I think it’s obvious, she says. He hated his father.
That’s nonsense.
One of her hands slips into my lap, cold. I flinch and she laughs.
I could eat you, she says. Truly. I could eat your skin from the bone.
Geppetto wouldn’t hurt a mouse and the boy adored him.
Whatever, she says. Pinocchio was a freak. He was the little wooden Elephant Man and he would never have existed if the old man hadn’t carved him. Gepetto was like any other punchdrunk god who thinks he’s doing you a favor and then just completely shits on you.
Then silence.
Which is it? I say. Pinocchio or the Elephant Man.
Jude shrugs. Both.
Well. I can see the Pinocchio bit, I say. The donkey’s head, for instance. And his problem with telling the truth. The Elephant Man, though. He was a sweetheart. Hideous to look at and you wouldn’t want to touch him, but he was probably a nicer guy than me.
Who do you think of? she says. When you fuck me?
I close my eyes and try to think of a normal, well-adjusted response. My mind does tend to wander during sex. I suffer strange, inappropriate visions. I often think of Jenny, a neurotic border collie I used to have. Jenny had wings. That dog could catch a Frisbee no matter how high or far I threw it. The trouble with Jenny was that she would never give the Frisbee back unless I threatened her. Jenny would run from me, she would hide in a patch of tall grass and chew and suck at the Frisbee in a way that was manic and eerily sexual. And she could destroy a good Frisbee in five minutes.
Do you see whores from your past? says Jude. Pale pubescent girls? Waitresses with bad skin or small hairless men?
What was the third choice? I say.
Jude bites my ear, hard enough to draw blood. I push her away from me.
You haven’t come yet, she says. It’s been three days. Three days of sex and not a trickle. I try not to worry about it. I tell myself that you’re a freak. That it’s because of the drugs. That it’s not my problem.
But you’re a liar, I say.
Yes, she says. I need to make you come.
What does my come taste like?
Aluminum, she says.
The taste of fear, I say.
Exactly, she says.
I grope the walls and flip the lights. The room is a horror and my dick is soft, very soft. It sleeps, meek and fleshy against my thigh and I’m sure that a soft penis is what death looks like. Loose skin and a thousand wrinkles, gray and wasted.
I offer this comparison and Jude doesn’t smile. I offer to go down on her.
She squints at me. Your eyes are the same blue. But exactly.
Don’t look at them, I say.
We have been in the dark too long. I have acquired the blue eyes of a murdered boy and I want to go outside.
Irrational or not, the horror of space travel goes back to Curious George and his sinister companion, the man in the yellow hat. That guy was obviously not right and I instinctively hated him as a boy. I see his face whenever I hear the word pedophile and as it happens, the only Curious George story that stuck in my head is the one in which the man in the yellow hat blackmails poor George into outer space. And there you go. If my mother had reached for a different book, I might have manifested a sexual fear of bicycles or kites.
Four hours later, give or take.
I wake up and the bed is empty. Jude is in the bathroom, naked and sitting on the edge of the tub, head cocked like a praying mantis and her hair falling in a mad tangle over her left shoulder. A vanity mirror between her thighs and she’s probing herself with two fingers. She looks too crazy and hostile to be masturbating and I know she hates stupid questions so I decide to pee and say nothing.
I have an itch, says Jude.
What kind of itch?
A maddening itch.
I glance over my shoulder, sympathetic but obviously trying to pee.
There was no itch yesterday, she says.
I’m not awake yet and to my mind yesterday is still happening. I stare at the ceiling and wonder if she’ll freak out if I mention the word imagination. There is water damage on the ceiling, a warped and dripping stain in the shape of Bob Dylan’s head. Imagination is never a popular word in these domestic situations and at four in the morning it might be deadly. The only solution is to back away from the toilet and change the subject.
Water damage, I say. The ceiling is fucked.
What? she says.
It may not be safe in here, I say.
Her eyes narrow. If you say this is my imagination, or even think it.
Imagination? I say.
The feet, she says. I will do something terrible to your feet.
Do you think I afflicted you with something?
Maybe, she says. Maybe not.
I scratch my head, helpless. Do you want me to look at it?
No, she says.
Maybe it’s a spider bite.
Jude stares at me. A spider?
Maybe.
What would a spider be doing in there?
I chew on my lip.
Careful, she says.
Oh yes. I want to be careful with this question. I promptly discard the notion that the spider was looking for food. I like the sound of gravitational weirdness but this is perhaps too vague, too unscientific. Jude sighs, staring at the little mirror. I slide close enough to touch her shoulder, to breathe her air.
Eucalyptus. Dandelions and salt. Opium and rainforest.
I have no idea what her scent is called, or where it comes from. Jude uses a lot of mysterious oils and lotions and it could be any of them, none of them. It could be her blood, her internal juices coming to the surface. Her smell is always on my skin and always fading. Jude turns the mirror sideways, squinting.
Fancy, she says.
What? I say.
It looks like a tiny deformed heart, she says. From a certain angle.
I count to five. What time is it, do you think?
Jude puts the mirror aside. Two o’clock, she says.
Come back to bed.
Why? she says.
We should get some sleep.
It’s two in the afternoon, she says.
We could have sex, I say.
Jude stares at me.
Or not. What about a drink, then?
Please. With just a drop of vodka.
I hold out my hand and she allows me to lead her back to the bed.
There are two empty bottles of vodka at the vanity sink. A jug of ginger ale, a fifth of Jack that we’ve barely touched. There is a carton of milk, unopened and no doubt very sour. The ice is gone and the sink is foul with gray
