A Woman's Desire

Leila opened her eyes for the first time.

Tiny beads of humidity blanketed her naked skin, catching light from the faintest rays of sunshine peeking through the canopy. She was in fetal position upon the damp earth, arms threaded between her thighs and knees pressed against her breasts. She blinked a few times before tilting back her head, peering up at the arms of the tree she rested beneath. Then she heard something, a high pitched sound that had a rhythm and melody, and she realized it was coming from a small bird with a red forehead and bright yellow chest sitting on a branch above.

She smiled before her mouth open in wonder.

Leila rolled over onto her back and stretched her arms and legs, easily six feet tall if she ever decided to stand up. She interlaced her fingers beneath her head, gazing up at the leaves, and digging her heels into the dirt. Another bird called out from the distance and she tried to replicate the sound, bracing the back of her throat and pressing the tip of her tongue behind her bottom row of teeth. The attempt delighted her, evoking a ringing laughter from somewhere behind her eyes and nose.

But someone else was laughing, too.

She sat up and pressed her back against the base of the tree, eyes darting left and right before locking eyes with someone emerging from the foliage ahead. He wore a red tunic and brown gloves, carrying a bow in one hand as he stepped forward, smiling at her. Leila had never seen a man before. She was horrified, yet mesmerized at the same time. He must have felt her fear because he knelt down in front of her, about ten feet away, one arm draped over his knee and his other hand resting on the ground.

“Hello, bright eyes,” he said.

Leila swallowed and said, “Lo.”

He laughed again, lowering himself to the ground and wrapping his arms around his knees. She was afraid of him because he was strange to her, but she could not ignore her natural desire to gaze upon his face and lean toward him.

The man placed his hand on his chest and said, “I am Arthur.”

“Thoor,” she said.

Another laugh and, “Yes, that’s right. That will do. And you, what shall I call you?”

Although Leila had never spoken her name before, she seemed to know deep down what it was, a combination of song and sigh that rolled off the tongue with ease. It pleased her to say it, and even more to say it to him.

“That’s a beautiful name,” Arthur said.

Leila crawled forward, her brown hair falling over her shoulders and swaying. Just in front of him, she sat back on her heels and offered her right hand, palm up. Arthur took off his leather glove and held her hand in his, meeting her gaze and wanting nothing more than to hold her against his body and kiss her neck. He wanted to smell the earth on her back and run his thumb over her hip. Leila’s quiet strength buffered his self control, and then he knew what she was.

“Ah, Leila,” he said. “You are a dryad.”

She smiled, pulling his hand to her chest.

He removed a leaf from her hair and looked up at the tree behind her. “And is this your tree, sweet nymph?”

Leila turned to look and she nodded with understanding.

“Extraordinary,” he said as he stood up and approached the tree, still holding Leila’s hand. “She looks old and very wise.”

Arthur turned to Leila and placed his hands on her shoulders, tracing her collar bones with his thumbs. She pressed her palms against his chest, assessing the fabric of his tunic with her fingertips.

“It’s curious that you should appear in my moment of need. For a year now, I’ve been seeking the answer to a question, and it escapes me. Being with you only makes it harder to discern. What do women most desire?”

Leila seemed to ponder his words as Arthur squatted at the base of the tree, leaning back against it and pulling a small knife from his boot. He dug the tip into one of the roots, then dropped it, startled by Leila’s sharp cry. She fell forward, placing her hand over the spot where his knife pierced the bark. Arthur reached for her, but she recoiled. She glared at him as if a wounded woman, ready to retaliate. Her warmth was gone.

“Leila, I’m so sorry. It was thoughtless,” he said.

He reached for her again, but she shrugged him off, avoiding his eyes and staring at the ground. The silence stretched for miles between them and he could feel her spirit harden against him. For a moment, Arthur imagined bringing her home with him. He could make her his wife, his queen. She would bear his children and become the face of the kingdom. She would be a woman, not a spirit. So long as this tree lived, Leila could easily outlive him. His fantasy ended when he felt her hand upon his. Their eyes met and she smiled, but she also shook her head.

“No, Thoor,” she said.

What do women most desire?

They stood together, fingers interlaced. Arthur wanted to wrap his arms around her naked body and press his mouth to hers, but now he knew the answer to the question. His life as a soldier and a king was made up entirely of choices, and sometimes making choices against another’s will. Arthur could not bring himself to overpower her despite the fact that he could. He could not bring himself to seduce her with empty promises, nor threaten the life of the tree. He waited to see what Leila wanted, to see what she would choose, if she would choose him.

Leila’s lips were on his.

Then, she was gone.

“To choose,” he said. “The power to choose.”

Written by: Natasha Akery

Photograph by: Angela DeRay

In the Darkness

 
Her mother named her Desire, then gave her up for adoption. Charlotte and Ben argued about the name as they signed the paperwork. Charlotte wanted to call her Evelyn after her sister, but Ben said they should respect the mother’s wishes.

“It’s the one thing she has from her mom,” Ben said.

