Penny Dreadful (24 page)

Then things started to move quickly, very quickly.

One of the punks had a huge silver nosering and oily black hair combed into a ducktail and he looked like Fonzie on acid. He looked pretty tough, or at least he fancied himself tough and he unwisely told Griffin to fuck off and zoom: Griffin was sitting on the sorry fucker’s chest. And while I may have been high and my perception of speed and distance were not quite right, I was nonetheless amazed. This new Griffin was some kind of panther, he had reflexes like fucking Spider-Man and I moved closer now, fascinated. But one of the punks screeched at the sight of me and took off, disappearing into the dark and I felt a peculiar tug, like maybe I should chase the guy down and hurt him.

The girl and the other guy cowered together and maybe they were too scared or too stupid to run but maybe not. They clutched and grabbed at each other’s clothing with a heavy sexual vibe and I was pretty confident they would have a go right then and there while Griffin and I tortured their pal but suddenly the male, who was probably twenty-two or -three and looked like a mean fucker with a scar on his cheek and long sideburns and a spiderweb tattoo across his throat and surely outweighed the female by fifty pounds, suddenly went all limp in her arms and opened his mouth. The girl leaned over him lazily and gave the guy a deep, penetrating and weirdly violent kiss. She looked like she was trying to suck his tongue right out of his mouth and now I suffered rapid flashes of Griffin’s girlfriend leaning toward me in the club with hunger in her eyes.

Meanwhile.

Griffin had his guy by the throat and was flicking the big nosering back and forth with his index finger like he might just pull it out. Then he leaned over and hit the kid’s cheek hard enough to draw blood.

Your blood is bitter, said Griffin. What have you been eating?

The guy made a weak choking noise but didn’t, or couldn’t, answer.

Hey, I said. But I said it too softly because I was curious. Honestly. I wanted to see what would happen.

Open it, said Griffin. Fucking open it.

I glanced over at the girl, who was now casually smoking a cigarette. Her new boyfriend wasn’t moving, though. He looked dead, in fact. But there was no fucking way he was dead from a kiss. The man had to be unconscious or something and as I moved to help him an idiotic voice in my head that sounded a lot like my own voice said maybe what he needs is a little mouth-to-mouth. I kill myself, sometimes. I prodded the stiff with the toe of my boot and was not terribly surprised when he hopped to his feet and looked at us with something like shame and defiance and then turned and ran.

Ray, said Griffin.

Silence.

Then again, loudly. Hey, Ray.

And I turned, remembering dully that this was my name. I was fucking Ray and now I saw that Griffin had forced his guy’s jaw open and was crouched over him like a mad dentist. The tip of the guy’s tongue was exposed, a small pinkish triangle of meat and I thought of earthworms drowning in the rain.

Come here, said Griffin. His eyes shining.

What?

This Fred will be your first tongue.

I looked at the Fred, whose nosering was slick with snot and blood. It was strange, though. The guy didn’t look so terrified. He looked meek and a little furious and yet he lay there with his mouth open, waiting for someone to bite his tongue and temporarily own him. I felt nothing I might call desire. And this is important, I think. I want to be clear about this. It wasn’t a moral thing for me. It was an ordinary lack of desire.

I don’t think so, I said.

What? said Griffin. His voice thick with disgust.

Let him go, Griffin.

Griffin shrugged. He bent and kissed the Fred, he bit and sucked at the guy’s mouth and now I felt aroused. The Fred didn’t go limp like the other one. His legs thrashed at the ground and his hips jerked against Griffin’s ass. Then it was over. Griffin released him, he smiled and slapped the Fred’s belly.

Disappear, he said. And to me he said, don’t fucking call me Griffin.

The Fred grunted and clambered to his feet. He brushed himself off and began to fix his hair but Griffin was staring murderously at him and the Fred apparently decided to fuck with his hair later, for he hooted at us and ran away and now a thin, cool voice said, what about me?

I turned my head and the girl was standing very close to me.

Think fast Ray, said Griffin. Do you want her tongue?

What…?

Will you be a wolf, he said. Or a rabbit.

Kill the rabbit, said the girl.

Her breath smelled sweet, like green melon. Long yellow hair that hung in ringlets. A necklace of seashells and bright stones around her long throat. Fantastic eyes, blue with impossible splashes of black. Her lips were dark as berries.

Careful, said Griffin. Be careful, Ray.

I opened my mouth slightly. I did want to kiss this girl and why not, she was adorable and sexy and fresh as a damn flower. And she apparently wanted me to kiss her. I leaned forward dreamily, stupidly while the very paranoid little action figure version of myself was running around in my skull and banging the panic drum, howling don’t do it don’t do it you dumb motherfucker. The girl’s mouth was not two inches from my own and I grabbed her by the face. And she looked pretty surprised.

But I trembled you, she said.

Uh, I said. Not well enough, I guess.

I had her face in my hands and it was ridiculously soft. She had perfect skin and edible lips and now I was not sure what I wanted to do.

You have really nice skin, I said.

Griffin spat. Jesus, Ray.

The girl was staring into my eyes like I was a mannequin. I assumed she was still trying to tremble me, whatever that meant. I let my hands slip to her throat and she rolled her eyes. Impatient, bored. Not afraid.

Are you afraid? I said.

No, she said.

