Nocturnes and Other Nocturnes Read online

  “I go to that club downtown, take off my shoe, and men kiss me there. Sometimes, if they—” Nicole shut up abruptly and pulled her foot back. “You probably think I’m a freak.”

  “I’m not shocked, you know. In fact, I’m relieved that you’re not as normal as you look.”

  There was light in her eyes when she asked, “Tell me your dark secret.”

  “I don’t have one,” he lied.

  ~

  The next time they met in her dorm room to work on the paper, Ted asked Nicole to bare her foot. He enjoyed looking at her naked skin, and that seemed to be the most naked part of her.

  “I think you’re secretly a devotee. You should come to the club with me. Anyway, you have to come to research the paper.”

  “I’ll go with you, but I don’t think I’m a devotee. It’s just that I’m comfortable around you, and I like it that you’re comfortable around me.” Ted held her foot while he talked to her. He bent down and gently kissed the tops of the four toes.

  Nicole gasped.

  Ted suddenly realized what he’d done. It was the first time he’d kissed a girl, anywhere. He wasn’t comfortable anymore. He felt trapped.

  Almost violently, he got up to leave.

  “Stay.” Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

  He looked down at her, hugging herself on her bed. She looked fragile, vulnerable.

  He felt dizzy and sweaty, but he sat next to her anyway.

  She ran her hands under his T-shirt. It calmed and excited him at the same time.

  ~

  Nicole fell asleep, but Ted was too fidgety. His skin burned with the new sensations of sex. He looked at her asleep and felt a deep tenderness toward her. It was a new emotion, tenderness. It felt good, letting that emotion warm his heart. In the moonlight, he admired her naked body, whole save for that one missing big toe.

  But it was the other big toe, the one he was now seeing for the first time, that was responsible for the strongest surge of desire he had yet experienced.

  Ted knew, then, that he would have to collect it.

  ~

  The club was called Devotion. The amputees were mostly women. Among the men, he noticed only two whose bodies were incomplete. An old man missing his right leg sat in a wheelchair nursing a drink and a scowl. A loud thirtysomething guy in an even louder silk shirt held court at a table in the middle of the bar, a clown who made the two women and three men who sat with him laugh. He had a nervous tick: he kept wiping his mouth with the stump of his right wrist; the foam from his beer had made a damp spot on his sleeve.

  Men and women greeted Nicole like they knew her well. The bartender greeted her by name, and Nicole responded in kind. “Hi, Germ.”

  Ted whispered, “Germ?”

  “Short for Jeremy. I started calling him that. Now everyone does.” Nicole answered a bit too loudly for Ted’s comfort. He was already nervous being here. And she wasn’t doing anything to make it easier for him by calling attention to them.

  None of the women were whole, but most of the men were. The women dressed to emphasize their deformities, their missing feet, hands, fingers, legs. Only Nicole’s was invisible.

  Although everyone was clothed and nothing kinky was overtly going on, Ted, who was still not fully comfortable with either the reality or the idea of sex, was keenly aware of the thick aura of sexual tension in the place.

  In particular, the lustful glances both men and women threw Nicole’s way made Ted awkward, as if he’d been sat in the middle of a high-stakes card game with no knowledge of the rules. As if losing would expose him as a fraud.

  He felt sweat pool in his armpits, dribble down his back, dampen his temples.

  Nicole sat at the bar and started taking her right shoe off. A dozen people, mostly men, ogled her every movement as she did so.

  Ted whispered, “I thought we were here to interview people.”

  “Relax. Let me get cozy.” Her foot was naked now. Ted saw a few of the men lick their lips.

  Ted felt his face redden. He left without another word.

  Outside, he waited thirty minutes, hoping that Nicole would come find him. She didn’t.

  ~

  Ted opened the door, and there was Nicole standing outside his apartment. He hadn’t seen her in two weeks.

  “I handed in the paper today. I put both our names on it, even though I did all the work.”

  Ted had nothing to say – he no longer knew how to interact with Nicole, if he ever really had – so he kept quiet.

