can i cut in?
Lilith & Jordan
The dance floor closes in. All the bodies. Get away from me. Get away. This pressing flesh. I’m sick and tired of it. I want out of here. Out of this body. Out of this world.
This itch only grows. We’re burning. Burning.
Before Jordan, I was in control. I consumed these bodies to fulfill my desires, never taking into account our hosts’ needs
or wants. They were nothing to us, meant nothing.
Then we met Jordan and everything changed. His darkness lured us in, yes. A new sweet in the candy store, surrounded by so
many familiar flavors. We knew we had to try. Taste him.
Possession has always been about dominance. About control.
I was always in control. My grip, my strength.
Your body.
But what if I’ve been going about it all wrong? What if possession is about communion? Communication? Can I relent? Share?
Your body intertwined with my essence?
Perhaps possession is giving oneself to another. Completing them.
I give myself to you. I fill in the cracks. Complete you.
Jordan made us feel like a wildfire. A white-hot heat that spread. But rather than burn out, he kindled the flames. Kept us blazing. He gave us a space to eternally burn.
He sustains our flame. We’ll never stop burning. Not inside him.
There isn’t a chamber in his heart we can’t fill. There isn’t an inch of his skin we can’t consume. There isn’t a drop of
blood that we can’t distill, instilling ourselves within.
I want to fuse with him. Body and soul. Demon and host.
A partnership. A union. A fire.
I call you back. There it is. That voice. His voice. We hear it.
Hear him.
It is him, isn’t it? He’s here. He has to be. He’s drawn us in. I call you back, Lilith . . .
There. We spot him from across the room. Jordan burns so bright, he blinds us.
Come to me . . .
He’s not alone. Jordan has brought company with him, whether he knows it or not . . .
Look at the dance floor.
Demons, everywhere.
I shouldn’t be here. Dancing with the damned. Sweat is everywhere. I see beads of it fling through the air as these people
whip their hair around, like shattered glass showering down on everyone. Bodies are just pressed against each other. Everybody
heaves with a sense of desperation. There’s no room in here. No air. But who needs to breathe anymore?
What’s the point?
It’s so hot inside the house. The second I stepped through the back door, it’s as if the thermostat cranked itself up.
The sheer number of partygoers takes all the oxygen out, replaced with a muggy atmosphere.
The dining room is spillover from the living room, a muddy overflow of people pressed against the walls.
I enter the flow of bodies clotting the hall and slip downstream, easing through the main channel before washing up on the dance floor.
Why the hell not? The music is palpable here.
The sound system is cranked up so loud, it pushes against my skin in dull waves of bass. I feel the beat rush up against me.
The Commodores’ “Brick House.” Hats off to the DJ, whoever they are. Cranked up at this volume, the song is nothing but sibilant
bass and it absolutely hurts to hear. The trumpets hiss in distorted waves. The whole effect—the sweat, the pulse, the distortion—there’s
just no fucking way you can’t feel yourself getting sucked into the whirlpool swirling at the center of the room.
I’m diving in. Headfirst.
I’m losing myself tonight. I don’t care if I ever come back. To hell with dancing the night away. I want to melt this flesh
right off the bone. Dance until my soul leaves my body.
What soul? I don’t have one anymore, remember? So what the fuck am I?
Damned, that’s what. Dead man dancing.
The faces I find all around me are unfamiliar. Who even are these people? Where did they all come from? Everyone’s lost in
their own world, eyes closed in a half-lidded ecstasy. Tendrils of sweat-soaked hair cling to their skin, snaking against
their chests. Nobody is paying attention to each other. We’re all just lost in the music. As it should be.
Their faces are melting. Now I see it—see them. Did I bring them? I called them, didn’t I? Works for me. They can’t have me. I just want to dance until my legs give, my
body breaks, and I plummet. I don’t ever want to come back. I’m diving down to the deepest recesses of this room. Where the
song hits the house’s foundation. Even deeper. Let’s dig down to hell and never come back. That’s where I’ll find her. All
the way at the bottom.
In the abyss.
We’re all possessed. We’re all gone. We’re outside our bodies. Jaws slack. Eyes roll up into the safety of everyone’s skulls,
leaving behind nothing but white.
Feel gravity lose its grip. Feel your spirit drift. Fallen angels all around.
