Alley Strays
I.
He forbids her to sing in the house. She has free roam in all other regards (burns the nightlight down to the wick). But when she sings, she runs a pitchfork through him each time those sweet, hateful melodies burst from her mouth. She's got the uncanny ability to make any tune sad. She'll gut him, if he lets her sing.
II.
As children, they stitched up stray cats and dogs, squirrels and raccoons, in their garage—their makeshift animal hospital. With her nimble, little fingers, Sissy elegantly folded back the flaps of skin and revealed the beating hearts.
A doctor. She should've been a doctor, would've made a fucking fantastic doctor. Except, she was too kind. She always wanted to nurse the buggers, long after they've died and started to rot. Buried deep under their suburban yard (all two feet of it).
When they entered their teens, when he was leaving for college, when she was still stuck in the shithole of quotidian well-done briskets and mothers chopping up magnolias. That was when everything went to hell.
III.
She flies in and out of his life, sucked-dry of control and inhibition and all those other abilities that make a person human. She's forever bent on destroying herself and dragging him down along the way. Through the muck and fire, grisly and raw, until he's just as charred and ugly and beautiful and crazy and fucked as she is.
And then she'll be satisfied.
Only then.
"Hey, have you been drinking?" he asks, tasting the hot whiskey on her breath miles away.
She laughs into the mobile. Her voice is raspy and verging on hysterics. She's still anemic from her overzealous stint with the knife. She wasn't supposed to be out. She wasn't supposed to—
"Sissy, are you there? Sissy?"
"Don't know. Maybe, I think. I'm so lost, Brandon. Where am I? Can you see me?"
"This isn't funny. Where the fuck are you?"
"I don't know. It's so bright here, like I'm tunneling through a pillow of neon. Please get me, please hurry. I'm scared."
"Okay, stay there. I'll find you. Don't worry, baby, I'll find you."
Hurry, Brandon. Please.
IV.
The doctor is relentless in her stare. Her almond eyes are sharp and disdainful. She is petite and skinny and her tiny breasts peep through the pale silk. Brandon feels himself hardening, resists the urge to reach between her legs and stroke her cunt. He could make her wet.
Is Asian pussy tighter?
"Sorry, what did you say, Mr. Sullivan?"
"She's certainly a fighter. I could never win when we were kids. She takes cheap shots."
The doctor smiles. "I have full confidence that your sister will be fine. It's very kind of you to have escorted her here."
"I'm a bit overprotective, you could say."
The doctor smiles again. "Well, she's lucky to have you for a brother."
V.
The bathroom, where she sliced her wrists, singing hymns and whispering mantras, is an ugly stained brown. It is faint, nearly invisible gouache of chocolate spread thin over pristine tiles. But he knows it is there, feels it.
Waiting for him. Every night, it grows larger and larger. A berating, haunting, taunting. It is the place where he lit the pyre to all his secrets. Watches patiently as his black and mangled static life disintegrates.
Humming, he kneels to scrub the floor. He does not dare contemplate anything beyond the droning of Paganini, afraid of the mysterious wonders trapped in the cosmic vomit. The agonizing humbleness incurred by theurgic revelations.
Brandon groans as a wave of pain rushes over, scalding the nape of his neck (this is what the Japanese call eriashi). Stars explode behind his eyelids as he crashes headfirst into the hard whiteness.
VI.
"Brandon, do you think it's okay for your doctor to be dating your therapist?"
Brandon almost chokes on a mouthful of pad Thai. He washes down the chili-fried shrimp with a healthy swig of beer. Dark, Belgian. Very nice. "Sorry, what?"
Sissy sighs, curling up against him. She laces her legs with his, desperate for that elusive warmth. Instinctively, he wraps an arm around her and brings her in (bound with his sickness). Even though he knows he shouldn't—don't, can't, stay.
"Go away, Sissy," he says, half-jokingly. "You need a bath."
She punches him lightly, snuggling closer. "So is it okay?"
"What the hell are you talking about?"
"Oh god, you never listen! What do you think of them dating?"
"Who?"
"My doctor and my therapist. I saw them in SoHo yesterday. They were kissing outside a café. Dr. Long had a cappuccino. She likes it very rich and creamy. And Allison was kissing her, licking the milk froth off her mouth."
