Fantastic Metropolis

The closeness of those two male bodies was an astonishing thing. I felt as though I were encompassed by a halo that caused an intense lethargy to invade my soul. I attempted to disengage myself from what seemed to be an illicit embrace although they did not touch me. But when I attempted to flee from the charmed circle, the two—with the clatter of a sailboat in a high wind—spread their wings I and I was held in the deviant space they made. Then, as I stood there in the curious orbit of their wings, they began to touch me with their fingers, to insinuate their warm fingers into my hair. It fell to my shoulders like water once they had loosened it from its nets and pins. Next they began to worry the buttons of my blouse. Whatever way I turned I could not escape their many hands—captive as I was between those wings. I felt a compelling ease of spirit, a vibrancy, a fluidity I had never known, and imagined this was a species of dancing. I would have succumbed to them; I was about to swoon with pleasure, their many hands on my neck, my breasts, when I realized the danger, the terrible danger I was in, the impossible danger of what I was about to do. Indeed, the one was whispering in my ear scandalously, outrageously: “I shall penetrate your cunt and my brother your ass, simultaneously as you have wished.” It was the unforgivable heresy of these words that brought me to my senses and I cried out with rage: “Begone! Begone! Never to return! For I hate you! I hate you both with all my heart! I loathe your caresses! How dare you touch me!” And I screamed as loud as I was able: “Burglars! Burglars in the night!” Cobb came running—it was absurd—with a broom, and Mrs. Livesday—dressed in white, in a dressing gown that looked like white silk, the dressing gown of a bride—came running too. The fearless soul! Brandishing a poker! How I loved her at that instant, running so unafraid. Already I was in Cobb’s frail arms, sobbing.

“There were two,? I cried, “two burglars! Two burglars with black wings!”

“Black wings!” Mrs. Livesday began to laugh. “Black wings! Gertrude! Think what you are saying.” I ceased to sob and, pulling away from Cobb, stared at Mrs. Livesday with astonishment.

“That is impossible,” I said.

“Are you certain they were burglars?” Taking me by the arm she steered me back to the house as Cobb led the way with his broom. “Your hair is lovely,” she said, “the color of wheat. I’ve never seen it down.”

“I don’t want to sleep in that wretched room,” I blurted out, “with all those damned toys, Mrs. Livesday, as though I were, as though I were a mere, a mere child!”

“Well, you won’t.” She soothed me, her own brow deeply furrowed. “What a peculiar thing. Had I known … it’s not as though I’m lacking in rooms. It’s the view,” she babbled now—I had succeeded in ruffling the calmest of women—“it’s because it’s the room with the best view. Especially now when the moon is full. That night garden! Bathed in tender light!”

I was sobbing again, uncontrollably.

“Were you harmed?” She was once more alarmed.

“Yes! I believe. I believe they wanted to”—we were in the music room now—“to invade my privacy.” I had bewildered her, utterly.

“But they… how many were there?”

“Two.”

“Did not manage to … ‘invade your privacy’?” (“Whatever that means!” she added as an aside to Cobb.)

“No.” I ceased to cry. I was ashamed of myself but I could not have said why. Because I shouted out. And Cobb came, bless him! With a broom! I laughed out loud. “And you—dear Mrs. Livesday—I have caused you so much trouble, You must think me mad,”

“Not at all.”

“And now asking for another room in the middle of the night when the little room is so delightful, What could have gotten into me?”

“I can easily put you in another room, Cobb, could you make up Puffy’s old room? We call it that,” she explained, “because that’s where old Mrs, Notus used to stay, The children called her Puffy because of her asthma or whatever it was that plagued her. Poor thing. Emphysema. Plagued her constantly. Now she’s so old. Older than I! Fit to be stuffed! Put on display!”

We had reached the room. It was stuffy, had not been aired since Puffy’s last visit. I stood blinking stupidly as a moth discovered the bedside lamp and stormed the shade, Cobb bustled in with my few belongings in a jumble and wondered: Would I be needing tea? He would bring up a vase of fresh flowers in the morning. Would I be wanting breakfast in bed? Mrs, Livesday told him to stop treating me like an invalid. At last they were gone.

The room had an outsized mirror—a thing I was not accustomed to. As I disrobed I caught sight of my naked body. In the lamplight it seemed surprisingly lovely to me: full, rosy, and youthful still. Unlike my face—how it had aged! As though it had been shut away, forgotten at the back of a closet. And my eyes. My eyes were not kind at all. And they were haunted.

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“The Neurosis of Containment” can be read in Rikki Ducornet’s collection of short stories The Word “Desire”, published by Henry Holt.