  “Aren’t you going to invite me in?”

  Ted sighed; it came out sharper than he’d intended. He stepped back and nodded her inside.

  With her finger, Nicole traced the edge of his bookshelf, which was filled with tomes on anatomy, biology, medicine, surgery, taxidermy, dissection. She repeated the same thing she’d said the only other time she’d been here: “You know, it’s weird that you don’t have any music. Or any novels. Or even porn. But it’s okay. Weird’s good.”

  Ted could barely look at her. He wanted her to leave.

  “You didn’t have to stop coming to class. You could have called me. Something.”

  Ted regretted letting her in.

  “Ted! Look at me!” Nicole rushed up to him and grabbed his chin in her hand. She turned his head so their eyes met.

  Ted expected to see anger, or disappointment, or ... he wasn’t sure what, but he was disarmed by the fragility in Nicole’s gaze.

  “I lied to you.” The words burst out of him, with a will of their own. “I do have a secret. I guess it’s a dark one, but I don’t see it that way.”

  Nicole whispered, almost to herself, “I knew it.” Ted could hear the grin in her tone.

  He told her about Doc, and Doc’s collection, and what Doc had taught him, and his own abandoned collection.

  “Wow.” Nicole squeezed his hands.

  Somehow they’d wound up sitting on his bed. Ted didn’t remember getting there.

  “I thought it was over. Just a phase I’d gone through.”

  Nicole filled the silence with “But...”

  “But I realize now it was only preparation for the real thing.”

  This time, Nicole let the silence linger while Ted gathered his courage.

  Ted bent down and grabbed her left foot, the whole one, and, with a roughness that startled both of them, took off her shoe and sock. He bit the big toe at the joint, almost crunching the bones with his teeth.

  Nicole winced and swallowed hard. Her breath sped up.

  “I want your toe, Nicole. This one.”

  She bit her lip. “Will it hurt?”

  “I think so. I have some anesthetic, but—”

  She put her hand over his mouth.

  “No. Don’t use any. I want to feel it.”

  Ted’s heart was beating so hard, as if it would burst through his rib cage.

  She asked, “Can you do it now?”

  Ted reached under the bed for his instruments.

  ~

  Neither Ted nor Nicole ever called the other again the whole time they were in school together. Ted figured they’d both gotten what they wanted, and that was that. Sometimes, he woke in the middle of the night, remembering the tenderness he had felt toward Nicole that once – after they’d had sex. In the darkness, he craved that emotion.

  ~

  A left arm. Ten toes – one of each. Two ears: one, big and brown and hairy; the other, small and pink and smooth. A uterus. One of each hand. A right foreleg. Ted had sawed that one off his most recent donor, a homeless man who’d already lost a foot to frostbite. Ted had promised him money, but instead he killed him. That man had nothing to live for, anyway. All he could look forward to was a life of misery. Ted had done him a favour.

  They had driven to Ted’s house. Inside, Ted put him under with chloroform, tied him down, and asphyxiated him with a plastic bag. Then he’d cut off the foreleg. Later, around 3 a.m., he’d dumped the man – he never knew his name – ba
ck in the alley where he’d found him.

  Ted identified his donors at first sight. He was drawn to them. Always, they were damaged souls, regardless of how flawless they appeared to those who couldn’t see or didn’t know how to look. Invariably, they trusted him. In Ted’s desires, they found a comfort, a refuge, from the darkness that gnawed at them.

  In the case of his mother, though, it had taken him years to recognize his desire. Perhaps because it had been masked by their bond as mother and son. Sometimes, he had doubts that his mother had really intended for him to take her uterus. She had been so drunk that night (the last night of her life) and depressed at having been dumped by a co-worker after less than three weeks of dating. But his instincts had always been true, and the urge was so powerful that night as she sobbed and spewed her sorrow and loneliness, sitting across from him on her ratty old couch.

  His ratty old couch, now.

  ~

  Still, in the darkness, when sleep would not come, Ted found himself remembering Nicole’s naked body as she slept after sex. For brief moments, he relished the tenderness that accompanied the memory.

