I can feel it. Little flashes of strangeness, stepping outside myself. It happens when I’m waking or falling into sleep, when I’m performing a mindless task that doesn’t require my attention. A disorientation that renders all my surroundings suddenly too vivid, as if I’m looking around at a new landscape. All the soft, well-worn familiarity has been stripped off to reveal a place that’s unnervingly foreign, every angle bristling and razor sharp.
Each time, right after I come back, I think her name: Sylvia. Sylvia. I remember in Room 12 when her husband’s knee touched mine, and how that moment tugged at the center of the neat knot of my life. Unraveling something.
Sylvia.
When I was a new body, there was one topic that always caught my attention as I sat alone in the waiting room. It was the only thing that sharpened my dreamlike listening into actual eavesdropping. Possession was a rare topic, always hushed: one person laughing, one chiding, another dismissive. The stories were less specific anecdotes than hints and suggestions. But it was enough to grip my imagination. These bodies who opened themselves up to loved ones and then never came back. Their homes stolen out from under them by sly houseguests.
I’d lie in bed at night and picture it. My body no longer mine. My hands not mine, my mouth closing around another woman’s words. I’d wonder: Did it happen all at once? Would I close my eyes as the lotus slipped down my throat and then never open them again? Or was it a slow process, a wearing away? The gradual invasion of impulses and dreams and instincts, of preferences and thoughts?
Five years ago, the idea of this happening didn’t inspire any particular fear. Just a numb curiosity. As the years passed and I stayed myself, I forgot to worry about it; no matter how many lotuses I swallowed, I’d blink awake each morning in my own bed, firmly tied to my own flesh. I let go of that fear, relegating it to the same place as all the other things I ignored and overlooked.
On Tuesday, I’m sick. It strikes without warning. My jaw closes in on itself. I’m light-headed, my body rolling out from under me. I rush from Room 12, barely making it to the restroom before I’m gagging.
Afterward, I reapply Sylvia’s lipstick in the mirror. My face is so pale and damp that it has a strange newness to it, like the skin that grows back over a wound. In contrast, Sylvia’s lipstick is darker than ever. Draining me to sustain its color.
The restroom door clatters open. A body with short black hair enters, stopping short when she catches sight of me. Her face reflects my surprise.
“Ana,” I say. “I didn’t know you were working again.”
“Good morning to you too, Edie,” Ana says. Other than Lee, she’s one of the few bodies I talk with regularly. We’re friendly in an accidental way. Ana comes and goes, working for a few months and then disappearing, her patterns secretive and erratic.
“No offense,” Ana says now, “but I don’t think that’s your color.”
It takes me a moment to catch on. “It’s for a client,” I say. “His wife’s.”
She laughs. “His wife had shit taste.” Ana hovers behind me in the mirror for a moment. Her fingers flash over her inky hair. “Oh, come on. Don’t give me that look. The color is a little much for someone as pasty as you, that’s all.”
“It’s not about me.”
“No, of course not,” Ana says. “Of course not.” She plucks a hairpin from near her temple and sticks it between her lips. The pin juts like a snake tongue. “You know how they say blush makes you look like you just orgasmed?” Ana says, muffled. She plucks the pin from her mouth. “I was reading in a magazine that women wear lipstick to remind men of their labia.” She emphasizes the last word, popping her lips around it like she’s working over a lollipop.
My lips are suddenly leering and obscene. I drop my eyes. Beneath the embarrassment, there’s a rush of excitement. “That’s not appropriate,” I say.
“I don’t see why not.”
“You know why not.” Clutching Sylvia’s lipstick, I feel foolish and uncovered. As if a stranger just slid an exploring hand up my skirt.
Ana angles her face from side to side, sucking in her cheeks, then smooths down her hair. Floating next to her in the mirror, my own reflection feels extraneous. Ghostly. “By the way,” Ana says, “I was wondering if you’ve seen Thisbe around lately.”
“Thisbe,” I repeat.
She sighs. “Please tell me you know her.” When I don’t respond, she prompts: “Tiny thing. Blond? Your color, maybe. She joined at the start of the year.”
“I know who she is,” I say.
“So you’ve seen her around? She owes me some money.”
“She left,” I say. “Not long after you did.”
In the mirror, Ana’s gaze meets my own. She seems on the verge of speaking. Then she turns, moving away as quickly as she came.
“Good luck with your client,” she says.
Mr. Braddock. Welcome back.”
I find myself watching closely as Patrick moves to sit. His movements carry an automatic assuredness, the muscle memory of better days. It makes him vulnerable and powerful at the same time. I imagine the women in his life bringing him home-baked pies in low-cut dresses, making dewy promises that they’ll do whatever they can to help him through this difficult time.
I angle my knees away from Patrick’s. “A small piece of business, Mr. Braddock,” I say. “You left your wife’s lipstick here at the Elysian Society last week.”
He blinks. “I left it for you,” he says. “I want you to have it.”
“I see.” My face betrays nothing. “Do you have a special message for your wife today?”
He runs his thumb quickly over his chin. “Not really. I want to talk to her again, same as last time.” He smiles. “Does it help you, knowing what I’ll say to my wife?”
“This is about you and Sylvia. Don’t think about me.”
Patrick’s smile deepens. “Hard to do when you’re sitting right there.”
