I.
When she was a small small child her sister used to read her long long fairy tales filled with beautiful ladies and handsome men and evil evil witches, once upon a time. And she came to learn that the youngest daughter is always the prettiest, that a stepmother is always the meanest, and that books without illustrations are not worth reading. She used to hear about the girls in the story and wonder why did Cinderella/Sleeping Beauty/Snow White simply allow themselves to be treated this way and even get killed over matters of men that they didn't really know about in the first place, except that they were rich and had lots of money and were also very wealthy. She thought it was all pretty grim and grimaced uncomfortably whenever Gwendolen finished reading one story and gazed at her little sister as though she were a mirror. And it wasn't until her sister read about Alice and her Wonderland did anything make sense, even though technically it wasn't a fairy tale it was a novel and interestingly enough a mathematical novel at that, as her sister would say, tilting her head and rearranging numbers in her mind.
Her older sister then became a mathematician, forever rearranging numbers in her head, until the cold cold day that she reached infinity.
The last time she saw her sister, the eyes were shut and couldn't see her reflection and would never see her reflection again. Alice was only seven and a half years old. The mirror melted away into a fine silvery mist, and she escaped through it, hoping to find her sister in that other world. Her parents and friends couldn't see her unless they looked in the mirror, and there she was! Reflectionless. Come out of the mirror, they would beckon. I'll read you a story. How about a nice fairy tale?
Alice liked to think her sister had become just like the characters in the fairy tales. That was when she began to think about joining the navy. The moon was full and it was midnight and she had to hurry because otherwise she'd turn into a pumpkin and Peter Peter would eat his wife and that's not a very good thing, she thought bravely. Not to be eaten. And she wished upon the moon that one day she would be strong enough to hurt those men.
And time moved and friends grew taller and the flowers died and clothes were too small and math was easy and new flowers replaced and swimming lessons feared and dinners were cold and father couldn't take it anymore and swimming lessons feared again and parents annulled and illustrations weren't necessary and flowers reminded her of death and computer class was easy and she hated her stepfather.
Have you ever hated someone so much that you thought about him all the time, she used to ask her mother until her mother stopped listening. Have you ever hated someone so much that you were obsessed with him, she used to question her friends, until her friends stopped talking to her. Have you ever hated someone so much that you lusted after him, she used to tell her counselor, until she stopped going. Alice's mind was a mess and wondered and wandered into her parents' closet one day and hid there and watched her mother and stepfather behind clothes, black velvety clothes for a nice evening and red scratchy wool suits used to impress clients and flowery satin dresses kept for emergencies, like easter or a daughter's funeral. She hid in the closet and while they were moaning and laughing and moving, she was silent and crying and still. She clenched her fists, bit her tongue, and widened her eyes. She remembered the uneasy wetness when she first got her period and then remembered the brief explanation of sex from science class and even watched a child born on video in biology but nothing, nothing compared to this grotesque dance this carnal embrace and thank God she never went to any ball to find a prince. She couldn't shut her eyes, and thus she learned what real hatred was. Her fists were clenched, her tongue was bitten, and her eyes were wide. Her plan was to wait until afterwards when her stepfather went into the closet and she would come out and knock him unconscious. But she couldn't move, she couldn't move. Both her stepfather and mother caught her hiding there and pulled her out grimly, yelling and screaming, her mother with a blanket thrown over her body and her stepfather yelling and screaming and stuttering. And see Alice, see Alice run. Her father answered the door and let her stay for a while.
And time shortened and friends grew shorter and full moons counted and swimming competitions won and Pascal was easy and Java was easy and Scheme was easy and phone calls stopped and scholarships gained and flowers forgotten and flowers forgotten and flowers forgotten and hair cut short and diploma attained and clothes packed and life began anew.
II.
On insects:
In her tiny tiny efficiency there were roaches. They kept her room company so that it wouldn't be lonely. Alicia liked to say the word insects and insects over and over again and think about her stepfather and how much she hated him and how she had to wake up at the break of dawn so there would be no time to wish upon the moon tonight. And her room was quiet except for the excited scuffling of the roaches scurrying for food and the arguments about who found the food first and how to divide the crumbs and what's wrong with Alicia, what's been wrong with her for the past nine years.
She lay on her bed and listened to the insects and as the sounds fuzzed out her fingers became curiouser and curiouser and her body felt warmer and warmer. And so she became a sexual being. The sexual virgin, daintily exploring herself and the person she was dating, but never attaining, never reaching, never consummating. Never reaching infinity. She ran towards it a number of times. It always eluded her.
Someone somewhere sometime said that running is good because you sweat out all your tears. No more water left for tears, she thought. No water. They found her sister's body in the water.
