Alice- Gazing At Mome Raths

612 Foccia Point stands at the end of the street and on top of the hill, this city was built in its shadow in more respects than one. The fact that the smaller dog seemed confused means they must be tourists, that’s good news for my Master, tourists are less likely to be missed quickly and a lot harder to track once they’ve gone. I checked with Marcie, those boys didn’t run a credit card at the club, more good news. It’s 11:00pm, expecting to see the bright splash of headlights I’m standing at the long wall of windows in a room that used to be one of The Weighs and Kneads test kitchens, watching the fog slip past cloaking the city’s secrets in its cold embrace, and waiting.

The windows shake slightly with the force of the speakers behind me and bring my focus from the fog outside to the images reflected from within. Layla destroyed most of my treasures from before, but I managed to save a few of the smaller bits and smuggle them here. My eyes find the twin shadow boxes, like bookends on the wall that frame gifts created for my grinning God. Staring closely at the box on the right, from here you can just barely make out the ear that used to belong to that old cur all those years ago, in the other sits Lucy Sumner’s pinky finger resting forever still, now mounted in its bed of cotton. The center of this display is given to much larger, fresher gifts; a trio of prizes for my Master set out on a low ebony table. I close my eyes breathe deep and feel myself settle inside, lids flying open on my exhale I take a moment to revel in the memory of each offering.

To the extreme left lies a souvenir of freedom. Recalling my first post-enclosure offering plays a smile across my lips, it was cheap and pretty; something meant for my own amusement, the way a real girl takes an afternoon to spend her husband’s money on a new dress and a manicure. Palms stitched together; frozen in an eternal, silent clap with wrist separated at an angle drawing a sharp capital ‘V’ that ends just before the absent elbow; rests a withered pair of forearms. I took them from an old bitch I found wandering in the fog one night, filling the air around her with random curse words and shaking her fist at the sky. Pretending I was her granddaughter, I used her dementia to bring her into one of the lesser buildings and fed her thick potato soup that, I must confess, was more than sufficient in its strychnine content. Playing “Shiny Happy People” I giggled wildly as I watched the miserable thing convulse on the cold concrete floor gagging on her own vomit, and fouling herself. It was the funniest damn thing I ever saw and the release I got from that celebration helped me to understand why humans laugh.

The empty face that hangs on the beautician’s bust to the far right used to belong to a girl I found in the campus library. Too pretty for her own good, and blissfully unaware of it she let me lead her here in the name of a study session I let her come run gratefully across my tongue before she felt the heavy shackles slam closed around her fragile wrists. Her strength surprised me; not much more than a puppy and that baby bitch lasted a week against the wall while I came, nearly nightly, to use her body against her mind. I took so much delight in that bitter little toy that her face was the only thing that could be saved. Even her shoulders had tasted sweet, slow roasted with onion and thyme I sliced them thin and, for a midnight picnic, had them on sourdough with bitter apple cider and fresh vanilla ice cream.

My eyes and mind travel, lost in the yesterday of my most treasured prize to date, a set of nearly limbless torsos I saved from a breeding pair of wandering dogs that tried to befriend me in the subway. Watching the waves slam the beach at Carter’s Cove with my Lord’s blessing shining down on us from a cloudless sky; he made dinner over a fire while she babbled mindlessly about free trade and how hemp could save the world; I woke that night before the moon faded, and smothered the dirty clueless bitch while she slept. Then in the pre-dawn silence I brought him out of his sleep and into the arms of my Master panting and moaning his way to orgasm; his eyes flying open as he walks that razors edge With his hips bucking between my thighs I leaned forward, letting my nipples drag against his squirming torso, watched closely as his eyes drift into emptiness as I slipped my blade into the hollow place where his collarbones meet, and savored the sweet gurgle of his trachea’s desperate search for air. I used their bodies to please myself, painting us all in his blood; before I relieved them of their heads and most of their arms, keeping their necks and a good portion of her hair as well as the tops of their thighs. Now they rest in a macabre sort of embrace; upright with bellies together, her breasts pressed tight to his chest; her sex open against his eternally greedy cock. I took special care when I attached the hinges to their backs and mounted the slender wire stands, I haven’t permanently joined them to each other yet, because they’re still fresh enough to use on the nights I need a little company.

