Fist of the Spider Woman (12 page)

my own body their bodies all this rot

this shit this vomit this blood

i didn't know i wanted

wanted the white bed

was that so bad?

white bed all crisp cotton and down

high posts a girl

i could yell at

i'd make her pay make her

anger i didn't see

the mirror myself ghost

white bed for ghost girl

wanted to help my parents

wanted a girl to yell at

this girl this girl

it is dark and she

so thirsty the smell

hunger long gone

air cries crises gap

in the dark my body their bodies

old scarfaced bag that yells

at me i'll make her pay

the factory girl that pinches

the girl that cries that pricks her finger

that strains her eyes

the girl with chemical burns

the girl that suffocated the girl

the girl with the severed hand

the girl i want

not this dark

the white bed in the glossy

advertisement i saw and the white

girl in the white dress so pure

i wanted

not this ghost

a girl to do

what i say

not me

this sorrow in the innocent

part the longing

imperialism's imperative scathes

we dirt even in revolution

desire awry

we force we blood we maim

she body she collective

in our innocent we search

culture's purgative rhetoric

as machines repetitive wilt spirit

as bones dig mass racial graves

our soft that works tears burns

dismembered and bleeding

she dark she poor

this litany all tongue-stuck and word-full

innocent digs for itself

absolute abstract

calls to body's miraculous

pulse and warm this soft

reproduce kisses even the gentle

belly all blossom

pretend a fresh garden

sing the charred cell's

delectable mutation phantom

pleasure of severed limb

chant the cancer regenerative

our brilliant pustules recall brine

of origin the new salt

futures a city of soft

biological meteors replicate

scale our feather our alien

innocent all damp and downy

automaton dreams sightless lovers

maiden form from midden heap

cog gear apple dry leaf mildew

negative map of masculine longing

as tongues catch empty

eye sockets and severed hands

scamper free of corporate entities

i language my body to being

ontology's on-switch

tender as rubber nipple

my skin flushes

flesh full as any cyborg

i arm my machine love

swing from limbo to limbo

right up the river

my amazon lethal as yellow mud

breathe my golly

my salem sailor's

supernumerary tipple and

unheimlich familiar

witchy witchy woman

american as gene genie

i replicate my sweet helix

doubled and coiling

you've come a long way baby

demonic mnemonic

memory repeats

shell of abandoned girl

flushed fleshy to recall

the want not want shift

of this kiss that stirs

tumble into the crash

the break that can't

recollect pieces pulpy as

organisms indeterminate life

unsure of entry and sharp

as shrapnel

harmonic hysteric mystic as

eleusis lucidly remembers

future descent into death

forgetful father's rail of corpses

open wounds protruding bones

that litter occupied streets

bedrooms of houses turned in by children

shattered girls left in stairwells

our good attempts to patch to hide

under a fine layer of leaves

forget to tell the girl

kisses are the plumb line to horror

the first word is silent soft

this gentle call to loss

we girls who understand

dress as boys our armour

hard thick our tongues that cut

raw inside layered under

repeats insistent litany

desire as tomorrow's memory

ghosting visits our soft mouths wait for

Sido

Suki Lee

I heard that French women are easy, and I think I just found one.

A skin-tight T-shirt and jeans hug the nymphlike curves of her body. A short pixie cut frames her staggeringly beautiful face.

She's completely sexed and looks about thirty. Best of all, she's leaning in the open apartment door, looking me up and down like I'm a piece of meat.

“
Bonjour
,” the sylph says.

“I don't speak French,” I shrug apologetically, putting my bags down.

I'm winded from walking seven flights up the long spiral wooden staircase to the landing. From there, I had to go through a door and up a ladder to the apartment. Perched on top of an old eighteenth-century building, it's a bit of an odd place, somewhat resembling a birdhouse.

“Sido Lebris?” I inquire. I'm expecting someone much older than the nubile woman standing before me.

“Yes, zat's me of course.” She turns on her heels and leads me with a swaying walk into the apartment.

The open loft has two massive barred windows that overlook the city's silver rooftops. Upstairs is an attic crawl space that will serve as my bedroom during my week-long stay in Paris.

“I guess you're wanting your rent.” I pull out the money. I can't help staring at my new landlady. Her sexy body makes me feel crazily alive.

She takes the cash, and looks directly at me. “You want to fuck me? Is zat what you want?” I'm amazed by her directness. I pass her the euros, and watch her erect nipples under her T-shirt. Looking at me with a flirtatious gaze, I get a jolt when she adds, “I bet you taste good.”

Sido walks up to me so we're almost touching. I'm electrified. She takes the back of my head and brings my mouth to hers, giving me a rough, raunchy kiss. I'm completely overwhelmed by the inside of her mouth. Its hot, wet velvet sets me off. Then suddenly she bites down on the inside of my lip.

“That hurt,” I protest.

Sido steps back, regarding me with amusement. Her tits are so hot that I feel sick to my stomach. “Here are zee keys.” She drops them in my palm, and leaves.

I'm lying on an uncomfortable bed, which is no more than four feet from the skylight. The window is full of scratches. Feathers have lodged inside the wooden frame. When caught in the wind, they whirl around like small satellite dishes sending signals. My lip is swollen where Sido bit it. My mind keeps reiterating our kiss—the absolute eroticism of her wet mouth and her unswerving directness. I wonder if this is how she treats all her tenants. I masturbate and think about her while looking out at the dramatic clouds over the city. She's the sexiest woman I've ever seen.

I sleep off the jetlag for hours. It's dusk when I'm awakened by the creaking of the wooden ladder up to the loft. I listen to the groaning of the rungs until the presence of someone in my room is palpable. I open my eyes and gather the blankets around me.

“What are you doing here?”

