Sub Rosa, page 6
In bed, First situated herself in between Arsen and me. I curled into a ball at the edge of the bed, but she rolled me into her and tucked me under her arm. Unable to fight sleep, I dozed off in the warm barricade of her body. If her torso had been hollow I could have crawled into it like a tractor tire and slept there.
V
“Leave her be,” Arsen said. First was one step into the room; her silhouette crowded the doorframe.
“She’s awake,” she called back, even though my eyelids were closed tight in mock-sleep.
“Leave her,” he repeated, and First backed away on her tiptoes.
Later he escorted her to the door; their murmuring dragged on before I heard her high heels down the hall and him draw the chain lock into the metal slot. Toro whined for a while after she left.
Later he bent me over the back of his living room sofa and begged me not to leave him. There was a particular desperation in his voice that had me willing to agree. I reached behind me to touch him as he fucked me, but only grazed his moving hips with my fingers. He was impossibly far away for being inside me. I frantically kicked the back of the sofa, buried my face into its buttery leather, opened my mouth to taste its stale skin as stand-in for Arsen’s absent tastes and textures. Noise. That time, at least, he made noise. His moans were like a vocal warm-up, notes ascending a scale.
And later we were in his car, and I wondered how the day was already spent. He took the rich route: the shopping district, restaurant row, the boulevard lined with big-windowed houses. He had the city mapped by capital, by desirability. Even while we were in the skids he could locate each and every heritage building. He toured me past the first Buddhist temple, a neo-Gothic Catholic church, recited mini-histories of the Steelworkers’ Memorial and the fabric stores in Little India. This excess of facts glazed over me like icing. “It’s important to remember these things,” he said. “That way, if a live one—a customer— talks about them, you’ll have something to say. You’ll be working on Sub Rosa in no time.”
How I would sop up those city sites now, waterlog myself in them, but they meant very little to me at the time.
Only one story really sunk in: the story of us. We did not go past the Legion where he and I met; Arsen said Front Street would ruin the drive. But he put on his bedtime-story voice as he told me that above the Legion pub there was a great hall where live bands used to play while married couples danced the polka. Except for the rare Polish seniors’ folk dance or Ukrainian Orthodox church bazaar, the hall now remained empty. Arsen said he’d seen the can lights hung despondently from the rafters, their cellophane gels of red and blue covered in dust. He spoke about it with such preciousness that I felt slightly ashamed for the nights I’d spent in a crowd of drunks, all of us oblivious to the bigger and better place right above our heads. That vacant hall is where Arsen imagined our first meeting, or so he claimed. His telling never explained what force or intuition led him past the Legion that night. He was there to find me, period. “Why bother with explanations,” he often said, accusing my questions of ruining the moment. “It just happened.” I didn’t argue. I didn’t argue over his image of me standing in a solitary shaft of white light, laid out on the oak dance floor like sleeping beauty, though that’s not what he found. The lights were dusty and unused. The dance floor scuffed. And while he searched the hall, I was below, a mess with my shirt half off—the antithesis of fairytale beautiful. He doesn’t tell that part. In Arsen’s version of the story of us his call was still echoing through the empty hall, forever seeking me out. His desire could increase the value of just about anything.
Like the night before, the city I knew fell away and we drove the strip I’d learned is called Sub Rosa. The blind alley bedside No’s snuck up on me, though once we were through it, I wasn’t surprised. It felt normal, easy. Girls marked each corner like statues, triumphant and ideal. Again, I wished Arsen would have driven slower so I could have gotten a better look. “The Glories,” he said under his breath. Superstitious: Arsen firmly believed leaking any information about Sub Rosa would further jinx my chances in the Dark. There was no way the Glories could be concealed, however. To see them is to know you’re in a different place. Elsewhere.