“So this is what you’ve been up to.” Layla’s voice breaks into my reverie like a hammer through a sheet of glass. My eyes shift and refocus on the window before me and suddenly I’m starring at her reflection next to mine, as always she comes to me in that pure white nightie, her hair softly hugging her shoulders and looking for all the world like a child lost in her mother’s body.

Alice- The Jabberwalkie

Somehow the narrow hall from the stage to the dressing room collects all the air from the club. Everything from the stairs to the lobby, even the smell from the private showrooms gathers here. I leave the stage and move toward the hall, breaking the vortex of smoke, bravely spinning its silent witness to the desperate fantasies we sell, as I pass. Upstairs I pull my next outfit from my locker and make sure Layla’s mousy brown hair is still hidden beneath my wig while trying not to really see the mirror, sometimes you see too much when you look too hard, and sometimes someone else looks back.

Layla thinks she’ll win; Layla has always been a little blind. She gives every day to her little plan, she thinks she’ll kill me, or fix me, or something. Six days a week it’s high schools, shelters and old folks homes; servitude. Those hands the Mommy insisted were bred for holding tea cups and babies are getting rough and red from the scrubbing and scraping Layla fills her days with. I use strong lotion to fix the damage. Six days a week she pays. She pays for what she thinks are my sins and Silvie’s, she pays for her compliance. She keeps herself elbow deep in shit, and cries herself to sleep every night from loneliness. And she’ll keep paying, even though she knows there’s no one manning the till, as long as she thinks its working. She hates us that much.

Finished changing, wearing the blue dress now and having traded the black leather knee boots for clear sling back stilettos, I make my way back downstairs and into the lobby, different dress, different shoes; same animals drooling in the dark on cheap vinyl benches and lounge chairs. I missed last month’s moon, but tonight one of these dogs will bleed for me. Three nights a week I steal her sleep. Before she locked me in, I tried to tell her that it doesn’t matter what we want from this life; my God has a plan of its own, and true deities can’t be denied. She might have found a window, but I was given a key. My laughing Lord is proving its plan, paying back all those years with Layla’s band of jumping whores in green. And with the green It brings me choices, oh so many choices, all those dirty dogs and filthy bitches that need to be put down. It wants them all, but I discriminate, sometimes less is more.

Phoenix is up next. She’s a cute brunette with a tight ass and great moves, I hate this music, but I love this bit. She’s playing schoolgirl to Britney Spears, and sporting that classic catholic uniform, knee socks, glasses, pig tails, lollipop, the works. Its camp, but the spoons love it. With her back against the mirror, and her hands on her knees, she lowers herself, its one fluid movement that finds her squatting, knees open hands crossed, and lifting her skirt just enough to let the cat tease the dogs. Then she rolls forward and begins crawling, shoulders so low her pigtails drag against the stage, that crisp white top opening to give the spoons a peek at her artwork. At the edge of the stage she tucks her head and pulls a somersault, landing legs open, straddling the shoulders of the dog sitting at the foot of the stage. Pulling his head into her navel lands her another five spot, and with a nod and a wink she’s got him on the hook for a private show when she gets off stage. Anyone can use these moves, but Phoenix takes the time to use the music, to actually dance. Just for that she takes more tips off the stage than almost any other girl here. It’s with a slight edge when she tells me that she makes less money when I work; I tell her she needs to use the pole. We’re both only half serious, she’s got moves to spare up there, but when it comes to the pole, I fly.

After Phoenix is Candy; awkward as always with shoes as cheap as her name. Her song is short with heavy bass and lyrics that barely meet the rhythm, she moves like she’s never heard the music she chose; no commitment to the character. She looks like a girl trying to be sexy instead of one that just is. She doesn’t understand why she doesn’t make the kind of money we do, and often begs Phoenix and me to teach her. Phoenix might help, but I settle the girl with a dismissive glance, the last thing I need is another Silvie. I was watching from the window that day, I heard her trashing me to Layla when she should have been thanking me for sending her there instead of making a gift of her. That twisted fuck almost ruined everything with her ‘Legacy of Pain’; if I’d let her play her cards she would have gotten us both the hot needle. Layla couldn’t see it, but when you’re as close to your monster as I am, these things get easier to see.

