Please Don't Go (46 page)

They kissed, Zephyr touching her cheek with a gladness that he could not resist. What Jackie was saying to him all sounded pleasing to his ears, though he swallowed each bitter pill with an equal part of groaning apprehension. But the playacting of wanting to believe her words concerning their daughter, named Tabitha already, was all that he needed at this very moment. He was whisked back to their first kiss, and Jackie’s lips still tasted the same. He sighed deep inside his gut and tried to imagine what Tabitha would look like, but soon opened his eyes to find a grave look upon Jackie’s face, replacing the cheery optimism that had come from mentioning her chats with their still gestating child.

“
You need to know something, Zephyr.” She looked more serious than he could ever recall before, like the time that she had warned him about the streak of insanity that ran through her familial genes, which he had laughed off but quickly discovered was a more frightful thing (at the time) to her than all the monsters and demons of the world combined.

He buried his face against her shoulder blade, inhaling and exhaling in serenity. He felt at home with Jackie. It seemed like an eternity since he had built up enough intestinal fortitude to propose marriage to this woman. They had still only known each other for no more than a year’s time, but she had become his home, and he hers, though she had seemed hesitant to commit at times. That was all in the past. “What’s that? What do I need to know?” he replied.

“
She’s not alone.”

“
Who’s
not alone?”

“
Lilith. It’s not one singular Lilith. I think... I can’t be sure, but I hear things in there from conflicting sources. There are more where she came from, a whole army of them. They’re all inside of me. I think they’re playing tug of war, with both me and Tabitha. There’s a good faction, just like there’s an evil one. I keep hoping that the good will win, but that’s not looking so great from in here. Both sides speak to me, but I feel like it’s mostly rumors.”

The words shimmied into his ear. Zephyr’s jaw felt rigid, stiff and immobile. It served to explain her chaotic, almost bipolar, fits of anger. Jackie implied to him that there were gradations of Lilith, a schizophrenic mixture of sweet and gentle ones, right alongside Rottweilers and hissing snakes, waging a war for Jackie’s and his souls.
Factions,
she had referred to them as. A yin and yang of Lilith? It seemed possible, but Zephyr was slow to chomp into his own personal hopes.

“
They’re not all bad... not like the one in charge... or the one that
thinks
she’s in charge. I feel like they’re sympathizing with me at some level. Some of them are, at least. But the bad ones are too strong in numbers right now, and they know what they want. And they know how to get it. They want you and I, to take over our lives until we can’t even recognize them anymore,” she said, a creeping whine in her voice. She was panicking, and Zephyr felt as if she was slipping away into her own brand of madness as he had begun to feel weighing upon his own consciousness, trapped in her physical being in much the same way that he was trapped inside the traitor Rattup’s home. Prisoners of alternative methods, at bay from their own liberalized existences.

Kissing Jackie on the cheek, Zephyr whispered, “If this isn’t over... If she drags you back inside of there, you need to try talking to the other ones, if they’ll listen. Find out who you can trust and what we can do to ruin her, but remember how sneaky she is. She’ll lie right to your face... and convince you of some sort of sincerity. Don’t believe it for a second. This dueling factions thing may just be a ruse to mess with your head. Never doubt that possibility. And never underestimate her.”

A chilliness swathed over the room and Zephyr could feel Lilith returning.

Good morning, my loves. I hope you’ve enjoyed your conjugal visit. Life is not as simple as lying in bed all day, ruminating. I swear on the Creator’s shoes that you foolish children are all the same. Let’s get back to normal, shall we?

“
Let her be, Lilith. If you want somebody’s body, then take mine. She has nothing to do with this. Let her go.” There was not enough intensity in his voice to warrant attention, for he knew that his ploy was meaningless to her.

Don’t call me that, you wretch. You know that I abhor that name. And how would I pleasure myself if I was inside of you? No, no, no, my lover. I need a supple female body. Not to mention that imp inside of her. I want to pick the little darling’s skin clean.

