Natural Magic
The boys who kiss and bite
They are the brilliant ones who speak and write with silver luck
And if the timing is right to sneak off into the night
I'll let myself be taken just for the Thrill
When the honeysuckle begins to pop in delicate bursts in the trees along the lane, all of the other women begin murmuring about how pretty Anko is. She doesn't see it. Every morning she crosses down the steps to her front lawn and stands in the too high grass, staring at herself in the windows of her house. She licks her hands and smoothes back her hair, turning her face attentively from side to side.
Her jaw is a little too round, and her eyes are big and too open. Like puddles of golden light in which you can peer in and see straight through to the briny bottom. You can never hide secrets in eyes like that. Also her legs are too skinny sticking out from the hem of her skirt like match sticks.
She always tugs her skirt down and smoothes back her hair. She can always smell the sweet almost sickly scent of the approaching spring in the air on the lane. So pungent at times that she imagines that inside her mouth flowers grow on her tongue into full bloom, uncurling one finger at a time. If only she was capable of such natural magic. The women go on with their whispers.
Every morning Anko walks up the streets alone. She lives alone with walls that keep her company, creaking and yelling, and groaning all during the achy days and inky nights. She sleeps on her stomach most nights, all the awful springs that have come uncoiled with old age sinking their teeth into her tender ribs. Even with the saggy pillows in their unraveling pillowcases pressed down over head she can still hear through the walls. The swears and shouts and death threats of her neighbors of the right, blending with the hot, thirsty, lover's noises of the neighbors on the left.
Anko envies them both. She doesn't have anyone to shout with and call her stupid. She doesn't have anyone to wait longingly for her in bed. She doesn't even have anyone to cut the grass, which is already tall enough to tickle the back of her knees, and doesn't seem to want to stop growing.
She instead has bottles of Windex and thousands, and thousands, and thousands of cabinets of colored, pressed linens with which to scrub the windows, and scour the door knobs, and wash the talking walls.
As far as Kakashi goes, she doesn't know what made her do it. Anko has always considered herself to be a completely sane woman. Perhaps a little off concerning some things, but generally sane. Someone who has never had a need for black candles on stormy nights, or dolls made from squares of potato sacks, their bodies stuffed fat with sowing needles. Or love. But then again, she doesn't know what to call this.
She cannot explain the sudden hunger in her. As if a tigress living in the folds of her cavernous insides has suddenly shaken itself awake after being docilely motionless for years. She walks around it seems in a fever, her skin so hot and flushed with color, people often ask her if she's okay. It all started when he wormed his way into her, through her ears. She can remember the exact dexterity of his voice over the miles that separated them.
"There's just something about you." as if he were right there next to her. Holding her hand, undoing her shirt.
"I like you too…" she had found herself saying, back, quickly before she could question herself. Twining the telephone cord around and around her finger like a school girl. She had looked outside her window then and everything seemed suddenly, irrevocably new. The houses looked different, the moon was bigger, the sky was clearer every, star imaginable floating out to shine. That was when the fever started.
She had tried taking baths in water cold enough to cut blue marks in the skin. She had tried sucking on ice cubes, and walking outside in the chilling rain barefoot. But nothing seemed to stop the burning inside her. And even though she closed her eyes at night and lied down in bed praying that something would relieve her of this sudden strangeness, she knew that nothing would. That nothing could ever be the same until he said to her "I know a place we can go." Until she agreed to meet him there.
And Tonight is the night. She has never been touched by a man. But Tonight is a night when she believes that anything can happen. When she can forget all of the boys who scrambled to get dressed again, fearing they had kissed the devil's mark, nestled innocently near the crevice of her collarbone. Forgetting all of the Saturday nights, the girls who overlooked her when they were going out, leaving her with bowls of popcorn and black and white movies, and teardrops that were not necessarily related to the films' unhappy endings. A night in which she can get what she has always wanted.
It's early February. But a thick snow began to fall in the grave keeper's hour of the night before, and now the blanket of frost is so thick on the ground, Anko's eyes burn even when she looks away, with the sheer whiteness of it, glowing as if ablaze with holy light.
She's careful to lock her door soundlessly behind her as she slips down the front stairs. Being careful not to interrupt the neighbors throwing prized French china at their walls, or disturb the ones throwing their bodies together,the thumping noises resounding remind her of young rabbits in heat. She doesn't want to start them talking.
Anko can feel little prickles growing up and down her spine. Lovebugs biting into the back of her neck and eager to sink their teeth into the juicy flesh. She will be glad to be rid of this fever. Even though she kind of likes the things it makes her do. The way it makes her feel as if she can think about anything she wants, as if there is no limit to her desires. She can imagine that all of the women would be jealous of her if they knew. Yes. If they knew about Tonight. Anko can feel the heat shifting around inside of her, someone poking the sleeping tigress with an angry red stick, saying urgently 'wake up'.
She blows on her mittened hands and rubs them together. At first she doesn't think Kakashi will be where he said he would be, but suddenly there he is, a misshapen shadow hunching over at the end of the lane. She starts walking towards him as if in a trance, as if pulled by the spell of his presence.
As she steps off of the lawn she suddenly feels unsteady on her feet. Suddenly wishes she had a reason to stay. She wishes there was someone sitting in her empty house worried for her safety, someone who would know if she didn't come back home when she promised she would, someone who would run wildly to the front door flinging themselves against her and begging her to stay. She looks back over her shoulder half expecting some spirit to appear there, her ears pricked to hear for a voice, any voice to call her name. You couldn't really count that silence a disappointment. Anko licks her lips. She forgets to smooth her hair or check her reflection. But she knows in the hottest part of her that if she looked into the window she wouldn't recognize the pepper red face staring back.