Silvie wanted everyone to see her pain. I thought at first she cut herself because she was lost and hurting, but she needed the badge. She said ‘People won’t learn, Shadow, until the scars they make on the inside cut so deep they show on the outside too.’ After Lucy came the tattoos; smiley faces, each with some injury or defect, a scar, a bullet wound, one of them had a cancerous tumor bulging from its forehead. One smile for each of her ‘lessons’, she was eight deep by the time I had to stop her. The calling I’ve been given made it easy to understand most of Sadistic Silvie’s punishments, but when she wanted to take those two little boys for fighting in the park I knew I had indulged her too long. I nearly threw up when I saw those twin smiles on her hip; she had them clawing at each other’s eyes. Lucky for me, Silvie could barely maintain, when they came for her she broke quickly and began to rant so deeply they soon stopped paying attention to anything she said about me. It hurt to have to lose her, she was the only human that ever knew me, but I need to be free to serve my purpose, I have a higher calling.

There’s a pair of spoons in the corner, desperate dogs these two. The one on the left straightens when we make eye contact; it’s a done deal before I even reach the table and all I have to do is quote a price. Taking one grubby paw from each of them I lead them into a private room, using my hip I topple the first onto the bench seat and apply a little leverage to fling the second into the space beside him, I give Charlie the bouncer the nod and he draws the red velvet rope across the entry. I position them knee to knee, straddling the seat, and place myself on the smaller one’s lap with my back to him. I’m going on memory, now, using the movements and expressions I remember this body making when Layla let the boys play with our body. The big dog is almost a cliché, broad shouldered and slightly intimidating, dark shaggy hair, thick stubble across cheeks that feel like sandpaper, and eyes as dark as midnight; his partner is slight, at least a head shorter with long bright hair and a neat little goatee. As the music begins to climb I raise my arms and grab the ceiling rail, I use this to control my weight against their laps, making my movements more fluid. I present my bosom to the greedy eyes before me and rest my shoulders against the other one’s heaving chest. Using a combination of my memory and the music I slide my hips back and forth between them, the first and second beats of every measure belong to the darker one, the third and fourth to his companion. These dogs are well trained and although I can feel their appreciation clearly, they both keep their hands at their sides; I can tell the larger one is having a hard time being good, his big meaty paws clench and release in spasms and his breath begins to grow ragged against my nipples. The lesser one has better self control, and proves his nerve as I feel his lips against my ear; his hot breath delivers the question I’ve been waiting for, “So how’s a guy get a little more friendly with hot little piece like you?”

“612 Foccia Point, midnight, and its double for two so make sure you bring at least a thousand.”
“ Foccia? Like the bread?”
“Just like the bread.”
“A thousand sounds steep-"
“A thousand gets you both. Vanilla, you get me? You want more, you pay more. You want to pay less go find yourself a cheap whore and you’ll get what you pay for.” As I’m saying this I’ve turned to face him, I speak the words with my lips pressing against the creature’s smooth white belly, I feel it tremble and know I own him now.

When I turn my face up to him the world spins slightly and suddenly I feel like I’m using a mask; another face, another us, I’m pulling her strings like she’s some kind of sex puppet. I feel the heat growing in her thighs as I rub her ass against the silent partner’s chest, there’s something awake in her now; some deep need I can only vaguely feel. It’s not the same as sharing with Layla, there’s no person here, no other mind; there’s just a doll. But somehow the energy feeding from her sex is guiding me, helping me know what strings to pull; giving reason for my movements and lessoning my need to rely on the memory of those hot, sticky fumblings with high school boys that I found need to excuse myself from at the time. The smile my face shows is truly mine for a moment, another gift; another tool to serve my Master’s purpose.

Alice- Crossing the Chessboard

That horrible grin hangs foreboding in the sky tonight, as if mocking me and I feel that chill, that rush of need, and the pain that comes from its denial. I feel the restless thumping from the thing inside me, that part of me I must never again allow to escape. My shoes make a hollow sound that echoes off the alley walls, other than me, and the restless chronic coughing coming from inside the shelter, this night is perfectly still. The fog rolls in from everywhere, it’s December in the city, and fingers of ice try to grab me with every step. I reach the spigot and begin to clean the filthy buckets and brushes, used so often to clear the vomit and human waste from the floors inside. The freezing water turns my fingers an angry red as I work; the pain twists my lips into smile. The payment for today has begun. Once I ran from even the slightest pain, gratefully letting Alice take the wheel, now I make myself feel it, because not giving in means a small victory.

