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Blood

prelude: January

     She opened the door, home from work.  He sat in the living room,
reading a paper.
     "Hey, baby," she said.  He smiled, got up from the couch and
kissed her thoroughly, rumpled her suit, messed up her hair.
     "How are you?" he said.
     "Okay."  She put her briefcase down.  "Friedrickson's going nuts
because the new layout doesn't have 'pizzaz.'"  She spoke in
Friedrickson's gravelly voice for a moment.  "You?"
     "Fine.  The city doesn't like our design for the new center
building, so we have to re-do it."  He waved his arms about his head.
"Mr. Cooper, this design surely is not your final word on the
building."  He smiled.  "I resisted the impulse to point out that he
was mixing his metaphors."
     "Metaphors?  Phetamors?  Amphetamines?  The mayor's on
amphetamines?  Horrible!"  He grabbed her and bit her on the neck.
She ran her hands up under his shirt, her cold hands.  He gasped in
surprise, but continued nibbling.  They ended up on the floor, her on
top of him, lying quietly.  He spoke, his voice muffled by her hair,
"dinner?"
     "Sure," she said, rubbing an itch on her nose against his
shirtfront.  His white oxford bloomed red stains in her passing, and
she winced and grabbed her nose.  "Oops, 'nother nosebleed."
     He let her go and she raced for the bathroom, there stuffing wads
of Kleenex up her balky nose.  He yelled from the kitchen.
     "Chinese okay?"
     "Great."
     "I'll call it in."
     "Sorry about your shirt."
     "This being the third one ruined so far."
     "I know.  I'm sorry."
     He appeared in the doorway to the bathroom, the portable phone in
his hands, grinning at her.  "Grounds for immediate breakup, I would
say."
     She threw a wad of Kleenex at him.  "Just order the damn
Chinese."

once a month: February

     She didn't remember what started the argument, their first real
argument.  She didn't really know why they were arguing.  But they
were arguing, and arguing violently.
     "Stop being such an anal retentive control freak, dammit."  He
scowled at her.
     "Anal retentive?  That's a laugh.  You're the most puckered
person I know and you think I'm retentive?"
     "Yeah, I think you're fucking retentive."  He stretched the
syllables of the word out.  "I think that you have this deep-seated
need to control everything and everyone around you, to make sure they
do everything your little heart desires."
     "You bastard.  I so much as talk to another man for more than a
minute and you look at me like I'm a whore.  I'm not trying to control
you, you just have this fevered belief I am.  Are you so insecure?
Does it bother you that much that I earn more money than you do?"  His
face grew redder and redder.  "Is your dick really that small?"  She
drawled.
     He looked at her for a moment, face flushed, and then quietly
said, "Bitch," and walked out the door.
     She didn't move; certainly didn't cry.  Just didn't move.  The
fierce welling of anger and triumph inside her waxed and waned.  The
broken shards of glass that seemed to fill her lungs slowly
disappeared as she took several deep breaths.  Finally, with a
coughing sigh, she pushed herself off the sofa and went to the
bathroom to take a shower.  That was when, stripping her clothes off,
she noticed the crimson stains marking her skirt and underwear: her
period, ahead of schedule.

interlude: bed

     "I'm sorry."
     "I am too.  I don't know what makes me say those things."
     "Our first bad argument."
     "Yeah."
     "I didn't like it."
     "I didn't either."
     "Let's not do it again."
     "I don't know if that's a promise we can keep."
     "Well, let's try."
     "Okay."
     "I love you."
     "I love you too."