First was the most beautiful. Her garish size suited Sub Rosa. She stood like a vamp monument—a slab of red satin and leather—in front of a warehouse-sized pawnshop. Neon lights that read gold and diamonds bounced off the metal panel doors, giving First a backdrop of flashing pink. Poised a few paces away from her was Second, a brush stroke of blonde. We just about passed them, then Arsen halted the car. He stuck his head out the driver’s side window and First met him with a kiss on the lips. Her hand wrapped around his face as they stole a quick moment to cluck at each other. My own hand balled into fist, a vein in my wrist rose up blue.
She stretched her arm into the car, rapped her knuckles on the dash a few times to get my attention and dropped a pair of white stretch gloves. “So you stay warm tonight, Little. It’s gonna be cold.” I suspected they were also to prevent my fingertips from turning black again. I shoved the gloves into my purse with the condoms and wet-naps. I also had new shoes and long white socks that covered the scrapes on my knees. I wore the same lace dress, bloodstains on the back scrubbed to a vague pink, a little rip above my left breast.
“The record for making it out of the Dark is five days,” Arsen told me as we pulled away.
“You think I can beat that?”
“You’d be a celebrity if you did.” I was greedy to hear more about it. Arsen didn’t indulge me. “You’re already my hero. I’ve never met a girl like you before, Little. I think you can do this, if you want it.”
A streetlamp blipped. Then we passed the sad row of burnt out lamps. Then the only the light was on Arsen’s dashboard. I sat there gawking like a dummy at the darkness. I had somehow forgotten how frightening it was.
“Dark Days,” I mumbled. Arsen had nothing more to say, so I pushed open the door, savouring the overhead light for a moment before I stepped out. “Don’t go,” I said out loud after he had pulled away. The brake lights flashed and I hoped I had some sort of special power. “Come back,” I tried, but Arsen’s car slipped from sight.
The air hummed a continuous “L”, as if it might have said my name. Far off, there was clinking, like a glass wind chime. I headed for a glowing blue light.
I’ll stay right here, I decided, situating myself under the dim spotlight. Lying on the sidewalk was a single plastic rhinestone, out-sparkling the grains of broken glass. I bent to pick it up and shivered. I became abruptly aware of how raw my throat was from screaming the night before. A lump of hard glue marked the spot on my dress where the rhinestone had come from. The blue light pretended it knew nothing about what happened to me here; it sat in its cage innocently. “I’m not hanging out with you again, asshole,” I told it. I left my fallen rhinestone where it was. It was jinxed, as Arsen would say. That whole spot was jinxed.
But a hundred paces into the Dark I was overcome by the hum and heaviness of the night and I turned again toward the blue light. Maybe it wasn’t such a bad thing. From a distance, it was merely a dingy light doing the best it could to struggle against the pitch-black. I felt a strange sympathy for it, but as I approached again a black moth flew in from the Dark and flung itself against the hot bulb. The moth squealed, or rather its body squealed as it soldered to the light, and I suddenly remembered the chorus of zombie men with too much detail. No, I definitely would not go back there.
I inched along, shutting my eyes for several steps, then opening them in hopes that the dark would be less so. Now and then I caught a glimpse of near-white. Each time, this startled me, and each time I discovered it was my reflection as I passed a cracked factory window. I heard footsteps and convinced myself it must be unseen litter blowing in the nonexistent breeze. Being alone in the dark was terrifying; the idea that someone was nearby was worse.
“I got a pair,” a voice hissed, close to me. I jumped backwards, fists swinging. My left hand swiped the night, hit no one. My right collided with a rocklike surface; there wasn’t the thud that comes when punching a wall, just the faint whimper of my own bones cracking. I retracted my fist, felt my knuckles for splits or trickling blood. “I can’t hurt you … much,” the voice said. A strange radiance bled through the darkness. A glimmering silhouette: slender arms and legs, a long neck, no face, no clothes, no visible features. Then gone. A pitter-patter on the sidewalk, invisible feet.
“You’re my angel?” I reached for the free space where the girl/ the thing/the angel who saved me had been. A cold current wrapped around my wrist and solidified, like cement being poured.