For years I thought that Alice was my better half. She was stronger than me, and quicker to know the answers, it took me a long time to realize that just because you have an answer quickly, doesn’t mean it’s the right one. I was weak, and needful, I thought that she knew how to make us strong; I didn’t listen when everything else inside me was screaming that we needed to be good as well. I let her drive for so long, and watched as she tore at the walls of our little world until they came crumbling down. I watched her destroy a transient in the park, because he tried to make a victim of us, I watched her tear apart one teen aged girl to help another feel a little more real, and then turn disloyal as a serpent, and betray her as well. She thought I couldn’t see from inside that place, she thought I had no idea what she was up to, but I found a window, and sometimes I peeked. I’ll never forget the look of panic and shame on my sweet Silvie’s face when she realized that Alice wasn’t human. I let her do these things because I thought I was not strong enough to stop her. These are my sins.

I have sought forgiveness the traditional ways; I begged a meeting with a priest. Unable to be completely honest with him, but wanting desperately to find hope in his words, I learned that as far as his God is concerned, I’m a lost cause. I guess it’s better anyway; you can’t pay penance something you’re sure is a lie. I’ve always kind of admired the type of people who can believe in things like Gods. It’s like getting to believe in magic forever. Even Alice had something to believe, her ‘Smiling Lord’, often guided her to things and acts that normal people would have no part of, but at least she has something to blame, something that will exonerate her.

I had to create my own means of salvation. First comes sacrifice, I must relieve myself of all pleasures; that means cold food, uncomfortable furniture, and I must never so much as make eye contact with a man. I must pay back the carnage she dealt with my hands, so I work at the shelters and at the high school, doing the most disgusting, most degrading, things I can find, and return my pay to these causes. Atonement means a lot of things. Tomorrow I’m scheduled for a visit with my darling Silvie, her doctors think it will be good for her, they gave her a pass. I think it’s a sweet irony that we’ll meet, nearly unsupervised, in a park. I must face her and accept all the things I’m sure she has to say.

“Just a reminder, gentlemen, it’s curfew in 15 minutes.” I say in a clear voice, without looking up, as I slip past the walking dead and through the back door, their cloud of nicotine swirling in my wake.

My thoughts unbroken I begin to strip the beds, the musty air from too often soiled mattresses creating a foul wind across my cheeks. I breathe deep, payment comes in many forms. After Silvie comes confession. I must find a way to be done with half truths and whole lies. I’m smarter than to go anywhere near a therapist. All those afternoons, bored with Dr. Ashton, trying to find something to say that sounded real and didn’t lead to Alice taught me therapists are either idiots, or not to be trusted. Alice had served her master twice before we met the good doctor and he never took his eyes off my tits long enough to see that we were lying.

There are guards around the palace; even as the commitment of speaking her most guarded truths sets its dark chill on my heart, I feel an absent twitch in my left hand, her hand. The movement is unnerving, it draws my suspicion that she will strengthen as she stews, but those horrible dreams filled with pain-ridden gore and moonlight celebration come less often now, something is working. That gives me hope that someday I will finally claim ownership of this body. Unbidden to the front of my mind come two images; the first is almost comforting in its familiarity, her face, not so different from mine with just subtle changes, she has green eyes and a more slender chin, high cheek bones and bright red hair, cut close to her head in the back and lengthening to points at her collar bones. She is a powerful beauty; one I am hoping very much to miss.

The second image cuts into my heart with the implication it brings, the thing I found in the nightstand drawer. So small I hoped it wasn’t real; I couldn’t even bring myself to touch it. The tiny white triangle not half the size of my pinky nail, the slender cone and point of the canine, a trophy from that opossum eighteen years ago in Grandma’s woods. A trophy I thought I had destroyed; she must have ripped this tooth out of its skull before I cleaned house.

Alice- Sitting for Tea

We’ve been juggling a lot. It’s more me driving than her now; Layla’s kind of stopped trusting herself. I was able to get us rid of Seth, she still doesn’t really know what happened, but I was able to convince her we’re better off without him. ‘Besides’, I told her, ‘it’s senior year and all those pretty bitches and their pom-poms need you.’ She hates it when I call them that, but she agrees with me, they need her now more than ever. I only care about the team because the training has proven useful to my smiling Lord.

