeslurp groping. Sure enough, they change angle, and there’s Griselda. This time, she’s making out with a drag queen in six–inch stilettos, a sequined slink of a dress, and epaulettes made from the shards of disco balls. Least she knows this one’s fake.

We tiptoe on past so we won’t disturb them.

Not too long later we reach home. Bethesda grabs her key out of her bra.

She toasts. “To home sweet home.”

“Cheers,” I agree. “Let’s rob a bitch.”

And we slap each other high five.

§

And some of you are saying, oh look, I know what this means, it ends with female–on–female violence which pigeonholes women as jealous backstabbers, and what the hell is with the unquestioning perpetuation of the evil stepmother stereotype

And some of you are saying, oh look, I know what this means, it’s a tale of female friendship because Cinderella and her sister are forging a bond through petty theft and how often do you see stories focusing on positive female–female relationships

And some of you are saying, oh look, a wimpy ending that refuses to say anything decisive, I could tell from the beginning this was going to be pretentious bullshit.

And some of you are wondering whether there was any point to the bear scene or whether the author just thinks bears drinking tea are funny.

And look, whatever, okay? You just go ahead and take whatever you’re thinking and go think about it on your own time. Because Bethesda’s searching the house, and I’m the lookout, and I really don’t need your noisy–ass ruminations waking up my stepmother before we’re finished.

§

OK, fine, I’ll tell you this one thing for sure. Right now, a thousand Cinderellas are going to steal back our childhood dignity in the form of an old lady’s life savings. And then we’re going to spend it on booze and clubbing and high–priced high heels.

And when we pass out drunk, we’re going to keep on dreaming of becoming that black hole that will swallow the universe.

“All That Fairy Tale Crap” originally appeared in Glitter & Mayhem, edited by John Klima, Lynne M. Thomas and Michael Damian Thomas (Apex Publications, 2013).

Dec 3, 2013

Abomination Rises on Filthy Wings

[TRIGGER WARNING: Some readers may find this story disturbing]

My cock is throbbing so I pull it out.

My wife lolls in front of the TV, spread out on the sofa, eyes glazed and mouth open, illuminated by flickering light. Her empty–eyed stare is so vacuous that it looks like she could have died there, stuffing her brain with the shopping channel.

That’s the thought that draws my fist down the shaft of my cock. I squeeze its flaring head. I push my pelvis toward my fist as though I’m fucking her, fucking her corpse.

From the TV, some bimbo’s voice drones about semi–precious gemstones at $39.99. I’m so hard that I can barely wrap my fist around my cock. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

Fuck her.

I rinse off in the bathroom, tuck in, and go to work.

When I get home, the TV’s still on but she’s not in front of it. Her bathrobe lies deflated. I imagine that she’s disintegrated like a staked vampire, but there she is in the kitchen, rattling cupboards.

She’s taken a shower and so her hair falls lank and wet to her shoulders, split ends already dry. She’s slapped makeup on her black–eyed horse face. Her eyes are flat and muddy; there’s no difference between iris and pupil. Her eyes don’t shine like other people’s eyes. They don’t go red in pictures. They’re blank, dead swamps.

The door gets knocked on. My wife shoves the cupboards closed and grabs her purse. Creaking hinges swing open. Her two friends hunch outside, as blank–eyed as she is, their teeth yellow and sinister as they flash grins that don’t reach their eyes. Though they’re greeting her, their stares hunt me down.

All three wear mismatched clothing, loose and odd–fitting. Cracked, filthy nails extend from their fingers. Their hands twist like claws into predatory poses.

My wife joins them on the front step. I can’t identify one from the next. They’re one disgusting flock. The door slams behind them.

My wife’s bathrobe still lies discarded on the couch. It used to be pink but it’s whitened with time and bleach. Chocolate, grease, and menstrual stains track the cloth.

I masturbate on it. She and her friends dying in a car crash. Metal slamming through their heads. Windshield fragments slicing through their necks. Their thighs spurting arterial blood. There’d be no change in their lightless eyes. Just alive. Then dead.

Fuck.

I leave another stain.

§

A note from the author:

There’s truth in all fiction. Writers are never separate from what they write. Don’t believe anyone who tells you otherwise.

I’m not going to kill my ex, but I probably should have.

Don’t tell anyone I said that.

If she turns up dead, it could be a problem.

§

My wife sneaks into the bedroom at midnight. On the carpet, her feet sound like claws digging into dirt. She leans over my side of the bed. Humid carrion–breath smothers my face. I pretend to be sleeping. One ragged exhalation. Two. She finally withdraws.