“Think of me as a means to an end.”
“That seems a little harsh,” he says. “How many people do you work with in a day, anyhow?”
“It depends,” I say after a second of hesitation. “Some days five or six. Other days fewer.”
“And it doesn’t get hard on you, doing this with so many people?”
I consider Patrick, stalling. With a few male clients, I detect flashes of a proprietary attitude in the way they stare at me. But I recall Patrick’s abashed smile in his photos and something shifts: I see in him the traces of a man who’s humbled by his own life, a man who tries conscientiously to balance the scales.
And here I am, a woman sitting in front of him in a dress as thin as tissue paper.
“It’s not difficult at all,” I say. “I enjoy my work. And now, Mr. Braddock, we should begin.”
Surprise passes over his face. “Of course. I apologize.”
After I swallow the lotus, I watch Patrick for as long as I can. As the eyelids lower, as my mind lifts away from the body, cloud light and drifting. He doesn’t move this time. He keeps to himself, maintaining a safe distance.
I open my eyes and look directly into Patrick’s. I’m smiling. The surface of my skin is warm and sparkling, my head heavy with a blissful drowsiness.
“I’ve missed you,” Patrick says, low. “You can’t know how much I’ve missed you.”
but I’ve been right here
A sharp splinter of confusion breaks through my happiness.
I’ve been right here all along
He leans forward. I know that he’s about to reach for me. He’s going to take my hand in his, run his thumb along my skin. Something else gives. My smile turns heavy on my face. A limb that’s fallen asleep. He becomes a client again, and I’m a body, untouchable and temporary.
“Mr. Braddock,” I say, with an effort.
Patrick sits back. He doesn’t hide the movement of his gaze over my mouth, my hands in my lap, my bare feet planted on the floor. I sit, barely breathing as I allow him to piece me back together.
“Aren’t you cold?” he asks. “I’m cold looking at you. It’s freezing in here.”
“Not at all,” I say. “I’m quite comfortable.”
He stares at my bare arms. “I feel like I should offer you my coat.”
“That won’t be necessary.” I catch an unexpected note in my words. Close to flirtatiousness; a bright spill against my voice.
Patrick smiles, but he’s distracted, seriousness already moving in behind the smile. “Tell me something,” he says, near a whisper now. “Do you remember?”
I shake my head.
“After you take that,” he says, flicking a hand toward the lotus, “do you remember what you say? What she says,” he corrects.
“Mr. Braddock, bodies don’t have access to these exchanges,” I say. “It’s a private process. Don’t worry.”
“I know, but—”
There’s a staccato series of taps on the door. Jane opens the door to Room 12 and leans in, expression bland. “Mr. Braddock,” she says, “I’d be happy to direct you toward the exit if you’ve forgotten the way.”
“No,” he says at once, and his voice has turned formal. “Thank you. I remember.”
As Patrick leaves Room 12, he hesitates for the briefest moment on the threshold, as if he wants to turn and look at me. But then he walks into the corridor, and the part of my brain that follows him as if magnetized, sensitive to his every move, strains after him.
“Quite the chatterbox,” Jane says, once he’s out of earshot. “Isn’t he?”
I straighten my shoulders. “No more than some of the others,” I say, daring myself to look at her coolly and evenly.
“Hmm.” She gazes at my mouth. “He’s the one with the wife and the lipstick?”
“Mr. Braddock is a good client,” I say. “He’s reliable and polite. I’ll be glad if he stays with me.”
“Oh, he will,” Jane says, dismissive now. Patrick left the chair skewed when he left. She takes the back of the chair with both hands and straightens it in one neat, aggressive movement. “That type always stays with the same body.”
At home, I’m edgy. I walk through my routine: dinner, washing dishes, watching TV, folding laundry. I try to focus, but I find myself staring off into space, clutching a half-folded blouse like it’s a prop that someone forced into my hand.
Patrick’s question in Room 12 has echoed through the rest of my day. Usually, I experience my client’s loved ones as abstract and raw-edged presences. Vivid, quickly fading scraps of other lives.
I was evasive with Patrick in Room 12 today. The truth is that Sylvia’s memories have lingered. One image in particular, clear and deep. I remember Patrick’s hand against me, at my waist. The golden hairs at his wrist, his long fingers holding the ghost of a summer tan. One or two fingernails endearingly frayed, as if he bites them when nobody is watching. I could reach right into the memory, interlace my fingers with his. Feel the light calluses of his fingertips.
In the bathroom, I lie in the bathtub, the rush of water surrounding me. My proportions distort slightly beneath the surface. I reach my hand between my legs. Although I haven’t touched myself like this in months, my muscles begin the movement automatically.
When everything in me turns tight and frantic with desire, I slip my upper body under the surface. The water laps warm against my lips. Against my ears, all I can hear is a pulsating and distant roar. My hips lift of their own accord, greedy for more.
I submerge my entire head. My nose stings. I open my eyes, stare through the water at the creeping stains on the ceiling, until my lungs burn. At the moment when I think my entire body will pop like a balloon, I come up gasping.
In the silvery surface of the faucet, my face is so warped it could belong to anybody. My wet hair, my wild eyes, my mouth a dark, open smear as I suck in breath after breath after breath.