Infandous (10 page)

She smiles back and wipes her eyes and says, “I’m practically old enough to be his mother.”

“Only if you gave birth at fourteen.”

She laughs. I do too.

“Well, his aunt, then.”

That’s true. She’s old enough to be his aunt.

And then some of the tension seeps out of the room like heat, and things are better. We finish our dinner, and I show her the sketch of Coach Crandall in my notebook. She grins and doesn’t even give me shit for doodling all over my pathetic notes.

Later, when she heads downstairs to give Jordan a plate of the mac and cheese, I say, “Have fun.”

If I watch her through the wineglass, she can be a mermaid once again.

***

Every summer my mother’s sister, Naomi, flies me out to Atlanta. Past summers I’ve stayed for a week or more, but this summer, thanks to geometry, I’ll only be there for a long weekend. Usually I dread the visit, which often feels like an extended lesson on “Why Naomi’s Life Decisions Were Better Than Rebecca’s,” but this year I am looking forward to it.

Some distance. I think maybe that’s what I need.

My phone vibrates for a call. I must be distracted, because I don’t remember to look at the caller ID. “Hello,” I say.

Throat clearing. “Annie? Wow, you’re not easy to get ahold of.”

My recording is just music, he still thinks I’m Annie. I remind myself as my heart beats in my mouth,
He doesn’t know where you live. He doesn’t know who you are.

“Felix, hey,” I say.

“Listen,” he says, “I’m coming back to California in a couple of weeks. Gotta wrap up that sale from my last visit. I was wondering if maybe I could take you out for a proper dinner this time.”

I hear the smile in his voice. Apparently, the hole-in-the-wall we ate at last time didn’t impress him. Or maybe it’s not a real date if the girl’s not wearing real shoes.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” I say. “I’ve been really busy.”

“I figured. I mean, the way you haven’t had time to return my other calls.”

The thing is, he’s funny. He’s smart. He’s good looking.

“I don’t think so,” I say.

Silence. Then, “Annie, did I do something wrong?”

“I’ve got to go.”

“Think about it,” he says, and there’s a heavy pause before I disconnect.

I look at the empty plates on the table. The candle which, now that it’s burned awhile, has dripped hot wax tears down the sides. They’ve dried like that. It’s finally really dark outside, beyond the yellow security light on the porch.

I think about everyone out there—Marissa and Sal and Lolly, my mom and Jordan, the guy who knows my art … and Felix.

So many people, all out there.

The Rape of Philomela

The bonds between women can be stronger than the hand that attempts to sever them.

Once there were two sisters, each beautiful, each a princess—until one of them became a queen. Married to Tereus, Procne became queen of Thrace. And though her subjects loved her and though she bore a son, Prince Itys, her heart was fractured, for her sister Philomela was far away in their homeland of Athens.

Procne begged her husband-king to allow her to journey back to Athens to visit her sister. But Tereus refused, preferring to keep his wife safe at home and with his child.

“You must remain here,” he said, “but my heart is not cold to your plea. I shall travel myself to Athens and bring your sister back with me.”

And Procne was glad to hear it and thanked her husband with tears in her eyes and gladness in her heart that she was married to such a man, who was willing to travel so far to bring her joy.

But when Tereus arrived in Athens, he was greeted not by the girl-child he remembered from years earlier, when he had married Procne and taken her from her homeland, but rather by a woman—a beautiful woman, one who by comparison made his memory of his wife fade to a shadow.

Here was Philomela, sister of Procne—her hair blonde like sunlight, her eyes bright and clear, as if they saw for the first time. Her shoulders sloped at an angle just so—as if inviting his fingers to trace their curves. Her breasts, not made heavy by babies and milk, were the size of apples, fruit he hungered to taste—to bite the flesh of them. And oh! The nip of her waist, so tight and small, as if daring him to see if his hands could span it, the flare of her hips like a chalice that thirsted to be filled with his seed.

And though he had come to gather a sister for his wife, Tereus found himself now with a new wish—to garner for himself this woman, as if a morsel or a prize.

Her father, the good King Pandion of Athens, did not wish to let his second daughter go, though he had no reason to distrust his son-in-law. “Already one of my daughters is far from me, a mother now as well as a wife, and who knows when my tired eyes shall see her again? To send Philomela off as well … it is too much to ask of an old man like me.”

But Tereus had an unwitting ally to his plan: Philomela herself begged her father to let her go. “Oh, please,” she cried, “it has been many years since I have seen my own sweet sister. Let me go to her—I will return.”

And Tereus swore a pack of lies—that he would protect Philomela and that he himself would guarantee her safe passage and her safe return.

And he watched Philomela with her father, watched as she embraced him, and wished he himself were her father, would that he could be so embraced in her milky arms. In his thoughts he imagined what he might do to her, if he could wrest her away from her father and turn her toward his own embrace.

Pandion listened as Philomela pled her case, until at last he conceded to his daughter’s desire. And Pandion took his daughter’s hand and passed it into Tereus’s, linking them. Holding her warm, young flesh in his fingers—at last! But not nearly enough—Tereus forced his breaths to be slow and even, forced his heart to quiet, and forced himself to bide his time.

“I beg of you,” Pandion said to Tereus, “return her to me soon. Already you have my Procne and the grandson I have yet to meet. Return to me my comfort, my joy, my Philomena.” Tereus swore it would be so.

And thusly, Pandion entrusted his dove to the claws of the wolf and waved from the shore as the ship sailed, bearing Philomela away and away and away.

The ship bore, along with Philomela, Tereus’s secret heart, his desire to part the thighs of his wife’s sister, this girl just past the precipice of womanhood. On and on they sailed, across the ocean, farther from the safe harbor of Athens and Philomela’s childhood.