A knock on her door indicated the arrival of a young man that comes to her door every Friday at this time promptly. She paused. If she opened the door, he would be dressed in the same ironed pants, the same white collar, the same unimpassioned smile, the same slow, declarative sentences. They would walk on the same path to the same restaurant, and then return to his same room where he would play the same songs on his same guitar before they fooled around in the same way, the same length, the same ending. He would be satisfied, and she would go to her room. A sigh of surrender escaped her lips. She gathered her clothes together and peeked out.
"I'm looking forward to our walk," he said, enunciating each word with unnecessary clarity.
She nodded briefly.
"Your room is as small as a closet," he said, glancing in.
She nodded again, trying to hide the blushing leftover from her emotions.
"I would like to use your mirror," he said, gesturing to his hair.
She sighed. "There's one in the bathroom down the hall."
He frowned. "You don't have a mirror in your room."
"No."
"What kind of a girl are you."
She thought about it, and that night at a party, she told another girl what had happened. So they watched the moon rise together and went back to her bed.
III.
On sitting in a bookstore cafe after five days of unrest...my eyes are blurring. There are women surrounding me and even though they do not know it, they are trying to reach my infinity.
"Mom, does this come off?" the little girl said of the Mr. Potato Head, pointing to his glasses. The mother tersely replies "Yeah but you gotta take the ears off" and the little girl removes an ear and places it on the table.
The buildings deepen and I am caught in a false world that exists only for my brainwashing. The question at the time is, which is to be master. Too many unnecessary dualities.
Her index finger tentatively taps the lone ear. It responds, quivering, like an isolated organ. The rest of his body is now abandoned and her eyes stare intently at the pink member against the dark table. Suddenly the three-year-old ages eighteen years, but then the mother returns quickly with a paper and a hot chocolate.
The coffee fades and words drown into blackness which get louder and louder until there is absolute silence, and there I am, in the closet, and my fists clench, my tongue bites, my eyes widen. Tomorrow I must go running.
"Do you think this is a boy?" the girl asks. "I want this to be a boy."
"You know what I think," says the mother again, "I think it's a potato head." Her attention diverts to the city's gay newspaper.
The 72 hours commence like nine months filled with nightmares glorious nightmares. I wish upon the moon that one day I will be strong enough to hurt the men that hurt her.
On the left, sitting on the bench, a couple of girls read a book on lesbian sex. They stare intently at a drawing of a naked man. Their fingers trace the outline of his detailed penis.
"Now does he look good or does he look silly?" asks the three year old.
My body has been intermixed with two different sexes even though I am still pure but there is only one he said only one he said again. Not two. Contrariwise.
"Drink your hot chocolate."
"Shakespeare wasn't gay or straight," states one girl on the left.
They read.
"Let me tell you something," notes one girl to the other. "We're sitting here reading, which we could do alone-when we're not together."
And so I learn that two people in love are alone when they are not together.
She says of another girlfriend, "She makes me feel like a heterosexual being and I want to deny my lesbianism, but I can't" and I wish I could see her face but I can't.
For the past few days, I have been involved with a dream enslaved almost in a passionate fantasy and for the first time I am in the dream and before me is a motherly young woman pregnant, and I see my reflection in her eyes. Her pupils dilate and her hands rest on her blossoming roundness.
The conversation moves. "I could wear his clothes every day of my life but why him why do I understand him."
She looks at me and says "See? It's alive" and takes my hand and places it on her unborn child within and I feel it kicking something kicking and I smile.
The other girl shakes her head. "I don't know."
But suddenly the woman frowns and steps towards the end of my dreams and is it a dream? because something is now kicking inside me. The woman smiles before fading away, beginning with her fertile roundness and ending with her bittersweet smile, which remains some time after the rest of her has gone.
"And I'm really really happy."
And she's really really happy.
Fingers flick the pink ear off the table.
Oh my god take it out it is a child is it a baby and I reach into my uterus and grab the moving thing and slowly pull it out...
"Inconsistency is the worst of crimes, Barthes said." One looks at the other.
The little girl eyes me suspiciously.
It is in my hands wrapped up in my skin kicking fighting so it has no face and therefore no reflection and I am captivated in horror at its physical emotion regardless.
"This toy is for boys," she says with self-righteousness.
The mother looks up in horror. "Why do you say that? Don't say that."
For a second I want to reach out to the child in love and hug her and smother her until she can no longer breathe but I couldn't decide which is a worse fate, so I let her live.
The girls turn the page and moan. "Oh, how cute!" exclaims one.
And before the screaming begins the daydream ends and I am awake and please don't...let me fall in love.
The mother gasps. The child plays. The girls turn around and giggle in a shared joke. I take pleasure in my coffee, and both worlds dissolve.
V.
On the coming of a good acquaintance of ours out of the closet and on frying fish, with a small commentary on programming:
We always wondered when she would come.