“I’m her mom now,” Charlotte pleaded, but Desire stuck.

Desire grew up with no false assumptions about her birth. Her adoptive parents repeated the story constantly—how her real mother was struggling with the sin of addiction, and how Jesus brought Desire to their home to be a beacon of light in the darkness.

Desire, unaware of metaphor or of the silent darkness that is infertility, looked around for the dark wherever she went. She saw it down open manholes and on moonless nights. She saw it in her adoptive grandmother’s basement as it appeared in her nightmares. And then, in fourth grade, her Sunday school teacher Mr. George said it was time to address the darkness head on. It was time for street evangelism.

After church, the fourth graders climbed into the fifteen-passenger van with Eagle Vista Fellowship painted on the side, armed with paper tracts.

“Does everyone have their buddy?” Mr. George asked, twisting from behind the steering wheel.

Everyone did. Desire’s buddy was Brittany, who had won a medal last month for memorizing the most Bible verses. Brittany, whose blonde hair was so long she could sit on it. Brittany, whom Charlotte said had been blessed with a generous spirit, since her little brother had Down’s and was God’s special gift in difficult packaging.

93.8 THE FISH was playing a jangling praise song, and Brittany lifted her tinny voice to sing along with Mr. George. They were headed towards the part of town where Ben and Charlotte delivered meals on wheels to the needy. The front porches were crowded with junk. Some houses had broken windows or dangling shutters.

“This is it!” called Mr. George. “Stay with your buddy, and remember to pray over each house, even if the people don’t want to talk.”

Brittany ran ahead, calling for Desire to catch up. She had already scampered onto the first porch and pressed her pinky into the doorbell by the time Desire made it into the yard. Brittany rang the bell three times, but no one came. At the end of the driveway, the girls held hands as Brittany prayed over the house. Desire always kept her eyes open during prayers to see who else was peeking. Brittany wasn’t peeking. Desire looked at the sky, where she imagined God was glaring down at her for not speaking to him more sincerely with her heart. She saw a giant bird lope through the air and land on a telephone pole.

“Amen,” Brittany said.

“Look at that bird,” Desire said. “I think it’s a buzzard.”

“It’s not!” Brittany said, still speaking in her praying voice. “It’s an Eagle! For Eagle Vista! It’s a sign Jesus is blessing our work here today. We have a lot of people to reach. Why don’t you go down this side of the street, and I’ll take that side? Then we can bless twice as many houses!”

Desire, more from watching Scooby Doo cartoons than from listening to Mr. George, knew they shouldn’t split up, but she also wasn’t sure how much more of Brittany’s praying she could take in one afternoon.

“Okay, but don’t go to the next street until I catch up,” she said.

Desire shuffled her tracts as she waited on the next porch. An old lady peeked through the curtains and glared. At another house, a man thought she was selling Girl Scout cookies, but didn’t want to talk about God. Finally, at 665 Winthrop Street, someone took a tract.

The woman at the door was pale, and so skinny you could pour water into her collarbones and it would stay there. Her greasy, red hair was slicked back, and her eyes were glassy. Desire didn’t want to look at her face, so she looked at her feet.

“I like your anklet,” Desire said.

The woman laughed. “I blinged it out the best I could! Still keeps me on the porch.”

On the black plastic, a little green light blinked among stick-on rhinestones.

“What’s this paper all about?” the woman asked.

“Jesus wants to love you,” Desire said.

“About time somebody did,” the woman said. “What’s your name, church girl?”

“Desire.”

“That’s some name.”

“I’m adopted.”

“For real? Your parents told you that already? Damn.”

“Yeah. You shouldn’t say that word.”

The woman laughed again. “You come up on my porch and tell me what I can’t say?”

Desire backed down the steps into the yard.

“Do you want me to pray with you?” Desire asked, following the script she’d practiced with Brittany.

“Why not.”

Desire looked over her shoulder for Brittany, but didn’t see her anywhere. The bird flapped its wings on the pole, its feathers like long black fingers.

“Well, you gonna pray?” the lady asked.

“Um, dear Jesus, please bless—sorry, I don’t know your name.”

“Charlotte,” the woman said.

Desire stared at her, straight in the eyes this time. At that moment, Desire felt Jesus was trying to tell her something: this was her real mom.

“Don’t you remember me?” Desire asked.

“No. Should I? Your church group come here before?” the woman said.

“Did you have a baby nine years ago?”

“Hey crazy, I don’t have kids!” the woman laughed.

From behind her, Desire heard a sound like the screeching of a screen door. She whipped around expecting to see Brittany leaving a house, but the noise was coming from the buzzard, swooping down into the yard.

Where was Brittany? And why didn’t her mom remember? Was Jesus not speaking to her after all?

“Can you help me find my friend?” Desire asked. “And scare off that bird? He’s freaky.”

“They’ll be after me if I leave the house.”

Desire suddenly felt sweaty. Her mother, or Jesus, one, was abandoning her again, and there were people in this neighborhood who would get you if you went outdoors. And she had abandoned blonde-haired, generous-spirited Brittany alone in this land of darkness.