She retreats to the window. Clothes rustle as she strips. Pretending to shift in my sleep, I turn to face her. Through half–lidded eyes, I watch yellow sodium–vapor light swab her body. Shadows pool in the loose, wrinkled skin that drapes from her neck, arms, and stomach.

A horrible smell fills the room as her bowels open. White shit pours down her legs.

She squints at the bed, impaling me with those dead–black eyes. Light shines on her crooked front tooth.

The noise of claws–in–carpet grows louder, closer. She scrapes her way into bed. I smell her shit. I feel her eyes. She knows I’m awake. All I can hear is the crackling of her murmured laughter as she stares at me through the dark.

§

By the time you see the shit running down your wife’s legs, it’s impossible to understand how you could have been blind before. How could you have looked at that woman and seen skin running smoothly from stomach to thighs? How could you have stroked the inside of her knee and thought it was soft and tender? People will try to tell you that things changed. You, her, the relationship. They lie. There was always shit coating her feet. Her eyes were always dead and black.

§

When I wake in the morning, she’s genuinely asleep. Snores tear from her throat. I’m struck by the image of her heart seizing as she sleeps, panic clawing her awake, her fingers raking the air as she scrambles to breathe.

I work until I jizz on her pillow. It dries next to her drool.

When I’m showered and dressed in slacks and button–down, I head to the kitchen. The smell of my wife’s shit travels with me. Frantically, I check to see where I’m fouled. It’s not on my clothes. I undo my belt. Not on my cock.

My eye catches a spot on my thigh. The smell isn’t shit after all. It’s black, rotting skin I smell. Death, not excrement.

I find a bandage to cover the necrotic flesh. Adhesive doesn’t damp the odor.

The bathroom mirror tells me that necrosis is mottling my spine. Black rashes creep down my legs. I watch a new spot appear inside my elbow. Blood bursts through the skin and a puzzle–piece–shaped lesion dapples to black, exuding a charnel house stench.

She’s killing me. This house is killing me.

I have to get out. I pull my pants up, button my shirt. At the front door, I pause with my hand on the knob as dark instinct draws my eye to the inset window. Through leaded glass, I see shadows. They come closer.

At last, I can make out one of my wife’s friends approaching the porch. Saliva drips from her slack jaw, trailing down her chin. She stares at the door for an evil second and then paces down the front steps and turns, heading for the gate that leads to our backyard. Her steps are spasmodic, disjointed, but she travels with a determination that makes her path seem inevitable.

She breaks from sight, but before I can calculate my freedom, my wife’s second, identical friend passes by on the same route, her expression a perfect mimic of the first’s vacant–and–hungry look.

I wait, breath incipient, fingers still closed around the knob. The woman departs from sight, but as I expected, it’s only moments until the first returns. Without altering her path, she swivels her head toward the door. Her eyes catch me as if she can see through wood and glass.

Realization hardens in my mind.

They’re circling the house. Circling me.

§

My ex wears stretch marks like jewelry. They shine when the light hits. She laughs when she sees me staring. She jiggles the fat under her arms to make it swing.

My ex has three men. She doesn’t bother to hide them. When I go to check the cars, they’re always there. They attend in rotation: first one, then the second, then the third, and then back to the first again. They stand behind her when she opens the door. They’re thin–haired and weak–chinned. They stare at me with mouths agape, spit shining on their gums.

My ex laughs and pats their arms with simulated affection, sneering at me as if I could ever be jealous of the new men mired in her trench.

§

I hamstring my wife with a knife from the kitchen and tie her by the wrists to the hooks on the ceiling that some prior resident used to hang light fixtures. Her feet hang above the floor. I can see now that they are scaled, the yellow keratin cracked and dry. Talons droop, fissured but sharp.

Her baggy stomach overhangs the greasy feathers of her legs. Her fingers poke, half–flesh and half–claws, out of her ragged wingtips. Breasts swing, bare and sagging, nipples pointed toward the floor. She stares at me, grin still jagged, eyes still dead.

A flood of shit drenches her legs. It splashes me. I jump back and curse. Laughter scratches her throat as I retreat to the sink to scrub my hands and shirt. There are spatters of blood as well as shit. I leave them to stain.

Her feathers are matted with feces, but I armor myself with gardening gloves and grab a bucket from beneath the sink. I pluck one forearm–length, broken feather from her tail. Oily black residue slicks my fingers.

