the last picture show #3
attention our way—and yet, still, it stings.
“Is that what you think we do? Play with these bodies?”
“Maybe.” We should tell him. Give this part of ourselves over to him, in hopes of him understanding who we are. What we are.
“There is an order to things. A balance.”
“Good and bad?”
“I tip the scales.”
“Why?”
“Balance is boring, don’t you think? There’s so much wasted potential in people. They never listen to their desires . . .
Sometimes all it takes is a little encouragement.”
“And that’s where you come in,” Jordan says.
Let me in . . .
“We saw this film when it was initially released,” we say, changing the subject. “People despised it then. Called it crass. But we thought it was lush. The French loved it. Americans were repulsed by it. We always felt it was lost on most audiences, but we watched it again and again.”
“Check you out,” he says.
“What?”
“I’ve never heard you go off about something you’re really into, you know? It’s nice. Hearing about your passions. I didn’t
know you had any, I guess . . .”
He’s right. Our mask has slipped just a bit, this facade of flesh falling away. Exposing ourselves. Is this too much? It’s
so much easier to be an archaic demon who wants nothing more than to sow despair throughout humanity. Nobody’s noticed our
personal interests.
“Remember much about the story?” he asks.
“Refresh our memory,” we say as we kiss the back of his neck. There. Just there. That tender divot of exposed flesh behind
his ear, along the upper hemisphere of his throat, that soft flesh, just where the jawbone begins. We could live here. Inhabit
that skin.
“See her?” Jordan points to the screen, his hand reaching over the balcony, into the open air, the very mouth of the abyss.
“Her husband is convinced she’s possessed.”
“How awful,” we tease.
“Turns out it’s not true.”
“Even worse,” we whisper as we lose ourself along his skin, kissing down his neck, until our lips reach his shoulder.
“It’s more about one man’s obsession, really . . .”
“Do you consider this film to be a love story?”
“Guess that depends on how you look at it.”
“How do you look at it, Jordan?”
“It changes,” he says. “Some days I think it’s about obsession. Other times . . . it feels pretty dated. And other times,
it’s a tragic love story.”
“How about tonight we interpret it that way?”
“Which?”
“A love story.” Our hands reach over his seat and wrap themselves around his chest. We are pressing ourselves against him,
burrowing our face into his neck. His flesh burns.
“Better than obsession,” he says, finally turning toward us.
Our lips meet.
“Maybe it’s both,” we say in between kisses. “Possession becomes possessive.”
His chest is the projector. His heart is the bulb. The beam of black light that bursts free from inside himself is enough
to illuminate the entire screen. We can’t look directly into his light. It blinds us. Burns us. But we can’t look away. What
movies he makes. What cinema of the soul.
“I want to see you,” he says.
“Here we are.”
“No. You. I want to see you. The real you, what you are, without your host.”
“You wouldn’t like what you see . . .”
“Why not let me decide what I like and don’t? That’s my call, don’t you think?”
“Trust us.”
“I’m trying, but how can I if you won’t even show me who—”
what
“—you are?”
“No,” we say after considering it. “We can’t show you. Not yet.”
“When?”
When we’re ready. When we’re not afraid. “Soon.”
“Swear?”
“We swear.”
He kisses us. It feels deeper, his presence, reaching into us. We close our eyes and lose ourselves.
Does Jordan feel his body leave the seat?
Does he notice our ascent? The two of us intertwined, finding the beam of light from the film projector, as if to discover our own spiral, and begin to spin, limbs twisting over the abyss, the very vertigo of the moment sweeping us into itself, consuming us, that white-hot light, so bright it’s capable of burning.
Does Jordan sense our levitation? Our dance over the heads of everyone else? The pit below, all those lost souls, trapped
in the chasm beneath us, staring at the screen, ignorant to the dance of devils, the spiraling bodies, intertwined, consumed
by light?
Does he feel us? Vertigo in and of itself has always been a component of religious practices. The dizziness that sweeps over
is the spirit entering the vessel’s body.
We sweep him up, whisk him away. A vulgar display, yes, but we are only sharing it with one. With him.
The weeping crystals chime within the eddy of our passing bodies, tinkling ever so faintly as we spiral by. We are here, dancing,
spinning, spiraling, lost in the projector’s light.
I could make it fall. Just a few more twists and away it would go, dropping onto the audience below. Crushing them all.
We need to slow down. Temper ourselves. Things are moving too fast. We’re losing ourselves. We can’t let go. Not yet. Not
without him.
Besides, there’s our gift to give. We’ve been waiting for this moment all night.
“We have something for you,” we whisper. We love giving gifts. “Something special.”
“What is it?” he asks.
“A surprise . . .”