  Sometimes, his donors – both women and men – wanted to have sex with him. He often complied, but never again did he feel that tenderness toward anyone.

  To soothe his ache, he recalled all those beautiful body parts he kept in the basement and the intensity of the attraction that had compelled him to collect them. Summoning his desire for the items in his collection aroused him. He masturbated then and, after ejaculation, slipped into sleep.

  ~

  Ted was having a restless night when the doorbell rang at 2:15 a.m. It was getting harder and harder for him to sleep.

  He barked “What is it!” as he opened the front door, dressed in his pyjamas.

  Even in her thirties, she could grin coquettishly.

  With an awe that surprised him, Ted said her name: “Nicole.”

  ~

  He had talked to her about his collection for two hours before she interrupted him. Instantly, Ted was seized by both an insight and a realization. The realization: he had not even asked Nicole why she was here. The insight: what he missed was complicity. Only two people had ever offered him that: Doc ... and Nicole.

  He’d been stupid not to cultivate a relationship with her. The years he’d wasted!

  “Are you even listening to me?”

  Ted had missed her first few sentences. “I’m sorry. It’s a shock seeing you. A good shock, though.”

  She blushed, and then regrouped: “Ted, I need you. I need you to do this.”

  “Do what?”

  “Take it. Take my whole right leg. You have to do it.”

  “But...” Ted didn’t want to disappoint her.

  “But what? I was right! You’re still collecting. Collect my leg. Please.”

  “But I only collect when I feel the urge, the desire. It has to feel right. Necessary.”

  “So what? This isn’t for you. It’s for me. I need this. And you can do it. Do this for me. I can pay you. My husband is rich. We could hire anyone to do it, but I want it – I need it – to be you.”

  There it was, the complicity. But – “Husband?” He blurted the word out as a disdainful question. Immediately, he regretted it.

  “Yes. But it doesn’t matter who he is. I told him about us, and he agreed that you should be the one to do it. We need this. It’s not enough anymore, just the toes. We need more. Please.”

  There was a terrible feeling in the pit of Ted’s stomach while he mouthed the words of his acquiescence.

  ~

  She really did pay him. Or, rather, her husband did. One week after the amputation, a fifty-thousand-dollar cheque came by courier.

  Still, Ted felt impoverished. He knew he would never see Nicole again. But that was the lesser of his two losses.

  On the floor of his basement, he laid out the items in his collection. (Nicole’s leg was not among them.) He had amassed more than half a whole human body. He was still missing a head, a torso, a neck, and several internal organs. But he had a brain, two lungs, both arms, a stomach, an eye ... and so much else.

  He rearranged the items. He stared at them. Focused on them.

  He had feared this, yet he had given in to Nicole’s desire, like a lovesick teenager.

  Today was the anniversary of Nicole’s unexpected reappearance. One year since that amputation. More than one year since he had been drawn to anyone’s darkness and felt the urge to harvest a part of their body.

  He no longer understood what it was that he had desired. These body parts, they were nothing more than dead organic matter. Scrutinizing these dead things he had coveted with such love and had cared for with such devotion, he yearned to feel something for them. Anything.

  Secretly Wishing for Rain

  My palm pressed between Tamara’s small breasts, I feel her heartbeat. The raindrops pounding on the skylight reflect the city lights, provide our only illumination. Tamara’s fingers are entwined in my chest hair; my perception of the rhythm of my heart is intensified by the warm, steady pressure of her hand.

  This mutual pressing of hands against chests is our nightly ritual. Our faces almost touching, we silently stare at each other in the gloom. This is how it is for me (and how I believe it must also be for her): I abandon myself to the dim reflection of light in her eyes, the rhythms of our hearts, the softness of her skin, the pressure of her hand; I let go of all conscious thought or intent. We whisper meaningless absurdities to each other. One of us says: “There are fishes so beautiful that cinnamon nectar spouts from their eyeballs”; the other replies: “Your mouth is infinite space and contains all the marvels of gravity.” Most nights we explore each other’s flesh, revelling in each other’s smells and touches. Deliriously abandoned in each other’s embrace, we reach orgasm, remembering the loss that binds us. Some nights, as tonight, we simply fall asleep, snugly intertwined.

