Masquerade by Micaela Brody

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contents the healing power of love letters, 4 faking it, 6 you donâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;t know me, 8 i kindly stop for death, 11 art: 9, 16, 25

cover illustration by Victoria Gualtieri

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the healing healing power of love letters amanda dull

At fourteen, I wrote a break up letter to my body. Baby, I told her, This just isn’t going to work out. Your thighs are too wide and your stomach too round. Your breasts came too fast. The flaming pink of stretch marks scream where you’ve grown wrong and I can’t hear myself think. You are wrong. You are fat. It will be better for both of us if you go. At seventeen, I tried to send an apology. Dear body, it said, I’m sorry. I just wanted you to be who they wanted you to be. At night, I thought I heard you crying but the whispers behind your back were louder. Every day I longed to hold you in my arms, but society pulled me by your excess skin and told me to be ashamed. I was shamed. I burned the letter.

At twenty-one, I penned a love letter to my body. It is creased and worn, touched by fumbling hands, with wrinkles, ink stains, and beauty marks painting its skin. I read it daily, memorizing the curves and dips of thighs, wrapping wide arms around my chest in a loverâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s embrace. I cradle my body like a delicate flower, and breathe whispers into skin. You are fat, and I love you, and I will never let them break you again. I dance my fingers along faded scars and remember how it feels to heal.

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faking it ramona ostrowski

This piece is for and to and in spite of the only guy I’ve ever slept with. The first time we had sex it hurt like a bitch. And it didn’t feel good. But looking into your eyes felt good and feeling your weight on my body felt good and knowing that for once we were really connected felt good. And you were slow and gentle and you kept asking me if it hurt and I lied and said just a little. Later that night it still hurt. And the next week it hurt. And for the next month it hurt and then we fought and you left and that hurt. A year later it hurt again, like it was the first time. But it wasn’t like the first time because you weren’t being gentle and slow anymore until I said, “Ow.” On and off, off and on for three years of sex and fights and silence and sex. It always hurt and it never felt good enough to make me orgasm, but I pretended it did. I pretended it did because I loved the way you’d kiss my shoulder and collarbone so gently after you finished. And I loved the way we’d sigh into each other and I’d run my fingers over your chest and you’d smile at me. I didn’t want to ruin it. I can’t tell which upsets me more: the idea that you knew I was faking an orgasm and didn’t say anything—never brought it up afterwards or tried something different next time or, I don’t know, apologized—or the idea that you never knew me well enough to tell that I was faking it. It wasn’t that there wasn’t sexual chemistry—there was. I always wanted you more than I’ve ever wanted anyone else, and I know you wanted me too. Maybe you still do. It wasn’t that either of us were bad at sex…well, I was probably bad

at sex. And if I had anyone else to compare it to, I would quite possibly realize that you were bad at sex, too. But you’re all I know. So what was it, then? Were you just too fast, too rough, too selfish? That does sound like you. Or was it me? Was it my fault for not telling you when something didn’t feel great, when you gave so much attention to the wrong area, when you pinned me down even though I really liked being on top? Or maybe it just wasn’t right. And that is still so hard for me to say because underneath all this anger and bitterness I feel now, there is still love for you. But maybe, even though I gave you my love and my body and so many minutes hours years of my thoughts… maybe it just wasn’t right. So I’ll be okay. Maybe I won’t love the next guy like I loved you but maybe he will know what to do. And more than that, I will know what to do. Because I’m going to start things the right way from the beginning with whoever comes next. I’ll tell him from the beginning, “No, not there, over here. Slow down!” And I’ll stay on top if I want to. Because it’s my orgasm. It’s mine and I deserve it.

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you don’t k no w me know liz quinlan

My biggest issue with fat-shaming is when people look at a fat person and say: “He/She/Zie is so grossly overweight that they must be unhealthy.” What I want to know is, how in the name of all that is unholy do you know that? You are not their doctor. You do not have their medical history. You have not performed any kind of examination on their body. You don’t know their eating habits or the amount of exercise they get. You don’t know what health problems their parents or grandparents had. Take me, for example. I am 5’11”, 287 pounds, and aside from psychiatric health that has nothing to do with physical attributes, I am healthier than some of my skinnier friends. I do not have any of the health problems that people bring up when they speak about the “dangers of obesity” such as: Cardiovascular problems High blood pressure Diabetes Stress fractures Hypertension Poly-cystic ovary syndrome Dyslipidemia Thyroid conditions I am just fat. I happened to be larger when I was a child, and then when I was older, I was put on the medication Seroquel for a mood disorder, and that made me gain fifty pounds in four weeks. Not healthy at all. But I did

