[Note from the author: I'm playing catch up again. Trying to buy my home (the offer was accepted! Applaud the luck of fools!) has taken me away from that tranquil lake from which things pull themselves into existence. But I am here again, happy to slip into the shoals and feel the creatures curl around my shins. This story was born five years ago, while I was sitting in the crowd of a Fusion Bellydance show. The acts were good--some of them not so good--but there was one that stuck with me beyond the rest. A woman who prowled the stage by herself, garbed in dark silks, her face streaked with paint that no Westerner would dare to call attractive. She cavorted and undulated and shook like a poltergeist. And once, in the midst of her prowl, she turned toward the crowd and opened her mouth as the growl of a tiger boomed through the auditorium speakers. By the end of it I was sexually intrigued. She was old, average-looking, and yet I had been affected. I leaned over to remark that she was a, "Desert Sex Witch," which earned a few laughs--nothing more. But she had impacted me. There was a power I had felt. A power that should be written about. And so here it is, my darlings. An ode to the Desert Sex Witch. May she long stir the loins of all who witness her deviltry.]
The
crowd stood in the rain for hours. They flooded the streets of Manhattan like
some converging social disease, eager to see if the horrors of England’s
performance had been unwarranted. Rolls Royce limousines waited for the Opera
doors to open, their drivers tight-lipped and silent, ashing cigarettes from
cracked windows and offering the occasional scowl. The night was pregnant with
anticipation, with revile, with superstitions that dripped from mouth to mouth
with all the virulence of infection.
Anchored
between the shifting glances stood a man nearly seven feet tall, the shaved
dome of his head glowing red beneath the gaslamps.
Known
simply as The Arab,
no one could say where he’d come from or how he’d come to nest in New York
City. It was as if he had materialized with charm and resources and a slew of
acquaintances that, though admitting his familiarity, could not quite place
the origin of their meeting. He puffed a salamon cigar, humming a dirge
that’s trilling quarter-steps painted pictures of lonely dunes and camels
long-rotted beneath the sun.
When
men started shoving one another for cover beneath the awnings the Arab stubbed
his cigar and slipped into the door behind the ticket booth.
Concierges
spun at the squeak of hinges, spilling their register drawer and cursing under
their breath. The Arab watched the two men, his thick lips curled in amusement.
It was no fault of Man’s that he was simpleminded. God had seen to that,
mitigating imagination, limiting the brain by its inability to see the totality
of death. Were it possible for humanity to observe their own disintegration,
the world would have long ago been ashes.
But the Arab saw this perfectly; the ripple and shift of skin; the thick, churning
groans of organs tearing themselves to shreds. It was beautiful to behold, made
the entire world seem as a field of dandelions diffusing in the wind.
The
men dropped to their knees to collect the fallen drawer, the glow of dead cells
clinging to each dollar and coin. The tasseled shoulder-pads of the elder
concierge were stained with the death prints of his wife, who’d no doubt helped
to straighten them. When he saw that the Arab was still staring, he stood and
narrowed his eyes. “Do you mean to stand there all night?”
“I
mean to stand here now. Is that a problem?”
Something
in the Arab’s gray eyes made the man step back, bumping the younger concierge
and almost causing him to spill the drawer all over again. “It’s a matter of
convenience. This room was not meant for a man of your—”
“My...?”
“Size.”
The concierge swallowed. “You can wait in the hall, if you like. We’re running
behind and the crowds are already banging on my booth.”
The
Arab could hear them, the fists and shouts and restless thirst for things
beyond their comprehension. He leaned forward to adjust the man’s tassels.
“Your wife is a lovely woman.”
The
concierge stiffened. “What did you say?”
“She
tried to straighten them, but her eyes are not what they used to be. The left
one especially.” The Arab lowered his voice. “You should take a trip. She
deserves a few days of peace. She worries about your drinking.”
The
concierge tried to act amused, but the Arab could see the muscles twitching
below his skin, the swollen liver, the pancreas laboring to process spirits
consumed by its host in an effort to numb this chosen life of mediocrity.
“As
you can see,” the concierge tightened his jaw, “we have work to do.”
The
Arab motioned to the must-smelling room and laughed. “Work? I smell only your
self-disgust. You dreamed of greater things once, but you’ve forgotten how.
Your wife supports your apathy, standing vigil next to a building destined to
collapse … and you hate her for it.” He sniffed the dead skin on his fingers.
“I do not often give advice, but the smell of this flower is an old desert
bloom. A loyal woman is hard to find. Her price is far above rubies. Tonight
will be beautiful. Too beautiful. They will speak of the Lady Kallamesch for
eternities to come. Everything will change. Even you.”
The
man laughed. “Looks like I’m not the only one drinking.”
The
Arab smiled. “Leave tonight. A few days to let the spell wear.” He removed his
billfold and tucked a hundred dollars into the concierge’s pocket, no small
amount in 1922. In that instant his smile burned away. “Ignore me and your
screams will ring as Hercules’ beneath the hammer of Hara’s rage.”