“Please help me?”

“Sorry,” Charlotte said, retreating back into her house. “You’re on your own.”




Photograph By: Emily Blincoe
Written By: Dot Dannenberg

...And the birds eat desire

My wife’s mother told her a story the night before we were married. She was an old-fashioned mother, and a petite creature that seemed prone to mishandling, as if she might fold at any moment like a card table after an AA meeting.

Contrary to her size though, she held inscrutable beliefs, and she held them tight.

It was a crazy story - a voodoo story. A tale my wife and I used to mock in early morning romances between cotton sheets and hushed, private fucking.

We smiled at her imagination the way you smile when you’re embarrassed – tight lipped, head down, and contained. We smiled because we were in love and that’s what lovers do; they smile.

-- 

The girl’s name was Naomi and she was beautiful and small and calm in the way an only child can be.

She came from the city.

She loved to read, and when she told people this she emphasized that girlish word love because she did not yet know what it meant.

At twenty, she met a boy like her mother told her she would. His name was Mario, and he was handsome and tall. He had a sturdy jaw, pursed lips, and nice hands.

It took some time, but eventually, they thought it fate – the pair of them.

They married and settled. They fucked like rabbits. They fucked like newlyweds.

They spent afternoons reading out loud to one another because they both liked Hemingway.

“For his prose!” they said aloud and she would giggle and he would laugh.

They held hands often.

One year…

Two years…

And then, as if a curtain had been drawn, they fell out of love.

It was fast how it happened, how quickly their love soured.

It flailed and gasped and drowned in the ocean. It fell from the skyscraper and smashed into the ground and it bled everywhere.

Then came her obvious regret, as his love still thrived. He still kissed her neck. He still held her hand. He bought her things, little stupid things that she had once adored but now despised.

And so she dreamed where her guilt could not reach and she dreamed that something would happen, something terrible, and in the end he would be gone and she would be allowed to start over.

One night she slept, and she dreamed of a white room with a white bed and a single window. Outside the window it was black. Not darkness, but rather the absence of color – as if outside the window did not exist and there was only this room and this bed and this girl, Naomi.

She was dressed in a white gown, and her black hair was curled underneath her.

 Her eyes were closed and she lay on the bed, dreaming of a boy.

But not her Mario.

Instead, this one had tattoos and she lusted for his arms. He worked in the same bookstore she worked in. He had a wonderful haircut and he used to make jokes and when he laughed Naomi could feel it in her belly, the red-hot glow, the bleeding, licking carnality that filled her up like Thanksgiving turkey.

And so she closed her eyes and she dreamed of the new boy’s hands as they explored her. And she became more and more excited until all of it had to go somewhere…

And then the window burst open and in came the birds.

Hundreds of nondescript black birds, all of them screaming human screams, and they hurricaned around her and then they attacked.

They ripped at her belly. They pulled at her clothes. They tore at her skin and blood erupted from her and it sprayed against the wall, TAT – TAT –TAT, like machine gun fire.

The red blood clung and dripped from the white wall and she looked and saw a macabre mural of her creation.

She beat at the birds with her fists and her screams infused with those of the birds and it created a swelling, ghastly, cacophonous melody and still the birds screamed louder and their pitch went higher and higher and higherandhigherandhigher until she shot from her dream like lightning from the earth.

Sweating.

Heaving.

Crying.

Mario held her but she knew something was lost, something in her belly, something she would never be able to replicate.

But they never divorced – the pair of them.

They grew old together. They never had children but they shared memories. They made love, and they cooked and their pastoral pleasantness compensated one another in some way.

But for the rest of her life, Naomi never felt any sort of sexual fervor for Mario, or any other man for that matter. It had taken her a bit, but eventually she accepted what the birds had stolen from her.

When she died she did not weep.

Instead she glanced to the walls around her, and in their sparkling whiteness, she searched for traces of red.

 -- 

In the winter they congregate on the telephone line like fossilized old men at a country club, like a bunch of Chatty fucking Cathy’s, and with these goddamn birds come my mother-in-law’s story.

They appear and it appears and they are one in the same – these birds and their story. Recently, I’ve stayed inside and watched them through the window there on the wire. The word isn’t comforting, but they keep me company nonetheless.

I’ve done this since my wife came home from the hospital.

I do this as she cries in our bedroom, as she sleeps alone, as she refuses my eggs and toast I’ve made for her.

With the doctor and he keeps using the words mishap, mistake, mischance, and not once does he say MISCARRIAGE and I want to pin him down and fucking scream it at him and tattoo it on his face.

Instead, he says that we can try again when she’s ready.

“There are no second chances!” I yell. “There is no false start! There is no replay!”

I can no longer be a part of my wife. Not spiritually. Not physically.

It feels as if I can no longer be a part of myself.

And so I sit at the window.

I think of the story.

I think of my mother in law.

I think of my wife.

And the birds eat the desire.






Photograph by: Whitney Ott
Written by: Logan Theissen