5. The Immaculate Rebirth of Nicki Duran #3
“Because I can deal with it the same way I’ve dealt with everything. I’ll figure it out.”
Leti sighs, tips her head back, grinning the way she does when she’s outer-space-high. “Yeah, we always do, don’t we?”
But because Leti was Leti, she couldn’t let it go. Before she left and drove back to Hampton Bays, she handed me a piece of paper with an address.
“You know I don’t believe in that bruja stuff,” I said, but she wouldn’t take no for an answer. Left me there with bags of secondhand baby clothes and take-out, which won’t last long.
I’ve never been this hungry before. I toss Leti’s scrap paper into the trash, then hunch over my laptop to search the message boards. I’m in the middle of typing What is a normal appetite but get a text from a pilot I used to hook up with.
Vin is all like: U up?
I grimace at his spelling, then grin. I know a booty call when I see one.
I text him a mirror selfie. Leti was right.
I am glowing. My hair longer, darker than ever.
My tan skin flushed. My belly tight and round and hanging out of my favorite crop top and fuzzy pajama shorts.
It is ridiculous, but I want to see his reaction.
I go: Immaculate #7.
I don’t really know my number, but I go by the number I was in the doctor’s office that day.
Vin shoots back: Nice.
Then: Hot.
Finally: Can I see u?
I say: Don’t come empty-handed.
An hour later, I’m freshly showered and letting him into my apartment. I had a third lock chain installed. It won’t change anything, but it’s nice knowing I really need to want company or a delivery to undo all the locks.
“Welcome aboard, Captain Cordero,” I say, saluting him.
Vin’s got a tipsy smirk and is still in uniform.
He sets his hat on my head, and I inhale his sweet sweat and ambergris and woodfire smoke.
He parks his anemic overnight bag by the pile of shoes and comes in, holding up an offering of greasy take-out and fast food.
I press a kiss on his cheek and lead him into the small living room.
The reason I’ve always liked Vincent Cordero is because he likes being alone just as much as I do, but he only comes up for air to eat, fuck, and fly. All of which his job affords him, sometimes all at once.
“Fuck. It’s real,” he says, undoing his tie, his top buttons.
I kneel at the coffee table and begin to lay out our smorgasbord. “Why do I feel like I ordered a stripper?”
“Who says you didn’t?” He shrugs off his jacket, his belt, his trousers. Each move makes me forget about the food, despite the hunger that hooks deep into my belly when Vin settles me on the couch and buries his face between my thighs.
On one of the message boards I’d read in the middle of the night, there was a thread of the new kink going around.
People who got off on Immaculate Ones. Different than ordinary pregnant people.
The more I read, the more I understood it was something about being inside a woman while they were creating the unknown.
One fucker said he thought of it as an alien turducken.
I don’t want to be someone’s perverse kink, but I haven’t been with anyone but myself in months and every part of me is touch starved.
Something hot twists right at the core of my body, and all I can do is want him.
Vin digs into the tender flesh of my hips and devours me, filling me with his fingers first. I feel pried open like an oyster, my pink meat exposed.
Vin thrusts his penis inside me and groans, “God, what are you?”
He’s asking me, but he’s not asking me. His eyes are shut, his brow furrowed like he’s playing that game—you know that game, the one where you’re blindfolded and stick your hand into a bowl of cold noodles and have to guess.
He sticks his tongue out, panting, as if he’s trying to guess at how deep he needs to go to feel for himself.
I am a pregnant sex doll contorted and smashed into the cushions.
He sticks a thumb in my mouth and I bite down on it hard, harder.
He reels the hand back and grabs my chin, slips his other hand down to grip his root as he comes, screaming and rubbing the slippery mess of him back onto himself.
“God, what—”
His voice cuts off. Vanishes like someone who has dropped off a cliff, leaving behind a puff of dust and the whistle of air filling the empty in their wake.
Pleasure spreads through me, and I have to hold on to the cushions so I don’t shudder onto the floor. For the first time in days, maybe months, maybe forever, I feel full. Panting, I reach between my thighs. Sore and wet. I blink slowly.
“Vin?”