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not do that, I had no control over that. And now I am on other medications that make it incredibly hard for me to lose weight. When you look at me, you can’t tell that I am perfectly healthy and that I eat a regular diet and enjoy my food. But you also couldn’t tell if I did happen to have diabetes, or a heart condition. You couldn’t tell shit. But people like to assume things. The moment I walk into a room, the people in it make a dozen assumptions automatically. They might not do it consciously, but they are still making them. Human beings like to classify each other; they like to break down the observable facts about one another. But when it comes to fat people, all of the assumptions are usually negative. People assume things about me the moment they see me. About my character (that I’m lazy). About my health (that I must be suffering from a dozen different conditions). About my ability to take care of children (that I would let any children in my care become fatties as well). About my home life (that my own parents are fat too, or that they are neglectful). About my intelligence (that I’m just not educated enough to be thin and ‘healthy’). About my financial status (that I must be poor and only eat cheap junk food). They assume all of these things about me, but they don’t really know any of it. I’m not saying that we don’t assume things about every person that we come in contact with. That’s a special skill we have as animals. But what most people don’t do is assume things about people who are “normal” weights. For example, you would never assume that a high school friend of mine, who probably has never weighed more than 120 pounds in her entire life, has severe diabetes. Or another friend, who is active, athletic, and, again, probably never weighed more than 120 pounds, had Crohn’s disease, a collapsed lung, an ovarian cyst, and endometriosis. You can’t tell anything by looking at people. Especially not fat people.

kind ly stop i kindly for death sonja nitschke Valentine fingered the lip of a shot of whisky before gripping the glass and tipping it back. Alcohol coursed over eir tongue and throat, wet and prickling, stinging with mouth-puckering life. The phone rang, and Valentine coughed the rest of it down, shuddering as it warmed eir stomach and blood. “Valerie?” In the phone, Mother’s voice was far away, a thread of silk strung through wires. Valentine’s lips puckered from the whisky. Through the alcohol haze, words drip-dropped into the cell phone receiver. “It’s Valentine now. Remember?” “I just saw the mail—and I was wondering if you received a letter from Laura, perhaps?” Valentine poked at piles of mail until a thick envelope, stamped with a silver You’re Invited, appeared from under a stack of bills. It was rich with the love and the promise of cakes and dances and ever afters before the happy couple woke together on a Monday fraught with eight to five shifts and bad tempers, unwanted pregnancies, and unexpected sexually transmitted diseases. “I did.” “Are you going to go?” Mother said. “Because if you go then I’ll go. But I don’t want to if you’re not going. Laura isn’t exactly my friend, you know? Just the friend of my da—my child.” A picture fell from the silver card into the puddle left by the sweating whisky glass: Laura, a daisy wreath crowning her red hair, smooching the bridegroom-to-be—tastefully, not like the slobber-slicked kisses Valentine saw day after day—quaint, cute, not a passionate fire but a wavering candle flame under a jar without enough oxygen. “I should go. We’re still friends, I guess. I still like her. There’s no reason not to go.” “Not if you still like-like her.” “Mom,” Valentine said. Ey poured more whisky into the glass. The brown liquid splashed against the side, lapped the lip, and Valentine had to bow eir head and slurp so that not a drop would be spilled on the journey from table to mouth. Alcohol greased eir throat and tongue, and the words slipped easily through eir lips. “That was a long time ago. Pretty sure I’m over it by now.” “I told you you shouldn’t have changed your name,” Mother said. “Valerie was such a nice name—people know which you are with a name like Valerie.”

