fig and prosciutto
Lilith
Others, he says.
“How many others are there?” It’s as if his voice is reaching from some unknown distance, an ocean between us.
“Have you been slipping out on us?” we chide, finding our smile. It doesn’t fit, slipping off our lips nearly as fast as we
manifest it.
“I need to know.” We hear the strain in his voice. Jordan’s world is changing, collapsing all around him. He sees things differently
now. Sees me differently. Things won’t be the same ever again, now that it’s starting to sink in. “How many of you are there?”
He’s afraid.
“More than we can count.” It was only a matter of time before others sensed his presence. His dark light. He radiates in it,
such a luminous void. He draws us in. A magnet. A lighthouse overlooking the abyss. I’d never be able to keep him secret forever.
Keep him for myself. Others want him now, too. What he can offer us all. A home to call our own.
“I knew it,” he says. “I fucking knew it. I thought I was losing my mind . . .”
“What have you seen?”
“People. Just . . . normal people. Staring back at me. Then their faces slip.” Jordan’s attention is elsewhere. We can’t find him. Lost. Where, we don’t know. In his thoughts.
He’s all walled up. I can’t get in. He won’t let me.
We place our hand on top of his, gently. There’s a cold current rising off from him. Butane blue. Ice running down our spine.
So many sensations, clamoring for our attention.
“You’re a catch,” I tease, trying hard to lure him back to me. Be playful about it.
He turns. There’s fear in his eyes. “Why me, though? What do they want with me?”
“Have you ever felt outside of yourself? Like you couldn’t connect with others?”
“All the fucking time.” He shakes his head, drifting off in his thoughts again. Slipping away from us. “I’ve always felt separate
from . . . everything. I don’t know. I’ve made friends, sure. Dated, absolutely. But ever since the accident, everything’s
been so out of whack.”
“We found each other,” I offer. “Your accident brought us together, didn’t it?”
“Is it me, though? What am I?”
“You’re holding on to all this guilt . . . It’s weighing you down. You need to let it go.”
“Funny,” he says without laughing, no mirth in the words whatsoever. “My physical therapist said exactly the same thing . . .
and then he went all demon on me.”
“It’s true, though. Stop feeling so guilty for being who you are. You need to stop looking for absolution and just let yourself
be . . . you.”
Let him reach his true potential.
“What if I’m . . . not good?”
“Look who you’re talking to.”
There’s something inside Jordan that he’s not comfortable with. That he’s afraid of. We see it seeping out from him, even
now. He can’t hide it. Contain it.
His darkness.
What demon wouldn’t want a taste of that? To wrap themselves up in his shadows?
We just have to show him how special he is. What he’s capable of. We can court his darkness. Indulge his whims. Embrace his
wickedness.
Who knows? Maybe we can share.
“Close your eyes,” we say, bringing him back. Just the two—three?—of us. We prepared a picnic. Bacon-wrapped dates. Scones
and jam. A feast of the tiniest bites.
“What’s on the menu?”
“You.” Jordan does as he is told and closes his eyes. “Now open your mouth.”
His lips part, lowering his jaw. His tongue suspends itself, just so, as if he’s ready to receive sacrament. His breath is held, hesitant. Expectant. Yearning for what comes next.
We imagine his mouth’s exploration. What he’s tasting. Soft skin. Baked flesh, soggy. A facsimile of flesh. It tears apart
immediately. If this belonged to a body, something living, it has been soaking in water for so long, it’s softened to the
point of disintegration.
“What is it?” we ask. “Any guesses?”
“Ravioli and pesto.” Garlic. Burnt earth. Cheese, like loam, in his mouth. Of course he knows. He is permitting us this guilty
pleasure. Letting us play our guessing game.
We share these sensations with one another. Offer up succulence. Grapes and cheese. Honey and bread. We rest on a blanket,
outspread across a patch of grass.
He picked this particular patch of land. It is not a park, per se, but a small island of grass surrounded by asphalt. At the
very center of this island is a monument to some man.
A dead general. He sits on a horse, arm held out. The entirety of the statue, including its pillar, is laced in graffiti.
Spray-painted words overwhelm the concrete base, like ivy.
“Who was he?”
“Him?” Jordan looks up to the statue, taking him in. “Robert E. Lee.”
“A hero of yours?”
“Hardly.” Jordan laughs. “Just another dead Confederate. They’re everywhere in this city.”
The sun warms our skin. Already we feel the wine easing into our bloodstream, relaxing us. Unraveling us. My grip on this
body slips, losing my control.
Who are we today?
Larissa offered up her body to me. Such an accommodating host. I found her working at the market where we purchased our picnic
items. A light strawberry wine to match her strawberry-blond hair. A smattering of freckles across her nose and cheeks. She
starts off sweet with a light refreshing finish. Just what we wanted for our date today.