Jackie cried out against the invisible taunting specter of Lilith hovering above them, “Stay away from my fucking baby!” She burst into tears, nestling her head against the nook of Zephyr’s neck, grasping at him with tight heaves of breath, afraid that she would be ripped away from his loving embrace at any moment. “Stay away from my child or
so help me God
,” she gurgled as a cold blast of air washed over her body. Lilith slathered her claws upon Jackie’s bulging stomach, atwitter with soft laughter. She rubbed the skin and wallowed in pleasure for the turmoil she caused in the young girl.

God can’t help anybody, little girl. How else would you expect me to return to the land of flesh? It’s perfect, this child. My sweet marshmallow. She is I, and I am she. Tabitha. Such a pretty name for such a terrible beast. The boys will want to fornicate with me so hard that they’ll bleed from their penises and I’ll slurp up that blood like a voracious leech. Loving a tart like myself does not come without pain, without remorse, without an ounce of sin and a pound of grief. I can hear them yowling in pain already, entering me and finding that I can rip away their pointy dominance with a thrust of my hips. My new vessel will be awash with fire and ready for protruding passions in the land of rapists.

Lilith could barely contain herself, chuckling with greedy sounds that reminded Zephyr of a gold-enamored leprechaun. He thought of Rumpelstiltskin, that one could say his name to vanquish him from the material world forever. In one of the texts that he had come across in Rattup’s Lilith inspired library, it had been suggested that the succubus Lilith could be banished into limbo through the same method. On several occasions, Zephyr had blurted her name several times in repetition, but it had done nothing, and Lilith could only giggle at the feeble attempt. He was investing too much of himself in myth and it was absurd. “Lilith,” he said now. One more try. “Lilith. Lilith. Lilith.”

Maybe if you close your eyes and say a prayer to God... then maybe I’ll just go away. Wouldn’t you appreciate that kind of prompt service? He’s always listening to you, right? Always looking out for you? Then how do you explain the terror that is wrought upon the people of earth; tornadoes and earthquakes and floods and disease? God is dead, children. Dead and buried by people of my clan. Close your eyes and ask for his aid, and you’ll see what happens next. You’ll see me, grinning at the window of your soul.

The snarling whisper in Jackie’s ear was nothing compared to the frigid ragged talons that were apparent on her tender skin. She clenched her eyes shut, as Lilith had demanded.

Y
ou’re just as gullible as a baby chick, aren’t you?

Lilith spread her filthy wings and slipped inside of Jackie once again, grateful to be back home, among the skin and bones of her temporary vessel. “There we go,” she shuddered, looking over at Zephyr with her blank eyes. “Morning delights,” she stated, but it came across as more of a unquestioning command. She closed her eyelids and Zephyr took to his business. It wasn’t so bad, even after the slightest moment back with his true love Jackie. Zephyr found himself now able to flip the switch between his two realities with such ease that it frightened him.

Desensitized. Useless. Faithful.

The man in Zephyr died a bit more with every penetration.

As Lilith mounted atop him for the thousandth time, he tried to imagine what Lilith looked like, as a human incarnate, fangs and all. He then tried to picture what her good and evil sisters of pain and mercy looked like, wafting about the innards of Jackie’s body, in a struggle for her mortal soul, as Jackie had implied during her momentary release. Were they winged beasts, like Lilith, as purported by the texts referenced in Rattup’s demonology book? In another segment of text that Zephyr had thumbed through, there was an argument against a solitary Lilith, insisting that all Liliths were spawned directly and indirectly of the primary Lilith, she who had bedded (and possibly carried the child of) Adam. The crux of the argument was that Lilith could not operate on her own, that she replicated like a virus, so that in time the driving force of mankind is her own breed of person, a piece of clay that she can manipulate to do her bidding. Her abandonment of Adam was a battle in a more grandiose war that stretched through millenia upon millenia. This single iota of thought made Zephyr cringe, and in doing so, he realized that Lilith had finished her dirty deed of self satisfaction, and in record time. She slumped off of him, licking her lips.

