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at his woman’s time of death, i was most likely only nineteen, eighteen, even. he took me behind the alleyway, that fateful night, during the party. he said i looked like her, he touched my neck, hatefully, fingertips floating over its veins.
he was twenty, but had the aura of a much older man- as his voice was rusted over, decayed from the virus. the truth was that i had loved him before she died, before he found a proper use for my vessel.
he showed up at my house one day, as i was dusting off sweaters i hadn’t touched in real years, not months, but since i was a young man. they laid upon my bed, three of them, sorted by color.
his car, small, but in the way that is somewhat impressive. it looked older, but i am not knowledgeable about cars. i simply know what an old car looks like.
before the storm, he knocked on my door. i got up to answer, but he did not wait for my answer. he opened the door, causing an aggressive ringing. he told me once more, “you look like her.”
he’d have me sit down and read her letters. i’d guess her name. soon i wouldn’t have to.
he dragged his hand across my thigh, almost as if he couldn’t control it. once again, an unspoken comment on our resemblance.
i truly loved him. i still do- a man constructed from god’s finest resources, if not a god himself. my body ached without his touch. and i’d do anything for it. he knew i was a homosexual, clearly, and he used that to his advantage.
that one day, he seemed wired, he told me he needed her. i thought i was purely his confidant, but he leaned in. i had then realized i was just his substitute. margarine for butter, skim for whole fat milk, low calorie sweetener for pure cane sugar. he clawed at my stomach, desperately trying to scratch out my rib cage. perhaps trying to pull out my heart, replace it with hers.
i unbuttoned his pants, took him into my mouth. he did not touch me. he only looked at my face, softly speaking her name. in this exact moment, i was her. my soul haunted her body, nonconsenting. i possessed her corpse to make love to this man, danced with him, flesh rotting, falling to the ballroom floor as he penetrated what remained of my skull. despite everything i thought i knew of myself, i was his woman, no longer my own self. if this was the only way i could get him to love me, i was his woman. in all my pride, i wore her name, tattooed onto my body.
the next week he continued to visit. it was rather isolated, i would scarcely leave my house. he bought me piles of her old clothes, in which i adorned herself, took on her skin. she wasn’t a mask, nor an alter ego, but my new identity. i shed my skin, blocked out the windows, grew out my hair. nobody could see me like this. nobody except him.
i always thought it was so funny that i did this all for him, and he didn’t even want me.
perhaps, the point was to make him want me at all, even though i was just made myself into her. he never thought he had me, just an incarnation of her.
i remember a different night, which stuck out to me, almost because he let me out, telling me it was okay for him to be seen beside me. he was truly a kind man, but in this moment we were both just incredibly misguided.
we did not go out to town, but we walked back behind my house. i wore dress shoes, or perhaps it was her, but my vessel was still entangled in his requested femininity. the sun was setting, the light was orange. he guided me down the hill. it was august, but the grass was dead. it knew orange and green did not pair.
he took my hand, said my name, then corrected himself to her name. i wondered if she was here to see me right now, what she would say. perhaps nothing.
when he discussed her it sounded like she never loved him at all. it was all about what he had done for her, and her solemn reaction. i wondered if he would do this for me. he certainly hadn’t been doing it for her, in my body.
he looked so polished, glossed over in the sunset. it reflected across his body. he smiled, turned to me, reaching out a hand. he smiled, then he said my name, detaching me from her. i wanted him to follow up, tell me i looked quite beautiful, maybe even handsome like this. i wanted to kiss him, i wanted to look him in the eye, dressed in nothing, allow him to say my name.
he put a hand on my chest, dragging it down. he wasn’t thinking of me. it seemed as if he was never thinking of me.
he looked me in the eye, said my name once more. he asked if i would accompany him to dinner. i said yes, of course i said yes. the dinner itself was uneventful. we barely spoke to each other, illuminated by a single, small candle. he still had me dressed as her. i did not look up. she did not look up. he spent too much money on us.
we drove home slowly that night. the sky was cobalt blue, the opposite of the orange we had seen before. i asked him if he thought it was odd at all, to put me in a dress and say it was her. he supposed so. he stopped.
“it really is just you in a dress?”
i didn’t know what to say. i was afraid that if i said the wrong thing, he’d make me walk home, or i’d just never see him after that night. so i didn’t say anything, i waited for him to come to that conclusion.
he continued driving. “i’d like to make love to you, tonight.”
i dropped my voice. “me?” i was myself, i wasn’t his woman anymore.
“man to man.”
well, we did eventually approach my house again. and we did just that.
the illusion that he could possibly be in love with me fed my ego.
he still wanted me to be her, to wear her skin, but for one night i was myself again, skin shed, meatless, only bones draped in wilted skin, that was mine for once. for one derenian instance, i worshipped him, he terrorized me into being human once more.
the night after that, he visited me for the first time since it happened.
he was infatuated with visions of me as his well kept secret, i was not. he thought it was fascinating that he could love a man like me, that he could love a man at all.
we sat on the glass table in the corner, next to a wall decorated with shattered teacups, shattered porcelain as tiles. i wanted a whole house with mosaic walls, and he promised me it would happen at some point, under his rule, when we lived together, the three of us. the wall was falling apart, sharp edges sticking out. it was only beautiful in some angles. four pieces laid on the floor, one was two.
he spoke things i couldn’t understand. i loved him. and he would keep me in his mansion, lock me away. and it would be fine.
when we kissed, i could taste my blood in his mouth, and he could taste his semen, his sweat. i wanted to bite, i wanted to scream, to spit it out.
i turned around, i vomited, i vomited over that nice table, the one he was going to replace. he stroked my back in attempt to calm me. i picked a piece of shattered porcelain off the wall, the biggest one, sharpest, loosest one i could reach for. i pointed it at his face, right between his eyes.
“leave this house.” my voice was hoarse, doused in wax, covered in shattered porcelain. i didn’t want to stab him, i wanted to strangle him, i wanted to watch everything i thought was love die before me.
he scurried out, smelling of my vomit, scratch on his forehead and blood in his hair.
we never formally met again. he would leave flowers at my doorstep for a week or so after the fact, as if my house was a grave, a great tomb. not that he thought i was deserving of it.
i believe i saw him at a market once, in which i wished i was drunk, so i had one excuse to scream out how i really felt.
“how could i have been such a fool?” i would think.
i then remembered it was her being the fool.
i wondered if she still haunted my body.