I close my eyes. It’s better to feel the music that way. Feel it come in. There it is. That sinister beat. It’s writhing,
such a serpent. It coils around my ribs. Grabs hold of my heart and squeezes. Not just one snake, but several. The sounds slips in from all around. Coiling creepers, like sonic ivy, their invisible
threads slithering over the bone. Let it take me. Let it pull me under. Let me die right here on the dance floor. I never
want to come back. Never breathe air again.
Find me, Lilith. Come on, I know you can . . . I call you back.
I’m drowning. Can’t you feel it, Lilith? Can you be my breath? The house is a killing jar and we’re all madly scrambling for
one last gasp. Too late. I’m thrashing on the dance floor, losing myself to the music, as it presses against me, wanting to
find its way in. All I need to do is open my mouth. Split these lips and let the song rush in, like water.
Where are you, Lilith? Are you here? Can you hear me calling? Can you feel me?
I call you back, Lilith . . .
Water always finds a way in, doesn’t it? I’m in over my head. Losing myself.
I feel the helix of sweaty limbs at all sides. People are closing in. Nobody cares who they touch. It’s this slender caress.
Slickened skin, like warm fish, wriggling in every direction.
Eels coursing over my body. Eels, everywhere. Not even human anymore.
Just an ocean of skin. Of melted flesh. We’re drowning in ourselves.
In our own bodies. Choking our hosts.
I see my friends. There’s Lys. There’s Deak. All of them, possessed. Leering back. These demons aren’t here for them. It’s
me who they want. They’ve come for me. Crave me.
So let’s dance.
There’s blood on the dance floor now. It’s a feeding frenzy out here. The second I spot Jordan—calling me, he’s calling me, I can hear his voice—I know I’m not the only one.
I sense them, the others, worming into this house from all corners. So many. Too many. A hell on earth. The very presence
of them, all these demons, pressing against one another. We are a writhing knot. The dance floor is a nest, a heaving pile
of hijacked humanity. The people around me are not in control of their bodies. They want what I want.
Him. We all desire Jordan. Crave him. His body beams. The darkness seething out from his hollow heart lights up the dance
floor. It burns the very air. There’s a charred electricity in the atmosphere. It smells like burning hair. Singed skin. An
ozone of flesh that only gets us drooling.
It won’t stop. We’ve all come too far. Such a giddy insanity. A delirious need to dance. It’s overtaken us all. No one can
stop, not now, not even if they tried.
Who wants to stop now?
We’re all burning.
These demons filter through and flow, passing from one body to the next, a river of flesh, feel how we connect, a whirlpool,
a vortex.
Take me, he says without any words. They all push in. Desperate to possess him.
Take me. Who will he let in?
Take me. Who will he open himself up to?
The song switches. Kylie Minogue. I fucking love this song. The hollow beat thuds against my solar plexus, all plastic, propelling
the people around me forward, faster now.
It’s our song, Lilith. It’s always been our song.
I just can’t get you out of my head . . . Feel them in there? Those slithering whispers?
Where are you, Lilith? I can’t hear you. I need you.
I call you back . . .
I summon you. I want you here. I want you with me. I need you inside.
I call you . . .
There’s a current just underneath the song, voices insinuating within the rhythm, making their way through the music. It’s
indecipherable at first, all those tongues flickering against the inside of my skull. I can’t make the words out. The voices.
There are too many.
There are more people now, if that’s even possible, crammed inside this suffocating space. Pumping our legs. Hunched over
and heaving. Where are they even coming from?
Are we dancing anymore? Are we all drowning?
The electronic beat pounds at my temples and I hear a woman laugh next to me. Her voice is there and gone before I can clock
her position. Where did she go? Her laughter trails behind me.
I see teeth gritting. Eyes burning, smoke billowing out from their sockets. There’s such a determined surge to the people
on the dance floor. Our movements have gotten aggressive. Anxious. Something’s started and it’s not stopping.
A man not two feet away from me has locked his eyes onto mine. He’s hunched over and stomping his feet, shaking his head like
a bull about to stampede. His eyes aren’t his own. The harder he writhes, pounding to the pulse of the music, the more I see
what’s inside him itching to get out. Wriggle free. He’s down on his hands and knees, but his eyes never leave mine. He’s
not alone. Someone is behind him, thrusting. His body is there and gone, lapsing into shadows with every heave.
A hot gust of someone’s breath spreads down my neck. It’s a hot jet of air. They’re right at my shoulder. When I turn to see,
I find a woman writhing at my back. Losing herself.
Her eyes jolt open. She finds me—and smiles. Laughs. She licks her lips, her tongue tapering out and slithering across her
chin. Aren’t we all just demons on the dance floor?