third wheel #2
Not a body of water, either, but her actual body. She snaps out of some somnambulistic state. Whatever trance she was captured
in is gone.
She’s back. Back inside herself. In control of her body. In her own living room.
In her skin. It’s not Lilith anymore. It’s just . . . her.
Cara.
“It’s okay,” I offer, hands held up in a I-mean-no-harm gesture. “You’re okay.”
“What the fuck . . .” She takes in the space, her own living room, shaken.
The music, the candles. Me. She has no idea where any of this came from. Suddenly, it’s all simply here. The mood, the spread,
this complete fucking stranger in her apartment.
That has to be a wee bit terrifying. Fuck. Didn’t think that one through. Shit, shit . . .
Cara looks at me, eyes widening, her breath picking up into a frantic pant. She’s trying to remember me. Who I am. “What’re you doing here? What’s going on?”
“You’re safe . . .”
“What are you doing in my apartment?” She pushes herself back in her chair, away from me. She has no recollection of anything that’s happened between me and Lilith. This is all new to her. I’m fucking it all up,
going about all this the wrong way. “What is all this?”
“It’s okay, I swear. I know how this looks—”
“Oh my God—”
“Do you remember me?” I hold my hand against my chest, my heart, as if to announce myself. Present myself in the most nonthreatening
manner possible.
“Oh God.” Her voice lifts. “You’re the asshole from bingo.”
“That’s right . . . I’m Jordan.”
“Cara.” Hearing her say her own name, not Lilith’s, bumps against my ear. It doesn’t sound right. Doesn’t sound real. None
of this feels real to me. What in the hell am I doing?
An awkward silence seeps into the room, absorbing our breath.
“How long was I gone for this time?”
“Not long.”
“Days? Hours?”
“A few hours?”
When Lilith is in control, she looks at me with a sense of recognition. She knows me. But when she slips away, leaving her
host behind, that look is gone. I’m not a part of her life.
“How did it start?” I ask, feeling like I’m fumbling through this. “When did you first . . .”
“Go all Exorcist?” She throws it back.
“So . . . you know?”
“I thought I was losing my mind at first. I didn’t know what was happening. I kept hearing this . . . this voice.”
Cara’s eyes drift, lapsing off into some distant thought.
“Lilith,” I offer.
“You know . . . her?”
I nod.
“Is she really a . . . a . . .” Her voice fades. She doesn’t need to say the word.
Demon. It’s there, suspended between us, hanging in the air like some phantom presence. Haunting us both. Maybe Lilith is still
here, right now, drifting through the ether.
Waiting.
“This city fucking sucks when it comes to meeting people. I’ve been just coasting.”
I know the feeling.
“But here was someone—something—that wanted to hold on. Take over. I just thought, Why not? Let go. Let someone else take the wheel. It was scary at first, but then . . . I don’t know. I kinda loved it. I got to do
all the things I was too timid to do. I wasn’t afraid to cut loose. Say fuck it for once, you know? I’ve spent my whole life
being told what not to do . . . I just figured, to hell with it. Let’s be the me I’ve always wanted to be, just with . . .
her.”
Cara drifts. “She found me,” she says. “Called out for me. Out of everybody, she picked me.”
“What does it feel like?”
“Waves? Black waves washing over everything. Over me.” She looks at me, shaken. “Wait . . . Where did she go?” Cara almost
sounds sad to be separated. Alone.
“I asked if we could . . . talk. You and me.”
“. . . Why?”
“I just needed to know if you were . . . if you were okay with this. All this.”
“Oh my God . . .” Her eyes widen. The tension in her jaw slackens, suspended just enough to release the slightest guffaw.
“Are you . . . are you two fucking? You are, aren’t you?”
“Yeah.”
“In my body?”
“Yeah.”
Cara shakes her head. I can’t tell if she’s impressed or repulsed. “Figures.”
“That’s why I wanted to talk. I needed to know if you were cool with . . . with. . . .”
