Lady Churchill's Rosebud Wristlet No. 20 (12 page)

I am nothing if not a woman of my word. Or, more precisely, a woman who never misses an opportunity to visit weird neighbors. I used to spend hours with my neighbor in Brooklyn, Mrs. Tannenbaum, who claimed to have been a high class whore in the thirties. Her living room was full of empty bird cages. We used to sit under them in sagging chairs, drinking tea in cups with matching saucers, and tell each other dirty stories. But compared to Phil, Edith “Legs” Tannenbaum was a minor distraction.

I didn't know what time was best for minotaurs, so I stopped by the labyrinth around lunchtime. Halfway through the maze, it occurred to me that I would look like a lunch-moocher, but I was suspicious of this “just turn right” system. Did I “just turn left” to go out? It seemed too easy.

The center was one of those servant's cottages that dotted the development, also left over from the estate, except this one was stuck in the middle of a freakin’ labyrinth. Phil was, in fact, having lunch—I passed a shaken pizza delivery boy at the door—but he didn't so much as offer me a slice. At first, I was offended, until I realized he intended to eat the entire pie. Slash and I sat in silence as he took the pieces two at a time and stuffed them in his mouth. It was a little hard to watch.

Despite the fact that the cottage was in the middle of a maze, it had electrical outlets, and the faucet worked when I turned it on. Every room was equipped with skylights, because the windows were choked with hedge. The boxes near the bedroom held the most beautiful old books I had ever seen. Others contained dishes, decorations, linens. Semi-automatic machine guns.

"Um,” I said. “Are those guns legal?"

"Yup,” Phil said. He was at the sink, washing the sauce from his mouth—muzzle?

"Are you in the mob or something?” I said.

"Do you know about minotaurs?” Phil said.

"You're security contractors?"

"Sort of. Because of the nature of this property—"

"—'Nature of this property'—shit, this isn't
Poltergeist
or something, is it?"

"No! Just some minor nuisances which I'm in the process of taking care of. Lemme show you my library."

The library turned out to be the bedroom. Bookshelves covered every available wall surface, like ivy. They were only a third full, but what was there was beautiful. I must have sighed, because Phil said, “I thought you'd like books."

"I—I'm kind of a writer,” I said.

"What do you write about?"

"I don't write much, to be honest. Mostly I cook elaborate dinners for my husband.” I reached out to touch some of the books. “I kept writing the same story."

"What story?"

"There's this boy. Or a girl. It used to be a girl. They go to this other land and are supposed to be a hero. But they don't want to be a hero, so they wander around and try to find a better hero so they can get off the hook."

"That's a boring story,” Phil said.

"I know. I gave up,” I said.

"Maybe you could write about me,” he said.

"I'll think about it,” I said. That's my standard response. “Can I help you put away your books?"

I'm really ashamed of it, but my passions in life are, in order of importance, food, sex, and organizing. I was kind of a bad kid growing up, but even then I loved rearranging bike garages and measuring out dime bags. I was the cigarette bookkeeper for half the women's prison within two weeks of my arrival.

When I say I was a bad kid, it's mostly that I dated bikers. Like, when I was fifteen I was in love with twenty-seven-year-old dudes named “Rusty Knife.” I never did anything really bad—I did time because my drug-dealer boyfriend forgot to flush the weed he bought me for my eighteenth birthday.

I met Oscar about five years later, when I was clean and straight and mostly respectable, though still not over bad boys. Oscar is the kind of lawyer whose job it is to scare the crap out of people, and he has three tattoos and a hot temper. He gives me what I want when I want it, except, of course, when I want to be denied. He's a near-perfect mix of biker and sane person, though if I were being honest, I'd say he's a little too sane. But I understand that no one's perfect.

The next day I went back to help Phil put away his dishes. I was explaining to him why I loved saucers when Roberto, the construction manager, showed up at the door. He peered into the entrance like it might eat him.

"What's up?” Phil said.

"Hey, um,” Roberto began. “We've got, ah, some giant winged horses tearing up lot fifteen. Wondering if you could help us out there."

