The Pisces
Page 37
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“I guess I do,” said Theo.
I wondered if he could feel what I was feeling. Did he know that if I stayed there any longer I might choke on this new darkness?
“Let me check on Dominic to make sure he’s okay,” I said.
Dominic was asleep on the floor of the pantry. Everything was peaceful in there, as though there were a halo of okayness. Suddenly I wished it were just me and Dominic. Now the dog seemed like less responsibility than the merman. Why had I been so urgent to get Theo back here? Perhaps it was only because I thought that I couldn’t. Maybe this was my way: now that he was here, that I knew I could get him here, I didn’t want it. Maybe the group was right. I was intimacy-averse. I took a deep breath and gathered myself. I couldn’t just leave Theo in the other room.
“Do you want something to eat?” I called.
“No, just come back in here.”
I wondered what he ate. Plankton? Fish? His breath always tasted fresh, a little salty but not fishy. He tasted like ocean air.
In the living room he was sitting up in the sunlight that shone through the big glass windows, the blanket wrapped around him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“I think I brought some darkness in here with me. The sadness, moving from sea to land, sometimes I can’t shake it. I thought if anything I would feel scared, but coming here I couldn’t help but think, What’s the point? I mean, I guess the point is that we have an experience. I guess that is the point. I just, well, I am going to live a long time. And have lived a long time. I have seen a lot of people come and go.”
I wondered how many people. How many women, human women? Mermaids? I wanted to say I would be with him forever. But I didn’t know if that was what he wanted me to say. I couldn’t make that promise. I realized it wasn’t my impending departure for Phoenix that stopped me from offering the words. And it wasn’t my fear of intimacy. It was still my fear of rejection.
“But you seem so young,” I said.
“No, I’m not. I’ve been alive for a very long time. I’m not eternal. I can die. But we don’t usually get sick, not in the body anyway. Something about the saltwater. It brines us and keeps us young. It keeps illness from entering.”
“So how old are you exactly?”
“Honestly, I don’t really know. It’s not a thing down there. Maybe forty?”
“That’s how old I am,” I said. “Almost. Wow, I’m younger than you.”
“I told you you’re young,” he said. “I might be even older than that actually.”
“Who are your parents?”
“They are like me, but also very much not like me. They look like me, or my mother does anyway, but more content with their existence. They never leave the water. They aren’t scared, they simply have no interest,” he said. “Anyway, hoisting and dragging myself like that, on the sand, it made me feel tired. Sometimes I get so tired, even in the water. It’s like physical things don’t make me physically tired, but they make me mentally tired. Mental things make me feel that way too.”
“Everything is just so much,” I said. “All the time.”
“It is,” he said. “And I was scared I wasn’t going to be able to, you know.” He laughed.
“Get it up?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Not because I don’t want you or because I don’t have it in me physically, but because of that mental exhaustion. I can doubt myself. I become more susceptible.”
“Theo,” I soothed him.
Now that I knew he was the one who had brought the darkness I felt that I didn’t have to be as afraid anymore. The gloom wasn’t coming from me. I was still responsible for him but not for the atmosphere. So many times I had tried to fix things, people’s feelings, the shifting moods of men, by adjusting my own behavior. But in this case it was beyond me. He was, after all, supernatural. Did he even exist? I decided that he existed like a mood. In some ways, my moods did and did not exist. People said that you could will a mood into being or will it away. Just think positively. But I never felt that way. My moods were their own entities, even if no one could understand why they were there. That was what made me scared of feelings. I realized now that what I had to do, in spite of what others said, was not try to change a mood but surrender to it. I had to surrender to whatever feelings arrived and in doing so I could maybe ride them, floating on the waves. I decided I was going to surrender.
“We could rest a bit,” I said. “I’m tired too.”
“Yes, let’s rest,” he said. “I’d like that. Come here, come lie down with me.”
