Inexpressible Island Page 36

  I told you, I don’t fight girls.

  I’m not a girl. I’m me. Come on. Fight me. I can take it.

  No, you can’t.

  I can. I can take a lot.

  That was true. She took a lot. Her crazy sexy body—in a barely there string bikini—showed small suck marks all over, above her clavicles, on her upper back, between her thighs. She was covered with his purple love as with flower burns from an electrocution.

  Are you going to stand there and gawk at me, Mr. Olympic boxer, she said, or are you going to fight me?

  I’m going to stand here and gawk at you, he said.

  She shoved him in the chest. He didn’t block her. They say the hand is quicker than the eye, is that true?

  It’s true.

  They say to never take your eye off your opponent, is that true? She went to push him again.

  He stepped out of her way. It’s true, he said.

  Her eyes lit up. Aha! You’re dodging me. Well, I’m never taking my eye off you.

  She lunged again. He dodged again.

  She smiled and skipped closer. He smiled and stepped away. Come on, she said. I’ll be your sparring partner. Teach me.

  I’ll duck you, Mia, but I’m not going to fight you.

  You’ll what me? Oh, duck. She whacked him on the arm. Didn’t get away that time, did you?

  Didn’t want to.

  Yeah, sure. What’s the matter, has all the love upstairs made you soft?

  Trash talk isn’t going to work on me.

  So that’s a yes? She shoved him. Come on, chicken, show me what you got.

  Still no.

  She put up her little dukes and danced around him on the pool deck. He weaved and bobbed right back. What are you afraid of, losing to a girl?

  Yup, that’s it.

  She slapped her fists against his open palms. Why won’t you make a fist? I know you know how. You rub me with your fists, don’t you? She grinned. Why are your hands up and open? Are you surrendering?

  Unconditionally, Julian said.

  Come on, fight me, she said, bouncing up and down, everything on her bouncing up and down, knocking into him with her body, how can I learn to parry if you won’t jab me? All you’re doing is blocking and ducking me.

  That’s all I’m going to do, block and duck you.

  Did you say duck? I keep mishearing you. Though I must admit, your reflexes are something else. Or am I just slow, like with Red Hands?

  You’re just slow.

  Don’t block me. Jab me. Come on, do it. You don’t think I can block a jab?

  I don’t think you can, no.

  Jab me and we’ll see what we see. Don’t be afraid. I’m tough, I’m tougher than I look.

  Stay calm, Mia, he said. The harder you try to provoke me, the harder I’ll counter. You don’t want that, do you?

  I do want that, she said, her smile ear to ear. That’s exactly what I want.

  You could get overpowered.

  I’m shook, Mr. Big Talk. So, come on, then. I’d like to see you try. She shadowboxed around him. Jules, what’s an uppercut? Wait, I think I know. Is that when you thrust—upwards? Can you show me how you do that—or did you forget?

  He blocked her hand, grabbed her fist and pulled her by her wrist through the foliage to the elevator. She was going to ruin boxing for him. He was afraid they wouldn’t make it all the way upstairs.

  So you do know how to thrust upwards, she murmured, blissed out on the bed. You do know how to fight a girl.

  Is that what you call it, said Julian.

  Flying high up at the Marmont with the windows open, the sun silver in the sky, sometimes she glowed with inner light, and sometimes she was ink at night.

  Why did Julian feel not blessed but wretched?

  “Turn, Mirabelle,” he whispered from Paradiso. “O turn your holy eyes upon your faithful one, so he might see you, he who’s come so far.” He held her to him. “O splendor of eternal living light, he’s drunk so deeply from your fountain. Unveil yourself, unveil your lips to him, so he may see the beauty you’ve kept concealed.”

  “So there is beauty, after all?”

  “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever laid my hands on.” Tenderly he caressed her, lingering here, there. “From the first moment I saw you, you looked like bliss to me.”

  “Not concealed, O Julian. My body right here. Take it,” she whispered. “Like you took my heart.”