There were three of them, and they were beautiful. They were bigger than any normal horse, though giant was a bit of a stretch. Two of them were kicking up dust around the construction site. The third was trotting around in what was going to become the attic of the house; right now it was only a frame. The bottom levels were busted up in places, and the construction trailer had been overturned, but the horses looked so happy.

Phil pulled out his gun.

"You're going to shoot them!” I said.

"They're monsters, Jane,” Phil said.

"Look at them! They're horses!"

Phil raised the gun. “I'm sorry."

I stood in front of him and pulled out one of the carrots I had grabbed from my fridge. “I'll
show
you."

I had learned to ride in a city parks program when I was little. I was pretty good—really good, actually. I still had my ribbons. Oscar and I kept talking about buying a horse, but I knew nothing could compare to these guys. I walked up to them, slowly, and whistled like I had learned as a kid.

I approached the nearest, carrot in hand. She seemed to like the smell of me, and I held out the carrot. She came over and nibbled.

At just that moment, a cement truck roared down the street, and the calm broke. The horse nearest to me reared and grazed my head with its hoof. I fell, and heard
poppoppop pop!
“No,” I moaned. I opened my eyes; the horses were gone. Phil picked me up. He smelled like cologne, like pine.

"Are they dead?” I murmured.

"No,” Phil said. “I shot the gun in the air. They flew away."

He carried me all the way back to my house, my head resting on his shoulder. I cried a little. He sat me on the kitchen counter and dug out my first aid supplies. He offered to take me to the emergency room, but I refused. He kept wrapping bandages, kept shining the flashlight in my eyes, kept saying, over and over, “I'm so sorry."

At some point, I was all bandaged, but he was still touching my forehead, my face, the curve behind my ears. At some point, the flashlight was out of the picture, but he was still looking in my eyes. I was rocked with equal and opposite surges of shame and arousal.

He leaned in and kissed me.

Kissing him wasn't like the bikers. But it wasn't like Oscar, either. I felt gathered up in something bigger than me, like I was something precious, but something strange as well. My heart pounded in my ears. I was scared. I was high.

He pulled away, and I buried my face in his shoulder. His fur was softer than I had expected, cleaner. “I can't,” I whispered.

"I know,” he said. “I'm sorry. I'll never do it again, I just—"

"I'd like to go nap now. If you could just go, I'd—"

"Right. Sorry, Jane. Sorry."

After Phil left, I found myself, to my shock, sitting in front of the study computer. I pulled up the file called, simply “S,” for “Story.” I didn't bother reading what was there. I started to type.

Theseus and the Minotaur.

Wait, no. I don't like the way that story came out.

Allie and the Monster

The first thing Allie did when she came to Trel was befriend a monster. No one in their right mind befriended monsters. But she was new. She didn't know.

The monster's name was Brutus. Brutus was hairy and breathed fire. Allie told him she had come to be a hero. Brutus pointed out heroes weren't friends with monsters. Fuck that, Allie said. She stayed friends with Brutus.That was her first mistake.

Oscar made dinner that night. It wasn't half bad, but I wasn't about to admit that to him.

"I hate it here,” I said. There was a huge bandage around my head. I felt like a fool. “I never see my friends, I'm alone in the house all day—"

"You're the one who wanted a house,” Oscar said. “You're the one who quit your job."

"It was a mistake, okay?"

"I'm sorry about the horses, Jane."

"I hate it all, I hate suburbia, I hate writing, I hate being married—"

"You don't mean that,” Oscar said.

I stopped talking. I could hear the unsaid,
Do you?

"I'm sorry. My head hurts. I just want to go to bed,” I said.

I woke up at two A.M., unable to sleep even with the headache. I went downstairs and started writing.

I didn't go over to Phil's for a week or so after that. Oscar stayed home the day after the horse incident—he stayed
home,
this was the equivalent of many men quitting their jobs completely—and forced me to go to the doctor. The doctor, of course, told me exactly what I was expecting to hear—minor concussion, no drinking or running around for a week or so—and to my relief he let me go.

I kept thinking about Phil, and not in that “Boy, how can we maintain our friendship?” way. I imagined him taking me on the kitchen floor; I imagined going over there in nothing but one of my winter coats; I imagined my fingers in his fur, his human cock inside me as his bull's mouth worked its way up my neck—I resolved to ask Oscar to be rougher. To put on cologne. To wear masks.

