Vagina Dentata
The essential control systems in the human mind lie in a twisted root by the top of the neck from which a long tongue of tissue, called the reptilian stem, surges into the center of our brains. There one finds the controls that keep our hearts beating, our lungs breathing and regularly send us to sleep and then wake us back up again. It is the locus of those basic qualities that human beings use to define life, and self. Perhaps nearby are the urges to reproduce and eat, but much is still unknown, and much differs from brain to brain. Somewhere in this area, though, without a doubt, lies that often reassuring awareness, or perhaps impulse, that given the right subtle twists in what we take for reality, pretty much anything can happen.
For some people, believing in the possibility of anything leads directly to religious faith, with trumpet-blowing angels floating alongside dead ancestors two stars beyond the firmament. Many more believe in vast networks of wealthy American men, conspiring to bend the inhabitants of the earth to their basest desires. For these people, anything is a place in which imagination, and not the rusty gestures of a court system, determines justice.
For some people, being unable to control the circumstances of their lives inspires hard work, and they shut their doors in frustration as secretaries' typewriters clack Morse code soliloquies to misery and everybody inches together, desperately, toward some imagined cataclysmic future. For other people hard work seems futile, like collecting soap bubbles in a dish.
Ultimately the possibilities we imagine, for better or worse, motivate our choices, from the habits we decide to form and the love we want make to the atrocities we tolerate, and commit. They allow us to hoist paper walls which, like the atmosphere, provide the determined with an illusion of infinity in whatever direction they choose to face. Some will see no need to turn again. But others, whose minds don't fit smoothly within their assigned spots in their lives' jigsaw puzzle, embrace the possibility for movement.
Clive Harrison did not possess the type of mind that had ever demanded movement. It had developed smoothly, and in every way as expected by those who reared him, and those who were reared alongside him. His most distinguishing characteristic was the way in which adult priggishness and material greed had come rather prematurely, in high school rather than late college. When he grew up, he decided at fourteen, he wanted to be just like his father: a moderately successful local banker, who had taught his only son the value of hard work by coming home most nights when Clive was already in bed. The only difference was, Clive's plan was to be richer, and happier, and to spend more time with his kids. "Hey," he would later tell his wife, Cleo, with a nervous smile on their wedding day, "anything's possible."
When he was fourteen, Clive had seen that while hardworking students were rewarded with good grades and admission to top colleges and universities, and that they wore self-confidence like the right cologne, they were also lame, crippled by their ambitions, incapable of having fun at, even being invited to, a good party. Though not an alcoholic, Clive felt as much gratification from Bill Hennedy's yard-long beer bong as he did from acing a test. Actually, more. Wasn't that what high school was about? So he had gone with it.
This tack was cemented in his freshman year, after a party of Bill's at which Clive lost his virginity to 17-yr old Bunny Fitzpatrick, the five-foot-one-inch flyer for the cheerleading squad, and missed his first advanced-placement qualifying tests the next day. "There's only high school once," he'd decided, pleased to have slept through his hangover and happier still that her blonde head was still resting on his shoulder. "Taking it for granted would be un-American." This was a decision he didn't often look back on with regret.
Twenty years later, the results of this decision were a well-paying job as a branch manager for Citybank and his beautiful wife, whose name was now Cleo (wanting something more sophisticated, she'd changed it from "Bunny" when they'd gotten married). Cleo ran their stadium-sized home and their two children with the efficiency of an engineer, and other than that didn't do a lick of work, ever. (Not that he wanted his wife working, but sometimes he wondered if she didn't get bored. Occasionally, this concern would veer towards paranoia. But he only got suspicious when things were slow at work.) His life was luxurious and mundane, and for this he considered himself very fortunate.
He forged a successful a career and family for himself and lived in a brand-new, five-story mansion in a wealthy suburb of Cincinnati. He knew he was lucky. And, Clive was no fool. At a certain, rarely visited level, he knew he had been born with the intelligence to do anything. He could have been a chief surgeon, even Chief Justice, had he only wanted it enough to begin making a different set of decisions earlier in life. But, as he told his heavily medicated but nonetheless anxiety-ridden mother repeatedly before she died, he was perfectly happy exactly where he was. He had, he said, they had, a good life.
The objects in Clive's life were always clean, air-conditioned and of the highest quality. He'd grown to count on them, and was not used to paying attention to the details of his surroundings. His closest brush with urban grit or pollution occurred at lunchtime on warm days, when he would eat his sandwich by a dry fountain in the small park near his office, kicking away the pigeons, squirrels and sparrows.