once a week: March
     
     The argument started, he guessed, because of a sarcastic remark
he made about her sister.  But it quickly progressed into other
things.  It was their third in as many weeks.  Third bad one; third
vicious, angry, unrepentant argument.  He felt the familiar icy calm
settle over him, the calm that came when he was angry, that made him
cut and hurt, slash and destroy.  He looked at her face
dispassionately; even now, stone-visaged and angry, he remembered his
love for her.  But that love felt distant, buried deep under the
arctic flows of his calmness.
     "Don't you understand?" She was saying.  "It's not just the one
remark.  It's a whole pattern of things, of little, negative comments
that you make.  This isn't good enough for you...you think I could do
that better.  Like at the grocery store the other day--nothing I said
was right.  I was trying and you just stood there, back inside your
head, offering these cute, unemotional, cutting criticisms.  Then you
just snatched the list out of my hand and walked away.  Dammit, don't
you understand?"
     "No, I don't.  Frankly, I think you're overreacting."  He hated
the calmness, the iciness, but his hatred didn't prevent a glow of
strength, of satisfaction, filling his chest at his control.
     "Don't you fucking tell me I'm overreacting."
     "Well, I'm sorry, but I think you're being too sensitive."
     "You patronizing bastard."  She hit him then.  Struck him on the
face with her open hand, halted for a moment, and then, with a
measured look, struck him again.  He smiled at her, so lost in the
depths of his self-possession that nothing else could get inside.
     "That's not going to help anything."
     She looked at him for a moment, looked at his face.  She turned
and walked into the kitchen and slammed the door shut.  It wasn't
until she left that he put his hand up to his face, to rub the sting
away.  His fingers came back with a streak of red.  He felt again,
felt the cut in his lip that was, by slow degrees, leaking blood down
his face.  He mopped at it with his hankerchief and watched the
arterial stain spread, obliterating the initials monogrammed in a
corner.

interlude: bed

     "Christ, do you think we can manage a week without cutting each
others' throats?"
     "I don't know.  I can't...I don't mean the things I say when we
argue.  Well, I do, but I don't want to.  Shit, I can't say this."
     "I understand, I think."
     "We've just to listen to each other.  Not cut ourselves off."
     "Yeah."
     "Love you."
     "Ditto."

once a day: April

     They had lost the energy of change in their arguments now, she
thought.  No longer did they fight to make the other person see their
side, to explain themselves, to create empathy in the other person.
Now they directed the energy into harm, into violence, cows leading
each other into the slaughterhouse, to the men with big-bladed knives
in their hands, there to feel their throats cut and their life-blood
spill upon the floor.
     She looked at him and could not hear what he said.  His lips
moved, his face twisted, and sounds leapt from his mouth, but she
could not cohere them, could not fit sense around them.  Meaningless
noises that failed to wound because they did not connect.  The wounds
that tore came from his tone of contempt, his expression of loathing,
and the uncrossable physical distance between them.
     She tried to listen, tried to focus on his words, knowing that
ignoring him would only make things worse.  She caught a few words, a
few phrases, but nothing that came together and made sense.  Defeated,
she let her head sag back onto the sofa, breathed heavily out of her
mouth, and let the tears trickle down the side of her face and pool in
her hair.
     They fought every day now.  Fought over trivial things, over
major things, over everything.  The subject did not matter; for
anything they brought out the long knives and cut each other.  They
made up, they always made up, but the words of contrition and the
pledges of renewed love and effort were meaningless, shiny polish on a
used car with a failing and dangerous engine.
     She realized that, thinking this, she had unconsciously bit
through her lower lip.  Warm saltiness filled her mouth and ran down
her chin.  As she got up to go to the bathroom, she spat her mouthful
of blood onto his chest, the crimson making a stark contrast to his
white shirt.
     "There," she said with difficulty, feeling the rage and power
burn within her again.  "That makes four shirts I've ruined for you."
     He, startled into silence, watched her go into the bathroom and
slam the door.  He could not breath, could not think.  His control
gripped him tightly, in the chest, constricting his lungs and heart
until the roar pulsed in his head.  There was tempting glory in
fighting, in clawing, and in winning; but there was also pain, the
pain of cutting your own wrist, of digging deep into the veins to
reach the lifeblood and then watching it pulse outward.  He sat there,
unable to move, his emotions holding him tightly to his chair.
     From the bathroom came sounds of spitting and coughing.