“Am I cool with my body being used as a sexual Ouija board?” Cara reaches for the glass of wine on the table. “Yeah. Fuck
it. Why not, right? I’m down to share.”
It doesn’t sound like Lilith. Because it’s not. It’s not her at all. I should know that by now, but even so, I can’t help but get caught up in her speech patterns. The difference in her intonation.
Her voice sounds different than before, when Lilith is in control. It’s not only that she’s a different person, but a completely
different patois. It’s not just her body that gets taken over, but her entire personality.
This isn’t Lilith. This is someone else.
I miss her. Miss Lilith. Her voice. The acidity of her words. Her eyes. The way she looks at me, the razor blade of her stare,
cutting right through me. I want that back.
Want her. Not . . . her.
“I had these stupid dreams of making it big,” Cara says to her empty glass of wine. “Go all Hollywood. Make a movie. I wanted
to believe I was special . . . but moving to Richmond, I realized, no, sorry, there’s nothing special about me. I’m just another
hack with a pipe dream. Get in line, you know? It wasn’t until she came inside that I felt like I might be.”
When she doesn’t continue, I ask, “Might be . . . what?”
“Special.” A somberness sweeps over Cara’s face. The wine is working its way through her blood, the tension relenting. “She
told me she’d take control, that she could help, and all I had to do was let her in, let her inside, and suddenly . . . my
life wasn’t so hard anymore.”
She pours herself another glass, filling it to the brim.
“I don’t have to think. I don’t have to worry. I don’t have to be afraid. I can just let go and . . . let her in. She makes
the calls. She lives for me. And she doesn’t hold back.”
The room goes silent. Cara’s looking at me with eyes I don’t like.
“Have you ever been . . . you know.” She’s insinuating something I can’t decipher.
“Have I been what?”
“Possessed?”
“No . . .” Would I even know if I had? Who’s to say one of my blackout nights wasn’t actually some demon passing through,
hijacking my body?
“Why not?” She sounds disappointed. “What are you so afraid of?”
“Who says I’m afraid?”
“Come on . . . Don’t you just want to let go? Throw your inhibitions away?”
“I’d rather keep my grip, thanks.”
“Of course you would.” She’s sniping at me. Cara. Another stranger. Another lost soul, desperate for a connection. To feel
something, anything, outside our hollow lives.
“What the hell’s that supposed to mean?”
“Doesn’t it excite you? Thinking that there are, I don’t know, all these . . . these demons, just looking for a little place to call home? Have some fun? And that we, you and me and whoever else, can just give that
to them? And in return, we get to cut loose? Be free?”
“Let it all hang out, huh?”
“It’s pretty liberating, when you think about it. Letting go of all your inhibitions.” She leans in closer, her voice softening
to a seductive whisper. “They’re out there, right now. Who knows how many. All of them just looking for a warm body to call
home. And they’ve picked you. Your body. Don’t you feel honored? Don’t you feel the freedom in giv—”
Cara halts. The words catch in her throat.
Her body tightens. The muscles in her neck constrict, steel cables tightening themselves, until her head yanks back.
I watch her eyes roll up into her skull, leaving behind nothing but a wake of white.
Her lower jaw slings open, almost as if she were about to sing, but the words aren’t there.
There’s no music. No sound but the slightest gasp.
Her back slams against the chair, her body racked with an abrupt spasm. The wooden slats creak under the weight of her contorting
frame. For a second there, I’m afraid she’s going to fall over backward. The chair sounds as if it’s about to snap—or her
spine. Her limbs twist, arms and legs curling inward, as if she’s about to spiral into a corkscrew.
All I can do is watch in horror. Her body begins to judder, hit with a series of G-force spasms, as if she’s rocketing off
into the cosmos.
Maybe if I reach out, take hold of her, keep her still, she might wake up.
What if I—
Cara blinks. A certain clarity returns to her eyes—an acuity that wasn’t there before, irises sharpening into fangs—and in
that moment, that blink of an eye, I know Cara is gone.
Lilith is back. In control.
“Satisfied?”