The Pisces
Page 41

“Yeah,” she said. “I feel strangely good about everything. Sure, no regrets. I regret nothing.”
“I regret everything,” I said.
“Lucy.”
“I’m still fooling around with that swimmer,” I said. “More than fooling around, like, I’m completely, totally in love with him. But the thing is that he’s totally in love with me. I mean, it’s the most passionate, real, most spiritual experience I’ve ever had with someone. And yet, I’m not even totally sure if the whole thing even exists.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well, we don’t function well in the real world.”
“The real world is rubbish.”
“But we’re mostly relegated to a rock. We’re tied to a rock.”
“Sounds like most marriages. At least ones with children.”
“I just—I’m afraid it might kill me. I can’t tell if it’s a sickness or the best thing that ever happened to me.”
“That’s brilliant!”
“Tell me, was it definitely men who landed you in here?”
She paused.
“Yes, I suppose it was the men,” she said. “But really it was me.”
41.
That afternoon I got my period. When I saw the blood, I wept. I wondered if that was why I had been feeling so anxious and afraid. I had cramps that felt like I was being stabbed in the uterus. Usually I enjoyed getting my period, the release of it—I always had. It made me feel connected to some primal goddess energy. But today I just felt heartsick. I had only five more weeks left with Theo and now the next week would be spent bloody, unsexed. What would we do together? I supposed we could just talk. I could put his cock in my mouth.
He was waiting for me when I got to the rocks. He put his arms on the rock and his shiny body came shooting out of the water. He looked like he wanted to stand to greet me, to come running over. I imagined him standing, how or if that could ever happen. I would have to prop something up for him, almost like a frame or a podium. I wondered how much weight his tail could withstand.
“Guess what?”
“What?” he asked, kissing my cheek.
“I have my period,” I said, dejected.
“I know,” he said.
“What do you mean you know?” I laughed.
“I just know. I know because I just intuited it. I could feel it. I’m in sync with your vagina. We’re always in contact,” he said.
We were both laughing but his eyes seemed serious.
“Also, don’t forget,” he said. “I’m an oceanic creature. I’m always with the moon. I can tell these things.”
“Well, I guess we won’t be able to fool around for a while,” I said.
“Oh, I don’t care. I’d be happy to be covered in your blood.”
“You would?”
“Yeah, I want your blood all over me. I want your blood on my face and in my hair.”
“You’re crazy,” I said.
“No, it’s true.”
And with that he began to kiss me down my body, lying between my legs with his face up my skirt.
I felt scared. Did I smell? Jamie had never gone down on me with my period, and certainly no one before him. I had a tampon in and no blood was on the outside of me, but even still. I was shocked.
But after a minute or so he sighed.
“I can’t eat you the way I want to with this rock under me. And I’m certainly not going to be able to fuck you here. It’s cutting me up,” he said.
I could see that some of the scales near his sash looked irritated and misshapen, like a fish that had been packed at the bottom of a full grocery bag.
“What should we do?” I asked. “Do you want to get back in the water?”
“No,” he said. “I don’t know. I guess you’d better get the wagon.”
“Oh my God, really?” I squealed.
“Yes,” he said. “But keep that creature in there under full lockup. And throw away the key.”
“Of course,” I said. “I’ll be right back!”
I went skipping away. Or maybe I was running. My joy of having him again, being near him, was unabashed. You could not separate me from it. I was the happiness and the happiness was me. The nothingness was nowhere near. It couldn’t touch me. I felt no need to be or do anything other than the way I felt. And if I did, it wouldn’t have been possible anyway.
I tripped on a dune and skinned my knee running across the beach. I cut it on a shard of shell. That made me pause for a moment. Was it a sign that being with Theo was deeply misguided? My knee hurt and there was sand in the cut. But all I wanted was for him to take care of my knee. I wanted to show it to him and be babied.
When I got back to the house I didn’t wash or bandage the cut. I wanted him to see what happened—to know that I hurt myself and needed to be taken care of. Even though he was entering my world, it wasn’t all easy for me. I was making sacrifices and taking risks too. He wasn’t the only one for whom this was difficult. I’ve always felt that injuries are a bit romantic, in the sense that you’re forced to be vulnerable and have someone else take care of you. I wanted to stay vulnerable.
I wondered if he would suck the blood out of the wound like a vampire, the same way he wanted to lick my menstrual blood. Of course, he wasn’t a vampire, he was some other kind of mythic creature, but it didn’t matter. Even if he had legs, no tail, and was a real vampire, I wouldn’t care. I would put my knee to his mouth and say, “Drink, please. I hope you enjoy it.” I wanted him to help heal and soothe me, even if it meant consuming me away. I realized I was tired. I couldn’t be more tired.
Dominic was already whimpering. I guess he could smell Theo on me.
“It’s time to take a nap now,” I said, and got the tranquilizers from the cupboard. I didn’t know how I would explain to my sister where all of the tranquilizers had gone. Maybe she wouldn’t notice or maybe she would think that I had taken them. Perhaps I could score some more tranquilizers to give to him, or go to the vet and get more. Maybe a different vet so that no one would know what was happening. I gave him the tranquilizers in a pill pocket and put his head on my lap.
“Nothing is beautiful and everything is nothing,” I said to him. “Everything is nothing and everything is beautiful.” I had no idea what I was talking about but I felt hypnotized with joy and potentiality.
When his sighs deepened, I closed the pantry door and tiptoed away. Walking back across the beach with the wagon, I was limping.
This is how we get injured for love, I thought. This is how love can hurt us.
I felt great and noble, like a woman coming to claim her man in battle, or perhaps a man who was coming to rescue his woman. I had to be the rescuer, because he was more handicapped than I was. His legs were in worse shape than mine. At least mine could move on earth. Why was I even comparing the two of us? Was this a competition, a competition for pain? Besides, when he was licking me he was entirely my rescuer. He was strong in his softness. We could take turns.
Then I saw him under the moon and it was like the first time I had seen him. He was just meant to be mine. In my mind I heard more words, and they said, No one knows what they are doing on Earth or even off it. The gods didn’t even know what the gods were doing, assuming there were even gods. Did the void know what it was doing? Did it know itself? Maybe the void didn’t even know what to do with itself and didn’t even like itself. Maybe the nothingness knew only to fill itself with people, and in that way was a creator of sorts. Maybe the nothingness was a god, but not intentionally cruel—not confident in itself. Maybe it was not evil or saying ha-ha to me, just lonely, hating itself, wanting something else to stick inside itself to relieve itself of itself. It seemed as though Theo didn’t know what he was doing. I obviously didn’t either. In that way maybe we were like gods.