The rumble of my neighbor walking around with brick sandals (probably) makes the ceiling creak. My living room is empty.
“Vinny?” It’s worth a shot because he doesn’t like being reminded of being a kid.
I am alone, and I wonder if I have lost time again. If I was drugged and left behind. If I passed out from the way he held me, even though I wasn’t ready to use my safe word and I never have with him.
“Vincent,” I try again, though I know he isn’t here.
And he didn’t leave. His suitcase is still by my door. His shoes and tie. Everything he was wearing when he vanished went with him. I rub my stomach. Clench against a sharp cramp. My little scream is stretching. Growing.
Full.
When my heart stops racing, I clean myself up and curl into bed. In the morning, I decide to visit Leti’s bruja.
Botanica Santana is a quick train ride to the Lower East Side.
The city feels dead, worse than COVID. Back then people were hacking their brains out without covering their mouths.
Now it’s masks all over the place, even men.
Cops cluster in corners, more than I’ve ever seen before.
A few of them nod along at a middle-aged man preaching about the end of times, while a warring nutjob spews unintelligible dreck.
The only word that is clear when I walk by is “Whore. Whore. WHORE!”
I hurry inside the botanica and the bell jingles hard.
It’s crowded with people buying candles, sage, palo santo, and agua de florida.
A couple of teen girls load up on bath bombs that promise money and protection and baby-soft skin.
The only employee, whom I assume is Santana, gestures to denote she’ll be right with me.
I linger, waiting for the other customers to clear out. I busy myself picking out pretty crystals based on my favorite color. The owner returns from the back with a spray bottle to water the dozens and dozens of plants covering every surface.
She spritzes in my general direction. “Immaculada?”
I nod. I hand her the paper Leti gave me. In Spanish, I say, “She didn’t tell me what you do exactly.”
“I let you see.” Santana taps her forehead and then her abdomen.
She’s in her late fifties with brown skin and frizzy curls shot through with silver.
She wears a button-down and jeans and a dozen slender necklaces.
Saints and goddesses I have no name for.
Crystal beads polished and cut to glitter in any light.
The bruja points to a back room. I hesitate, holding my belly at the sides. I feel so heavy I might sink right through the floor. What can this woman do that scientists and pseudoscientists haven’t already tried? But I think I ate a man last night, or my black hole did, so what do I have to lose?
The back room is a lush greenhouse. There are rows of flowers and glossy plants. A tiny mouse scurries behind bags of dirt. Butterflies flit from bud to bud, lapping up nectar. It reminds me of Vin last night, and a dull ache spreads from within.
“Back here.” Santana waves at the end of the flower rows.
There’s a long chair, like from a dentist’s office or spa.
The only choice is to sit or leave, so I sit.
She places sticky tabs on my chest, wrists, and belly.
I can’t help but feel that one of the conspiracies was right—aliens are harvesting us for parts.
Using us as incubators. Now I’ve walked right in.
“What’s that for?” I manage to ask.
“To read your hearts,” Santana clarifies, bustling all over. Boiling water, brewing a smelly tea.
I drink it. Not that bad. Kind of like drinking the gunky water in a forgotten flower vase.
I wonder if Mila even has a heart that can be measured.
There is not a sonogram or NASA-designed machine that has been able to peer into the Immaculate bellies.
I kind of want Mila to have a heart, but don’t want to say it out loud in case this is another bust.
I know the tea hits when my tongue swells and I lose control of my arms first. Before I can try to stand, I hear the chaotic rhythm of my heartbeat.
It is everywhere. My throat, under my nails, the tip of my blackheads, and that one stubborn pimple.
And right behind it, like one of those little bear cubs trying to catch up to its momma bear, is a second pulse.
Mila’s heartbeat. She’s there. My little black hole. My little miracle. My perpetual scream.
When Santana the bruja said this—this ritual—would help me see, I don’t know that I believed her. I do now.
A baby’s cry rings through a rainforest maze. My damp curls cling to my temples and neck. My heartbeat is distant in my ears as if I’m underwater. There are four paths, two ahead and two behind. The sky is gray. And for the first time in months, I am not pregnant.