I pluck a second and a third. Pained, creaking noises escape her mouth. I pull another. Freshly exposed pink skin puckers where the quills were ripped out. Specks of fresh blood redden the shit on the floor.

She swings her head back and forth, trying to watch me, but I keep to the shadows behind her so that she never knows where pain will strike next. Her hisses rattle as I make my way down to where I’d once thought she had calves. Now I can clearly see where her skin calcifies into the scales of her giant bird feet.

Her strong thigh muscles remain intact. She kicks. Limp talons swing toward me. Even lacking precision, they are heavy and deadly. I dodge out of range.

Back in the kitchen, I grab a stronger knife. She watches my return with fear. I bend to the task of sawing through her bird–ankles. Scales and bone give way with a consistency like rotting teeth. Viscous yellow ichor oozes from the wounds. She throws her head back, neck working as she births a vibrating, interminable screech.

From outside the house, I hear the heavy thump of wingbeats. I go to the kitchen window; her friends are swooping past, enormous wings outstretched as they glide in circles around the house. Their foul feet dangle, gore glistening on their claws. Naked, red necks emerge from their feathers, capped by identically grinning faces. With each pulse of my wife’s scream, they lunge closer, talons clenching with excitement.

I laugh. My wife’s screech ascends in pitch. Her wings and legs flail, striving for impossible escape.

§

When I fucked my wife, it was masturbation. Cock hot in that slack, cold body of hers; her gaze wall–eyed and half–focused; her tongue protruding from the edge of her mouth. Fuck and grunt and think about whatever: women’s fingers pinching their nipples; vulva spread and hot; sweat slicking smooth thighs. The mind can be wherever it wants, but the cock remains in that distended cunt, working and working toward a little pleasure. All the heat and blood and life — that was mine, never hers.

§

I return to the bathroom to mirror–check my necrosis. Spots cluster everywhere. Blood blooms to black on my chest, my elbows, the underside of my scrotum. Her very presence is decay.

I drag the knife through a necrotic flower, trying to cut it out like rot in fruit. The knife slides through the soft, pulpy wound, revealing the inside of my arm. It’s a monstrosity. Black veins branch across muscle that’s purpled like a bruise. Geysers of strange yellow substances, more viscous than pus, burst out of the fibers. I reach in to touch the muscle and my finger pushes straight through. The bone is no longer white and smooth, but rough and porous like pumice.

The smell it emits is sweet. It’s the smell of perfume on a grieving widow. It’s the smell of a sachet pinned to a corpse. It’s the smell of a banshee’s sugared breath.

It’s unfathomably worse than the rot and the shit.

§

My ex took the house and both cars and our address book. She slid her fingernails into my chest and cracked my sternum. She prized out my heart, a great pulsating ruby, and shoved it into her mouth. Her teeth tore through it. Her lips were covered in my blood.

Still, I had to listen to my friends bleat. “You used to be so in love.” “She could be sweet, though, you’ve got to admit it.” “Sometimes people just grow apart from each other.”

Idiots, all of them. Can’t see the shit running down her legs. Can’t see the fouled feathers. Can’t see the blank–mud–black she stares back at them as they fawn.

§

New necroses colonize my left hand. I’ve got to finish this. Got to get out.

I stumble back into the kitchen. Every few seconds, the air cracks beneath the vultures’ six–foot wingspans. The house rumbles beneath me. My wife stares at the window, still screaming, but she no longer looks afraid — instead, she’s smug, satisfied.

One bird dives against the glass. It creaks but doesn’t shatter.

My wife’s scream becomes something like a laugh. I slap her across the face. She keeps laughing as I push past her and rush toward the window.

The second bird lunges for another strike. She stares at me with naked hunger. The proffered sacrifice means nothing to them. One trussed, dying victim will never sate their ravenous bellies.

My wife laughs and I snarl.

It would be wise to bolt for the front door while the birds are at the window, and hope that I can run fast enough to get past them. But I can’t run, not now, with my wife still hanging from the ceiling, half–dead but still grinning, still mocking.

My fist finds my cock. No need to dredge up images this time. My desires are richly, extravagantly present. The blood dripping from her plucked flesh. The sawed–off remains of her ankles. My fist draws back and forth. I aim upward like a fire hose, ready to loose myself into her face.

Suddenly, pleasure vanishes. I look down and there’s my fist, white and clenched around a necrotic shaft. The flesh is soft. My fingers start to sink in. I tear them away. Tatters of black flesh adhere to my hand.