“Live ones. I got two.” Its voice had softened to a woman’s tongue, a kind warble. She tugged my arm. “Don’t be scared,” she said even more softly. “Little new, I show you to the ride.” For a single second there was a glint of luminosity again before she turned blacker than the night.
I was led by a hole, a tear in the sky. Against her blackness the surroundings seemed weak. I didn’t try to pull away. I didn’t ask again if she was my angel. I already knew I’d have no luck with either.
A truck appeared a few feet down the street. I wondered how long it had been there and why I hadn’t noticed it before. Radio leaked out the open windows. Not music; the static-scratched nasal voice of a ball-game announcer. A chorus of cheers crackled at us as we approached the driver’s side; somewhere a game had been won. Two men hooted and waved, overlooking us altogether. I caught the glow of a wristwatch; the wearer beat his hand on the truck’s ceiling.
“Let’s have a look,” one said finally, pushing the door open. The overhead light clicked on; two heads peeked out at us, mumbling to each other as they squinted to inspect us. I barely looked back at them. Instead, I scanned the dark face, the almost-absent beauty beside me. She had huge eyes and sparkling dewdrops on her curled eyelashes. That was all I could recognize in the short time before the man on the passenger side stepped out of the truck and ushered me up the tall chrome running board. “Stick with this ride,” the strange girl whispered as I climbed into the seat. The overhead light went out and the passenger slammed the door shut behind me.
“Welcome aboard,” said the driver. Tiny red and green lights along the dash were enough for me to see him wriggle out of his pants.
“What about the other girl?” I asked, panicked, like a kid who’d lost her mommy at the shopping mall.
“I won’t have that hocus-pocus in the truck,” he said. “I only come down here for my buddy. Keep him out of trouble.” Out the front window, I saw a long shadow crawl onto the hood. The passenger stood before the truck and bowed his head down, burying it in what must have been the oil spill of her hair.
“You look new. Brand new?” the driver asked me.
“Yup.”
“I wasn’t going to see a girl, not here. But you look normal. Really small, but I guess you’re just young, still.” He sat, wide-legged, with his pants balled on the floor. I started to lift my dress up, then unsure if I should, I paused holding my dress up stupidly around my waist. “It’s a fluke I have money on me,” the driver continued. He grabbed a hundred-dollar bill from off the dash. “This is for you.”
“Thanks,” I forced myself to say as I took his money. The bill was crisp. I remembered it was a Friday, probably this man’s payday. I spread myself over his legs, teased the tip of his cock with my tongue for a second before my blitzkrieg blowjob.
“Slow.” He pushed me off him after a minute. “Let’s slow down.” He tugged at my dress like a boy in a playground. I just stared at him, my eyes growing accustomed to the darkness at the most inopportune time. He had thick eyebrows that curled at the ends, a wide forehead. “Okay, I’ll let you do it,” he said, retracting his hands and holding them up, arrested. “Please, I only want to see your tits.” My chest tightened as I slipped out of the scalloped sleeves and let my dress fall around my waist. The man reached for one of my nipples, caught it between his thumb and forefinger and guided it to his open mouth. I knelt in front of him as he sucked my left breast up and spit it back out. I could have kneed him in the balls and darted away. He wouldn’t have chased me with his pants off. Or maybe he would have; no one could see him. He fumbled under my dress for my panties, taking them down. I almost tipped over as he tried to get them past my knees.
Outside, the other man was fucking emptiness. Half his body was lost in her. She sat up, wrapped her arms and legs around him, swallowing him up. I could see the whites of his eyes through the darkness. His mouth was open in a mimed scream. They were almost silent. Even the hood of the car bobbed noiselessly. The man below me wasn’t loud either; like a small dog dreaming, he only made little whimpers and growls. I was as far away from him as I could be; my head grazed the ceiling as he lifted his body up to me. It occurred to me I should have touched this man. At least run my fingers through his hair. I kept my hands firmly pressed against the driver’s side window. The sensation of his legs brushing up against mine nauseated me and I spread my legs apart until my right foot was hooked on the steering wheel. The horn squeaked out a half-beep as I shifted into place. The man squeaked too; he latched onto my waist and lowered me to meet him. I felt the coarse curled hair on his legs brush against my thighs.