Something happened to Lucy, she went missing from the mall. They made a really big deal out of it, it was all over the news ‘What happened to Lucy Sumner?’ her Daddy’s big leaky blue eyes, looking desperately into the camera, begging, “Anyone who knows anything, please …”

And there’s us, it’s Layla on the screen, but those are my words she’s whispering, “She said she was going to meet someone, a college boy, she was real excited about it, bought a new dress and everything, I asked her not to go…”and then she turns our face, looking a little more determined now, a little more sure, “Lucy, please, if you’re out there watching, please come home, at least call your folks?”

I even had her start a ‘Finding Lucy’ hotline, it worked like a charm. The cops did only a cursory line of questioning, and for weeks Layla had to endure all manner of people telling her it wasn’t her fault Lucy disappeared. It made it easy to talk her into letting me have a few more turns. She knows it’s me that has kept us safe, she can trust my decisions.

Silvie knows she doesn’t have to be afraid of us, now. Layla and I talked it over; she knows we need a friend. Silvie’s different, too, she’s not different the same way we are, but she has her own special strangeness. She’s got the market pinned on rage, it’s almost creepy to watch her when she really lets go.

It was an even bigger deal when they found Lucy. Words like ‘monster’ and ‘depraved’ flew around like pigeons in Trafalgar Square. I’ll agree, we got a little carried away, maybe had a little too much fun, it had to be a shock for them to find her like that, tied to that bicycle, with all those things Silvie left inside her, and all those pieces missing. Silvie serves her gods with a certain artistic grace; it was a celebration, a baptism, if you will. She laughed when we talked about it, “If they’d really known Lucy, they’d use words like ‘fitting’ and ‘punishment’.”

I know there was more than just Lucy in Silvie’s rage that day, but for Silvie, Lucy was the poster child for high school tormentors. I put Silvie on the team. Of course, those dumb whores took some time to accept her, but with a little grooming Silvie’s almost normal looking, and the one thing that makes Layla invincible is our gymnastics. No one can pull off the stunts we can, well with a little training, now Silvie’s got a few tricks up her sleeves, too.

It’s kind of nice to hear my name aloud, in a voice that isn’t Layla’s. Silvie understands about the moon, she sees the same smile I do, but it doesn’t own her. Anger and pain are her masters. I’m growing quite fond of this particular human; she’s the only one who hasn’t made my skin crawl at her touch. The three of us talk for hours in the park, naked in Silvie’s arms, under the fan of that old willow. This place is special to me, Silvie understands why, she can’t wait for her own temple to be ready, she knows it may be a while before they get the place cleaned up and stop watching it, though.

And, still, something needs to be done about Layla. With Seth out of our picture, she’s back to swinging our ass around and flirting with every boy she sees. Silvie and I going to Tainted Flesh on the weekend, she wants a tattoo to remind her of Lucy, I think it’s silly, but I have an idea that will keep Layla chaste. I can’t let her do something stupid again. It’s been months since my grinning God has given me orders, and I know that in a few days, I’ll be allowed to serve again. There’s no way I’m gonna let her screw it up for me.

Alice- In the Tolgey Wood

We’re in Gym class when it happens. Standing in line, dressed in that strange bright yellow uniform, and listening to Mz. Feinlin give elaborate instructions on how to properly execute a jumping jack, because we’re apparently all assholes who can’t get it right.

We’ve been a little crampy this morning, not enough to cause concern, but this is a sudden, deep searing, pain. It rips through our abdomen and causes me to double over, bringing visions to our mind of a giant, using his big meaty hands to squeeze our insides, sending me into a cold sweat, setting our whole world ablaze.

“Alice…” Her name spills from my lips as the tears spill from my eyes; a Pavlovian response to the pain, Alice always takes the pain. But Alice isn’t coming; I can hear her laughter as I move, still crouching, toward the locker room. Mz. Fienlin is at my side, her big man-hands on my shoulders, worry thickening her deep german accent. With some confusion I understand that she wants me to lie down in her office, something about a cot there, and a cool towel.

As I enter the locker room she’s motioning to Silvie to go with me. Poor little Silvie Jacobs looks panic stricken; Mz. Feinlin doesn’t know that Silvie’s scared of me, Silvie doesn’t know that it’s Alice she’s really scared of. She also doesn’t know that she has no reason to fear Alice, Alice likes Silvie. There’s something about that untidy brown hair and too big glasses Alice finds endearing.