finale: bed

     In bed they lie facing, close together, but not touching, staring
in the dark, toothpaste-flavored breath washing over each other.  One
small light provides dim illumination, the room flickering between
color and black-and-white.  He reaches out and touches her arm; she
does not move, does not change the rhythm of her breath.  He holds his
hand there for a moment and then pulls it away, holding it in the air
above her; whether to caress her or slap her, she is not sure.  He is
not sure.  She reaches up and grips his wrist, brings his hand slowly
down to her face, puts his palm to her mouth, to her swollen lower
lip; whether to kiss it or bite it, he is not sure.  She is not sure.
There is a moment when either could happen, and then she licks his
palm.
     He is startled, and breathes out heavily.  His penis swells; he
can feel the tension in his testicles.  He moves closer to her,
shuffles in the bed until they are but an inch apart, almost touching,
almost together.  He can see her face dimly, outlined around his hand.
He slides his other arm under her, presses against her back and pulls
her against him.  He takes his other hand from her grasp and clasps
her buttocks.  He pulls her groin against his erection, the thin
cotton of his boxers and her panties only a bare shield between them.
     She feels his chest against hers, feels the hair tickling her
collarbone.  A heaviness begins to pool in her stomach.  It is
excitement, yet in some way she knows it is related to the hot, fierce
glory that fills her when they fight.  It is nothing like when they
have made love before.  This is not love, she thinks to herself, this
is sex, this is fucking.  She lifts one leg up, and wraps it around
his hips, pulling his hard-on closer, rubbing it against herself.  She
puts her teeth against the juncture of his neck and shoulder, gathers
a fold of flesh between them, and bites down hard.
     He knows the pain, but it does not matter; does not detract but
adds.  He feels hollow inside; hollow as the blood in his body rushes
to engorge his penis.  She once accused him of being too focused on
his penis in bed, too much a prisoner of penetration; he knows that it
is true, knows that in bed he is controlled by it not it controlled by
him.  But he cannot explain the sensation, cannot dredge the words to
say what it is like when something normally innocuous becomes a
raging, demanding presence.  When the blood rushes from his head and
heart to his groin, he cannot fight it; he can delay, prevaricate, and
avoid, but cannot contest it.
     This time, he finds, is different.  The blood-hollowness inside
him is filled by a control akin to what he feels during an argument.
He finds himself, again, frigidly calm.  Now, the pulsing of his
erection is distant; urgent, but contained by the winds that blow
within him, by the walls shielding him.  He is in control, but he does
not know if it is the control of arousal, or the control of anger.  He
pushes her down and rolls on top of her, pinning her beneath him.
With one hand, he slides up her T-shirt, off her breasts and up to her
neck.  He leans down and takes one erect nipple in his mouth, licks
it, scrapes it with his teeth; he could bite down, but he does not.
     She frees her arms and runs her hands down his back, pushes his
boxers down, and grasps his penis firmly.  She knows he is vulnerable
now; knows that she has him, literally, by the balls.  Her thoughts
are of victory and defeat, struggle and survival, power and dominance.
She normally thinks none of this, but, she reminds herself, this is
fucking, this has nothing to do with love.  She wants to reverse
things, to say 'I fuck him', object, verb, subject, to make him take
something of hers within him, to understand penetration.  She wants to
break his control, to take his soundless calm away from him.
     They make no noise as they fuck: no more whispered endearments,
no traditional sighs and grunts, no other noises.  They have not
kissed each other.  Silently, they thrash together on the bed.
     He holds her there, under him.  He is stronger than she is;
perhaps he could not run as far, perhaps he will die younger, but
there, for that moment, he is stronger than she is; can hold her
pinned under him, control her physically even as he controls himself
emotionally, with a constricted grip.  He rears back, kneeling between
her legs, slides her panties down off her pelvis; they widen as they
slip down her spread legs.  He pushes her legs together and slips the
underwear off.  She is naked now, except for the T-shirt still bunched