I got on the sofa with him and we lay there face-to-face. He closed his eyes and I kissed his eyelids and cheeks. He gathered me in his arms and his upper body was warm. Everything above his tail was soft. I didn’t know what to do with our lower halves. I couldn’t intertwine my legs with his tail as if it was a pair of legs, so I wrapped one leg around him and pressed the other leg straight against his tail. Usually when I cuddled with another body, I would have to separate before falling asleep. I would feel too trapped or get too hot pressed so close against them. But Theo’s tail was cool, almost like a built-in fan or compress, and I was reminded of what my friend’s aunt taught me years ago as a trick for insomnia: keep one leg under the blanket and one leg out. It was as though I had one leg under a towel in the sun and one dipped in the sea. When I thought of it this way I slipped into the waves. His breathing was rhythmic and the slight scent of fish drifted up from him. The sun came in the window and shone on our heads, and we both drifted off with our faces in a glow.
* * *
—
We woke up around noon. Theo stirred and pulled me closer. “Mmmmmm,” he breathed in my ear. I kissed him on the lips. His breath tasted less fresh than usual, a bit like wet leather.
“I like how you taste,” I said. “I like tasting you in this state, no saltwater to cleanse your mouth. It’s so primal. I feel like I’m getting another part of you.”
“You really do?” he asked.
We kissed deeper, our tongues in each other’s mouths. I could feel his cock hard now against me. I pressed my body against his with pure want. I felt that I had a hole, not just my pussy itself but an existential hole, and that for the first time it was on the verge of being filled: the inertia of our mingled desire caulked it up. It was stuffed with anticipation. My anticipation of his cock was solid, its own entity, as though my desire were a second cock. He too seemed to exude complete want and devotion, which made me feel confident in my own wanting—as though, in his mirror, my lust was good and pure. He made me feel innocent and part of something bigger, like nothing had ever been my fault.
I did not say “I love you,” or even whisper it, but somehow I felt that I was praying it into his mouth without speaking. I was saying it with my breath, my chest, the magnetism between our pelvises. It was a swimming into each other. I also felt that he had a hole, or holes, and in some strange way my cock—an existential one, really—was filling him. I felt that we were moving in and out of one another’s holes, nursing each other, symbiotic and magnetic. I felt the Earth rotating around us, or that we were the planet—spinning on its axis. In my head came a deep buzz of the Earth again and I didn’t know if I was actually humming out loud or if it was all inside me.
I wondered if he could feel what I was feeling. Did he know that if I stayed there any longer I might choke on this new darkness?
“Let me check on Dominic to make sure he’s okay,” I said.
Dominic was asleep on the floor of the pantry. Everything was peaceful in there, as though there were a halo of okayness. Suddenly I wished it were just me and Dominic. Now the dog seemed like less responsibility than the merman. Why had I been so urgent to get Theo back here? Perhaps it was only because I thought that I couldn’t. Maybe this was my way: now that he was here, that I knew I could get him here, I didn’t want it. Maybe the group was right. I was intimacy-averse. I took a deep breath and gathered myself. I couldn’t just leave Theo in the other room.
“Do you want something to eat?” I called.
“No, just come back in here.”
I wondered what he ate. Plankton? Fish? His breath always tasted fresh, a little salty but not fishy. He tasted like ocean air.
In the living room he was sitting up in the sunlight that shone through the big glass windows, the blanket wrapped around him.
“I’m sorry,” he said.
“Why?” I asked.
“I think I brought some darkness in here with me. The sadness, moving from sea to land, sometimes I can’t shake it. I thought if anything I would feel scared, but coming here I couldn’t help but think, What’s the point? I mean, I guess the point is that we have an experience. I guess that is the point. I just, well, I am going to live a long time. And have lived a long time. I have seen a lot of people come and go.”
I wondered how many people. How many women, human women? Mermaids? I wanted to say I would be with him forever. But I didn’t know if that was what he wanted me to say. I couldn’t make that promise. I realized it wasn’t my impending departure for Phoenix that stopped me from offering the words. And it wasn’t my fear of intimacy. It was still my fear of rejection.
“But you seem so young,” I said.
“No, I’m not. I’ve been alive for a very long time. I’m not eternal. I can die. But we don’t usually get sick, not in the body anyway. Something about the saltwater. It brines us and keeps us young. It keeps illness from entering.”
“So how old are you exactly?”
“Honestly, I don’t really know. It’s not a thing down there. Maybe forty?”
“That’s how old I am,” I said. “Almost. Wow, I’m younger than you.”