Jordan’s not so sure, though. We can tell. Larissa is not someone from Jordan’s life. They’ve never met, perfect strangers.
There’s a reticence within him, we can sense it.
“Is everything okay?” we ask.
He nods. “Just getting used to the new you.”
“Do you like?” We present our flesh, holding out our limbs, to him.
“Sure.”
“Do you want us to change? Switch into someone else?” I’m not about to change myself. What’s on the inside. I am who I am.
I’ve never put much stock in who we are on the outside, though. Not when it’s ever come to being with someone else.
I have never done anything like this before. Who am I supposed to be?
“No, no,” Jordan struggles, “it’s not that . . .”
“What is it then?”
“Nothing.” It’s a lie. The word is all hollow. It holds no truth, no conviction.
What about his body? Which parts of Jordan appeal to us on the outside?
His eyes. His lips. His scars. That map sketched across his chest. The wounds on display against his flesh. The routes we take when we are with him, dictated by his skin.
And on the inside?
His emptiness. The caverns he’s created for himself, full of shadows.
Nothing.
I could live in there. Make a home for myself. Could I? Is that what I want?
With him?
If I don’t, something else will. Once Jordan crossed over, that aperture only widened within him, all those fissures breaking,
cracking him open. He’ll be seeing more demons behind my back soon enough. They’ll all come crawling for him. What if another
demon calls and he answers? What if he finds another that he likes more than me?
Get in while the getting’s good, they say.
His darkness calls to us even now. We find his pain compelling. His scars are beautiful ornamentation to a body that we’ve
grown fond of, but there’s more to him. Why are we so drawn to him? Why do we return, like moths to a flame? Why do we get
burned?
Does a lighthouse ever wish to be a lighthouse? Can he turn his luminosity off?
“My turn,” he says. “Close your eyes.”
“Must we?”
“Those are the rules . . .”
“You and your rules.”
“Trust me.”
Do we? Must we let go? Lose ourself? It’s not knowing what is coming, the slimmest risk of it all, that allows us to be surprised.
It could be anything. Anything.
“Have it your way,” we say and close our eyes, sealing ourselves in.
Within the darkness, we hear a hollow pop. A bone dislocating. Is Jordan breaking? Cracking open? Something spills. Pouring forth. Bleeding.
We open our eyes, even though we’re not supposed to.
“No cheating.” There is a corkscrew in his hands, the twining pig’s tail reaching out from between his fingers, the cork still
skewered upon it.
He pours our wine. “Here,” he offers us a plastic cup, then pours one for himself. He holds up his cup. “To new experiences.”
“To new experiences,” we say, raising ours.
Jordan wishes to show us his world. Do we want to show him ours?
“Cheers.”
Our cups touch. “Cheers.”
The wine is still chilled. Crisp. Its fruity hints fill our mouth, runs down our throat.
“Open wide.”
We do as we’re told, tilting our head back and opening our mouths, a hollow grotto that plunges down to the furthest depths
of our body, the darkened caves of our stomach, grumbling with hunger. Something slithers. A serpent unspooling, ready to
rise and strike.
“Here it comes,” he says.
This taste surprises us. It takes a moment to comprehend its complex textures.
It’s round. An ovate shape. A tiny egg? No, it squishes. Smooth skin, not a shell. The outer tegument is tough between our
teeth. Durable, even as we test its tenacity.
An eyeball, perhaps? Close, but not quite.
We bite. It bursts. Warm insides flood our mouth. The tiniest assortment of seeds spread over our tongue, gritty in texture,
like sweet grains of sand, wrapped in salty flesh, the loose derma sliced so thin, its fatty elasticity disintegrates as we
chew.
“It’s sweet,” we say, playing along. “Salty.”
“Can you guess?”
“Fig and prosciutto.”
“Bingo.”
We open our eyes, rather proud of ourselves for guessing correctly.
“Let me top you off.” Jordan refills our cup. We cleanse our palates with wine before moving on to the next course. Jordan
feeds us nuts and dried raspberries. Strawberries dipped in chocolate. We prefer the candied confections. We have such a sweet
tooth.
“More wine, please,” we ask.
“Too late. Tapped out.” Jordan tosses the bottle. It shatters against the statue. Glass rains down.
There it is. His darkness. See how it shines.
We rest our head on his stomach, both of us facing the sky. This dead Confederate looms over us, the man from the monument
staring out into the distance. His time has come and gone, while the people of this city choose to remember him. Honor him.
How strange. False idols.
There is a lull in our meal where we merely bask, resting next to each other in the sun. The faint lull of traffic passes
us by. Jordan shifts his position. Our head rests in his lap.