Obsession: Tales of Irresistible Desire (7 page)

Then, it happened. One moment I was conversing with a friend, the next there was a sudden movement beside me and people were uttering cries of alarm. It took me a while to realize that Simew had not only vacated her seat in a hurry, but had disappeared beneath the table. For a second or two, all was still, and then the whole company was thrown into a furor as Simew scuttled madly between their legs down the length of the table. Women squeaked and stood up, knocking over chairs. Men swore and backed away.

Again stillness. I poked my head under the tablecloth. “Felice, my love. What are you doing?”

She uttered a yowl and then emerged at full speed from beneath the other end of the table, in hot pursuit of a small mouse. Women screamed and panicked and, in the midst of this chaos, my new wife expressed a cry of triumph and pounced. In full sight of my guests, she tossed the unfortunate mouse into the air, batted it with her hands, and then lunged upon it to crack its fragile spine in her jaws.

“Felice!” I roared.

She paused then and raised her head to me, the mouse dangling, quite dead, from her mouth. “What?” she seemed to say. Tiny streaks of blood marked her fair cheek.

At that point, one of the ladies vomited onto the floor, while another put a hand to her brow and collapsed backward into the convenient arms of one of the men.

I could only stare at my wife, my body held in a paralysis of despair, as my guests flocked toward the doors, desperate to escape the grisly scene. Presently, we were left alone. I could hear voices beyond the doors, Medoth’s calm assurances to hysterical guests.

“Simew,” I said dismally and sat down.

She dropped the mouse and came to my side, reached to touch my cheek. I looked up at her. She shrugged, pulled a rueful face. Her expression said it all: “I’m sorry. I couldn’t help myself. It’s what I am.”

And it was, of course. How wrong of me to force human behavior on the wild, free spirit of a cat.

The news spread rapidly. I told myself I did not care about the gossip, but I did. For a while, I was determined not to abandon my position in society and attended gatherings at usual, although without my wife. I felt I should spare her any further humiliation. Whenever I entered a room, conversation would become subdued. People would greet me cordially, but without their usual warmth. I heard remarks through curtains, round corners. “She is a beast, you know, quite savage. We all know he’s an absolute darling to take her on—but really—what is he thinking of ?”

I was distraught and blamed myself. Simew should have remained a secret of mine and my loyal staff. I should have kept her as a mistress, but not presented her publicly as a wife. How could I have been so blind to the pitfalls? We had never really civilized her. I know Simew sensed my anguish, although I strove to hide it from her. She fussed round me with concerned mewings, pressing herself against me, kissing my hair, my eyelids. The staff remained solidly behind her, of course, but she was not their responsibility; her behavior could not affect them. The terrible thing was, in my heart I was furious with Simew. Public shame had warped my understanding. I suspected that she knew very well what she’d done at the marriage feast, but had wanted to shock, or else hadn’t cared what people thought of her. She had despised them, thought them vapid and foolish, and had acted impulsively without a care for what her actions might do to me. My love for her was tainted by what I perceived as her betrayal. I wanted to forgive her, but I couldn’t, for I did not think she was innocent. I made the mistake of forgetting what she really was.

One night, she disappeared. The staff were thrown into turmoil, and everyone was out scouring the gardens, then the streets beyond, calling her name. I sat in darkness in my chambers. I had no heart to search, but sought oblivion in liquor. Steeped in gloomy feelings, I thought Simew had gone to find herself a troupe of tom cats, who like her had been turned into men by the imprudent longings of cat-loving women. No doubt I, with my over-civilized human senses, could no longer satisfy her. She would return in the morning, once she thought she’d punished me enough.

But she did not return. Days passed and the atmosphere in the house was as dour as if a death had taken place. I saw reproach in the faces of all my servants. Dishes were slammed onto tables; my food was never quite hot enough. One evening, my rage erupted and I called them all together in the main hall. “If I don’t see some improvement in your duties, you are all dismissed!” I cried. “Simew is gone. She is not of our world, and I am not to blame for her disappearance. Her cat nature took over, that’s all.”

They departed silently, back to their own quarters, no doubt to continue gossiping about me, but from that night on, some kind of normality was resumed in the running of the house.

After they had left, I went to stand before the portrait of Puryah, resolving that in the morning, I would have it taken down. I heard a cough behind me and turned to find Medoth standing there. I sighed. “If she is a mother, she is cruel,” I said.

Medoth came to my side. “You put much into that work, my lord. Some might say too much. It has great power.”

I nodded. “Indeed it has. I thought I could brave Pu-ryah’s fire, but I was wrong, and now I am burned away.”

“Your experiences have been distressing,” Medoth agreed. He paused. “Might I suggest you make a gift of this painting to the temple of the Lady? I am sure they would appreciate it.”

“Yes. A good idea, Medoth. See to it tomorrow, would you?”

He bowed. “Of course, my lord.”

I began to walk away, toward my empty chambers.

“My lord,” Medoth said.

I paused and turned. “Yes?”

He hesitated and then said. “One day, you will miss her as we do. She only obeyed her nature. She loved you very much.”