Upon the ship Tereus was careful with every word, each move measured, calculated in its intention. He served to Philomela the finest meats, adorned her cabin with the richest silks and brocades, entertained her with the lyre, and poured for her cups of sweet wine.

But never did Philomela’s eyes heat with the passion he felt in his heart and groin, never did her gaze linger on his form or face. To her he was like a brother, the husband of her dear, sweet sister and nothing more. Never would he be more to her, Tereus saw, and though he tried to woo her, to ply her, and to seduce her, she did not soften.

The journey ended on the shores of Thrace, and Philomela’s heart quickened with joy at the thought that soon she would be reunited with her dear sister. But Tereus demurred, saying it was too great a journey to embark on so late in the day, though the sun was still high in the sky.

Instead, he took her to a cabin, remote and distant in the woods, surrounded by old trees so tall as to block out light, so tall as to hide from any prying eyes what next would happen. And in that cabin Tereus turned the lock before turning himself to Philomela. Now his smile was full of canine teeth, and her heart vibrated with fear. Pale, trembling, fearing everything, Philomela wept and begged to be taken to Procne. But her cries were unheeded as Tereus fell upon her like a wolf upon a lamb or upon a dove with feathers dripping blood.

At last Tereus had had his fill of her. Turning to button his trousers, he did not anticipate Philomela’s rageful answer to his deed.

“You brute! You cruel beast!” she cried, and she struck him, her pale arms no more powerful than wings. “You have ruined me, you traitor. It will not go unpunished, that I swear! I shall shed my shame and shout your crime. I will tell the lowest servant and the highest nobleman what you have done. I will reveal your soul to the world, and all shall know of your duplicity.”

Shaken by her words and by the thought of others knowing what he had done, Tereus pulled a blade from his belt. He wound her hair about his hand and pulled back her head, revealing the line of her alabaster neck, the swell of her breasts, and as she screamed and jerked and cried, he cut apart her mouth until she could not speak. Each drop of blood that spattered the cabin floor screamed grief as it fell, cascading like rain, like tears. And then—oh, even then—Tereus felt the mounting once more of his desire and he took again what was never his for the taking.

At last he left Philomela alone in the cabin with an old woman to guard her and returned to his castle and his wife. Poor Procne learned from her husband that Philomela had fallen ill on the journey and had died, and she collapsed into mourning from which no one could stir her.

But Philomela was not dead—no, not dead at all. For twelve new moons and twelve full moons, she remained a prisoner in the cabin and a prisoner inside herself, with no voice to tell her painful story.

But one day she watched as the woman guard wove, and Philomela’s eyes, still sharp and clever as before, learned the trick of turning thread into fabric. And she thought to herself, if something as thin and weak as thread can make a cloth, perhaps too it can spin a tale.

And so she wove, spinning her story into the tapestry, weaving red images against a white background until her story was at last heard, at least by fabric. Then the guardswoman saw it and, horrified, agreed to deliver it into the hands of Procne, which she did.

After Procne had seen what was woven, she laid down the tapestry without a word—for a moment struck as dumb as her sister—and then rushed to the cabin, where she claimed her voice again, screaming and tearing and thrusting her way through the guards to find, at last, her sister.

Revenge is never sweet, not to those upon whom it is acted. Yet still the meal Procne fed that night to Tereus seemed sweet indeed—sweet and savory all at once, the finest cut of meat he had ever eaten.

With a full stomach and a happy heart, the king called out to the queen, “Bring me our son, so I can bid him a good night. Bring me our Itys.”

And Procne answered, “You have him here already.”

The king looked around, thinking it a game, but he could not find his son.

“Where?” he asked. “Where do I have him?”

Then the queen pointed—without a word—to his full belly.

It was then that Philomela entered the dining hall, and in her hand swung something heavy—once, twice—before she lobbed it into Tereus’s lap.

And he saw it was the head of his only son, and he knew at once what Procne had meant that his son was already with him.

He fell to his knees, spewing bile, wishing with all his might that he could vomit back his son, but some things, once done, cannot be undone, and at last he stumbled to his feet, sickened by rage, blinded by disgust, and chased after Procne and Philomela both, swearing he would avenge his son upon their flesh.

The sisters ran, so fast, so clear, it was almost as if they would fly away—and then, they did, lifting up into the air in a beating of wings that sounded out their own fury and betrayal.

Nine

They really do drink sweet tea in the South. And damn, that shit is good. I start guzzling it almost as soon as the plane lands in Atlanta. I text Naomi that I’ve landed and sink to the floor in arrivals to wait.

So Greek mythology has become one of my hobbies lately, a source of some of my recent artistic inspirations. That and old fairy tales. The original, creepy versions. And there’s a lot of creepy shit out there. I got the watered-down version of the Greeks back in tenth grade, in a unit that combined literature and history. The two teachers—Ms. Kramer and Mrs. Austin—were stoked because it meant they got to combine the classes for six weeks and take turns going on coffee runs while one or the other of them babysat us.

Mrs. Austin, the history teacher, tried to gloss over the incestuous relationships between the gods—Zeus and Hera are siblings as well as spouses; Persephone is the offspring of Demeter and her big brother Zeus. Then there’s all the other weirdness—Zeus transforming into a swan so that he can seduce Leda (but what, exactly, is seductive about a swan?). It was funny, how Mrs. Austin sort of wanted to half introduce the stories. Like, those crazy Greeks and their crazy stories, let’s not look at them too carefully and let’s make sure to remember the definition of myth—explanation tales, things people made up way back when, before they understood how science worked, to make sense of the world around them that seemed scary and full of magic.