He was there in September, marveling at how well honey-mustard sauce went with turkey, and did not notice when a sparrow landed on his bench, deposited something large by the opposite end, then flew away. It shimmered in the sunlight, looking not at all like the food or nesting material that sparrows can usually be seen with, but more like the liquid, mucus-laden dropping of a much larger bird. If Clive had paid it any attention, he might have noticed the shifting and mild swelling, first in one direction, then another, until soon it was throbbing, like a small, brown heart.
Instead, Clive's attention was focused on a young woman in white hotpants and a white tanktop who was walking a rottweiler. She was blonde, with red lipstick and big sunglasses, and as he gaped at her grapefruit sized breasts even Clive was aware that his taste was pretty juvenile. He didn't care. He smiled pleasantly and ignored a woman with no teeth who asked him for money. The feeling of sun warming his back brought deep, physical comfort to his heart. Soon his mind had drifted back to the office, and he considered ways to encourage two underperforming managers on his team to increase their productivity. He was reluctant to compromise his relationship to them, or the integrity of the bank's team-based (not top-down) achievement structure of which he was (philosophy aside) in charge. When he rose to leave, the slimy thing on the bench had left a brown half moon trail about an inch long, and had sprouted a feathery, spindly proboscis crowned in a circle of white suckers which it seemed to be using to sense its way.
Clive spent the afternoon communicating with employees, analyzing a demographic report he'd commissioned of the activity of ATM machines around the city, and seeing to other tasks which, within the structure of his work environment, were understood to make a huge amount of difference to the bank's financial success.
At around four o'clock, Clive ducked out of his office and walked several blocks to Delann's Fine Jewelry and bought a ring for his wife. It had a large emerald set in platinum, with a two-karat, heart-shaped diamond on either side. It was very expensive. Her eyes were naturally light green, but she'd just gotten emerald-colored contacts. Now he would claim to have proved that they worked. He smiled and stroked the velvet jewelry box on the counter as he signed the receipt.
Had anyone taken the time to look at it, they would have realized right away that it was not a living thing. Its structure had no integrity, with the lines of its sides trailing in unexpected directions as it moved, sometimes inverting, sometimes expelling liquid or a foul odor. Millimeter by millimeter it had come down the street, stretching flat, then balling up, then long and thin, like drool on a dog's lip. It left a thin brown line between the bench in the park and the door to the office where, at 6:00 pm, Clive walked out the door, climbed into his Lexus in the bank's small parking lot, and took off for home blasting Jimmy Buffet and looking forward to a cold beer.
Clive drove for an hour to the suburb of Butter Brook Estates where he and Cleo and their middle-schoolers Madison (8th grade) and Clive Jr. (7th grade) and collies Sparkle (friendly) and Yoga (also friendly, but sometimes anxious) lived in their 6,500 square foot home on a one-acre lot overlooking the DeLuxe Golf Course and Country Club, to which Clive had been elected to the board of directors that year. It trailed down route 76, using the breakdown lanes, its feelers, always darting and sniffing the way, but needlessly, in that it seemed to know exactly what to look for.
Because Butter Brook Estates was ten miles outside of Cincinnati, it took many days for the thing to get there. It was run over several times, one time by a semi, but had no trouble reconstituting itself on the slick, new roadway. It slowly crossed their thirty-foot professionally maintained front lawn, and inserted itself into a drainpipe that led to the roof, where it would be able to enter through a cracked window and into Clive and Cleo's master bathroom. It slid across the lip of the two-person Jacuzzi and past the shower door, before attaching itself to the underside of their toilet tank and waiting until Rosario, a Guatemalan woman they paid $150 a week plus gas and some meals to clean their home and watch the children when Cleo was busy, had done the floors.
That night, Clive and Cleo went to bed at around ten. He brushed his teeth, pulled on his plaid, flannel pyjama bottoms and an old Bengals t-shirt and fell asleep. Cleo pulled on a complementary ensemble of scotch-plaid flannel and eyelet lace.
The brown thing, having paused once again between the mattress and bedframe near Clive's pillow, began to stretch once again. It slipped up and over his open palm, then down the side of his body onto the small of his back where it rose and fell with his deep breathing, its glowing ring of teeth bobbed like an eyeball in a jar. It crawled over his buttocks, then reversed course to slide beneath his elastic waistband, stretching thin so he felt nothing.