I was about to reprimand him for such importunate remarks, but then weariness overtook me. I sighed again. “I know, Medoth.”

“Perhaps you should acquire another little cat.”

I laughed bleakly. “No. I don’t think so.”

I did see Simew again. After some years had passed, she came back occasionally, to visit the servants, I think. Sometimes, I found fowl carcasses they had left out for her in the garden. Sometimes, alone in my bed late at night, I would hear music coming from the servants’ quarters and the joyful peal of that unmistakable laugh. To me, she showed herself only once.

It was a summer evening and dusk had fallen. I went out into the garden, filled with a quiet sadness, yet strangely content in the peace of the hedged walkways. I strolled right to the end of my property, to the high wall that hid my domain from the street beyond. It was there I heard a soft chirrup.

A shiver passed through me and I looked up. She was there, crouching on the wall above me, her hair hanging down and her eyes flashing at me through the dusk. She was clothed, I remember that, in some dark, close-fitting attire that must be suitable for her nocturnal excursions. Where was she living now? How was she living? I wanted to know these things, and called her name softly. In that moment, I believe there could have been some reconciliation between us, had she desired it.

She looked at me with affection, I think, but not for very long. I did not see judgment in her eyes, for she was essentially a cat; an animal who will, for a time, forgive our cruel words and unjust kicks. A cat loves us unconditionally, but unlike a dog, she will not accept continual harsh treatment. She runs away. She finds another home.

My eyes filled with tears and when I wiped them away, Simew had gone.

I never married again.

Getting so close there’s no difference between the two of you. It was a wonderful idea, and yet strangely frightening.

“Get closer,” Angela whispered into his ear. “I can’t get close enough to you.”

Hugh groaned with pleasure. “If I were any closer I’d be crawling around inside your skin.”

“That would be heaven . . . ” she murmured, and then was silent for a time, so that he thought she might have actually drifted off to sleep. He shifted his hips a little and felt himself move inside her, and she in turn contracting, holding on. The hidden gesture embarrassed him a little, which surprised him. “I’ve always wanted to make that closeness happen,” she said. “Maybe if we try hard enough we can make that happen.”

He didn’t say anything more. That last thing . . . she was being serious. He felt great that she’d said that. He had the same desire, after all. That was the point, wasn’t it? Getting so close there’s no difference between the two of you. It was a wonderful idea, and yet strangely frightening. Hugh was suddenly cold, and tried to pull Angela even closer.

“Do you love my body?” she asked him a few weeks later. “Of course I do. It’s a wonderful body.”

“I don’t mean like it, the way you like to have sex with it, put your penis inside it. I mean, do you love it? As in you can’t be without it. As in you need its physical presence around you at all times. As if it were music. As if it were air.”

“Angela. I adore your body.”

“How much do you adore it?”

“I go to bed and your body is the bed. I go to sleep and your body is the dream. The smell of it is my oxygen. The taste of your skin on my lips is breakfast, lunch, and dinner. In fact, I don’t want you to bathe anymore. I want you to ripen, I want the taste of you to change, to diversify. The flavor of you should be a varied menu. For there could be no foulness about you, only a difference in tastes, as if I were traveling around the world of you and tasting every exotic cuisine of you.” Hugh was a little breathless.

She made an exaggerated sigh. “My, my! Tell me more.”

“I never want to leave this room again. I want to swim in you, drink in you, eat in you, work in you, live in you.”

“So what do we do for money?”

He paused. “Well, so much for that idea.” They laughed, and made love until dawn.

“It’s been wonderful,” she whispered from the darkness. “But I can’t help thinking, it could be more.”

“You’re getting bored with me?”

“Oh, no. No, my love. Never. After all these months it’s still beautiful, as special as that first time. But don’t you feel the same way sometimes? That there could always be more? That we could be even closer? All my life, I’ve never been able to get close enough, but I always thought if I just met the right person, and we tried, really tried, I finally would.”

The words inside his mouth felt like her words. They had the same softness, the same strength. “And you’d be looking out of my eyes, and I’d be looking out of yours, and neither one of us would be alone ever again.”

Angela came out of the dark and wrapped herself around him. The surface of her skin had a cool distance at first, but as it warmed to his skin it was as if she were adhering to him, sinking into his body. He rubbed his open hands and his forearms up and down her back, and for a moment it was as if he were rubbing himself. He could feel the friction of his own contact, and it spread the warmth throughout his body, but then there was the briefest sensation of panic when he tried to pull away from her just a bit, to break the sweat adhesion of their bodies, just to make himself a little more comfortable, and found that he couldn’t. Couldn’t remove himself from her. He had lost the sense of an edge to his own skin, where it connected to her, and the way her arms and legs had wrapped around his so tightly it seemed she had sprouted more arms and legs somehow, and she had climbed up onto him so that he held her up completely, and she was so light she seemed not to have added an ounce to his own weight.

“Closer . . . closer,” she whispered, her voice inside his head.

