Gabrielle Taylor's "Cockluck"
April 05, 2002
"His stage name was Lynd Valentine. He called himself Val. I didn't know his real name. One didn't ask."
the phone rang and rang. the answering machine picked up. why wasn't I returning his calls? who did I love, him or... didn't I? didn't I? was it, was it just, was it nothing?
"We were in a Midsummer Night's Dream together a while ago."
opening night his long dark hair thick and crumpled, windswept wild, stiff with spangles and paper leaves. body painted black and midnight blue beneath thigh-short green kilt. teeth predatorily white in his blue mouth. he looked like a spy plane
"I was Titania and he was Oberon."
I in ivory and platinum, my bare skin gilded, hair bleached and spindled into antennae, copper kohl roughed around my eyes, eyelashes spiked with long shiny barbs
"It was a cyberpunk interpretation of the Shakespeare. Very violent. Very physical. Except between Val and I. We had weak chemistry. Paul -- the director -- was furious."
"look at her! and you, look at him!" I, bored. Val clacked Oberon's spike-tipped metal gloves. he never touched me during the dress rehearsals. to turn in his direction was a tedious effort for me ]
"Until opening night."
he says, "Ill met by moonlight, proud Titania". he takes my waist in two claws that drag over my skin and tear my dress. I arch like a compass and hit him. I snap "what, jealous Oberon!"
"Opening night we were aggressive and careless. My costume was destroyed. Paul was delighted. The reviews were excellent. The next night I wore tissue and wrapping paper."
he is not tall but he carries himself well. his eyes are hard little green apricots
"After opening night we avoided each other."
"do you want to come for a drink...?" "with who?" "me and X and Y and Val" "no, thank you..." "...come for a drink?" "yes, I'll..." "Val...?" "not tonight..."
"In Midsummer Night's Dream there is the story of Pyramus and Thisbe as performed by villagers. Then, Oberon and Titania bless the newlywed Duke. In this version, Pyramus and Thisbe are hackers, and the wall... Anyhow. Oberon and Titania, who fight for most of the play, have made up by then. Normally we would be offstage, but in this version we float above the players on a transparent acrylic platform lit with blue and green neon, so the audience sees our outlines, but the players aren't supposed to know we're there."
we lie on the platform. his arm warm on my waist. opening night he does not know what to do. I feel him shake with holding still. I smell the makeup on him and smell the dust on Oberon's cloak and below that a trace of Val and his endless cups of coffee. I drop my head on my folded arm. his hand curls below my breasts and waits
"We're together every night. Indifference can't last under those circumstances."
the shock of lying together fades. he is careful in the dark with Oberon's terrible claws. he uses his wrists and his teeth. I never know what he is going to do. I am facing away but he can see me. I have never felt such smooth flesh so close
"We behave unprofessionally. On the platform. Every night after the first few."
he invents a hip move that hikes our skirts. he learns to lock the gauntlets that only the razor tips touch. smears me with blue and black paint from his depilated legs. each night the same liquid click as he... and then moves against me, carefully
"We never use understudies. We never take a night off."
his hand low on my belly, claws lightly pricking my skin. I clutch his wrist. I learn to grind my knuckles into his palm, to cover my mouth with his forearm
"The play runs for eight months."
closing night. by the end of the first act my costume no longer covers me. he is savage. I am somewhere, somewhere else
while Puck begs the audience for mercy I hurry to my dressing room. I throw on my white trenchcoat while the others bow. I stumble down the back stairs and tear off a silver spangled heel on a loose board. I fall
Val, running to the back door, a black trenchcoat over Oberon's cloaks and silver gloves, catches me
he whirls me out the door onto the concrete two-step. he picks me up. my knees clutch his waist. the moon is high and stark. he carries me down the alleyway, past sodden crushed cardboard and splintered crates. at the chain link fence is a narrow stretch of bare wall. he leans me against it
later he carries me to the street. he stops a cab. we strain into the back seat. we go to his three story walkup off Elgin. he is on the top floor. there is no elevator. he carries me up. he stops at each landing and balances me on the cool wooden bannisters
he finds his keys. his olive-painted chipped metal door, tagged 301, opens into a small, pine-paneled room with a massive skylight. it is filled with vivid green growing plants. we fall on his rough jute rug. my costume is gone but for the elaborate towering hairstyle. he is still in his cloak and trenchcoat. his hair torn into black dunes. he has lost one glove and the other refuses to come off. he pushes his bare hand into my golden mouth and smears the saliva over my throat
I stared into the street.
"Then what?"
our costumes lost snakeskins destroyed on his rough jute rug...
"A few weeks later he went to play Hotspur in another theatre. In another town. In another country. I haven't seen him since."
"Until last week."
"Until last week, yes." My face heated and tightened. "I didn't recognize him until he told me. He's cut off all his hair. And he was using his real name."
Posted by gtaylor at April 05, 2002 10:17 PM