The
concierge pulled his arm back in a punch and bumped into his partner. This time
the boy did
drop the drawer. The older man seemed not to notice the welter of coins
settling around his shoes. His lips were trembling. “I don’t know what cesspool spit
you out, but in America it’s dangerous to mention another man’s wife.”
“I
live in a world of dangers.”
The
concierge looked at his balled fist and sighed. “Just get out. Now.”
“As
it happens, I am needed elsewhere. You would be wise to take my advice under
consideration. Consult that cross upon upon your neck. Pray your last moment will not be one of anguish.” Then the
Arab slipped into the darkness of the hall, his egg-like skull glowing faintly
between the candelabras.
*****
The
dressing room was a womb of darkness. Her den reeked of the butcher block. The Arab stood in the corner, the cobwebs
tickling his scalp. He could hear her breathing, the stertorous clap of throat
muscles trapping what sustenance they could.
A
ragged breath blew through the room.
The
Arab jerked when the candles lit, one by one, as if touched by a passing flame.
He kept his eyes averted, seeing everywhere the glow of death. Hundreds of
performers had passed through this room, their transient gifts giving light to
the dark seats beyond. He smelled the ash-flower taste of their beauty; and yet knew
all beauty soured, becoming like the thing now groaning beneath its rags.
“It is almost time,” he whispered, trying not gag. “The doors have opened. They are restless for your wonders. What can I do for the pain?”
“Wiiiiiiiinnnne…”
He
moved as a feline on a high fence, grabbing the funnel and tube and the great
wicker cask, its contents sloshing. He felt his skin ripple as he neared her.
So much power, so much hunger. He let the tube dangle, and when he felt the tug
of her grip, he attached it to the funnel and poured the cask so she could
drink.
“It
is almost time,” he whispered. It was an unnecessary statement. But the sound
of her slurping made his skin crawl.
*****
In
the crowd he saw only eyes, the gimlet-glimmer of dreams and desires, wishes
and ashes. They were silent, already under the power of her spell. He always
felt awe and terror in equal parts when looking upon her work. They were ghosts
to him, these vaporous things made mobile and intact, given feet to walk and
mouths to speak, if only for a finite blink of time. It was the nature of life
to surrender itself. And it never failed to amaze him how quickly that dormant
instinct rose to the surface when encountering the Lady in Gray.
He
had found her in the Steppes, shunned in a cave by savages that survived on the
flesh of tribesman. She was their oracle, kept weak and isolated, fed only
enough to keep her from crumbling to dust. He had been younger then, a wanderer
without purpose beyond his special gift for seeing death. And when he had gazed
upon her for the first time, he’d fallen to his knees there in the cave and
wept.
For
she gave not one glint or sparkle.
She
was eternal.
The
Arab stepped under lights, smelling his own sweat and apprehension, expecting
at once to be pulled from the stage and torn to pieces to the sounds of “Charlatan! Devil Worshipper!
Heathen!”
The
crowd waited, leaning forward in their seats.
“You
have come tonight to see wonders. Man has long questioned what he cannot
understand. Beauty and art are his palest attempts to capture what waits in the
final pump of his heart. Without knowing it, all hunger for the end. To see the
meaning of the clockwork that thrums beneath the fray. To taste the brine of
that eternal sea. Well, here it is, friends. A black ocean pulses beyond the
light. Would you drink of it?”
They
all but roared.
“So
the field is sewn. May its fruit swallow your aimlessness.”
He
withdrew into the shadows. And it began.
*****
The
spotlights dropped onto a heap of steaming rags.
Emerging
between folds of velvet and silk and cobra skin, an arm coiled upward in the
light. Silver bangles slid with the motion, catching on folds of ancient skin
with a tinkling that caused gooseflesh to ripple through the front row. The
wrist cocked suddenly, the long fingers clamping into a makeshift beak. For a
moment they seemed to sniff at the air. And then the wrist began to shake,
building rhythm…
Chig-chiggah-chig,
Chig-chiggah-chig,
Chig-chiggah-chig, CHIG, CHIG, CHUG!
Discordant
flutes lilted on a scale no musician could place. There were squints of
confusion, the slow turn of heads finding their brethren in the crowd, and the
accompanied shrug of shoulders when they saw that the orchestra pit was empty.
Women began to finger their bodices with discomfort, looking to their laps
before returning, with some reluctance, to the stage.
The
arm reached higher through its rag-heap, the elbow slipping up to reveal thick and graying calluses. Then a shoulder popped into joint beneath the
fabric. To those that gasped it must have seemed as if they were watching the
birth of something hideous and malformed.
But
also beautiful.
A
child began to wail high in the auditorium. The crowd’s trance broke. People
looked over their shoulders. And then the bawling took on a certain cadence. It
worked over the flutes, weaving a terrible melody, as a second shoulder popped
into joint beneath the rags. The other arm slid upward, and more bangles added
to the rhythm, only now they clanged like chains, as if a cadre of spirits
clung to the rafters, shaking their manacles in time.
Chug-chuggah-chug,
CHUG, CHUG, CHUG
Chuggah-chuggah-chug, CHUG, CHUG, CHUG!