  Julian knew: the pageant wasn’t the Marmont. It was the girl. The girl with the sparkling face, sitting in a wicker chair, legs splayed, head tipping back; the girl like a sabbatical from life, the girl in whom one night was forever and forever was one night. The girl and not the castle was the dreamland outpost for all the hearts that ever did beat faster, shining bright in starlight above Sunset Boulevard.

  * * *

  But his dreams got worse.

  They showed him savage things. They made Julian crawl into other rooms, away from her. She found him like this in the dead of one night, curled up between the wall and the bed in the unused room, rocking. He is walking around Normandie collecting pieces of her to put together into one whole body before her mother arrives in a cab from LAX, but the cab has turned the corner and he still can’t find all of her.

  “Leave me,” he said in a rasping voice. “Let me go. Please. Take a cab, I’ll give you money. Go far. Save yourself. I promise you, nothing between us will come to any good.”

  She couldn’t lift him off the floor. He wouldn’t let her touch him. It took her a long while to lure him back to bed.

  She pressed against him, wrapping all of her around all of him to stop him from shaking. And when that wasn’t enough, she climbed on top of him, cradling his head in her arms, kissing his face, gently rubbing her large, first soft, then hard nipples against his days-old stubble. Ouch, ouch, ouch, she kept whispering.

  “So stop doing that if it’s ouch.” But eventually he stopped shaking. His hands relaxed on her back.

  I do it for you. There’s nothing wrong, everything’s all right, everything is wonderful. Why do you say those mean things to me? Sending me away, getting me a cab. They’re just dreams, they’re nothing, they’re not real. The nipples, now those are real. She tapped them up and down into his sullen, half-open mouth. Come on, suck them. They’re like a balm for your lips.

  He kissed her nipples and turned his head away.

  Don’t turn away from me. But she didn’t get off him.

  Are you Mystique? he asked. Can you be Mystique? So you could vanish.

  Why do you want me to be her? So I can vanish? Dream on, she said. I’m not going anywhere. But that’s an excellent question. One not easily answered. Can I be Mystique? I guess first I’d want to know if there was any chance for a normal life if you stayed with me.

  What if the answer is no? he said. And is that what you want, a normal life? What even was a normal life.

  Isn’t that what everybody wants?

  I don’t know, he said. The dreams were black sand in his eyes. Sometimes there was a glimpse of an ordinary life, a pink house, and inside the house there was a ship, and on the ship she lay dying.

  I must admit, when I’m here with you, I don’t think a normal life is possible, Mia said. Because you make me feel extraordinary. But you have to talk to me and tell me what you’re afraid of. I can’t answer you until you do. What are you afraid of, Doctor Doom? That I’ll betray you? That we’re just a passing thing?

  She could not even fathom the terror. All the stars fell from the sky into her heart. He couldn’t tell her. Sometimes there was a serene white house, and the house was on fire, and inside she lay under a burning beam and no matter how hard he tried, he could not pull her out.

  I’m not naïve, she said. You think I don’t know your other nickname for yourself, Doctor Doom? It’s Death, isn’t it?

  Yes, Mystique. It is.

  Is that what you’re afraid of—that I’m doomed to die?

  He didn�
�t answer her, as if he could.

  Why? she said. Because you touched me? How can that be? You, with your softest mouth and your strongest hands. You who brings me nothing but ecstasy. It doesn’t make sense.

  He wouldn’t tell her, no matter how much she kept soothing him with her nipples.

  Do you want me to be Rogue instead? she said. So I can absorb your dreams and memories and know what you know without any additional words from you?

  No, never, he said. I don’t want you to absorb them. I don’t want you to suffer. Haven’t you suffered enough? Resist me. I beg you. Be Mystique. Julian stared at her with profound sadness. Vanish from me. Like you vanish in my dreams. Go light up somebody else’s life, Mirabelle. Go break someone else’s heart.

  I will never resist you, she said. I adore you. I’ve never felt happier in my whole stupid life than I feel with you. I’ve never felt closer to anyone than I do to you. I don’t know how you did that. Who are you?