“
Lover. Don’t think about those other dead fish. We have a legion of wonderful magnificent beasts and your child is our savior. Can’t you just be joyous for that? You’ve been chosen.”

***

Zephyr sat at the typewriter. He reached out and rubbed his knuckles. He began to type:

The old man with the golden teeth stared into his mirror, wincing at what he had become in the years since he had lost his lover. The years and weeks and months had been unkind to his bones, to his unrelenting sense of optimism, and to his broken heart. There was little left inside of him that didn’t amount to absolute horse shit, big steaming piles of it, with flies enough to fill every orifice of his useless face.

He thought of his childhood, of games and mischief and unforgivable joys.

He thought of this all and realized that there was no going back, that innocence was dead.

Nothing remained on his To-Do List that didn’t involve his eventual (and welcome) demise.

A shell. A motherfucking shell.

A worthless piece of shit.

Fuck him. Fuck this gold toothy bastard. Tell him to fuck off and die! He has no more love. Love is pain and pain is love and they both leave you with a sore dick and shattered sense of self worth. He is weak, this man. Weak and petty and sniveling and cold.

Zephyr slammed his fist against Rattup’s typewriter. The G and S keys both came loose of their long silver prongs, bouncing on to the floor next to Zephyr’s dancing feet. Saliva dripped from his lips and he groaned as an animal would, picking the typewriter up over his head, hurling it towards the wall where it dinged a carriage return in response.

9.

Zephyr clutched Tabitha close to his chest. He could detect her shallow breathing, her cooing soothing his nerves while he looked on with wide eyes and dry lips. Jackie was by his side, wrapping her arms around his waist and moaning in discontent at what was ahead for the tournament. The air was heavy with anticipation and the trio (their little
family
Zephyr had realized for the very first time, with a fearful javelin of doubt rippling through his frontal lobe) watched with bated breath.

Tabitha smiled up at her father in that way that only babies can, using her tiny hands to push back from his chest for a better view of her two doting parents. Her dark eyes and patchwork colored hair reminded him of what he imagined Jackie may have looked like as a baby. Her fat cheeks and round eyes were from his side of the gene pool, but everything else was a direct extrapolation of Jackie’s genetic inclinations. He kissed his baby on the cheek and Tabitha cooed a second time, burrowing her head back into his shoulder in a moment of embarrassment. She whispered, “Stop that, Daddy.” It troubled him that she had taken to speaking so early. It seemed inhuman, and he blamed Lilith for that fact.

“
It’s about to begin,” Jackie said, clutching tighter to Zephyr’s body, looking to Tabitha with a warm smile. “We need to protect her, no matter what happens.”

“
We will,” Zephyr comforted his lover and future wife, uncertainty painted atop his intonations. He turned his head, looking past Jackie’s shoulder at Rattup, who looked on with a devious grin. He enjoyed watching them squirm. His wrinkled face was now serene, glowing with a re-invigoration of youth. It was how Zephyr thought he may have looked while portraying the main character of his strange love story,
Breakfast In Galway
. His new lease on life was troubling, for the craggy lying bastard deserved none of it.

“
I’ve always loved a good game of chess,” Charles Rattup noted, staring out at the playing field before him. His eyes darted at the sight of the slimy black and white squares, painted several millennia earlier by devils and angels alike. Twisted green plants broke free of fissures in the massive chessboard, reaching as high as the eye could perceive without use of a telescope, stretching into the blackened sky, riddled with immobile clouds above them. “It separates the scholars from the mad men, wouldn’t you agree?”

Zephyr’s stomach turned. He felt as if he was back at the moment when he first met Rattup, always in search of approval with his wouldn’t-you-agrees and meandering ulterior banter. Zephyr sneered at the man, “I despise chess. It’s for snobs.”