It crawled along the soft skin of his backside, which was hairy and warm. It lodged itself in the valley of his cheeks, pausing once again to be sure he didn't awaken, then slipped further to where, mosquito-like, it injected a small stream of anesthetic under his skin, and like a snake with its paralyzed prey, it consumed Clive's testes and scrotum.
The thing burrowed into the resulting empty space, invaginating Clive's body until there was nothing visible of the brown mass, only a newly gaping hole crowned in a way that no exterior part of a human body had ever been crowned before. There was no blood. The thing devoured what flesh it replaced. It tore through skin and colon, then nestled deep into the slippery nest of his small intestine. It absorbed his blood, clotting broken veins and arteries with a generated crust from the bits of dust and grime picked along its journey through the suburbs. It filled the interior voids in his flesh, anchoring itself in place so that even when he stood it would not budge.
From its anterior, it extended three sharp pincers, and clamping claw to bone secured itself between the tip of his tailbone and each side of the floor of his pelvis. Like a hermit crab with a new shell, it soon settled and nested, dormant and content. Clive felt nothing and slept deeply through the night, only pulling Cleo to him at one point so that he could spoon her warm, flannel wrapped body. She'd drowsily rubbed his behind, but never woken.
The next morning, Clive noticed it felt different. His pyjama bottoms were riding up, or just fitting badly, and urinating was unexpectedly painful. He looked down, then reached his hand around, and, finding nothing, sprang to the bathroom door and locked it shut, before slowly sinking to the floor, willing himself not to throw up.
He stood up, positioning himself in front of the mirror, and pulled down his pants further, then leaned backward and moved his penis to the side. There, in the half-dollar sized spot from which his scrotum had once descended, was a ring of white, needle-like teeth that expanded and contracted with the motion of his stomach muscles as he began to hyperventilate. Their center, where the tips ended, was deep reddish brown.
Clive stood, pulled his penis aside again, and reached around to touch it. Its teeth were deceptively feathery looking, but brittle to the touch. He pushed his finger into their center, carefully, and the teeth, not sharp at all, seemed to caress it, sucking it farther and deeper inside him before, with an unexpected bite, they severed his finger tip, ingesting it while blood poured across his belly, penis and thighs. Clive screamed, and faintly heard Cleo banging on the door. He turned to the door then, looked at his bloody hand, seeing, as he did, the slightly abbreviated index finger. Blood poured down his hand and lower arm. He fainted.
Luckily, he landed on their deep shag bathmat of white, now spattered, Egyptian cotton. Clive came to in a matter of minutes. The alien vagina's local anesthetic was wearing off now, and he could feel the first pains beginning to emanate from his pelvis. He braced his hands on the cool marble countertop and rested his forehead against the mirror, yelling "I'm alright," before quickly tying his bathrobe closed, opening the door and telling Cleo he'd groggily cut his thumb while shaving, and then suffered from syncope.
Anything can happen. This was a truism, as far as Clive was concerned. But in the past, it was a rule he used to avoid working past six, so he could spend the time with his family. Extra hours at the office might pay off; they might not. Why wait and see what happened? So his logic had run. There were barbecues to attend, golf games to play. There was teaching Clive Jr. how to pitch a baseball. Clive had never wanted to be the kind of man who missed out on those things. In fact, before the incident with his testicles, Clive had operated quite successfully in the face of unpredictability, shaping exactly the sort of life he'd aspired to. It was marvelous, really, although most of the time he took it for granted.
Clive told Cleo he was going to the hospital to get his thumb fixed. He had to get dressed slowly, because as he bent and moved, he could feel the teeth brushing up against each other.
In a curtained-off bed in the county hospital's tiny emergency room, Clive showed the nurse his fingertip, but only revealed his true problem to Dr. Navid Patel, a middle-aged Indian man whose hair looked like a tiny oil slick, and who wore thick, silver-framed glasses. His long neck, narrow face and full cheeks gave him the look of a petulant cartoon chicken. Yet his demeanor seemed serene, which made Clive think he could trust him with a scalpel, God willing.
"Have you seen anything like this before?" Clive asked. Dr. Patel shook his head, then held up his finger as if asking for a moment. Clive could feel the teeth clicking as he breathed. Dr. Patel walked out of the room. Clive realized he had rattled him when he returned with a teardrop of sweat rolling down each temple. "Just imagine how I felt."