  Maybe I’m a phantom traveler, said Julian. Maybe we both are. Mystique and Doctor Doom together again, reunited for one last perilous escapade. He tried to joke, to smile, like she taught him.

  Oh, Doctor Doom! Now I know how you did it. In one of our past adventures, in another life, you left a trace of yourself in me, so by this trace I could find you.

  Maybe you left a trace of yourself in me. He swept up her body, twisting them both into a Mobius fever braid, his limbs around her. You’re ageless, he said. You’ve slowed time inside yourself. In the dreams I see you take many forms, just like Mystique. That’s how you defend your soul against marauders.

  Marauders like you?

  Julian admitted she didn’t defend herself entirely successfully against him.

  Didn’t and don’t want to, she said. Tell me one thing from your visions. Come on, just one benign thing. There has to be something.

  He thought about it. Sometimes I see us riding white horses through green fields, he said. The horses gallop. We’re both dressed the same, in top hats and velvet.

  That’s weird, she said. I’ve never been on a horse in my life.

  Me neither, said Julian. They scare the shit out of me.

  What a pair you and I make. She exclaimed it like it was all fun and games. Mystique and Doctor Doom riding horses in top hats and velvet! What do you think our adventure will be this time?

  This one? Julian couldn’t help himself. Like all the rest, he said. We’ll try to hide from the hand of evil that draws its power from death and sin. The power that wants to consume us, to destroy you, to weaken your power over me until I’m nothing, to take away your power to rule my world, to ruin us.

  What about your power to rule my world? she said. She thought they were still playing. But in the end we’ll prevail!

  No, Mirabelle, said Julian. We never prevail. We will fail.

  A collapsed Mia, the smile wiped off her sunken face, fell mute. Boy, was I right, she said at last. Your dreams really are the darkness. Look at the things they’re making you say to a naked adoring girl in your arms. Tumbling off him, pushing him away, she curled into the corner of the bed.

  He lay for a few moments with his arm over his face, and then turned her onto her back, climbing on top of her in contrition. I’m sorry. I told you talking about it was no good. He kissed her, the beats of his heart pulsing into her mouth.

  Don’t hold yourself up, come here, she whispered, her hands on his back. Come closer. You’re right about one thing, Jules. Whatever it is that makes you dream these bad things, it does want to ruin us. It’s trying to separate us—even now. Especially now. Please don’t let it. Isn’t it better to lie entwined—to lie as one—as opposed to your way?

  What way is that?

  The dumb way. All broody and shaky, by yourself on the floor.

  Aloud Julian said yes.

  If you want to hide from your dreams, Mia said, don’t go in the corner. Stay with me. I’m right here, in the ring with you, on center stage with you. She tilted her hips up to him.

  I know where you are.

  Stay with me, and I’ll be Mystique for you or Rogue for you. I’ll change for you, cut my hair off for you. Anything you want, I’ll be that for you. Please let me. I’ll bend your energy to my desire. I can do it. I have enhanced physical attributes, too. Like you.

  He didn’t think it was enough. Julian kissed her moaning throat.

  Squeezing her hips around him to stop him from moving, Mia took his head into her hands, gazing up into his face with everything there was inside her. Please love me, Julian, she whispered. Please.

  I’m trying, Mia. Let me go. Free me.

  And who knows, maybe our story won’t end like everything ends.

  Maybe, he said.

  Maybe our Marmont lust will become eternal passion. Maybe our brief ecstasy will be remade into enduring glory.

  Maybe, he said.

  I know you’re worried about things, but you don’t have to worry about me, honest.

  Don’t you understand? It’s you I’m worried about most.

  “But why? I’m yours. Can’t you feel I’m yours?” She stroked his hair, his face. “Like Mystique, I’m an actress. I might take on another’s outward form, but I swear to you, in my heart I will remain true to what I am. I swear, I will forever remain true to you. Take my life. I have never felt for anyone what I feel for you,” Mirabelle said. “Don’t you see that? Don’t you feel that? I love you, Julian. I love you with all my soul.”