around her neck; his boxers bind his knees together.  He spreads her
legs again, cups the dark hair of her pubis for a second, mimicking
her still-firm grip upon his penis, and moves then forward, downward.
     She cannot stop him, cannot prevent him from sliding inside her.
To close her legs would not work; he is too strong.  To ask him not to
would betray herself, would defeat her, by the rules of this fight.
Thus he penetrates her, rides her, and she has a lost a small battle.
It is not rape; she has been raped and knows its impotence.  It is
instead merely a losing move on a larger game board, a move that will
be followed by many other thrusts, victories and defeats.  Set back
for the moment, she will recover.  She still makes no noise as he
moves slowly within her; he is in control, excited but deliberately
far from release.
     It is then, as they move together, that the blood comes.  No
cuts, no wounds presage its presence; nothing physical causes it, it
just comes.  The first trickle slides down her nose, a scarlet drip
obscuring her upper lip.  Neither pays it attention, both wrapped in
each other, in their struggle.  The second flow starts from his chest,
from the bare skin and hair; a liquid gush slides down his abdomen and
pools in the vee of their connected bodies.  More drips from his lips,
hitting her between the breasts.  As they move, the blood mixes with
their sweat and smears their bodies; rapid paint-strokes of red
obscuring their skin.  The sheets absorb it as it rains from them but
more and more comes: from deep within her, sliding around his penis,
surges hot dark uterine blood; from his ears, his naval, his armpits,
pours bright arterial blood; from their pores, like sweat, beads
near-bluish venous blood.  They slide together, on an ensanguined
field, dyed crimson but still connected.
     They notice the blood now, of course they notice, but they do not
care.  They feel no illness from it; the reverse, instead, they feel
stronger, more excited, fiercer.  It seems natural; they are fucking
and there is blood.  She is still losing, the game fought still; her
body has betrayed her with an orgasm, a silent welling rush that
filled and weakened her.  But she made no noise, the silent distance
in her mind keeping her teeth clenched shut even as the tendons on her
neck stood out.  He still moves above her, silent and tight in his
control.  Completely red now, they move in a pool of sheets and blood
and their own effort; and still crimson continues to flow from them.
The blood is warm and viscous; it steams as it leaves their bodies.
     She knows now how to win a battle; knows how to regain some of
her losses.  He, clamped between her legs, is vulnerable to her long,
powerful, thigh muscles, perhaps the only muscles that rival his for
strength.  Even as another orgasm pulses through her, stopping only at
her shut mouth, she uses her legs and the slipperiness of the bed to
forcibly roll on top of him.  They slide sideways on the bed, ending
up diagonally across it; she now rides above him.  The effort brings a
fresh wash of blood from her womb that swirls and eddies in his own
scarlet streams.  But it is not enough; he stays silent and with his
hands on his hips he can contest control with her.  So she wets her
middle finger in her mouth and then, reaching behind her, slides it in
one swift movement, into his anus.
     He screams then, a short, chopping cry of penetration and
release.  His calm breaks and he bucks under her, finally caught in
his orgasm.  Semen and blood, mixed, puddle between them.  A battle
won for her; the war ended again in stalemate, as it always is.
     The power of the contest fades from them both, and they look, at
each other, at their bodies, at the bed.  The blood is clotting now,
crusty clumps sticking in jigsaw patterns to their skin.  When they
move, it crumbles off them, brownish ash drifting to the sheets.  The
bed gleams ruby in the lamp's glow and the sharp, metallic stink of
blood and semen and sweat fills their nostrils.  She thinks, crazily,
that they are not touching, that even with his penis still inside her,
their skins do not connect, merely press layers of blood against
blood.  The cut throat of a dying human could not produce so much
blood, he thinks; there is no corpse, human or otherwise, but
something has surely died here.
     "Jesus Christ," he says, in disgust, sliding as he attempts to
prop himself up on his elbows.
     She looks down at him with faint contempt.  "I don't think so,"
she says, and looks away.