“Um… Layla?” Silvie’s voice is cracking; she looks lost in her clothes. They’re rumpled, like they’ve been jammed in the bottom of a back pack, and are so baggy they look like they were bought for someone else, all Silvie’s clothes look that way, it’s why Lucy Sumner and the rest of the cheerleaders won’t give the poor girl a second’s peace, Silvie thinks I’m one of them because I’m a cheerleader, too. It’s guilt by association, but who can blame her, really?

“Yeah?” Lips pursed and breathing heavy, little droplets of sweat flying from my mouth as I answer.

“Here.” She presses a cool towel into my hand; I push my face into it, welcoming the cold cloth against my fevered forehead. I’m trying my hardest to call to Alice in my mind, begging her to come and take the pain. Silvie half helps, half rolls me onto the cot, I have enough time to force a deep breath and a slight smile of thanks before that sadistic giant wraps his hands around my abs and rips my insides to bits.

Rolling back off of the cot and crawling, with shaking limbs, I barely make it to the bathroom and into the handicap stall before the blood lets loose across my thighs. With the site of it, comes that sweet release on my exhale, Alice has come, at last, to save me.

-x-

I let Layla take the first part of the pain because she needed it. I knew it was coming. My smiling Lord has made me stronger since that first beautiful night, a gift for pleasing its need. When I come to take the pain for Layla, I use this new gift, I send her completely away. I see her, in our mind crawling, between the walls in our old house, to that special place only we knew about; I make her hide there. The pain I let her feel makes her grateful to do it.

Layla’s internal giant begins to push its poison from our body; deep cramps force my breathing into shallow gasps the pain is coming in waves now. I pull myself up, hugging the toilet, reaching in to bring some of the cold water in the bowl to my skin. There is a deep pulling from within me as the thing inside finally breaks loose and finds its way out of my body. There is a soft, wet splash on the tile as it comes to rest between my knees.

Sweet Silvie is just outside the stall and hears the small thud made by the dead thing as it lands. I hear her gasp, telling me she’s peaked under the door, she knows what was happening, just like I’ve known for weeks now that it would.

I figured it out while I was in control, making plans to silence that cur in the park. The blood wasn’t coming when it was supposed to, and the calendar confirmed. For weeks, every night, while Layla slept, I worked the pressure points at the insides of our hips, first fingers of both hands pressing deep, trying to choke our ovaries, to end the thing inside us.

It lays there, now in its puddle of blood, that salty wine covering what would have been a face, if given time. A life that has never been is not the same as one that I have taken; this fleshy blob will not make a good gift for my grinning God, and therefore will not have a place with my other treasures.

Coming back together, using the locker room showers to clean my body and free my mind, I decide on the next step. Dressing, and telling Silvie to get back into street clothes, I take her hand, without another word, and lead her off campus, a few blocks from the school to a park nearby. Unlike the park by our house there are no willow trees here, just a few medium sized apple trees, and one old and gnarled oak.

This park stands near the center of town, and this tree has to have stood for nearly a hundred years. The roots are as thick as your arm and sticking up in places, crisscrossing on themselves, leaving you with the impression of knotted ropes. Up close to the trunk there is a place where the roots entangle; with a little imagination you can see the shape of a heart. Layla and I found it when we were little, and as far as we can tell, we’re the only ones who know that if you lift carefully from the center point of the heart and slide the roots to the left, there is a hollow in the trunk beneath it.

Silvie catches my eye as I reach for my bag, she’s confused by my silence, and moves her mouth as though to speak, I hold a finger to her lips and pull the package free. I’d long been keeping my pot stash in my gym locker, to keep the Mommy’s thieving hands off of it. Away from Silvie’s curious eyes, I’d emptied the blue aluminum box into my bag and placed the fetus, wrapped carefully in bandages from Mz. Feinlin’s first aide kit, inside. For close to three months this thing had tried to live inside me, the fleshy result of it’s attempt is not longer than three inches and the weight of the bandages swaddling it are more than that of the thing itself.

I hear Silvie gasp as I lean close and kiss the lid, before placing the box, carefully inside the tree. There is a new kind of pain in this action, something so much more real than any pain I’ve ever felt. As the tears spring from my eyes and make their salty tracks I realize the difference in this pain is that it comes from within. The wound that has caused it is not something one can dress, or suture, it is the pain of a human soul, and it is entirely new to me.

