Love Song

Rachel, will you believe it. This morning you saved my life. You dragged me back to the living world with your cheeks between my thighs.

In my dream I was dying, fallen from a great height.

You told me once, that in a dream like that one must wake herself up; pinch your dream self, scream at the top of your lungs, try to recall your dead pet's name. If you dream on something terrible must happen.

I must have let myself fall then.

I was on a pebbly beach down a long white cliff, my head resting against rock, my body tattered meat, my heart unbeating. Waves, winds, seagulls.

I lay there for a long time. Seasons must have passed. It was a strangely peaceful feeling. I was becoming a sculpture made of rock.

Then, from somewhere a small spring emerged and snaked its way past me like the Thames.

I used the last bit of my strength to move my hand and dip my finger in it. A tremor came to me. Pain. It made me feel alive. In my body raw white tendons grew out to latch flesh to torn bones, clotted blood thawed and sent to my cold limbs.

I had overcome fate to live, if just for one more day.

My toes curled. Threads of cooling sun licked my eyelids. I opened them to see you down there greeting me with a smirk of an imp. In your messy hangover hair your beauty is fatal. Blood on your cheeks. Am I bleeding, or have you torn me apart?

My tremor continued, aftershock of the crisis you just gave me. I wanted to gasp for air. You climbed up to me and I kissed your moist lips while you held my chin like a wine glass.

What have you done, Rachel. You know I am defenseless against your art.

My nightgown had washed up to my chest, sweat drying off around my nipples, the bedsheet damp under me. We smelt like sea and dirt and rust. Your lips lingered on mine before moving on and leaving behind a trail of your small victories.

Fiona. You said rise and shine, my cowgirl. I felt your breath on my ear. It's afternoon already.

Such a shame, for it is the last day of our trip. Tomorrow we kiss goodbye this sun-dried foreign soil beneath our feet. We return to our wintery city of smog and dolor. Neither felt real; we leave behind one dream just to fall into another. Our lullaby: life in a bed.

I watched you get up and go to restroom with your hips swaying. Black rubber band on your wrist. How many lovers have seen this exact scene in an afternoon? You disappeared behind a door. I looked out. Shades of flowered branches pressed on the window like a Japanese painting.

This trip was your idea, your gift to us. But you never do gifts. You only bestow. What a surprise. I'll admit you caught me off guard. We only packed the essentials, like we're fleeing from a flood. So we'd been buying clothes along the way. Boutique shops, offbeat music playing, me in a dark green dress in front of mirror. You picked the dress. It's beautiful because of the sun. The sun that we could bring nothing back. I heard the shower turn on.

This time, then once more I think, then perhaps a last time, then I think it'll be over, with that world too. Premonition of the last but one but one.

So I dragged myself out of bed and joined you. We took shower in that tight enclosure, packed in like caged dogs, elbows knocking against the glass. It was one of the last few things I still enjoy doing with you. I washed your hair, the kind of blond that didn't come from a bottle but from something older, wilder.

your kisses on my collarbone were the biting of a vampire.

***

We headed out. You in your jeans and me in my floral skirt. I walked with a limp. Yesterday's trek to the waterfall crippled my knees. I can't catch up to you, even though I'm supposed to be younger. You joked about getting me a wheelchair once we're back home. But I'm afraid, Rachel. I fear that there's no home to go back to, you and me.

We got to our car. Of course you're driving, because I can't drive stick, and I'm such a timid driver. Those treacherous mountain roads were worse than Wales. They would have me for lunch. You are always so confident, even when you're on the wrong side of the road. Behind the wheel you're like a rebel angel. We're going against the whole world.

We're going up, ascending into the gods' realm. Beneath us the hills rolled out in gold and emerald. Then fog obscured everything outside of our car. You turned on the hazard light and began to tell me about this baron, who built the castle which we were going to see. I brought the leftover dessert from the fridge. You were always hungry. I picked a piece and dropped it in your mouth. Car swirled; the cream gave you mustache.

The baron married seven wives and killed the six of them. They died because they used the key. The last one got away. She served his head on a silver platter.

You asked me if there's any more raisin that fell from the cake. I searched the bottom of box. No, Rachel, you've eaten the last one. You see? I've run out of raisins with you.

We had arrived. No other car in the lot. We had the place to ourselves. An old man guarded the post, the same recurring character in our jokes ("Who eats you better, me or a toothless old man?"). He greeted you, for you naturally resembled the head of family and you spoke their language. You seem to speak all languages in the world except that of love. In that you're like a savage, you mimic words but don't know what they mean.

The castle was half in ruins and half covered in vines. You opened the door and followed behind me. Inside was beautiful but stale. We walked down the dimly lit hall like thieves. Men in black helmets watched us, ladies in silk smiled without showing teeth. On the carpet the hounds chased hares. I followed your pointed finger and saw an arrow for the fleeing hart.

Portrait of the baron. A man always king in his own house.

In your house I was your vassal and your serf. You took me in when I had nowhere to go. Just because I had refilled your coffee every afternoon. You were always in the same spot scribbling away. You thought out loud and talked to yourself. And you have green eyes. I cleaned the tables next to yours just so I could steal a glance at you.

Portrait of the lady. Well, one of the seven I guess.

