Skin (21 page)

    "When people've done it," sullen and smug at the same time, "they know better. If you would just once-"

    "Bibi- no more. Please."

    That time, too, Bibi had banged out, still angry on return but wanting Tess, wanting to hold and kiss; and bite, and scissor in long insistent legs; and finally fall silent to sleep; to wake, and bring it up again. After these arguments Tess felt husked, abraded. Maybe Bibi was right; maybe they were both right. Maybe there was not a way to be together. But the idea of parting, again and with the new cruelty of disappointed lovers, was so intolerable that Tess could not hold it for long; but what else to do? Give in, override that inner no? She would not be cut solely for Bibi's sake; that way was resentment, sooner or later, larger or smaller but destined as surely as cancer to grow until it consumed in the end what it was engendered to save. She became more silent, Bibi louder, as if the manifestation of their rages and sorrows must inevitably display their differences, rub it in and in and in.

    And now Bibi had a new tack, or perhaps it had been there from the beginning, the very first beginning; perhaps it was her vision of the Surgeons, and its failure to happen her bedrock reason for the Surgeons' disintegration. She brought it up from time to time, less obliquely with each pass; last night they had even had a "talk" about it, though Bibi had done most of the talking, starting by showing Tess a magazine, a journal for piercers; see this? Bending over her at the worktable, shutting out her light.

    "See, this is what I was talking about. Look here," and her finger jabbing sharp, some guy with hair as blond as Michael's and his whole torso crossed and recrossed with chains, all of them leading to and from various piercings, all of it hung heavy with lead weights like miniature pears; and some not so miniature, the whole collection must have weighed a ton. Tess tried to take the magazine, a closer look but no, Bibi was already taking it back.

    "It's so powerful," she said, subliminally smug pleasure that this was so. "I mean look at this, this guy's an investment banker and yet he's driven to do this, to modify himself this way. That's because it's powerful, it's been around forever, it's a basic human need which means they're going to do it anyway so they might as well have supervision, right? They ought to have someone telling them what to do so they don't fuck it up." A sigh. "That's what happened, I handled Paul all wrong," and Tess forbore to say You sure fucking did, in fact forbore to say anything at all. Metal drip, in the light; waiting.

    "Someone has to be in control. The one with the strongest vision should be in-"

    "That means," setting the soldering gun aside, "that means you, right?" Bibi's shrug, obvious; words like a smell in the air and Tess tried to keep her voice neutral, past the echo of the hammer of dread; old dread, like a sickness never cured and trace memory of Bibi, bleeding in the heavy light of a Surgeons show, hands wide and eyes too bright. "Sounds like fascism to me."

    Another shrug, less interested; another example, probably, of Tess's chronic failure to understand. "Sounds like semantics to me, but you can call it anything you want." Tess's own shrug, underskin shudder; something is wrong here. Wrong. "No one should have decisions like that made for them; and no one should make those decisions for other people. I wouldn't want-"

    "The responsibility, right? Don't want," faintly jeering, "their blood on your hands? Because you're scared?"

    "You're damn right I'm scared. You ought to be scared, too."

    And Bibi, Tess thought, might with truth have said, I'm not scared of anything, but instead gave the shrug and with it the sense of the subject not dropped but locked away; there would be no more discussion of this with Tess; maybe she was saving it for someone more worthy, like, say, one of her old piercing cronies, Andy or Linda Joy. Or discredited Andreas. Or Matty Regal, whose name seemed to be cropping up more and more, Tess unsure if this was done simply to aggravate her or if Matty was really that close a friend; which would have been infinitely worse but there would be no questions, no asking because she knew there would be no answers or at least no true ones; which was the worst, the saddest thing of all.

    

    

    So: alone and working, cold air seeping from spots she had not, last year, seemed to notice; of course last year they had heat, had Surgeons money instead of only her crummy pickup income; Bibi was at the moment, the long, stretching moment, between jobs; another bone to pick or leave alone, you choose. At least they still had electricity, a phone, though the calls were always for Bibi.

    And then Michael, exception: "Hey," his voice so warm. Jingling background sounds. "How're you guys doing?"