Alice - Chasing Rabbits

Seth is pulling at my blouse again; it’s become some kind of nightly ritual. Hot breath in my ear, and his tongue tracing the ridges, his other hand is at the back of my neck, and I’m getting all kinds of dizzy. That weird, electric glow growing between us and it’s like we’re feeding on each other or something, my hands are everywhere, his chest, his shoulders, his face, his hips, grasping and clawing, and sliding across his skin.

When his fingertips meet my nipples there is a great crashing wave through my body, my eyes are locked on the moon, lost in it, afraid of it, and wanting it. Knowing, just like I know that the bright question mark of stars above me is called ‘Cassiopeia’, that what Seth and I are doing will end me. As his lips find the skin between my breasts, that wave crests again, and I know Alice is watching.

She leaves me alone, mostly, on date nights, but I know the moon trumps all our best laid plans. I don’t blame her, that Cheshire-cat grin in the sky is all she really feels. She’s waiting her turn now, being patient, playing nice. She’s not fooling anyone; we both know she can rule me, just like we both know how much she needs me. And Seth mistakes the smile on my lips, he gnashes his teeth against my nipple, and misreads the air between my teeth and pulls away with a mumbled apology, I lose my orgasm to misinterpretation.

A few moments later our bodies twisting, repositioning, we work our way around each other’s skin like a pair of sex driven creatures. I’m on all fours, knees dirty, twigs and pebbles beneath them digging in, biting a little, hands bracing against the tree, breasts swinging free, Seth is behind me, his hands on my hips, bringing me to him, his cock, like steel, pressing into me, prying open the space between my legs. His need, so firm within me, feels like the whole world has entered me, like all of existence is being pounded into the center of me.

When it’s over, Seth walks me, as usual, as far as the park. Our paths home separate halfway down the path, and I hear his boot heels making their rubbery clomp as they fall on the concrete. My own soft soled trainers making almost no mark on the quiet summer night.

My eyes travel to the sky, its white grin starting something. I take a deep breath, and on my exhale am no longer steering. Just like when we were a kid and learned to ride our bike no-handed, I lean back inside myself and let go, and just like back then, I feel a rush of air across my face and an invisible force take over. It always scares me, a little, trusting something I can’t see or control, it also scares me how welcome that feeling really is.

~x~

I come in on Layla’s exhale, as though the air moving in our lungs were some sort of toggle switch between her and me. I barely have time to revel in my freedom when I hear a voice behind me.

“Hey ‘candy’”, the voice calls from the shadows, somewhere under the wide fan of the willow I’m passing, “got something sweet for me?”

“Fuck off” I hiss to him, and feel Layla shiver inside me.

“Oh!” He calls, “Tough little bitch are you? We can play it like that, if you want.” There is an amused tone in his voice, as though my retort has feed something in him. I turn, and lower my eyes onto him. I don’t need to try to make him see how big a mistake he wants to make right now. As I had guessed, the pathetic animal shrinks within himself, and I pass unmolested into the night. I can feel his eyes traveling over our body as I leave him, and something inside me knows that this dog will have to be put down.

I have to keep Layla from steering for the next few weeks, to make the arrangements. I’m as close to excited as I’ve ever felt, for years now, my Cheshire-cat moon has been calling me, wanting this, and promising this will make life real for me. I want to share, at least part of this with her, but I know she’ll have no taste for it, the moon doesn’t have the same hold on her, she’s real, I’m something else.

It’s been a long month, waiting, pretending to feel, kissing Seth for Layla so she won’t lose him, and trying not to vomit while his greedy hands work my body. He’s frustrated because Layla doesn’t come beneath him while he uses her, I can’t tell him why that is. He also doesn’t understand why I won’t let him walk her through the park anymore. I can’t tell him that it’s best the animal who lives there forgets he ever saw us.

When I’m ready for him, I find the dog in the same place I left him, under the willow tree in the moonlight, my smiling Lord, has returned to bless my actions tonight. He’s dosing, a light snore escaping him on random breaths. Any fear, or second thoughts are cancelled as I my eyes focus on his right hand, a pair of bikini-briefs adorned with little red cherry blossoms are clenched within it, the smooth wet reflection from the lamplight tells me he’s used them recently, the coppery smell of semen fills my nostrils and feeds my desire to end it for him. To give this animal that sweetest of release.