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Valentine cradled eir head in eir fist. “I don’t want to talk about this anymore.” “I’m just saying, Val —” “If you go, will—Dad—be coming too?” Mother’s voice came back like wind in Valentine’s ear. “Well, I have to bring your father. You know how he is. It’s just a—a couple thing. You know? A wedding and all. People should bring their other halves.” “No,” Valentine said, hearing Father’s voice not over the phone but in the spaces between ears and the cavities around heart and lungs and ribs and stomach and spleen – “I won’t speak to him if he comes.” “You’ll go to the wedding of the girl who broke your heart but you won’t speak to your father?” Valentine grunted into the phone. “Oh, please don’t be that way,” Mother said. “Valentine tapped the empty glass against the table. “I have something to tell you about my job—” “Speaking about your job—please, please don’t mention it at the wedding? It would just embarrass your father—he would die of shame—” “Mom—” “Valerie, there goes the laundry. I have to go, sweetie. We’ll talk about it later, okay?” Valentine tipped forward in eir chair. “Wait —” but Mother was already gone. Valentine hung eir head back and snapped the phone closed. Beside the bottle of scotch, the white, blue-lined pages of a pocketsized notebook, which documented all of Valentine’s Life Decisions of Lasting Import, flapped in the light breeze from an open window. Red-slashed sentences marked the paper, except for the very last one: ACHIEVE A POSITION OF STANDING IN A CAREER THAT MAKES YOU HAPPY. With a red pen, Valentine drew a thick line through the words, then poured and sipped at another shot of whisky. The wedding day inched forward, one small, white, paper square at a time. Valentine slashed Mondays through Sundays with red xs. Sometimes, ey dreamed that Laura would call: please be part of the wedding, she would say, but the call never came. Valentine, to distract eirself from the fantasies, devoted all available energy to writings and stories electric with passion, infusing life to the primal desires surging through the pages with their bare skin and mouth shaped os. Ey remembered Mother’s parting words and flushed. On page seven of the volume of decisions, Valentine had once written, shortly after moving out: STOP CARING WHAT YOUR FATHER THINKS. Valentine found it, drew a thicker line through the text, then flipped to the end, the very end. Still no new goal decided—nothing for which to aim. With clenched fingers, e wrote: DETERMINE A NEW GOAL BEFORE YOUR LIFE RUNS AGROUND ON THE SHOALS OF INDIRECTION. On the morning of Laura’s wedding day, Valentine woke alone and cold in the studio. The notebook, a pale tattooed face in the greyness of heavily curtained rooms, reminded Valentine that there must be direction: Captain Valentine to the bridge, please. What’s our heading, sir—and, as the commanding officer of Valentine’s life, it fell to em to plot the course. Valentine said all this in front of the mirror, wagging a finger at the reflection before closing the volume and tossing it onto the

futon that served as a couch that also served as a desk in the daytime hours. Then Valentine struggled into eir binder. Over that, ey pulled on a black, sharply cut dress shirt knobbed with silver cufflinks. Valentine tucked the tails into a black pencil skirt, smooth against black nylons. Slid feet into black loafers. Then looped a thin black tie around eir neck, pushing up the knot (but not too far). Valentine wrapped everything together with a thick, square-buckled belt before shrugging into a black blazer, its elbows leather-patched. Valentine arrived an hour before the wedding, but waited until the bells pealed and the piano heralded the coming of the bride. E slipped into the foyer, shoes trodding over red rose petals, and clung to the shadows before sliding into a back row pew. Distance blurred the faces of the bride and groom. If this were one of Valentine’s stories, there’d be glimpses of ankles and knees and thighs instead of a white curtain waiting for the groom to part it for the oncoming show. She’d wear a corset instead of the simple bodice that scalloped her shoulder blades. And instead of the bridegroom—Peter or whoever—there’d be Valentine in fitted slacks, a buttoned up waistcoat, a tie only half-knotted. And it wouldn’t be make-believe – “You may kiss the bride.” As the bridegroom kissed Laura, the audience cheered without passion, clapping politely, constrained by the pure stained glassed walls of the church. Laura with her bridegroom-now-husband dashed up the aisle, arms linked together in a chain. The reception was outdoors. Presumably, Laura had forgotten that mosquitoes were not remotely romantic. Valentine wandered the tables that fenced an open staged area reserved for waltzes and swing your partner do-ci-do. eir parents joined em, though Father veered off towards the deli meats and cubed cheeses, and then hovered in ear shot. “You okay?” Mother asked. “It’s a wedding,” ey said. “Everybody’s okay at weddings. Great big celebration like this?” Mother covered eir hand with hers, and together, they watched Laura dance with James or whoever before he passed her off to someone else—another man, the groom’s brother perhaps. The groom sauntered to Valentine, his hands deep in his trouser pockets, his lapel blossom crooked and wilting. “Isn’t she gorgeous?” He swirled a red paper cup full of champagne as he watched Laura dance, her arms looping through others as her heeled feet trip-trapped like shards of flashing crystals. Valentine couldn’t speak through the dry mouth. “You must be Valerie. She’s mentioned you a couple of times.” Ey picked up a glass of champagne and gulped it down. “Valentine. Actually.” The groom introduced himself to eir parents, then asked Valentine about work. “Laura’s barely told me anything about you,” he said with a laugh. “I was recently promoted. Sort of,” ey said. “But what do you do? Laura’s never said.” Of course, Laura would never say. Valentine forgot to smile as Father trod on eir foot, even as mother tried to jerk him back. The groom faltered, his smile slipping and sliding into discomfited question marks. “I am what you could call a connoisseur of fine sex,” ey said.