"You are a strong man, Mr. Harrison," said the doctor. "This is something pretty horrific you have got here."
"Can you help?"
"What is it that you imagine we could do?"
"Please? Can't you cut it out or something?" The doctor stared at him sympathetically, then after another moment his head seemed to clear and he asked if Clive wouldn't mind if he consulted with a colleague. "The more the merrier," said Clive.
Dr. Patel returned with Dr. Natalie Clarey, a six-foot tall blonde with perfect makeup and strong hands. More than anything, Clive wanted to run out the door. "Wow" she said, pressing around the rim of his new orifice with warm, latex-covered fingertips. "What happened to you?"
"I just woke up like this."
"How's your marriage?"
"What?"
Dr. Clarey looked up at him expectantly from the foot of the table. Her hair was cut in a short, feathery way that Clive recognized as being extremely chic. "Great. Or it was. My wife hasn't seen this yet."
"Do you have enemies?"
"I don't think this is something somebody can just do to someone they don't like."
She stood and beckoned Dr. Patel out of the room. Clive remained on the exam table and stared at his penis resting, traumatized, on his thigh. Never had he identified quite so thoroughly with it. "I know how you're feeling, bud," he murmured under his breath, and lay back, pulling it up onto his stomach as far as it would stretch to prevent anything additionally horrific from happening. The stabs of pain from his groin were growing more frequent. Soon, Clive began to cry.
The hospital transferred him into a normal, non-emergency exam room and ran some x-rays, then an MRI on his pelvis. Both showed a dark, nebulous mass, like brackish water, clouding his groin and what looked like three thin, black pincers clamping onto his tailbone. At the opening was a thick bar of white, where the teeth extended for about an inch inside him. The doctors probed him, teaching him to relax those muscles to give them full access ('pretend you're going to the bathroom,' Dr. Patel had suggested, unhelpfully), and joking that he was the first man to ever use the exam table's stirrups.
Finally, they left him. To his horror, they returned with his neighbor from two driveways down and Wednesday poker buddy, John Clavalis.
"John" he croaked, suddenly panicky. "I thought you worked at Christ!"
"I do a rotation out here every once in a while. Today's just your lucky day, Clive-O. Or, khuh-hehm, I guess your unlucky day. Some pretty unusual stuff you have here." Dr. John Clavalis, who Clive knew had unsuccessfully hit on Cleo at least one time, examined the x-ray and MRI images on the wall.
"Well," he said, "your testicles are nowhere to be seen, I'm afraid. They're a thing of your past. I suppose the good news there is that you've already had your children, and if you take the right hormone-balancing medications you should experience a full return of sexual desire and sensation. Of course, just looking at you—and I would feel the same way in your shoes—you're experiencing trauma, and I suggest that the best way to work through it is under the care of a psychiatrist. I can't over-emphasize the importance of this step for returning to normal life."
Clive looked uneasily at his neighbor. What if he'd cooked up some sort of experimental new virus in his lab and unleashed it on Clive, just so he could go after his wife knowing her sexual needs were going unmet? Clive stared at the doctor, crossed his legs, and shifted backwards as far as he could go. "Cleo and I will be fine," he said. "Don't make Cleo and I your problem. Just, fix this?"
The doctor smiled. Clive knew that John Clavalis thought he was a loser. John Clavalis was the neighborhood superstar. He had been since high school, and both men knew it. "Honestly, I doubt it. We can probably do a surgery to remove these calcic appendages—"
"You mean teeth?"
"—and then seal up the hole and hope whatever caused this doesn't get infected, or kill you. We can try antibiotics on it. Probably even get you a scrotal prosthesis to wear over the scar, you know for Cleo's sake. But I'd like to do some additional testing, first, if you don't mind."
Clive sighed and looked at Dr. Clavalis' handsome, Greek face. He looked troubled and unhappy enough that Clive decided to trust him. "Would it help to open me up and just… have a look around? If it would, feel free. It can't get worse."
"It might. The problem with that is cost, and justifying it to your insurance company without explaining the whole problem to them, which I'm sure you'd prefer I not do."
"God no. Some temp might see the record and leak it to the newspapers. Could you just them I have colon cancer or something?"
"No."
"No?"