She laughs and I slap her again, but it gives me nothing, a slap against all she’s done to me.

§

If I’d really killed her, I’d have bought a butcher’s knife and relied on the internet to instruct me on how to joint her, cut by cut. I wouldn’t cook her. Wouldn’t want her rump roast churning in my guts. Wouldn’t want her to be part of me forever, infiltrating my lungs and stomach and fingernails.

No, I’d cut her up to make it clear that she’d never been a person in the first place, never been anything but a grinning sack of meat.

§

Wings slap the air. The bird strikes. This time, the glass breaks. Fractures spiral out from the impact as if the window had been struck by a bullet.

I can imagine what will happen next. The birds will dig their talons into my rotting flesh and shred me. They’ll push their faces inside my skin. Their teeth will slice sharply, wetly through my muscles. One will pause and lift her head, mouth and cheeks crimsoned with my blood, so that she can watch me watching her feast. The other will seize a long, glistening tube from my abdomen. She’ll tip her head back and choke my intestines down her throat with a series of avian swallows.

Still, I can’t leave, though, not yet. This time I won’t just let her — me — her — leave me. The knife–handle is solid in my grip. She watches helplessly from behind those mud–eyes. She spits. Saliva splatters hotly onto my cheek. My arm draws back. Knife plunges into that distended nightmare of a stomach. It rips upward through her sternum and then tears into the flesh of her hidden, bloody jewel. Shit spurts down her legs, sprays my body. I stare back at those swamp–black eyes, behind which flickers the base consciousness which would — which did — devour my heart.

Her death plays out just as I’d imagined. Her eyes don’t dim as her life pours out. Just alive. Then dead.

§

Remember, this is a story.

It has nothing to do with me. It’s an extrusion. A waste project of the imagination.

Forget what I told you about writers who claim to be separate from what they write. It was bullshit. It sounded good enough for fiction. I’m telling the truth now. It’s all just stories.

§

One of the vultures dives when I pull open the door. Even though the knife is in–hand, I strike out by instinct. Her nose crunches. She spits. I hope there are teeth in her blood.

Her feathers strike my face. Her wing beats deafen. The wind driven by her flapping tries to push me back into the house.

Precariously, I maintain my footing. Past the vulture, I can scarcely discern a streak of fresh air. Whether or not I persevere, I’ll always treasure this in my once–eaten heart — this time, I won. This time, there’s one fewer harpy shitting on the world.

Jul 2, 2013

If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love

If you were a dinosaur, my love, then you would be a T-Rex. You’d be a small one, only five feet, ten inches, the same height as human-you. You’d be fragile-boned and you’d walk with as delicate and polite a gait as you could manage on massive talons. Your eyes would gaze gently from beneath your bony brow-ridge.

If you were a T-Rex, then I would become a zookeeper so that I could spend all my time with you. I’d bring you raw chickens and live goats. I’d watch the gore shining on your teeth. I’d make my bed on the floor of your cage, in the moist dirt, cushioned by leaves. When you couldn’t sleep, I’d sing you lullabies.

If I sang you lullabies, I’d soon notice how quickly you picked up music. You’d harmonize with me, your rough, vibrating voice a strange counterpoint to mine. When you thought I was asleep, you’d cry unrequited love songs into the night.

If you sang unrequited love songs, I’d take you on tour. We’d go to Broadway. You’d stand onstage, talons digging into the floorboards. Audiences would weep at the melancholic beauty of your singing.

If audiences wept at the melancholic beauty of your singing, they’d rally to fund new research into reviving extinct species. Money would flood into scientific institutions. Biologists would reverse engineer chickens until they could discover how to give them jaws with teeth. Paleontologists would mine ancient fossils for traces of collagen. Geneticists would figure out how to build a dinosaur from nothing by discovering exactly what DNA sequences code everything about a creature, from the size of its pupils to what enables a brain to contemplate a sunset. They’d work until they’d built you a mate.

If they built you a mate, I’d stand as the best woman at your wedding. I’d watch awkwardly in green chiffon that made me look sallow, as I listened to your vows. I’d be jealous, of course, and also sad, because I want to marry you. Still, I’d know that it was for the best that you marry another creature like yourself, one that shares your body and bone and genetic template. I’d stare at the two of you standing together by the altar and I’d love you even more than I do now. My soul would feel light because I’d know that you and I had made something new in the world and at the same time revived something very old. I would be borrowed, too, because I’d be borrowing your happiness. All I’d need would be something blue.