It won't work, they told us, she's going to lose her scholarship. They promised not to ask and she promised not to tell but somewhere between the room temperature oil and the sizzling did someone break that promise. But at least no hymens were broken my mountain flower, did you yes to say yes? No, she tentatively said, unsure of herself.
Ah, let us go ahead and cast identity on her so as to not confuse the circumstance which hasn't been established yet, and we shall consequently call her Amelia, beacon of all propriety, little red riding hood with an empty basket. Long blonde hair, an innocent face, a child's curiosity. Demure, delicate, sweet. Wild cherry flavored lipstick, we blessed her.
Whether 'tis nobler of the mind that she did not pop out of the button much like the sexually ambiguous although coyly pedophilic Wendy-bird, maybe we aren't allowed to know. After all, she may not have met the right woman/man/beast yet, and at any time there is the chance she may change her mind, if perchance she is not in the right mind right now. However, what was she to tell the public? we asked. And thus we turned to the phallic field of Freudian psychology...or, rather, something more applicable to post-modernism, that is, cognitive science. Our little kitten Amelia. She used to read to us sensuously:
"Many people expect advances in artificial intelligence to provide the revolutionary breakthrough that will give order-of-magnitude gains in software productivity and quality. I do not. ... The techniques used for speech recognition seem to have little in common with those used for image recognition, and both are different from those used in expert systems. I have a hard time seeing how image recognition, for example, will make any appreciable difference in programming practice. The same problem is true of speech recognition. The hard thing about building software is deciding what one wants to say, not saying it. No facilitation of expression can give more than marginal gains." (Brooks 1987 No Silver Bullet: Essence and Accidents of Software Engineering)
Vampires we know as lesbians therefore should not have problems in discovering what one wants to say-that is, the truth. It logically follows that this Amelia (oh Gwendolen wait 'til you meet her!) wanted to fulfill her stereotype, if for no other reason than to meet her ideal woman. Was this a good idea? Perhaps. Perhaps not. But better she make a choice than none at all-indecisiveness, passiveness, acceptance: these are traits that waft out of the stagnant kitchen, where no woman belongs. This we shout out during our rallies and marches, which we find clever as it doesn't rhyme or fit any semblance of iambic pentameter, that is to say, any traditional form of protest. We are real. Of course, Amelia was real too and proved it sincerely with her tongue. And so from then on she took her vorpal sword and spoke the truth, in spite of the environment, the society, the media, the national geographic. Observe:
Pardon me, but are those bugle boy jeans you are wearing? do you have any grey poupon? I thought we said no eating cookies in bed!
To which she would bravely answer, no. No. It's not a cookie, sister, it's a fig newton. She then proceeded to seductively lick the cream side of a six-inch oreo.
To which we would redden, seeing as she improperly mentioned Newt of the ginger-like variety, and we would begin a diatribe on hangers. And then the faulty y-chromosome. And the glory of a little raw piece of tuna. Glory-there's a nice knocked-up argument for you!
Our irrational impetuousness, complete with utmost symbolism, embarrassed Amelia's idea of modesty and perhaps it wasn't worth it after all to waste such good money on being truthful. She dreams too much. It is dangerous to dream. We held her in carnal embrace, wanting to convert her fully, wanting so much and if only it were as easy as going to the mikveh (including from then on going once a month when the moon is fertile to cleanse oneself spiritually).
Too late to turn back, she traveled on, conquering kingdoms, horses, damsels in distress and small bottles of vegetable oil. A taste here, a taste there. Still unsatisfied with the flavor, she let it burn longer and longer. When the flames consummated her, however, we'll let you in on a secret, Victoria:
She was alone.
Oh yes yes yes, said the cliché, callooh! callay! Better fish are going to fry out of the frying pan and into the fire. Abandon hope all ye who enter her.
VI.
On matters of the visual representation representing symbolism. Next phase, a short piece, a look at the same child, different time, focus, focus, angle up-up-up. Dramatic pause: capture her, the romantic heroine...trembling amongst the flowers of heroin chic and a pedophile's imagination, but wiry and spry with disturbance stirring deep within her eyes. And now to her indigenous environment, the effervescent soiree in honor of youth's freedom. Cue the drinks, the laughter, the approaching gaze from across the room. The girl, dear innocence, remains coy. She teases. She sips. For a long. Long. Time.
Action.
Who is she, she asked herself, looking about the room but not really looking. She is everyone, she replied, giddy, she is alice and alicia and amelia and amanda and alexa and alice and alicia and amelia and amanda and alexa and alicealiciaameliaamandaalexa and alicealiciaameliaamandaalexa and alicealiciaameliaamandaalexa.
Her face: scarlett. Her fingers: tracing over her chest.
Through the mirror and what she found there.
Her fingers trembled before her. She saw the move. Now: Queen to white knight. Soon: Captured. But who was she playing against?