Then, she is following Kakashi into the snow. A place he knows on Lover's Hill where the carcass of an old warriors' wagon lies overturned, one half of it's hulking body buried in the Earth as if in memoriam of the lives lost in it. Some say the lives lost hang from the wagons on the darkest nights when the moon is a pale pink and the sky is a star-less purple, and the pigeons sing swan songs. That is where all of the youth go to make discoveries about their bodies. Because everyone knows the boys like ghosts and sex. Because everyone knows that thrill and danger are the sweetest cocktail when tossed down the throat, head back, eyes closed.
The hefty drifts of snow make the climb up the hill treacherously slippery. Anko has to concentrate extremely hard not to stumble. She can't help thinking that Kakashi would offer to hold her hand if he were a proper gentleman, but she doesn't mention it. Being frank with herself Anko is a little afraid of him
He's neither the boy she remembers, nor the man she always thought he'd be. He hasn't looked at her or spoken to her yet. Her mouth grows dry, and she can imagine that all of the flowers are dying all along the streets. That the lights in every house are giving out. That men and women are crawling into bed, figures with sugar plum lips locking in their heads. She rubs her hands together hard, trying to conjure up some of the electricity she felt floating around her before she left the house. Tonight, Anko reminds herself. She longs to say it a thousand times. She wonders if the way back is too tricky to make alone.
The wagon is frozen in time, it's back wheels spinning uselessly up in the air. Anko can envision the phantom fingers on the wheels, making them forever turn. The ice has climbed up to the windows of the wagon, is knocking on the doors, and shaking the splinters apart. She feels oddly as if something beautiful has died, gracefully bowed it's head and given its ghost up to the silver night.
Kakashi climbs into the carriage, his balance wavering for a second. And as soon as she swings a leg up, his arms dart out like fish swimming around her waist, and he pulls her closer. Crushed against the tiny seat, her back to the open wind, she is alone with his breath, and bones, and his heartbeat pounding so hard she fears the women on the street can hear it. She fears the fire inside will devour her.
Kakashi kisses Anko. Softly, much more so than she imagined that he could says "You're so pretty." and somehow it feels different when the women say it. And somehow he's all on her. She tries to move, to get her legs out from under his body and shift her weight, but she can't because he's on her. She feels alarmingly as if she can't breathe, as if she's swallowed something hard and vicious.
His mouth is all over her. She's dizzy with it. She wants to say 'wait.', but can't bring herself to betray this night. She can't get a hand up to touch him. She's afraid of herself now more than she was ever afraid of him, more than she ever feared anything else. She can't see the magic now, but is sure it is sifting up the air outside the carriage, reflecting down on the snow and glittering like a million authentic diamonds.
His skin on her skin, breaks open her fever. He's so cold it burns. She can smell the scent of her bones freezing solid under his pallid hands. Can see her flesh flaking off in little blue chips, gathering in his lap. She wonders if he's human. Wonders if he can feel how cold he is inside of him, the way she feels her own heat. She wants to whimper, partly in remorse, partly from pain, but won't allow herself to make a sound.
He slides his icicle fingers up her shirt, resting them on the curve of her belly, soft and white like the rounded peak of a snowy hill. His eyes meet hers for the first time in the darkness, and Anko cannot decide if she's more repulsed or excited by how much he wants her.
"Will you?"
A question. How strange of him to ask now when as she closes her eyes, she can hear the jingle jangle of his belt buckle being worked loose. When she does not believe him, in anything about him. When she doesn't think the women will be jealous.
Her heart is pounding now too, her skin is turning bright, blue spots surfacing on the bits where he laid his starving mouth. She can see that his lips are turning blue. She feels like something is already inside of her. She feels like the night is nothing more than glitter on the ground. He crawls on her, and she can feel his weight. The pressure of his
"Are you scared yet?" in her ear. He can see right through her.
Tonight. This is what she has always wanted….
He touches her tentatively and she shoves his hands away. There is a beat of silence in the air between them. Then he is staring at her, right into her, refusing to move his gaze even when she forces herself to look away.
"You're scared."
She doesn't answer, hopes he did not see the fear in her eyes. He moves off of her, not bothering with his pants, and gives her a little shove towards the other side of the carriage. Anko keeps her head down, her hair falling into her face as she readjusts her clothing. He popped the buttons on her skirt. He froze them solid. She imagines them rolling under the seats of the carriage. Some hapless ghost hunter might find them one day and mistake them for jewels.
Kakashi takes a crumpled pack of cigarettes from his pocket. She looks away when he lights up, but can smell the smoke in the air anyways. Can hear his belt buckle, the zipper on his pants. She knows its over. That's she's free to go, but she cannot bear to move. She turns her head and gazes out the window into the night. Down the sloping hill she can see the familiar street, with all the familiar houses she has always known. She can see the tiny moon, just the silver of a piece of silver in the sky. No matter how hard she squints she can find any stars, not even the Northern one.
Anko suddenly, and rather ridiculously considering what she had been planning to do, wishes she had brought along a coat to keep the cold from infiltrating her chest. She wraps her arms around herself to keep warm and thinks that tomorrow, she'll go out and buy a lawnmower.
"And a new set of pillowcases." says Kakashi then, as if reading her mind.
She smiles then despite herself and wonders how long they can stay here, just being, just existing as she has always wanted to do. How long before the world is covered in ice, and the snow forces all of the honeysuckle blossoms from the trees.