Hugh crashes down—falls out of the dream-sky. Wide awake. The daily shock of consciousness. How do you keep your mind from eating itself? He reaches for his phone … 5 a.m.
He slept.
He looks up, dim light. The old slanted ceiling. For a fraction of a second, confused, he thinks, Oh no. But— Oh. This is a change in the program. Letting his head fall to the left he stares at Ivy’s dark head, nose, her closed eyelids that slant at the corners and hide her consciousness from him. Her cheek is pale in the still-shadowy room. She brushes her fingers across her mouth. Even in this light, he can see the pores in her skin, he is so close.
You can’t know another person. We cannot know each other. It’s hopeless.
Her eyebrows are thick, matted, the hairs almost braided together, dark against the white of her skin. Blue veins show in her eyelids. They match the map of blue veins on her breast, slipped from the sheet, pearl or ivory texture. Doeskin, dear skin.
You shouldn’t—listen, don’t kid yourself. This will never work.
But Ivy, not asleep, not waking, says, “I know you. You are Hugh.” Or perhaps she said, “I know Hugh. You are you.” Their arms go round each other and they might make love. But instead, because we were up very late, you and I, they fall asleep.
Hugh wakes again; he listens to the hesitating tender percussion of rain, not much of it, eavesdripping, broken rhythm. It’s 5:40. Time to go. Of anything in the world, at this moment, Hugh least wants Ann to find him lying here, however new the bed.
On the other hand, his headache is a little better. He turns slowly in the bed, so Ivy won’t wake. Kisses her pale cheek. Slides out of sheets, dresses in the cold dawn air. The window will make noise. If he’s fast and silent, he can take the stairs.
He finds his phone and texts Ivy: > let me know when your eyes open
Sees the text light up on her bedside table. Good, okay. Bedroom door open, shut. His feet know the treads, know the count of stairs to the empty, black-scribbled living room. The front door opens and closes without appreciably disturbing the silence.
He shuffles into his shoes. First, Mimi. Make her happy too, at least for a moment.
Lying on Savaya’s bed in the sunrise after a long party, reading Oscar Wilde—Savaya, what is this doing on your bedside table, crazy girl? Audition fodder?
It’s quiet now, everyone tired, Savaya’s parents too stoned to yell. While she puts the Desire/Despair costume on again for Jason, Orion reads Salome out loud: “It is thy mouth that I desire, Iokanaan. Thy mouth is like a band of scarlet on a tower of ivory.”
Worrying, really, the volume of porn watched by today’s youth. Jason’s mom freaking out, as if Jason even— But apparently it’s not good for you, makes you dependent. Except that, except, he is not dependent. Not incapable. “O tower of ivory, oh, mouth upon it.”
Savaya glances at the book. “I tried it, but I couldn’t do all that thy moutheth cometh stuff. Terry gave it to me to look through.”
Huh! Was that Terry He, or Terry Her? Like temple acolytes in a weird rite, L holds the gold cloth taut and Jason snips, to underscore the slashes over and under the right breast. Shit, Savaya is a tall, tall girl. She could be so great, if she would just keep her head in the game, and quit fucking assholes like Pink, or whatever’s going on there, which she won’t talk about. She wields a bright gold lipstick in the mirrored door. She was so good as Stanley Kowalski.
“Thy Mouth is like a branch of coral that fishers have found in the twilight of the sea, the coral that they keep for the kings.”
“It’s either too early in the morning for lipstick,” Savaya says, staring at herself, “or too late at night.” She wipes her mouth off. The burnt-black hem trails at the back right down to the red stilts of her Despairing round-heeled, down-at-heel shoes.
There is nothing in the world so red as thy mouth.
Where’s the phone?
> Suffer me to kiss thy mouth.
In twenty seconds, it pings back. Always right on cue.
< Never! daughter of Babylon! Daughter of Sodom! never!
He texts, sings, shouts, > I will kiss thy mouth, Iokanaan. I will kiss thy mouth.