"Well, doctors do have to operate within certain ethical boundaries. But let me do some intermediate testing first, to see if I can figure out anything about what we're dealing with. You said you just woke up in this condition?"
"Right. Last night, went to bed, normal. This morning, I woke up looking like… some kind of porno Star Wars character." Clive laughed giddily for several seconds at his joke. Dr. Clavalis waited for him to regain composure, then described the tests he wanted to run. Clive ended up staying all day, and they were able to schedule him for emergency extraction surgery the next day.
As Dr. Clavalis stood up to leave, Clive's eyes involuntarily wandered toward his crotch. Behind his white coat, resting snugly in a pair of pleated, pinstriped slacks, was a full, unashamed and very large set of genitals. Clive stared. Even two days ago he hadn't looked like that in slacks, but today the sight felt like someone pressing a deep bruise. He looked away and rested his hands on his stomach. Suddenly he wanted to fall asleep right there on the exam table.
After he left, Clive drove into Cincinnati, checked into the downtown Hyatt hotel's Presidential Suite, and fell asleep. He awoke only once during the night, at around 8:30, realizing that Cleo would be looking for him, and probably know something was wrong. He went back to sleep, knowing it was easier than trying to fight the urge to call her—what could he have said?
Clive slept until noon and woke up hungry. He'd barely eaten the day before. The breakfast buffet had ended, so he called room service and ordered a sausage omelet, four pieces of white toast and a coffee service. When it came, he ate rapidly, then considered ordering one more of each. There was something about eating breakfast in absolute silence that he realized he'd missed, over the years.
Instead, Clive showered and put on yesterday's clothes without once looking down at his body. Then he sat down on the couch of the suite's living-room, and considered what he wanted to do.
The only thing he knew for sure was he wouldn't be going to the hospital. Somehow, the idea of sewing himself closed, permanently enveloping these teeth in his flesh and then covering the area with a prosthetic had felt like the wrong decision. He opened his pants and carefully ran his fingertips over the smooth, thin teeth. They were a bit like a Chinese finger-trap, smooth and feathery going in, but as soon as he tried to pull out the teeth dug in, they clung to his finger and dug in until he made a conscious effort to relax his pelvic muscles as Dr. Clarey had instructed. An unexpected jolt of pleasure launched through his hips and up his spine, then, taking him by surprise. "Woah," he whispered loudly, then did it again like a baby discovering its private parts. "God damn."
Then he realized what he was doing. "God damn it! You God damn pussy Clive Harrison shit fuck!" he whispered to himself, then, teeth clenched. "Pull it together motherfucker. What the fuck are you doing?" The walls seemed against him. He was certainly the most freakish person ever to have stayed in the hotel. He looked at the Steuben glass bud vase on the mantle, which held a single calla lily, and loathed himself. He punched his thigh, hard, whispering "Pull it together motherfucker! Jesus, oh Jesus, you diddled a fucking lamprey pussy. Fuck. Shit. Fuck, Clive, fuck you, you are so fucked motherfucker."
When he went down to the lobby, all Clive could look at were other men's crotches, and how they bulged to different degrees. He scolded himself, telling himself to stop acting like a fag. Then he realized he was eyeing the concierge's crotch for the second time, and the concierge looked unamused.
He walked out of the hotel and into the park, where he felt submerged in a sea of testicles, bobbing along as their respective owners carried them off to work. He was aware for the first time of the difference between men, the healthy, unrelenting machismo of some, a thin hardness in others whom he thought were likely to be angry at the world—or Ohio—the fat, beef eating contentment of still others. There were different kinds everywhere he looked, and suddenly, Clive understood, after years of wondering, what it was that women saw in men. It had to do with vigor, with energy and integrity of form. Looks, clothing, social status—all lost their relevance in the face of this sweeping undercurrent of sex.
Clive had been extremely sexy, at one time. As he walked around in the park he tried to recall the feeling he'd had in those days, when Cleo was one of many girls he dated, any night he wanted. He'd been handsome and in college, with women following his every move, offering to help him with laundry, cooking, homework, whatever. They'd rub his shoulders, or sit on his lap to watch a movie, placing his hands on different parts of their bodies and he would pull them down sideways on the couch or carry them off to bed, because he loved them, he used to say. No regrets there. It was part of why his marriage worked so well now: no regrets. But what had it felt like have such freedom? From where he stood now, he was about as likely to remember the sensation of being born.