  45

  Powers Devours

  THE BASILISK, THE KING OF THE SERPENTS, WAS ENDOWED with a crown. He was the egg of the cock, hatched under a toad. One basilisk burned to the ground whatever Julian and Mia came near. Another wandered through their lives upright, and when they looked upon the heads of the Medusa, they died from the horror. Unlike other serpents, the basilisk walked arrogant and tall, withering the flowers, breathing death upon the hours and tearing stones like robes.

  “She’s going to die, Ashton,” Julian said. “I feel it. No matter what I do, she is going to die.” He and Mia had finally left the Marmont and returned to their lives, and that’s where Julian was, returned to the roof deck with Ashton, shivering in the middle of the desert night.

  “Dude, it’s not true,” Ashton said. “Well, I mean, yes, she is, because we all are eventually, but that’s no way to live. Just look at you. You’re a ghost, haunting my room at night.”

  “I don’t know how to live anymore,” Julian whispered.

  “Look,” Ashton said, “there are two ways you can do it. One is to know that you approach death with every hour of your life. And one is to feel like you’re going to live forever. Even if you know it’s not true. You and I are a good study in humanity. One way is your way—and look at you. And one way is mine—and look at me.” Ashton grinned with all his teeth, flinging out his arms like a triumph on the stage. “So you tell me, which way is better?”

  “Like it’s even a choice.”

  “What, you don’t think I can be all morbid and miserable like you?” Ashton said. “Well, maybe not. It’s like living with a Russian. I had a girlfriend like you once. She was from St. Petersburg. Every single thing was a catastrophe with her. I couldn’t run away fast enough. Who can live like that? Well, you, clearly. But who’d want to? If you don’t cut this shit out, your angel Mirabelle is going to run from you, too.”

  “Not fast enough,” Julian said.

  * * *

  Julian walks and walks and walks and walks. He is exhausted, but he keeps on. It’s cold and hot, it’s ice and boiling, the buildings erupt, and the earth shakes. He walks through the caves and black holes, over lava and the craters in the streets. The leaves fall off the trees, and the blizzards come. His body gets thin, then emaciated, his hair grows long, then gray, then falls out. He bleeds from his arms, his legs, his back, and still he walks. He catches a reflection of himself in the black water. He is nothing but a skeleton. He looks at his arms. Radial bones. He looks at his legs. Femoral bon
es. Long bones in his feet, and his ribs are like cages, and still he walks. The bridges look familiar, the buildings, the river. Another once around the scorched earth, and another, and another, a circle he can’t break out of. In horror he realizes that if he doesn’t wake up and do something, he’ll be walking in circles like this for eternity. It feels as if he already has. Julian stops moving, stretches out his arms to make his body into a cross and screams.

  That’s when he woke up.

  “Oh, honey, you poor thing. Not again.”

  They were at the MGM Grand. He and Mirabelle drove to Las Vegas to watch Buster “The Exterminator” Barkley lose a heartbreaker to a knockout in the seventh. As consolation, they were comped by MGM with a corner suite with a view of the desert and the strip. Julian was crouched in the corner of that suite, by the windows overlooking the city that never slept.

  “Come back to bed, Jules. Please.”

  “Come here,” he said.

  “Really? Instead of us spooning all cozy under the blankets in a warm bed, you want me to get down on the hard floor with you?”

  “Yes.”

  She hopped off the bed and came to stand naked by his side. “Okay, now what?”

  “I wanted a fairytale,” Julian said, “and instead I’m down on my knees.” He stared up at her in the pale crescent moonlight. He kissed her stomach, her thighs. Either he was in the midst of death or he was in the midst of life.

  “Mia, marry me.”

  “What?”

  “I love you,” he said. “I didn’t know it was possible for me to love someone like I love you. Please, will you marry me?”

  She swayed.

  “You think it’s too soon,” he said.

  “Yes.”

  “I know. There are a million reasons not to do it.”

  “I said yes, Julian.” She fell to her knees in front of him. “What took you so long? There’s nothing I want more, nothing. When?”

  “Well, we are in Vegas, the capital of classy weddings,” he said. “How about tomorrow?”