Griffin began to whistle. Raindrops keep falling on my head.

I could hurt you, I said.

The girl shrugged, as if that was very doubtful. A tangible chunk of silence. Then I told her to open her mouth and for a long perilous moment thought that surely she would resist, that she would tell me to fuck off and the spell would break. The moment would shatter like ice. But then she parted her lips.

Tom and Ray, with Phineas:

Oh, brother did he need some love and understanding. This situation was not completely fucked but it was pretty well fucked. Major Tom was worried, very worried and for the first time in recent memory he was suffering an unwanted and completely unforeseen outburst of moisture beneath his armpits.

They had retired to a gas station restroom to clean up and discuss the matter behind a locked door. Tom stood before one of three mirrors, straightening his clothes with brittle fingers and washing the Fred’s blood and snot from his hands and face. Ray Fine sat on a toilet with his legs crossed, smoking a cigarette. Tom was sweating because he had perhaps mistakenly lured an outsider into the game who, God knows why, did not want to be a Mariner’s apprentice and worse, was too mentally competent to be cast among the hapless Freds. Otherwise, Tom would happily say fuck you, Fred. Have a nice life in the sewers and be careful with your tongue.

You have a problem, said Tom.

Oh? said Ray, as he blew a wobbling smoke ring.

I can only protect you if you’re my apprentice.

Ray Fine laughed out loud, the insolent toad.

I’m not joking around, Ray.

What the fuck. Are you gonna protect me from girls who want to French kiss me?

Oh, that’s rich. That’s a killer.

It’s a gift, said Ray. I make people laugh.

Tom wet a paper towel and used it to cool off his skull, watching Ray very closely in the mirror and noticing that while the old boy was making a lot of smart-ass comments, he was looking pale as a ghost.

How was it, by the way?

How was what?

The Trembler, said Tom. Didn’t you take her tongue?

Ray shifted his ass around on the toilet and stared back at him. He wasn’t so funny now.

Did you bite her tongue?

Maybe, he said. What about it?

Blood. Did you draw blood?

There was a little blood, yeah. Ray flicked his cigarette at one of the sinks.

Tom gave a shadow of a smile. And how was it, Ray?

The sound of water dripping. Ray got up and wandered to the sinks, his blue eyes ghostly and vague. He was clearly drawn to the mirror and seemed to hate his own face at the same time. Tom watched him take one long, reluctant look in the glass and force his eyes away. Then back again.

Fuck me, said Ray Fine. That is an ugly hat.

He could still taste the girl’s tongue, the Trembler’s. Her blood had been warm and thick and good. And he had felt something he had never expected. He had felt safe.

And how was it, Ray?

The sound of water dripping. He felt dizzy and vague and he wished Griffin would stop calling him Ray. He got up and moved over to the sink, thinking he might wash his hands but there was his pale fucking face in the mirror, floating like a dead thing in still water. He looked like a paper target sometimes. All he needed were black circles around his torso and bloodless tears in the white. Who are you, who are you today. Who do you want to be. He looked away, then back. He was afraid his eyes would be trapped in the mirror.

Fuck me, he said. That is an ugly hat.

He looked away, at a crack in the wall. A long, narrow crack and he flashed to the idle childhood notion that a microscopic universe might well exist in that crack in the wall of a much larger restroom, that there were infinite cracks in the walls of infinite restrooms and here we go, he thought. Here we fucking go. Ray Fine slapped at the electric hand dryer and the white noise snapped him out of it and he found himself staring hard at Major Tom, who stared back without smiling, without breathing. A fat black cockroach scurried out of the dark and Ray heard the crunch of its hard little exoskeleton shattering under Tom’s boot heel. The electric dryer died now and they dropped their eyes at once.

It was…very intense, said Ray. It was blinding.

Whoa, said Tom. I guess you’re fucked. Have a nice life in the sewer.

Wait a minute.

You’re in, man. You’re in the game.

Ray stared at him. What is the fucking game?

The tongue is the game, said Tom. The game is tongues.

But isn’t there some higher purpose to the game?

Ray was now standing a pubic hair too close to him and Tom felt himself getting edgy, very fucking edgy and he wondered what he wouldn’t do for a shot of the Pale and some more attractive surroundings.

What sort of higher purpose, said Tom. He felt like his face was dripping.

Like a quest, said Ray. A noble quest.

Tom stared at him.

You know, said Ray. You could return the magic beans to the Fairy Queen. You could save Christmas. Something along those lines.

Why do you want to insult me, Ray?

Ray appeared to chew at the inside of his mouth and Tom shivered, watching him. He looked away and began to turn the hot water on and off, on and off. Then left it on and held his finger under the stream for as long as he could stand it.

I want you to stop calling me Ray, said Ray.

The tongue is the quest, Tom said softly. And I’m sorry. Your name is Ray.

And so that’s it? said Ray. You…you’re like a rapist, man.

Tom removed the damp towel from his head and regarded Ray with contempt. He had heard this morbid line of thought before, from soft and puny players of other castes. The Breathers, for instance. He told himself to be patient, to choose his words with great care.

The tongue is a powerful muscle, he said. A thing of beauty. And at the same time, it’s weak. The tongue is soft and private and terribly vulnerable, like the genitals.

Unwanted intimacy, said Ray. There’s nothing more terrifying, is there?