“I thought you would have left by now,” my nefarious land-lady explains calmly, while scrutinizing me in bed.

“You can't just come here,” I protest. “I rented the apartment for the week.”

“I need to feed zee
chouettes
,” Sido states, matter-of-factly.

“I don't speak French,” I remind her.

“Owls. Zey come every night, because I feed zem.”

“You feed them?”

“I leave zem something to eat outside zee window,” Sido says, gesturing at the skylight.

“Something? Like what?”

“Mice, from my apartment.” Sido gestures with the plastic bag in her hand, which contains a few of their still, tiny bodies.

“You shouldn't do that. Owls are wild animals.”

“Zey are majestic and beautiful creatures—and my friends.”

Sido has the edge of a tear in her eye, which makes her all the more sexy. It confirms not only that I'm attracted to her, but also that she's somewhat unhinged.

“Anyways, I think it's wrong for you to come here,” I tell her.

“Are you sure? You don't want to fuck me
?
” Sido asks, looking at me with her sultry brown eyes. I hesitate, and within that moment, she puts the plastic bag down and descends the ladder.

“Put zee mice outside zee window for zee owls tonight!” she calls up to me from the floor below. Then she is gone.

I get out of bed and throw out the disgusting plastic bag. I also organize my suitcase, so I'll know if Sido's been through it when I get back. I'm determined not to get involved with her.

She's trouble.

It's early evening by the time I venture out into the beauty of Paris. I wander past ornate buildings and statues encumbered by roosting birds. Couples kissing voraciously on the city's curvy medieval streets get me ruminating about my seductive landlady. Despite Sido's oddness, I'm brooding over her pornographic body and her sense of entitlement. I crave her like a sinful meal.

Night is falling, so I decide to go to Troisième Lieu for distraction. It's a women's bar I read about. When I arrive, it doesn't disappoint. The long narrow space is packed with women in conversation, eating, drinking, dancing, and kissing. I take a place at the bar and order an absinthe from the hot bartender. My gaze flits from one woman to the next, and I drink up the sight of all the lithe French bodies in this oasis. Eventually, part of me realizes that I'm searching for that hustler, Sido, amidst all this beauty. I feel uneasy that she's entered my subconscious, so I flirt with the bartender, who flirts back. Eventually, a few women draw me into their conversation.

“I don't speak French,” I explain.

They switch to English and ask questions about my stay.

While they're inquiring about my apartment, I interject, “Are there owls in Paris?”

“Owls in Paris? Never. Zey live far from here, in zee country,” says Sylvie, a lecherous older woman who's already whispered that she wants to take me home tonight.

“My landlady claims that she keeps owls in the city,” I explain.

“Impossible! Zis person is making up stories,” slurs drunken Véronique, who is androgynously attractive.

Later in the evening, Véronique corners me. She points to her right cheek and says, “Give me a kiss here.” I do.

She points to her left cheek. “Give me a kiss here.”

She points to her lips. “Now give me a kiss here.”

We kiss for a long time.

But in the end, it doesn't end up amounting to anything. My kiss with Véronique is disappointing and makes me hunger for Sido's mouth. I'm exhausted and the jetlag is catching up with me, so I decide to leave. I walk alone past crowds of people carousing in the chaotic Parisian streets. Close to my apartment, I see two men working furiously to undo each other's pants in a doorway. It seems that the entire city is sexed.

When I get back to the apartment, it is quiet. I check my belongings. Everything is as I left it. I go to bed, relieved that Sido didn't intrude. All the same, the shadow of her kiss is still with me. I fantasize about eating her out while she's naked and standing against the kitchen counter in high heels.

I'm almost asleep when I hear a haunting call in the night: a long-drawn-out
hooo
, an uncomfortable silence, and then a startling
ha!
The sounds ricochet off the walls of my room, and make me shudder. There's a flapping sound outside the window, and I open my eyes just as the beast's wingspan blocks the moon and it comes to rest on the roof. The owl is perched on the edge of the skylight. Two massive furrowed brows come together over a hooked beak. A circular facial disk of feathers frames huge, dark eyes. A puffed-up chest rises above me. For a moment, I consider putting the mice out, but then the owl scratches at the window with a clawed foot, which I find unnerving. I'm about to move to the downstairs couch when the bird spreads its wings and lifts itself into the Parisian sky. It's hours before I'm able to sleep.

It's noon and harsh daylight is funnelling through the skylight.

I step cautiously down the ladder to the bathroom. The shower is a small confined space. I relax in the steaming hot water and plan my day ahead—an omelette at a café, an exhibition at Musée d'Orsay, a walk along the Seine, and maybe dinner at Troisième Lieu.

My thoughts are interrupted when Sido opens the door and comes into the bathroom completely naked. Her clothes are in her arms, and she puts them down at her feet.

“What are you doing!? You can't just come in here!” I shout.

I try not to look at the curve of her hips, her chiselled collarbone, her lean arms, the muscle and bone of her sex.

“You didn't feed zee owls!” she accuses me loudly over the sound of the shower.

Sido looks like a mirage through the dense steam. My body responds to her against my will. The more I look at her, the wetter I get.

“You have to leave.” I turn off the shower.

“Turn zee water back on!” she orders firmly.

“No. You have to leave.” She's making me angry. I feel humiliated standing there naked and exposed. I open the narrow shower doors. “Leave now or I'm calling the police.”

Sido's eyes light up with fury, which turns me on despite my better judgment. She reaches into her pile of clothes on the floor and pulls out a gun. Holding it with two hands, she points it at my gut. I recoil and back against the shower. “You didn't feed zee owls. So now zee water goes back on, and you turn around.” Sido is flushing with anger.

I do as she says. Hot water streams down my shoulder as I face the wall with my back to her. My heart flips.