If all I needed was something blue, I’d run across the church, heels clicking on the marble, until I reached a vase by the front pew. I’d pull out a hydrangea the shade of the sky and press it against my heart and my heart would beat like a flower. I’d bloom. My happiness would become petals. Green chiffon would turn into leaves. My legs would be pale stems, my hair delicate pistils. From my throat, bees would drink exotic nectars. I would astonish everyone assembled, the biologists and the paleontologists and the geneticists, the reporters and the rubberneckers and the music aficionados, all those people who—deceived by the helix-and-fossil trappings of cloned dinosaurs– believed that they lived in a science fictional world when really they lived in a world of magic where anything was possible.

If we lived in a world of magic where anything was possible, then you would be a dinosaur, my love. You’d be a creature of courage and strength but also gentleness. Your claws and fangs would intimidate your foes effortlessly. Whereas you—fragile, lovely, human you—must rely on wits and charm.

A T-Rex, even a small one, would never have to stand against five blustering men soaked in gin and malice. A T-Rex would bare its fangs and they would cower. They’d hide beneath the tables instead of knocking them over. They’d grasp each other for comfort instead of seizing the pool cues with which they beat you, calling you a fag, a towel-head, a shemale, a sissy, a spic, every epithet they could think of, regardless of whether it had anything to do with you or not, shouting and shouting as you slid to the floor in the slick of your own blood.

If you were a dinosaur, my love, I’d teach you the scents of those men. I’d lead you to them quietly, oh so quietly. Still, they would see you. They’d run. Your nostrils would flare as you inhaled the night and then, with the suddenness of a predator, you’d strike. I’d watch as you decanted their lives—the flood of red; the spill of glistening, coiled things—and I’d laugh, laugh, laugh.

If I laughed, laughed, laughed, I’d eventually feel guilty. I’d promise never to do something like that again. I’d avert my eyes from the newspapers when they showed photographs of the men’s tearful widows and fatherless children, just as they must avert their eyes from the newspapers that show my face. How reporters adore my face, the face of the paleontologist’s fiancée with her half-planned wedding, bouquets of hydrangeas already ordered, green chiffon bridesmaid dresses already picked out. The paleontologist’s fiancée who waits by the bedside of a man who will probably never wake.

If you were a dinosaur, my love, then nothing could break you, and if nothing could break you, then nothing could break me. I would bloom into the most beautiful flower. I would stretch joyfully toward the sun. I’d trust in your teeth and talons to keep you/me/us safe now and forever from the scratch of chalk on pool cues, and the scuff of the nurses’ shoes in the hospital corridor, and the stuttering of my broken heart.

Mar 5, 2013

About the Author

Rachel Swirsky holds an MFA from the Iowa Writers Workshop and graduated from Clarion West in 2005. Her short fiction has been published in venues including Tor.com, Subterranean Magazine, and Clarkesworld Magazine, and been nominated for the Hugo Award, the Locus Award, the Sturgeon Award, and the World Fantasy Award. In 2010, her novella “The Lady Who Plucked Red Flowers in the Queen’s Window” won the Nebula. Her newest collection, How the World Became Quiet: Myths of the Past, Present and Future, is forthcoming from Subterranean at the end of September. It has a Shaun Tan cover!

Swirsky wrote this piece after talking to multiple editors who worked with horror stories, all of whom reported receiving many submissions about men murdering their wives or ex–wives. Despite the fictional veneer and supernatural justification, many have the feel of personal revenge fantasies, and most characterize the women through disturbing, misogynist stereotypes. Swirsky wanted to see if it was possible to write a story that included all the markers of the trope but nevertheless subverted it.

If she was going to turn into a harpy, she wouldn’t want to be a vulture–harpy. A Macaw harpy? A bird of paradise? A cassowary? So many better options.

Content

Rachel Swirsky
IF YOU WERE A DINOSAUR, MY LOVE
and Other Stories

Black, Red, White

Decomposition

PART ONE: LIVING

PART TWO: FRESH

PART THREE: BLOAT

PART FOUR: LARVAE

PART FIVE: MAGGOTS

PART SIX: ACTIVE DECAY

PART SEVEN: LIQUEFACTION

PART EIGHT: DRIED

PART NINE: REMAINS

The Crows and the Witches and the Window

Thirteen

All That Fairy Tale Crap

Abomination Rises on Filthy Wings

If You Were a Dinosaur, My Love

About the Author