The passenger was gone. I leaned into the windshield to relocate him.
“You’re watching her, eh. Scariest thing you’ll ever see,” the man beneath me said. I couldn’t tell if he was finished or not.
“Your friend is gone,” I said.
The man gaped into the darkness. “Jake,” he yelled out the window. “Buddy?” I couldn’t see my angel anymore, either. Not even a spark. “Shit. I told him not to fucking go off with that freaky bitch.”
“I know where she is,” I lied and patted his shoulder, the only touch I’d offered him. My purse and underwear were on the passenger seat floor beside his pants. His wallet was there too, poking out of his back pocket. Idiot, I thought. If we drove around searching we would surely have found our way back to the city again. It wasn’t his first visit to the Dark: he must have known the way. That was my wish, wasn’t it? A ride and bit of money. All I needed to do was stay in the passenger seat.
Instead, I hopped down from the running boards, fixing my dress as I put some distance between the truck and me. “Jake,” I called for effect. The man was scrambling back into his pants. “I bet they’re over here. She likes this alley,” I said without turning back. I raced behind the zigzag of building, tracing my hand along the rough plaster and metal exteriors. As I wove through narrow alleys and tight spaces between fences, I heard a dog barking or a man yelling, I didn’t know which, but I picked up the pace. After I rounded several corners and raced across a couple streets, I found my scrap yard.
From inside the rubber safety of the tractor tires, I frantically swabbed off the man-residue from my legs, stomach, and chest. My nipples buzzed like his fingers were still on them. But I had his wallet. I fingered the soft leather in the dark, took out what felt like all the money, and tossed the rest far back into the tunnel of tires. I didn’t want his licence or any photo ID near me when the dim morning light came. In no time at all, I’d already forgotten what he looked like. When I re-emerged from the tires, the whole experience had faded to a few glimpses of chrome and skin. The only thing for certain was I was getting used to the Dark. I had run through it. I had found my way.
The rest of the night followed this pattern. I moved through the Dark with increasing ease and absence of details. Almost audible words. Scarce sightings of men skulking, pacing. The cherry glow of a cigarette. The smell of gasoline. The arm wrapped around my waist— never really there. Each time I re-counted my money I seemed to remember less and less how I got it. The blue bills I tucked deep in my purse. I hated to think of what I had done for as little as five dollars. The other money, the green and red, I balled up in my fist to keep my hand warm.
My angel slunk up beside me as I was unconsciously picking more rhinestones off my dress. The collection of plastic gems sparkled in my hand as she lit up beside me. I got the feeling she had been beside me for a while. “Why are you still here?” Her voice was a strange croon: an old record that hadn’t been played since forever ago.
“Yeah, what a long night,” I said to her, as though she had a regular face, as though I could talk to her like a regular girl. “I hope my ride picks me up soon.”
“You missed your ride,” she said. “You missed it.”
“I don’t know where he is,” I said slowly, so she’d understand. “I’m still waiting for my ride to take me home. Well, not home, but out of here.”
“Where’s home?” she asked. “Forgotten already?” I imagined I would go home with Arsen like I had the night before. There was sadness or maybe disdain in her voice. Maybe she wanted to come with me? It had to be lonely for her; she couldn’t possibly exist in daylight, walk or eat or sleep side by side with other people. The thin spaghetti straps of her dress looked like scars along her shoulders; her parted lips were red like lava waiting in a crack in the earth. She had saved my life. She helped me find a man with money. She showed me the one safe place in this Darkness. And I was ready to ditch her the minute Arsen arrived to pick me up.
“Do you have any place to go?” I asked her, although I really didn’t want to know the answer. Her home must have been more awful than I could imagine.
“Do you have a place?” she said. “I can take you.”
“Look, I could come find you. Maybe I could come back and find you, later on or something.” I reached out to pat what I hoped was her shoulder.
“Cold,” she said.