    "Okay." Liar. "Sort of."

    "I just saw Bibi, a little bit ago. She was at-"

    "I know."

    "Well. Yeah. Anyway, I was coming your way, I thought you might like company."

    She was going to say no, she had to work; and Bibi's anger if she found out, you couldn't come out with me but you could stay in and fuck off hanging out with Michael, and so on and on. "All right," was it less incriminating if she sounded unenthused? "Sure."

    He brought coffee, two big plastic cups, half a half-stale roast beef submarine; lunch, though it was after dark. Dressed all in black, boots scuffed bald at the toes, gloves frayed; joking display, hard winter, huh? His lips were chapped, too; she felt their dryness as he kissed her, chaste kiss on the cheek.

    "Working, huh?" standing beside her by the worktable, she noticed he did not remove his coat. Cold in here, isn't it? You should see how it is when we're fighting. "Can I see?" and bending over her, slow thorough examination and remembering in that instant Bibi's first look at her sculpture, that same single-minded thoroughness and Tess felt for a moment that she might cry, coughed instead, a watery cough worse than a sob and Michael peered sideways into her face. "Hey," very gently. "Hey, what's the matter?"

    "Nothing," trying to shrug, or smile, something. "Working too hard, I guess."

    "I thought," and she sensed the care behind the words, "maybe you two were working together again. Bibi says-"

    "What?" too quickly, startling them both and Tess instantly abashed, unfocused stare past Michael's shrug, and his tone noncommittal: "She has a lot of plans, I guess."

    "She has plans all right," touching the little construct, her hand past his. "I don't think I'm in them, though." And then that seemed so melodramatic she had to smile, tried to but instead produced such a half-assed effort that Michael bent from the piece to her and hugged her very hard.

    "Is it that bad?" and the words begun before she could stop them,
She's like a different person, Michael, she talks crazy sometimes Michael she's not the same, or she's more of the same I don't know I don't know if it's her or me…
and then the lame smile, trying for a laugh,
you always get my sad stories, don't you? Don't you?
as if to force him to admit he was tired of them, tired of her as Bibi was tiring of her, as Bibi tired her out and "No," as gently but with reproof, "I'm your friend. I want all your stories, good and bad and sad, whatever you want to tell me. I'm your friend."

    And she did not cry but felt a loosening, the comforting feel of pain if not absolved then set aside, a little, and told him what she felt she could: that she and Bibi were drifting apart again, that Bibi seemed angry all the time. That Bibi, maybe, had other plans.

    "Like what?"

    "Like bringing back the Surgeons. Or something like them." Something worse. "I don't know, I'm just guessing," the coffee cold now, faint powdered-cream skin riding faint on its surface. "I think it might have something to do with that scummy Matty Regal."

    Michael's frown, the distaste one might show for roadkill; a bubo; an untended sore. "Yeah, he hangs around that scene, but he's such an asshole it's hard to imagine Bibi having anything to do with him." He drank his coffee, made a face. "This tastes like shit. Did she say what she's planning on, with him? A new Surgeons, or what?"

    "She wouldn't tell me. She knows I hate him." Sighing, brushing hair back from her face; vaguely aware of her looks, baggy sweat shirt, stained hands, horsetail hair messy all around and she sighed again. "I don't know, maybe I'm paranoid, maybe she does it just to bug me. I don't know," and her hair fell down again, tickling in her face; this time Michael brushed it away, settled its curve gently behind her ears.

    "What about you?" leading her away from the worktable to sit on the unmade couch-bed, lumpy pillows, blankets humped sad and cold. "What are you working on? That-" nodding back. "What is it?"

    She told him, a little, the little she had been doing though in the telling it did not seem so little at all; maybe Bibi was right about that at least. "I guess I spend a lot of time with it, but I have to spend time at the body shop, too." Where she must watch, always, to make sure her tools were not stolen or sabotaged, where they called her lezzy and cuntfucker behind her back and sometimes to her face. "It's the only money we have, right now."