It was weird, because Phil's presence made me uneasy. The bull's head was one thing in the fantasy, another in the flesh, where I could contemplate the massive face, animal nostrils, the unreadable eyes. The memory of his kiss was electrifying, until I thought about it too closely, remembered the panic I felt in his arms, just as much as the safety.

I headed over to Phil's about a week later. I had decided to show him the story. None of the construction workers were around when I went outside, and I wondered if it was some sort of holiday. I always forgot about holidays.

When I walked in, Phil greeted me just like before. He took my pages with his free hand as he finished cleaning a gun. He read it over as I sipped some of his scotch. He looked up at me afterwards and said, “Do you want to go kill some sirens?"

"What?” I said.

"They refused to drain the lake."

"Here? They shouldn't drain it, it's so nice and—"

"And the property values, I know. Lucky I found them last night, before the construction workers came in. Put these earplugs in,” he said, handing me the orange kind you wear on airplanes. They were squishy. “I liked your story. You should write more."

We set out for the pond at the front entrance, by the sign that said
Pennwyn Woods
, Phil toting a massive gun, me with a kitchen knife so I could feel included, both of us wearing bright orange earplugs. We passed through the vacant lots in a cocoon of quiet, and the silence made the neighborhood seem even more deserted, and sinister, as if there had been a disaster, or a plague, instead of just a day off.

Three women in sequined dresses lounged in the pond's gazebo, smoking. They didn't even look our way.

"YOU'RE NOT BISEXUAL OR SOMETHING ARE YOU?” Phil yelled.

"I made out with this one girl in high school and kind of liked it,” I said.

"WHAT?” Phil said.

"I SAID I MADE OUT WITH THIS ONE GIRL AND I KIND OF LIKED IT!"

"CAN YOU ROW A BOAT?"

There was a rowboat waiting at the bottom of the marble steps. It looked as old as said steps, and time had not treated it as well. Phil clambered in and took a seat at the bow. I sat in the middle and started rowing.

The sirens watched us approach. The first put a leg up on the railing and started to sing,

Oo, baby, suck me in

I wanna feel the touch of your skin

Never been tempted to quite a sin

Don't worry baby, I'll give in

"MOVE US IN CLOSER!” Phil called.

I rowed towards the island. The other two sirens had joined their sister on the edge of the gazebo. I had never seen such perfect women. Not even on television. I wanted to touch them, to be closer—

Oo, baby, suck me in

I could smell them now, a mixture of vanilla and sex, a hint of smoke, of fire.

Never been tempted to quite a sin—

Phil picked up his rifle.

"YOU'RE GOING TO SHOOT THEM?” I cried.

"THEY'RE NOT PEOPLE, JANE."

Don't worry baby—

The sirens saw Phil raise the rifle, and they knew what it meant. Suddenly, Phil froze. He was eye to eye with the first one; I could see her song on his lips, his mouth saying,
I'll give in.

I did the only thing I could think of—I smacked him upside the head with an oar. At first I didn't think it worked, but then he reached up to where I hit him and groaned.

It happened quickly, now that he'd made up his mind. Pop, pop, pop, and they started screaming, their faces turning bird-like. One still rasped the song,
"feel the touch, the touch—"
Phil opened fire again. The screaming, and the singing, stopped. I rowed us closer. The sirens were gone, too. Nothing but sequined dresses and three dead pigeons. Blood that would never come out of the wood floor of the gazebo. Phil picked up a dress, then dropped it on the ground like a piece of trash. He came up to me. Touched my face.

"Sorry,” he said, and grinned, tracing the line of my jaw.

I reached up and flicked a sequin off his chest. The fur there was still soft. He still smelled like cologne, like the piney hedges. Desire shot through me. Phil sniffed the air, as if he could smell it. Maybe he could.

"Oo baby,” I said, grinning back. “Suck me in."

When we got back in the rowboat, I was humming their song.

We walked back to the labyrinth in silence. Phil kept his free hand hooked around my arm. It was oddly tender, considering he was using the other to carry a gun.