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“What –?” Glancing askance at Father, Mother said, “Val scripts erotic comics for an online group.” “Two brothers who like to draw but were baffled by the writerly bits of the process,” ey said. “Before, I just freelanced for them, but now they want me to script all of their stories.” The groom laughed, slapped his thighs, but Father, his lips a thin red line as Mother tightened her grip on Father’s arm, propelling him away from the crowd, whispering in his ear. The groom tilted his head, then offered Valentine the crook of his arm. “May I?” Valentine acquiesced, even though eir loafered feet were heavy as chunks of coal. Over the scrape of fiddles, he said, “So you and Laura used to date.” Valentine’s breath caught on eir teeth. “It’s public record.” “She told me she didn’t swing that way.” He twirled Valentine. “That’s because she didn’t know my birth certificate didn’t classify me as male.” Even though he still clasped eir hand, even though he still led her in the simple two-step, he withdrew, adding a new, unmeasurable space between them. Then his eyes flicked to Valentine’s skirt. “How?” The corner of Valentine’s lips twitched. “Short hair. Carpenter pants. Steel-toed boots.” Valentine stepped out of his grasp. “I’m thirsty. Please excuse me.” But he followed eir to the table full of punch, fizzy and tingly with carbonated water and alcohol. “I see the way you look at her,” the groom said. Valentine choked on eir drink. Eir nose stung, breath spasmed in eir lungs. This sort of thing happened sometimes in the stories that e had to write. “You’re afraid I’m going to take her from you. That I’ll steal her heart and you’ll wake up one morning to find your bed empty.” He scoffed. “Don’t be ridiculous.” “But she’s not mine,” Valentine said. “She’s nobody’s.” Ey was nauseous, but surely ey had not drunk that much. “Excuse me. Again.” Valentine found another glass of champagne, tipped it back. The liquid tingled eir tongue and tonsils, eir insides and outsides, burned the nausea away with the mellow not-happiness-but-close-enough feeling. Behind Valentine, Laura tapped a shoulder. “You’ve been hiding.” Her skin shone with sweat, and she breathed deeply from her abdomen. Her dress hung crookedly around her shoulders. She must have just stopped her dancing. “No, I haven’t,” Valentine said. “Hiding implies I’m afraid, and I’m the most fearless person you know.” Laura hesitated before she smiled. “Have I told you the story how Paul and I met?” Valentine said, “No,” and waited for the inevitable. “We just literally bumped into each other—in the library of all places. My books went flying everywhere—” she flung out her arms for emphasis, the strapless wedding dress shifting a little— “and he helped me pick them up, like a real gentleman. After that, everything just fell into place, like dominoes. Like fate, I guess.” Valentine stiffened, fingers clenched against each other, dimpling the red plastic of eir cup. “There’s no such thing as fate.” Laura sighed, brushing eir arm with her palm. “You always take things so seriously, sometimes.”