  ~

  The cliché would be that I was jealous of Andrei’s mischievous charm, his tall-dark-and-handsome good looks, his quick wit, his svelte elegance, his easy way with women ... but no. His omnipotent charm defused the pissing-contest resentment that heterosexual pretty boys usually provoke in the rest of the straight male population. Everyone – men, women, straights, gays – was helpless before his androgynous beauty, his complicit grin, and his playful brashness. Perhaps I was even more helpless than most.

  Andrei avoided being in the company of more than one person at a time. Whoever he was with enjoyed the full intensity of his meticulous attention. I never felt so alive as when I basked in his gaze.

  Andrei may have been desired by many, but few had their lust satisfied. Men weren’t even a blip on his sexual radar. Most women also fell short of his unvoiced standards – the existence of which he would always deny. The women who could boast of the privilege of walking down the street arm in arm with Andrei were tall and slim with graceful long legs, hair down to at least their shoulder blades, subtle makeup, and cover-girl faces. And, most importantly, they had to be sharp dressers. Age was not an issue. I’d first met him when we were both nineteen, and during the seven years of our friendship, I’d seen him hook up with girls as young as thirteen and women as old as fifty-five. All that mattered was that they have the look. Actually, that wasn’t all. Andrei possessed a probing intelligence. He read voraciously, and he expected his assembly-line lovers to be able to discuss at length the minutiae of his favourite books. Invariably, he grew bored with his women, or contemptuous if they read one of the books in his pantheon and proceeded to display the depth of their incomprehension. Rarely would he declare to the injured party that their short-lived romance was over. Instead, at the end of an affair, he’d simply vanish for several weeks without a word. Even I – his closest friend – never found out where he vanished to.

  Ten years ago, Tamara had been one of those women. The last of those women.

  ~

  At nineteen, I moved to Montreal from Deep River, Onta
rio. I wanted to learn French, to live in a cosmopolitan environment. See foreign films on the big screen. Go to operas. Museums. Concerts. Art galleries. Listen to street musicians. Hear people converse in languages I couldn’t understand.

  I never did learn French. I’m often embarrassed about that. Montreal isn’t nearly as French as most outsiders think, and it’s all too easy to live exclusively in its English- language demimonde.

  I’d taken a year off after high school, intending to travel, but I never did. I never had enough money, and I languished resentfully in Deep River. I applied to McGill University for the following year, was accepted, chose philosophy as my major.

  In early September, less than a week after classes started, I attended a midnight screening of Haynes’s Bestial Acts at the Rialto. I’d heard so much about that film, but, of course, it had never come to Deep River, even on video. There were only two of us in the theatre. The other cinephile was a stunningly handsome guy I guessed was about my age. He was already there when I walked in, his face buried in a book, despite the dim lighting. I sat two rows ahead of him.

  After the credits stopped rolling, the lights went on, and I felt a tap on my shoulder. When I turned, the handsome guy – Andrei, I would soon learn – said, “I feel like walking. Let’s go.” I had no choice but to obey; I didn’t want to have a choice. So I followed him, already ensorcelled.

  We walked all over the city, and he brought me to secret places where its nighttime beauty was startlingly delicate. The water fountain in the concrete park next to the Ville-Marie Expressway. The roof of a Plateau apartment building – its access always left unlocked in violation of safety regulations. We snuck into a lush private courtyard covered in ancient-looking leafy vines; the windows reflected and rereflected the moonlight to create a subtly complex tapestry of light. All the while, we talked about Bestial Acts, trying to understand it all, to pierce the veil of its mysteries.

  As dawn neared, he said, “You’ve never read the books it’s based on, have you?” There was disappointment in his voice.

  I felt like this was a test. I looked him straight in the eye. “No. Before seeing the ‘adapted from’ credit on the screen tonight, I didn’t even know about it.”