"Your doctor's pretty hot."
Sissy rolls her eyes. "Don't you think it's a bit unethical?"
"Why? They have lives, too. They're also people. Dating, fucking, that's what people do."
"No. That's what you do, Brandon. People, real people, live."
As mortals, we cling hopelessly to any vague promise of eternity.
VII.
She's singing again. Oh goddamn it. Oh sweet, fucking, mother of Christ. Oh fucking make it stop, please God.
Clear, sweet, and low. A voice of the angels, demonic in its pursuit. She'll never leave. She'll devour him and then immolate herself.
"Sissy?"
"In the shower!" she screams back. Obviously.
"I have dinner."
"Is it Chinese again?"
"No, Italian."
She emerges thirty minutes later, a towel grazing her short, bleached hair, and shrugs into one of his shirts. The material is lyocell. Softer than cotton and sturdier than linen. Resistant to wrinkles (to all the worries and toils of the heart). Expensive, luxurious. She wears it like common polyester, brutal in her gestures.
Sneaking up behind him, she wraps her arms around his neck, nuzzling his cheek. Her downy hair is wet, and two fat drops of water cut his jaw. Then, suddenly, she swings around and straddles him, pressing her body against his.
Softly, she whispers: "I'm sorry, Brandon. I'm so sorry. I don't want to die. Not really."
He holds her as she mutters low and frantic into his throat. And two more fat drops fall down.
VIII.
He knows what's wrong with her, and she knows. And he pretends that it's nothing, and she plays along.
Sissy's bipolar (but they'll never say).
IX.
For a while, he thinks he's cured. He can stifle the desires, curb them before they expanded and roared, clawing out from his insides until he can't breathe anymore. The sensation is old, savage in its familiarity. Comforting, sort of. If you liked that kind of thing—
Do you want a drink?
They scoff. What do you think this is, buddy? A fucking courtship?
Succumbed, he crawls into the bathroom and gropes blindly for his cock. He doesn't bother turning on the light (better in the dark). He'd probably suck himself if he could. He'd get on his knees and fellate himself and it'd be fucking amazing.
Self-love, self-fuck, that's the goal of evolution.
X.
He doesn't mean it, doesn't even want it. But it happens. Mocking, a curse.
As he thrusts into this-that woman, their face(s) merge and blend and blur and swirl. Like a shattered mosaic in a botched excavation, they're scattered without anyone to pick up the shards.
Sissy appears, right on cue. Her blonde head bobbing to the tune. Bach's Variations on repeat. A concerto, a bagatelle, sonata, now the aria. And he pushes her back, parts her thighs, and slips inside. She is warm and tight. She doesn't resist. He begins his exploration. Her nipples are rosy and taut. He sucks on them—hard enough to make her cry.
She brushes through his hair, fluttering past the scar at the back of his head. And then she is absolutely still. And he feels right at home.
XI.
Brandon cradles her like she's a newborn kitten. She is so small and quiet. He feels the faint though steady beating of her heart. Throbbing in her chest, behind a fortress of comforter and his favorite shirt, it guesses its way back to life.
But he's not optimistic. She won't survive (not a second time around). No god is that generous.
When people really want to die, they always find a way.
XII.
There is a dull rain outside. Whimpering, lambasting. The clouds sneer at him, wanting to see how he will retaliate. If he somehow will.
Heignores them, bars his ears and gouges his eyes to the temptations of thunder and purging. Slowly, Brandon circumambulates his apartment, determined on his itinerary. He picks up the clothes Sissy had haphazardly tossed aside, discarded as she stripped for sleep.
She likes two eggs and three bacons in the morning. A glass of juice. A slice of toast, dry like the Sahara. When she wakes, he'll bring her breakfast. He'll be the best brother in history.
Hi, Brandon. It's Dr. Long again. I tried calling earlier, but it didn't seem like you were in. I'm really sorry, Brandon. Please call me back. I want to make sure you're okay.
He deletes the message and carefully folds one of Sissy's sweaters, thinking of taking it to her at the club she's performing. She gets cold so easily. And it's not quite spring.
He forgets that she won't ever sing again.