So Clive went and bought a pack of Marlboros, then found a sports bar next to his hotel where he ordered a Jim Beam and Coke and a bacon-cheddarburger, then positioned himself on a thickly padded, black leather covered bar stool for the next four hours, when an idea came to him.
At five o'clock, Clive walked out of the bar's side entrance and into a shopping mall, where he walked into a Victoria's Secret and began to look at the ladies' nightgowns, hoping to evoke a familiar tug somewhere inside himself. It worked. He fingered a black satin bathrobe and matching lace nightie, then found the same one in red and, despite himself, bought it for Cleo. She looked fabulous in long, satin nightgowns and it had been too long since he'd bought her one. Then he bought some other things.
By ten o'clock, Clive entered the Hyatt lobby a new woman. He had a long, curly blonde wig, pancake makeup, ruby fog lipstick, purple eyeshadow and black mascara. He wore a black cotton turtleneck sweater, which he had filled out nicely with silicon bra pads that felt nice sliding against his chest, though the bra itself was binding and uncomfortable. For the first time, Clive felt grateful for his naturally thin build—which he knew looked beautiful on his daughter. His 38-inch chest allowed him to comfortably wear a woman's size 10 on top, with a skirt that was an 8.
Over the sweater, he had found a cropped denim jacket to wear with a big, shiny zipper halted suggestively just below his breasts, as he'd noticed a model's did on one of the women's magazine covers. He'd found a short, flared denim skirt under which his penis was taped to his belly, and covered with satin thong panties and a matching garter belt. Clive had shaved his legs and ass to the best of his ability, and although he couldn't say he felt comfortable or sexy, he did feel excited, and did notice that men were looking at him altogether differently, especially when he glanced at their crotches. He sashayed back into the sports bar, sat down and ordered a cosmo. The bartender didn't recognize him.
Soon a man with silver hair sat down next to him and ordered a Maker's Manhattan, plus a refill for the lady. He smiled at Clive, and offered him a cigarette. Clive smiled back, accepted the cigarette and the light, then looked away, tucking a strand of blonde hair behind his ear and crossing his legs. They sat in silence, smoking and watching the bartender prepare their drinks. Once they had them, the man asked Clive where he was from. At that moment, Clive realized he hadn't considered the sound of his voice, which was a fairly rich baritone. But what could he do? Had the bartender noticed before? "I'm from Kansas City" he replied, trying to stay high-pitched.
His bar partner smiled. "Is that right? I've been out that way a few times. Not a bad life out there at all. Some of those places are real up and coming neighborhoods."
"Yes, I like it there very much."
The man nodded, drinking quickly, and signaled for another round. "You married?" he asked then.
"Divorced. Recently." The man smiled, with sympathy that Clive easily recognized as fake. Did women fall for this?
"My name's Randolph Buxton, by the way." The man offered his hand; Clive shook it, searching frantically for a name.
"Jamaica," he said finally, "Jamaica Cottonthwaite." It was the name of his first-grade teacher.
"Ooh, that's nice. Take me to Jamaica; when I reached Jamaica I made a stop. Ever been there?"
"No."
"Beautiful island. I took my ex there. We went to one of those all-inclusive shebangs in Montego Bay, couldn't drag her away from the buffet the whole time we were there. Used to be a beautiful girl, but ate herself into a real truck. I can't stand a woman who doesn't take care of herself. When we went to the beach, she looked like a beached whale."
Randolph Buxton stopped, and looked at Clive. "Oh, I'm sorry. Here I am, just met a sweet as sugar pie, really beautiful lady and here I'm showing off all my chauvinist pig qualities. Well at least I bought you a drink first!" He laughed, then, and to Clive's surprise he thought he detected something sincere in the man's smile. "I just feel comfortable around you, doll! It's a rare thing in this world. You have a real sweet touch, you know that? I almost feel like I'm talking to one of the boys!"
Clive smiled, and looked away. "I'm not a boy," he said softly, stirring his drink.
"No, I can see you're not." Randolph Buxton ran his fingers through his silver hair, and rubbed one of his loose cheeks with shiny, flat fingers. "Tell me, can I invite you to dinner tonight, Jamaica?"
Clive flashed him a bright smile and clicked his teeth together. "Why that sounds lovely. Thank-you."
With that, Randolph Buxton settled up with the bartender, hopped down from his stool, and offered Clive his elbow, which he took before sliding down to join his date on the ground.