Working quickly, carefully, I bind him, my foot kicking an empty vodka bottle as I cross his left side, drunk and post coital, he’s made this almost too easy for me. He only wakes when I have him completely trussed to the tree, and am shoving those panties deep into his throat. His eyes open, confused, and widen as he seems to recognize me.

Naked beneath my clear plastic rain coat, I know our body will distract him enough for me to keep control. I raise my blade above him and begin my work for the first time, and really feel our heart beating rapidly in our chest. I hear Layla screaming in my mind, and block her voice. She still hasn’t learned to go away, she still has to sit and watch, but right now I’m so real, so alive that I almost wish she didn’t have to share. I get a little excited in my work, and feel the creature’s blood splashing this way and that leaving trails along the walls of my coat, the heavy plastic keeping me clean, but still allowing the heat to come through to me.

I know what an orgasm feels like, because Layla’s are strong and she can’t help but share them with me, I’d never felt my own until this moment, the salted wine spraying across my barely covered skin, the power of this gift feeding into all the other sensations.

Just as the moon promised I am alive tonight, I am real, and now, I’m sure, I can never stop.

Alice - Looking Through The Glass

“I worry about Layla,” We hear the Mommy saying into the phone, “she plays so strangely sometimes!”

She wants to listen, I feel our heart grow warm and still at the sound of her name from the Mommy’s lips. I know Layla wants to go to her, press her face into the Mommy’s lap and try to calm her. I try to remind her that the Mommy isn’t like us. Just to prove a point I tug our hair a little, Layla cries out when a bunch of it comes off in her hand, I laugh, “Did that hurt?” I tell her, “Funny! I didn’t feel a thing!”

The Mommy and Layla catch each other’s stare and I stop, it’s not good to confuse her, I don’t know why, but somehow I know you can’t let them catch on. You can’t let them know we’re different. I have to be a secret.

“Ssshh!” I whisper, “I’m not really here…” and I can’t help but giggle while I take us to our room. I know the Mommy is watching me go. She almost always does when I forget, when I come out in the living room. I have to be more careful. I need the Mommy.

“Al-ice!” Layla whines at me as soon as we have the door closed, “You’re gonna get us in trouble again!” Her voice is so much sweeter than mine; I think that’s how the Mommy can tell, because Layla can sing. The Mommy always looks at us funny when I try to sing with them. I start to sing now, while we pull the boards from the closet wall, ‘Golden Afternoon’ from the movie where we got my name. We saw it at the Grandma’s house last year. I almost never come out at the Grandma’s house, the old lady smells funny. I let Layla go there alone; I play by myself in our mind.

I like to watch the movies, though. Layla snuggles up next to the Grandma. Usually we fidget and fight, and the Grandma gets upset, but this movie was special. Something about that little girl and her daydreams caught me. We sat still as stone and the Grandma was so happy she gave Layla a cookie. After, in the backyard we found a family of opossums and played Queen of Hearts; I told Layla she had to call me Alice after that, it just felt right, and I never had a name before. That’s how we know Layla’s the real one, I’m just something else.

The air is hot in our lungs and Layla wants to rub the sweat out of our eyes, but I like the sting. Its not easy crawling between the walls, but it’s the only place where I can be with my things. I don’t think the Mommy knows about the little room, I think it sits between the hall bathroom and the den, there’s pipes. Layla always tries to stop at the entrance, she doesn’t like it here.

I like it here. It’s dark, and hot, and I don’t have to worry about them seeing me, I can take over for a while, in here it’s my turn. Layla doesn’t know how to go away, but I don’t let her steer, she has to just sit there and watch. The pipes make a lot of noise, so I can even talk and play with my treasures and not have to worry about being heard.

“Boxes of boxes of boxes,” I say to myself with a smile, the sound of my real voice as refreshing as the feel of the Daddy’s old cigar box in my hands. A whiff of that deep, sticky, oily scent, puffs from the box when I open the lid. Looking at my treasure makes me smile, I think back to the woods, playing with the opossum family, how upset the Grandma got when she found us, fresh blood on our cheeks; the taste of it on our lips. It was a hard moment for Layla, for sure, but she got through it. The next time we were there, the Grandma kept a stronger eye on us, but I got a little time and I was able to find where she put them and bring a piece back to my secret place. I pet the small patch of fur with one finger, and dream about the treasures I will find, and create, in time.