    "Have you thought about having a show again? -Of your sculptures, I mean," and his glance at the draped forms, moving and unmoving; for Tess they might as well have been buried, dead relics of a past she did not want to remember, might never want to remember. She shrugged, a Bibi-like shrug.

    "No. I don't know." Little flutter inside of nausea, she realized she was hungry, she had not eaten today at all. Should she ask Michael if he wanted to go out, get something? but he was rising, squeezing her hands: have to go, I have to meet some friends, do you know Skeleton Fist?

    "It's a club," she said.

    "Sort of, yeah. Anyway I promised I'd meet them at midnight," and her surprise, was it so late already? Yes. Time passed in talk; like it used to do with Bibi; don't think about that now. "I'll call you tomorrow, if you want me to. Maybe I can come over."

    "We'll see," wanting to be gracious, he was always so kind but it was, maybe, not something Bibi would endorse or even allow; who knew? Reaching to squeeze his arm, suddenly shy: "Thanks for coming," and he took her in his arms, hugged her hard against his chest, held her so long that she felt a different kind of shyness, he was holding her the way a man holds a woman; wasn't he?

    "Thanks," again, into his shoulder and he kissed her cheek, as chastely but in another way not so at all: "I'll call you tomorrow," his lips against her skin, against her lips lightly; she watched him from the window, sure he could not see, black figure on a bike, skidding once or twice and gone.

    And within half an hour Bibi back, Bibi's smothering hug and Bibi's mouth on hers, unconscious trace of those small Michael-kisses and Tess kissed her back very hard, shoulders in her hands and the metal at her mouth still slick with cold, all the piercings hard-centered with a deep unmelting frost. It was morning and past morning before Tess felt warm at all.

    Michael's call came as he had promised, but showering Tess did not hear until Bibi came to stick her face nearly in the spray: "That was Michael," she said.

    "Oh, yeah." The soap a mean sliver, working it hard to spring any lather at all. "He said he would call."

    "Said it when?"

    "Last night-" and the words fell as from a cliff; last night. Last night she had not told Bibi there had been any visitors at all.

    And now, small head cocked, pale eyes narrow as the soap, you told me you were working, right? And louder, "Maybe you'd rather have a cock between your legs, j maybe you're getting bored with me, is that right? Is it?" and Tess drawing back, underwater and startled in a way that had nothing to do with Bibi's jealousy but with her accusation: rather have a cock, what did that mean? It was not about cocks, cunts; making love to Bibi was not about making love to A Woman, it was making love to Bibi, Bibi of the indrawn breath and closed eyes and nipping teeth, the metal and the slippery scents. Just as making love to Michael would be not about a cock, A Man, but about- just Michael, just that.

    "Bibi," shutting off the water; soap tears in her eyes, the cold skitter of gooseflesh. "Don't even start something that stupid. Don't even-"

    "Stupid, you have a hell of a fucking nerve calling me stupid, you have a hell of a fucking nerve anyway to-"

    "Bibi, stop it!" Wet and naked and her heart pounding, pounding, she tried to say something over Bibi's anger but it was impossible, it was like talking over a car wreck, a jackhammer jouncing over glass and broken jars. Yelling, calling her names, calling them both names and Tess's protests-Bibi for God's sake we talked about you-instantly made it worse: girding for the explosion and then suddenly Bibi's smile, long and carnivorous: "Well, I guess that's fair. Since I talked about you behind your back."

    She knew. "To who?"

    "To Matty. You should be flattered, he's very knowledgeable about your career."

    "Really." This was worse than Bibi yelling, worse to sit and listen to her repeat Matty's screed, his opinion on Tess's work, Tess's mode of creation-she actually used that phrase: vintage Matty, mode of creation-and her own sidebar interpretations, how Tess might learn from Matty, how she might to her benefit use him as an example since her creativity seemed to be stalled-

    "Who said that?"

    Coolly, "I did."

    -and Matty was of course having no such problems, his new votive service to art's deformed twin, obsession, she actually said that, too, although she had probably thought of that one herself; and on and on until Tess interrupted and in a few sentences, short sentences heavy as iron explained her theory of art-school fuckheads in general and Matty Regal in blunt and unsparing particular.