"Hello." The white knight-her captive to-be-her new pearl-spoke to her. In her unfocused eyes, the charming boy bowed, politely side-stepped her and danced out of her reach. She thought she saw a pirouette.
"Who are you?" he asked, tilting his head and arranging letters in his mind.
She smiled softly and shook her head.
But soft! The letter had not done its office. When realization hit, the moon cried. Her lips moved aimlessly, but her eyes found sanctuary, and her mind reached enlightenment. Her rival: herself.
Now what? She wanted time to think. Could she...?
But by then, he had already stolen her hand and was pulling her outside into the rain.
The two ran, frolicking off to her room.
VII.
On matters of high men and juxtaposition. Raindrops ticked liquid seconds. Somewhere in the imaginary distance, the bell tower struck midnight; the witching hour began-Cinderella turned into a fur slipper, Snow White choked on a dwarf, Sleeping Beauty slept around. The final moan from the bell resonated throughout the air, vibrating the room, and the two mortals within moved faster, feeling time's wrath. Then, suddenly, she stopped moving. The boy. The boy is her cupid. Her God-sent angel/cupid. She examined his frame and visually traced the scar that carved over his ribcage. Her wandering pupils dilated with the sudden switching off--the man-ifestation of God's first words disappearing--and she saw that it was good. Only the voyeuristic moon peeking in from above, illuminating her peaks rising, her chest heaving, valleys revealing, oceans flooding. Her world recreating. His finger slamming gently upon her enter and her moaning wondering is it? am I? will he? He did.
Kyrie Eleison. Christe Eleison. Kyrie Eleison.
She was caught in a breaking of terror and her fingers, once caressing the blankets, now strangling them in desperation. His face was so close to hers; touching hers; wanting hers. Often in reddened moments like these, the Bishop would appear next to her, bless her in the name of the father, the son, and the rest of the male entourage, and she would lie like an eagle, singing the chorus incorrectly, actively acknowledging her error, but not remembering the right words. As a result, she reverted to incomprehensible moaning. Also, she didn't know his name.
Libera ne, Domine, de morte aeterna, in die illa tremenda: Quando caeli movendi sunt et terra: Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem. Tremens factus sum ego, et timeo, dum discussio venerit, atque ventura ira. Quando caeli movendi sunt et terra. Dies illa, dies irae, calamitatis et miseriae; dies magna et amara valde. Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem. Requiem aeternam dona eis. Domine: et lux perpetua luceat eis. Libera me Domine de morte aerterna in die illa tremenda: quando caeli mo vendi sunt et terra: Dum veneris judicare saeculum per ignem.
The young cupid smiled, not comprehending her violently happy babble, moved down, and, being a vampire himself, did not mind any of it, and she frowned wondering what kind of cupid is a vampire. A God-sent angel/cupid/vampire. She went down her list of kingdom, phyllum, class, order, family, genus, species, agreed there was no relation, and concluded that she must be in the midst of a new discovery. Darwin would be proud. Her face smiled over the numbing buzz of pleasure.
The Bishop smiled down at her and drenched the two fornicating bodies with holy water. He was pleased.
And while the friends were still standing in tears by the bedside the soul of the sinner was judged. At the last moment of consciousness the whole earthly life passed before the vision of the soul and, ere it had time to reflect, the body had died and the soul stood terrified before the judgment seat. God, who had long been merciful, would then be just. He had long been patient, pleading with the sinful soul, giving it time to repent, sparing it yet awhile. But that time had gone. Time was to sin and to enjoy, time was to scoff at God and at the warnings of His holy church, time was to defy His majesty, to disobey His commands, to hoodwink his fellow men, to commit sin after sin after sin and to hide one's corruption from the sight of men. But that time was over. Now it was God's turn: and He was not to be hoodwinked or deceived.
Procreation. For creation.
The moon exploded.
The boy-her personal altar boy-had come upon her soft spot, unconsciously, and after a few vigorous shudders she collapsed onto another soft spot and lay there, still, entwined with the sweaty blankets. She reached a small infinity and smiled. His mouth was agape in wonder of the beautiful, simple body before him, and his mind imagined her daily activities, glorified: breathing, crying, running, thinking, talking, swimming, eating, drinking, urinating, masturbating, giving birth to a child, dying, loving, sleeping. Currently sleeping. On the seventh day, she rested.
And time stopped and moon-bits rained and eyes closed and tides died and the child within her stirred and flowers remembered and flowers remembered and flowers remembered and all was elegant and life began anew. Again.
He looked straight at her and saw his reflection. From the edge of his mouth, a crystalline sphere appeared to form invincible, rolled down the plump pale hemisphere of his lips, and left a trail of its body as the saliva hit the innocent inner thigh with a highly emotional, eerily silent, splash.
--jmfe