I know I'm not your first, but you are mine. I had a boyfriend in college but that wasn't serious, just two children playing dress-up. Love with you is real. Loving you is like traversing the Sahara and you are my only guide. Only you can tell the stars apart, and oasis from the mirage. I am helpless and I am blind. I'll never know what you see in me.

My mortal dread: you look into my dark eyes only to see your own reflection.

The baron killed his wives because they used the one key he forbade them to use. A heart-shaped key to a heart-shaped lock. Why did he let them keep it then? Is love just tests and guarding secrets? And how did the first one die?

Look at all the copper wares lining the kitchen walls. An army of servants must have been employed once upon a time to make use of them. Imagine the banquet: boar crackling, mead from honey in the woods, lamb, wine, rabbit legs, pheasants stuffed with herbs, grapes and cheese overflowing the red tablecloth.

But you don't need servants. You were such a talented cook. You made the most wonderful dishes I had ever tasted. But I was allergic to seafood and that evening you made fish. I thought I had told you. You must have forgotten. I know you're busy. But you got mad. You threw the spoon at me. Called me a cunt, a leech. Told me to get my ugly face out of your house.

We came into the bedrooms laden with draperies and hardwood fixtures. Their beds are so small. Were all the ancients midgets? Their isle of love was barely enough for two.

They must have been very careful, every push and shove calculated to the exact effect, least one fell overboard and drowned, fed to the sharks lurking under the carpet. In the darkness the baron pressed upon his bride like a heavy corpse.

We moderns are fortunate. Our bed is a swimming pool. We dive down like children to meet at the floor. Our bed is a prairie where we ride each other into the sunset. Our bed is a library and our bodies a medieval manuscript, new lines written over the old, the old words forgotten.

You were impressed and inspired; I began to see that this final stop of our trip is still more about you and less about me. You love material richness of the bygone world. Now your new book will pass it on to your readers, who crave authenticity in their cookie-cutter houses living cookie-cutter lives, like pigeons after the bread crumbs.

You said the new book will be spicy. Your characters play dangerous games. Like that one time you tied me up with your favorite red rope. I never liked it but I played along. My chest, my ribcage, my shoulders. As if you're sewing me a new corset.

I was a prey in your ever-tightening net. You bound me up and then you tossed me into the closet. In the darkness my arms bent backwards. It hurt, and I cried. You did not answer. In another room you began to write. My pain fueled your pen.

So many doors, so much space. Corridors that shaped like maze. They played hide-and-seek. The bride giggled, her dress dragging across the hall, disappearing behind a corner. Another dining room. How many did they need? Silver spoons, ivory-handled knives, fake plastic chicken and ham you could kick around like footballs. Funny that they looked even better than the real thing.

Why have you taken me here, Rachel? We were heading down into the cellar. Such a long and dark passage. I felt cold. I bet you're just oblivious as ever. Or maybe you know exactly how these little things made me feel.

First you're just teasing. Pinching my nipples until I cried out. Biting and tearing at my breasts. You're such a carnivore. Then you'd slap me until my face was swollen. You'd choke me so hard that I needed to wear a scarf. You didn't want me to embarrass your friends. You kicked and beat me where they wouldn't see. Were those bruises your lover letter written on my body?

You said the baron hid his wives' bodies in the cellar next to his wine. He hung them on hooks until blood ran dry. He's born mad you said. There's no return once you have a taste of control and fear. They all panicked and dropped the key in old blood that won't congeal and you can't wash it clean because it's magical. There's your fantasy, Rachel.

You are a worshiper of pain aren't you? That time you stuck a candle in me and you lit it. It hurt so much I couldn't sit properly for weeks. But my pain is yours. Mine is on my skin, but yours is carved on your heart. Seeing my battered body made you break down. You told me you're sorry. Told me you don't deserve me. We embraced and your tears healed my wound. I said to myself that the end of world could wait another day. But my candle is burning short.

Yet I stayed. I guess I must be a fool. Everywhere I turn I see you, from the very first memory to last, your green soulful gaze, eye of your hurricane that wrecked me over and again. We made our bed and we must sleep in it. When will your hook penetrate my shoulder blade and pierce my lung? Blood foam at the corner of my mouth.

Stop making lame excuses, Fiona, you told me. I'll never let you go.

One last room to round up our tour. My knees were bad and you put my arm around your neck and we made baby steps up the narrow staircase. The cripple and the deaf. Up in the tower was where they watched the stars. Telescopes were expensive toys in their age. Of course they're replicas, like everything else in this castle. It was all your words, yours alone. Was your baron even real?

You stood over the little opening in the wall and looked. The old man was waiting in the yard for us to come down, so he could close the place and go home. The plot was thickening in your beautiful head. He's coming up the stairway to carve her heart out. Rachel, I hate to break it to you. Stop. This has to end. I am leaving you for good. I am ready to tear the cosmos down. I will forget about you.

But you landed a finger on my lips. Shhh, you said. Listen. At first I didn't know what. Then I heard it too. Like a choir singing far away in only one note. A humming suspended up in the air, lighter than feather. It shifted and turned. We followed, me behind you, waltzing from one corner to the other.

The baron married seven wives and killed six of them. The last one got away.

You said their hearts were buried at the foot of the castle.

Tomorrow I'm going to die.