Clive woke the next morning and looked around, trying to remember where he was. The Hyatt's room was clean and warm, the furniture of dark wood with softly patterned beige upholstery. He saw a thick, terry-cloth robe hanging in the closet, and, rolling to one side, picked up the phone and dialed room service. He ordered pancakes, sausages, a fruit salad with extra strawberries, cappuccino, and fresh-squeezed orange juice. After hanging up, he called back and added scrambled eggs with cheddar cheese and scallions and two pieces of wheat toast to the order.
Then he stood and put on the robe, belting it tightly to avoid the faint, bloody fingerprints on his stomach and thighs.
Breakfast—which ended up costing $60, not that Clive cared—arrived shortly thereafter, and he sat in bed wearing the bathrobe, eating and flipping between CNN and Fox News. At around noon, there was a gentle tap on the door. Clive froze. It had to be Cleo. She knew he liked Hyatts. He hadn't even thought to check in under another name. He stayed in bed, hoping she would think he wasn't there, but knew the blaring television would give him away. After a few more seconds he stood, and slipped into the hotel's natural fiber slippers before padding over to let her in.
She did not look good. When he opened the door, she didn't say anything, or move to enter so he stood aside and extended his arm. "Breakfast?" he asked.
Cleo shook her head but walked in, perching on the front of an armchair, then zipping her fawn-colored purse and placing it on the floor next to her matching shoes. Clive couldn't help noticing these details. It was one of the things that had initially drawn him to her, this attention to detail, whether in dress, cooking, even telling a story. These details worked effortlessly across her body and through their lives, sweeping him along like an eager bird in a whirlwind of feminine grace. Even here, on what Clive knew to be the worst day of her life, they upheld her dignity. He felt himself slowly beginning to calm down. All could not be lost in the world, so long as Cleo remained herself.
"Are you leaving us?" she finally asked, looking him straight in the eye. He noticed her makeup was poorly applied, or perhaps her face was swollen. Her eyes looked lightly bruised.
I caused this, he thought, examining her for a moment. "Do you want me to?" he asked then, and could tell from her expression that this hadn't been the time to miss a beat. He hated himself immediately. Cleo looked out the hotel window at an office building across the way, hands folded primly in her lap. She tended towards primness when faced with stressful situations, a tendency Clive found crushingly admirable.
"John Clavalis called me last night." Cleo said. "He told me he was breaking every medical ethic in the book, but he said he felt obligated to tell me what had happened to you, that I had a right to know."
Clive winced. "That son-of-a-bitch. He couldn't be happier. Fuck him. Look, I'm sorry I didn't have the courage to tell you myself. I was going to. But maybe you can imagine this is an easier topic for John to discuss than it is for me."
Cleo winced. "How do you feel?"
"I feel fine. Want some of this bacon? It's terrific. Real thick slices. I think it's maple flavored."
"No, thank-you. What are you going to do, then?"
"No idea. What are you going to do?"
"I don't know. Clive?"
"Yeah?"
"May I see it?"
Clive paused for a minute, and drank his orange juice. Then he lay back on the bed and pushed down his pyjama bottoms. Cleo bent over him, her cool fingers gently pushing his legs apart in a way that, despite all that had happened, still inspired a mild thrill. She pushed his not-quite-flaccid penis to the side and, ruining her unearthly aura of calm, gave a horrified little grunt, which made him squeeze his legs back together, ending the show.
"Oh sweetheart." She said, sitting back up and resting one hand mournfully on his knee. "I'm so sorry. "
"It's not your fault. It's horrifying. I have no idea what happened. But if you were ever looking for grounds for divorce…" Clive laughed nervously. In a way, he hoped she'd accept, take the kids and move to Hawaii on all the money she'd get from him, and never see him again. Then he'd be left alone to face out the misery of his life with nothing else to lose. The fantasy had been secretly following him all night. Rock bottom. He prayed for it.
"Clive I am not the kind of woman to just walk out on my husband of fifteen years because he has a medical problem. That's just not the kind of person I want to be. Aren't I here? And where in the world would I go? What would I do? Go be a single, working mother?"
Clive looked at his wife for a long time. "If you hadn't married me…"
"I'd be a less fortunate woman."
"OK. Never mind."
Cleo sat up against the headboard and crossed her arms. They talked awhile more, not about his problem but other things—an upcoming visit to her parents' house, Madison's trouble with her science teacher. Clive knew he was unbelievably lucky, and told her so, stroking the underside of one long, beautifully-shaped thigh. Cleo smiled. "Not until you get fixed up, dear. You scare me a bit right now."