“I told you you’re young,” he said. “I might be even older than that actually.”
“Who are your parents?”
“They are like me, but also very much not like me. They look like me, or my mother does anyway, but more content with their existence. They never leave the water. They aren’t scared, they simply have no interest,” he said. “Anyway, hoisting and dragging myself like that, on the sand, it made me feel tired. Sometimes I get so tired, even in the water. It’s like physical things don’t make me physically tired, but they make me mentally tired. Mental things make me feel that way too.”
“Everything is just so much,” I said. “All the time.”
“It is,” he said. “And I was scared I wasn’t going to be able to, you know.” He laughed.
“Get it up?” I said.
“Yeah,” he said. “Not because I don’t want you or because I don’t have it in me physically, but because of that mental exhaustion. I can doubt myself. I become more susceptible.”
“Theo,” I soothed him.
Now that I knew he was the one who had brought the darkness I felt that I didn’t have to be as afraid anymore. The gloom wasn’t coming from me. I was still responsible for him but not for the atmosphere. So many times I had tried to fix things, people’s feelings, the shifting moods of men, by adjusting my own behavior. But in this case it was beyond me. He was, after all, supernatural. Did he even exist? I decided that he existed like a mood. In some ways, my moods did and did not exist. People said that you could will a mood into being or will it away. Just think positively. But I never felt that way. My moods were their own entities, even if no one could understand why they were there. That was what made me scared of feelings. I realized now that what I had to do, in spite of what others said, was not try to change a mood but surrender to it. I had to surrender to whatever feelings arrived and in doing so I could maybe ride them, floating on the waves. I decided I was going to surrender.
“We could rest a bit,” I said. “I’m tired too.”
“Yes, let’s rest,” he said. “I’d like that. Come here, come lie down with me.”
I got on the sofa with him and we lay there face-to-face. He closed his eyes and I kissed his eyelids and cheeks. He gathered me in his arms and his upper body was warm. Everything above his tail was soft. I didn’t know what to do with our lower halves. I couldn’t intertwine my legs with his tail as if it was a pair of legs, so I wrapped one leg around him and pressed the other leg straight against his tail. Usually when I cuddled with another body, I would have to separate before falling asleep. I would feel too trapped or get too hot pressed so close against them. But Theo’s tail was cool, almost like a built-in fan or compress, and I was reminded of what my friend’s aunt taught me years ago as a trick for insomnia: keep one leg under the blanket and one leg out. It was as though I had one leg under a towel in the sun and one dipped in the sea. When I thought of it this way I slipped into the waves. His breathing was rhythmic and the slight scent of fish drifted up from him. The sun came in the window and shone on our heads, and we both drifted off with our faces in a glow.
* * *
—
We woke up around noon. Theo stirred and pulled me closer. “Mmmmmm,” he breathed in my ear. I kissed him on the lips. His breath tasted less fresh than usual, a bit like wet leather.
“I like how you taste,” I said. “I like tasting you in this state, no saltwater to cleanse your mouth. It’s so primal. I feel like I’m getting another part of you.”
“You really do?” he asked.
We kissed deeper, our tongues in each other’s mouths. I could feel his cock hard now against me. I pressed my body against his with pure want. I felt that I had a hole, not just my pussy itself but an existential hole, and that for the first time it was on the verge of being filled: the inertia of our mingled desire caulked it up. It was stuffed with anticipation. My anticipation of his cock was solid, its own entity, as though my desire were a second cock. He too seemed to exude complete want and devotion, which made me feel confident in my own wanting—as though, in his mirror, my lust was good and pure. He made me feel innocent and part of something bigger, like nothing had ever been my fault.
I did not say “I love you,” or even whisper it, but somehow I felt that I was praying it into his mouth without speaking. I was saying it with my breath, my chest, the magnetism between our pelvises. It was a swimming into each other. I also felt that he had a hole, or holes, and in some strange way my cock—an existential one, really—was filling him. I felt that we were moving in and out of one another’s holes, nursing each other, symbiotic and magnetic. I felt the Earth rotating around us, or that we were the planet—spinning on its axis. In my head came a deep buzz of the Earth again and I didn’t know if I was actually humming out loud or if it was all inside me.