An
old man howled in pain from the stands. The sound arced across the darkness
before curling itself into a cackle. The baby suddenly ceased its bawling,
replaced by a woman’s frantic voice: “My child! My child’s not moving! My—”
Then
she, too, began to laugh.
The
Arab watched as he had in St. Petersburg and Moscow; in Paris and Brussels and
the gray eternity of London. He pulled his stubbed cigar from his jacket and
struck a match with his thumbnail. The flame swelled in his eyes, and he found
himself wondering if the outrage of God might not swell with it. To see so many
of His flock led to slaughter, these hopeless, well-meaning weaves of flesh.
Ah, but they had led themselves. He fostered no pity for things driven by
curiosity. There was nothing uncertain in what he saw. There was only
absoluteness. Everything died.
“Everything
but her,” he whispered.
Just
then she rose with the litheness of a cobra, filling the rags so they became a
scalloped robe. The patched skins and fabrics sent chips of light showering
across the crowd. They stood with empty eyes, holding their hands out, begging
with mouths now wet with drool. Not a sound could be heard but the rumble of
heartbeats, now synchronized with the awful rhythm of her bangles.
Chug-chuggah-chug,
CHUG, CHUG, CHUG!
The
floorboards began to rattle. Old nails pulled loose and a warbling filled the
air. The Lady in Gray jerked her
arms stiffly upward, the bones beneath her skin rattling to be loose, to
crumble and ride the wind into the throat of life itself.
The
crowd moaned as a beast in deathly climax. A rain of buttons and stitches
clouded the air as women tore at their bodices, baring breasts and howling with
desperation, pulling strangers to their nipples and shivering as teeth drew
blood. Men ripped out their hair, throwing it on stage in place of flowers.
The
crowd feasted on itself, rutting and moaning with all the wanton passion of
those great cities once destroyed by God. They conquered each other on the
seats and on the floor, kissing anything warm and near them. They grunted and
laughed and forgot the merciless pressures of the world. For this was a new
world. A world of expiration.
The
Arab blew a ring of smoke into the darkness, watching the dandelion flurry of
life evaporate from the swarming bodies in a sparkling dragon’s tail. The
Mother of the Mountain, the Lady in Gray, Kallamesch, stretched her arms into
the shimmering cloud, and pulled her hood back.
The
Arab turned away, but not before catching sight of her rot-pitted anatomy, a
face that was not a face, but a gaping beak of crawling roots. When he found
the courage to look again the cloud was gone and the beak had been covered by a
face so heavenly exotic that even now he could not help but covet the warm
cream of her skin.
The
Lady looked across the stage and smiled, blowing him a kiss. She twirled as
some dark princess into his arms. Then they slipped into the darkness beyond
the velvet drapes.
****
Exhausted
and sweating, the crowd stirred themselves from the floor. They redressed in a
drunken daze. No one spoke or made eye contact, but there lingered on their
faces the faintest traces of ecstasy, as from some dream briefly tasted and
ripped away. The ushers and journalists cleaned seed from their hands next to
politicians and ladies of esteem. They wiped blood from their faces and slipped
into the rain, as spirits sent to wander for a home long since destroyed.
For
some it was to be a night of fond remembrance, a faintly recollected revel made
all the more legendary for its lack of detail. But to most it was a last
achievement. One man walked onto the tracks of a coal train, smiling until the
tunnel of light tore him in half. A governess returned to the household of her
employ and lit the entire family aflame. A famous cellist cut his wrists on the
parapet of his high-rise apartment, playing Bach until the sun rose and, in his
weakness, he let himself tumble to the trash-blown streets below.
Countless
crimes and suicides would sprinkle the papers, leading some to speculate on the
fullness of the moon, and strange developments as the Industrial Revolution
labored on to eclipse the sway of religion in America. Countless killers and
artists and philanderers were carried away in the wombs of strangers, fated to
leave their scars upon the future. And as the sun peaked its face above the
gray Atlantic, a concierge stumbled home against his better judgment to find
his wife in bed with another man.
He
confessed to both murders, telling of how he had pulled an iron tool from the
hearth and set to beating them until the white sheets were crimson and the
mattress soaked through. Knelt in his cell, he began to shake when the
constable told him that no lover had been accounted for, and the shattered
pieces recovered were that of his daughter and wife.
Weeping,
he pulled out the hundred-dollar bill and stared at it, vaguely remembering a
sharp Semitic face and gray eyes that had burned with vile wisdom. The man had
tried to warn him; but only after he’d insulted him. Was it possible the stranger
had known enough about him to push him in the opposite direction? Was it
possible that—
He
clung to the bars and screamed.
While
somewhere on a road, heading through the tree-line, a horse-drawn wagon pushed
its way through the forest. A bald driver towered in the bucket seat, a stubbed
cigar pinched in his lips. At the top of a slope the horses halted. He looked
back the way they’d come, the city a steel colossus beyond the countryside,
glowing faintly white against the sunset’s bloody sky.
“Where
to, my love?” he whispered.
And
from the wagon, a tinkling voice, already hungry: “West.”
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