He had been talking all evening, barely above a whisper, so that for nearly anyone else he’d be nearly impossible to hear. But he was convinced she heard every word, even though she had said nothing in reply. He wasn’t sure what he was trying to do: convince her, reason with her, balance the fantasy with some hard facts about the limitations inherent in human flesh. He made no arguments, no assertions, but rambled all night long, lulling himself, seducing himself, reacquainting himself with those realities.

“To see out of your eyes. To breathe what you breathe, taste what you taste. I think everyone wants that, to be so close, but it’s a dream, isn’t it? I mean, human beings aren’t made that way. That’s why we’re such a sad bunch: what we desire most in our lives is impossible because of our very nature. And we can’t push past our own physical natures. Can we?”

The question hung in the darkness between them until morning.

For a week they left the bed only to use the bathroom or grab something from the kitchen, take it back to the bed, feed themselves, feed each other, smearing each other with whatever was soft enough to mash and spread, licking it from skin, nibbling it off smooth rises, chewing it out of hollows. After another week they made calls to the stores, paid by credit card, and had food delivered in boxes by the front door, sneaking out when they thought no one else could see, because they didn’t want to share their nakedness with anyone else. Or perhaps, he thought, they were too embarrassed about the way they looked now, the way they smelled, the rawness about them.

He heard the fear in her muffled voice, but he was too tired, or too reluctant, to move his mouth away from hers, even though his own lips hurt, his throat was a deep well of pain, and he thought maybe his gums were bleeding. Certainly he tasted blood almost all the time now, every kiss highlighted with it.

“Hugh!” She exploded out from under him. In desperation or orgasm he could not tell, nor did he think there was much difference for them anymore. She sat on the edge of the bed, face in her hands, shaking. He started to rub her back. The skin wrinkled, reddened. She made a small cry and edged away. “I . . . I can’t . . . kiss you anymore. It hurts!” She said it angrily.

“I’m sorry, I should have stopped.”

“No, no honey.” She twisted around and clutched his hand. He noticed that the back of her hand was red, skinned, beginning to break down. “I like, or, no, I want it. I really do. Maybe just a little rest.”

She lay down next to him and they were careful not to touch at first. Her breath came in short, ragged explosions, with occasional tears. He reached out cautiously, one finger pressing gently into the side of her hand. She laid her hand on top of his. After a while he couldn’t hear her breathing anymore. He rose on one elbow and twisted his head toward her. Her hand didn’t move. He stared hard at her chest, her throat. The skin looked pebbled, abraded, a faint trace of scabbing beginning to show. He couldn’t see her breathing. He moved over her, straddled her. He laid one hand on her shoulder and shook it gently. Nothing. He looked down at her pubic hair, the extensive swelling of the labia, the dried pink line. His penis began to swell. He thought it might hurt to put his penis inside her, she would be so dry. He bent over to kiss one nipple, and still she did not move.

“Angela! Angela!” he screamed. Her eyelids shot open. She started to cry, and he kissed each one of the tears, tasting them, lifting them with his tongue. “Angela . . . ” He entered her name into the air as she guided him into her.

They could move only for short, vigorous periods. They rested for an hour or so between tries, always pressed together, their skin painful to the touch, but so painful not to touch. The fire of pain was a part of them both and could not be isolated. The sex was strong and desperate both inside and outside their dry, flaking skins. He entered her wherever he could find an opening, but there were never enough openings to get all of him inside. “I want you closer,” she pleaded again and again, but her mouth seemed misshapen, the words malformed, although he understood everything she said. “I can’t get . . . inside you,” she said and beat her fist against his chest in one spot over and over as if to force an opening.

When he woke up she had a kitchen knife in her hand, moving it back and forth across her tongue. He looked down at his belly. She’d started building a hole there. Not “making,” he thought. More than that. Building. She was building a bridge between them.

He suddenly wanted to urinate, but he couldn’t get up. He couldn’t remove her mouth and tongue from him. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d gone to the bathroom. But he knew he had. He couldn’t remember the last time he had left this bed. And perhaps he hadn’t.

“We animals, we worship meat. We worship our food,” he said. “It brings us back to where we came from, and after such a long, lonely journey.”

She had her tongue in the hole. She looked as if she were trying to get her entire head in there. He wanted to tell her that she couldn’t, that it wouldn’t work. A physical impossibility for human beings. He wanted to be the voice of reason again. For her. He thought she needed it. His life, his body had no more room for reason.

After a time he opened his eyes. She was covered with him.

“Close to you . . . close to you . . . ” she murmured. She tasted just like him. He thought it must be the taste of her that kept waking him up.

He woke up again. “Close to you,” she repeated. She kept jabbing him to wake him up. It hurt. She kept putting her finger into his hand. “Here,” she said. Her sharp finger. He looked down at the knife in his hand. “Here,” she said again. She pulled his head down until he could see the pubic hair. He tasted himself. “Here.” She drew a line down from her pubic hair, down from her vagina. “They do it so babies can come out easier. ‘Episiotomy,’ they call it. So babies can come out. And never go back. Not ever.”

Dully he looked at her. He just wanted to lie down. Inside her. “Here,” she said. “Here.” And helped him guide the knife.