Clive smiled back. "Tell me about it," he said.
"Of course" she smiled, "I don't know how many women wouldn't choose to experiment with a castrated husband for a week or two, just to see what the difference was. I must say, so far you're much more mild-mannered and easier to talk to."
"C'mon, Clee. Don't say that." All of a sudden, Clive started to cry.
"Oh, oh I'm so sorry sweetie. I didn't mean it. It's not true. And even if it were, I wouldn't trade your masculinity for anything. I love it." She leaned over, kissing his forehead. "It lets me be as girly as I want, if nothing else. And there's a lot to be said for girliness."
"Yes there is." He reached out and took Cleo's hand, pulling her over to him on the bed, and down to a position where they were facing each other. "We go together. Right?"
Cleo combed her hair back from her eyes, and gazed at him. It was a game, he realized then. Not Cleo, though not not her either. It was all a game. Like his work was all a game. Her behavior was like another language, a language that expressed who she wanted to be as much as it showed who she was. What was she thinking right now, as she leaned over to kiss his forehead?
"Right," she said, and kissed him on the lips, sliding her body down along his until their chins touched and he felt her hip bones digging into his stomach. "We go together."
With that, Clive made a decision and to his joy, Cleo went along with it. Even without ejaculate, it was pretty good.
As they slid out of bed, Cleo gave a little shriek. There, like a tail behind Clive's ass, was a long streak of brown jelly, thick and quivering on the mattress. Melting at one end was a small, white starburst. Clive felt lightheaded, staring at his newly released vagina dentata. "Fucking. Disgusting," said Clive, in a hushed voice. Then he sat down on the floor, spread his legs and pushed aside his penis. There, below its base, where his vagina—and before that his balls—had been, lay flat, slightly wrinkled and visibly swelling skin.
He looked at the bed. The brown line was beginning to ripple around the edges, and slowly before their eyes, to contract. Cleo leaned over and grabbed Clive's arm, pulling him into a standing position. "Get dressed," she said. "I think we need to get out of here."
"Right." Clive began collecting his clothing from the pile he'd left them in on the floor, then remembered the Victoria's Secret bag in the closet. "Here, Clee, I got you a present yesterday." He handed her the bag, which she eagerly began looking through. As he'd predicted, the robe, nightie, and floral bra and panty sets were all great successes. Then, as he was just zipping up his pants, Cleo fell silent.
"Clive, did you cheat on me?" she asked quietly.
"What? What are you talking about?" Clive turned and stared at his wife, who was holding up several long, blonde hairs. "What's that?"
"Blonde hair that's three times the length of mine."
"Hon, that must have been the salesgirl's or something." Clive looked deeply into her suddenly huge, emerald colored eyes. "Clee, I love you. I wouldn't cheat on you for anyone in the world. Honest."
Cleo looked convinced. "OK, sorry. This is all just a little weird for me; maybe you can imagine that."
"Yeah, I think I can imagine. But think about it, even if I were having an affair—which I'm not—how would my mistress' hair get in a bag full of gifts for you?"
"True. Yuck, that thing on the bed is moving. Can we please get the hell out of here, please?" Clive turned around. The brown streak was hanging half way off the bed, droopy and pointing, the size and shape a severed human tongue extending to taste something. His stomach began to churn violently. The teeth were gone, dissolved.
"Shouldn't we try to capture it and bring it in to the hospital?"
"And give it a chance to get back into you? Or into me or one of the kids?"
"No. OK."
Clive went into the bathroom and washed his face, then started when he saw soaking wet women's clothing piled in the bathtub behind him, a single red streak extending from them to the drain. He quickly pulled the shower-curtain shut, closed the bathroom door behind him, and rejoined Cleo. She was standing by the door, watching the brown blob crawl up the wall, toward a crack in the window. They watched for a moment, until it began to pour out of the room and onto the balcony.
"That bird better watch it!" Cleo snorted.
Clive agreed, and they left.
The sparrow waited until the thing had crept completely through the window, then gave it a single peck with its beak, making it shrink to half its size. Then, with that flickering quickness available to small birds, the sparrow took the thing—now approximately the size and shape of an oyster—into its beak and disappeared into the corduroy landscape of downtown Cincinnati.
Otium