Valentine leaned closer to Laura. “Because no one else will.” Then laughed, so that Laura would not think em incapable of a joke on such a happy, happy day. Then other well-wishers pulled her away, and the groom scooped her up and twirled her about, her feet never touching the ground. Valentine walked away, looking for a trash bin for eir cup and a restroom for eir aching bladder. But, just as ey pushed on the door for men, Father lumbered out, sweat on his clothes, the faint, tangy smell of champagne on his breath. “Excuse me,” Valentine said before brushing past him. His hand pushed Valentine against the wall. “This is the men’s.” “I don’t want the women’s.” Ey ducked from under his hand. “Valerie—” Father said. Valerie, what you doing? Valerie, why you dressing like some dyke? Valerie, who you seeing? Valerie, who you kissing? Valerie, how’d you come to be such a cunt? “You’re wearing a skirt,” Father said, gesturing at the white, linear figure pasted on the bathroom door. Valentine pushed him back, dashed into one of the stalls, and slid the silver bar across the metal postern. Ey couldn’t quite catch a breath. Ey ran a tongue over dry, chapped, champagne-flavored lips. Then ey hitched up eir skirt and sat on the cold, white toilet, and hugged eir knees. Someone else entered, black dress shoes scuffed with old mud. Valentine finished, smoothed the wrinkles from eir skirt and dress shirt, then straightened the thin black tie into a razor line along the buttons. The other man was inspecting himself in the mirror, rubbing a thumb along his stubbled jaw. He started when Valentine exited the stall, glanced around the wash room. “Thought I was in the ladies’ for a mo’,” he said with a grin. While washing up, Valentine just smiled at him, hoping he wouldn’t say any more. He didn’t. In the hallway, Mother and Father shared a piece of cake—she lifting a crumbling piece to him, he proffering his to her. They smiled, and they had frosting on their lips. Valentine wondered what Mother had said to make him forget about em, about his anger. Maybe it wasn’t real anymore. Maybe it was just something he thought he ought to feel because he knew no other script. Valentine turned away from them, pulled open the doors that exited onto the church yard, and wound her way through the crowd until she found Laura, whom she wished goodbye before crossing the lawns to the parking lot. “Val—wait, please wait,” Laura said, but Valentine pretended not to hear. “Why are you leaving?” Laura gasped, her wedding dress slipping dangerously from her sweat-silked skin.. “I have to. Besides, you have Jim.” Or whoever. “Paul!” Laura stamped her foot, then flinched. A cool evening breeze swept over them, puckering her skin with goose bumps, and she shivered. Valentine shrugged out of the blazer and attempted to drape it over Laura’s shoulders. Laura shied away from it, from Valentine’s hands. “Val. Stop.” “It’s just a jacket,” Valentine said. “Friends give each other jackets all the time. It’s the thing to do—to help a person in need no matter who

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in that moment, with california burning

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it is: friend or lover or stranger.” Out of breath. “It’s just a jacket—” higher pitched this time. Laura eyed the jacket, mouth quirking. “Okay. Friends.” She took it from Valentine and settled it around her shoulders. Ey strode towards the parking lot, trying to remember where ey had parked eir car, looking for something vaguely familiar—a lamppost, the perspective of the marriage cathedral, something. Anything. “Val—wait! Caspar’s ghost, why don’t you just stop for a hot minute.” She tripped over her heels, then kicked them off as she hurried after Valentine. “Friends don’t leave without saying goodbye.” Valentine stopped but didn’t turn around. “I did say goodbye.” “Not a proper goodbye.” Valentine sucked eir lips, wished for more champagne. “What do you want me to say? “I miss you, Val. I miss you being there. I miss you.” Valentine flinched. “You told me I confused you.” Laura glanced down at her bare feet, inches from Valentine’s loafers. “Valerie —” then she clapped her hands over her mouth, smudging some of her lipstick. “Valentine, I mean.” She cleared her throat. “Val.” The diamond on her finger looked plastic in the twilight. “I just miss you.” It’s not that I despise you, Val—but it’s not like you’re a guy. Please, please, please try to understand. Please. Valentine braced against the words already forming. “I didn’t say goodbye. Not the first time.” Laura rubbed her eyes, mussing her mascara. “You lied to me—and now you want to pretend that it never happened.” “Because that’s not what happened,” ey said. Even though Laura barely reached Valentine’s shoulder in her bare feet, wedding dress bundled around her knees, she looked down at em. “It’s not the same anymore. You should have told me who you were.” “I never lied about who I was.” Valentine ground a toe into the asphalt, ignoring the pain, the damp sensation that must be blood sticking cloth to skin. “It’s not my fault you think having a vagina means anything more than just having a vagina.” Laura palmed her forehead, shoulders hunched, back slumped. “I need to go back before Paul wonders where I’ve gone.” As Laura shrugged off the blazer, Valentine pulled out the right words, put them in the right order, and said, “I wish you both the greatest happiness.” Laura tilted her chin up, pushed the jacket into Valentine’s arms, then rushed away, grit sticking to the bottoms of her feet, her white heeled shoes hanging by the ankle straps from her wrist, bouncing up and down and against each other with every step. From the computer, Valentine read an article with an accompanying picture about a museum in Paris putting on display a guillotine. Swaddled in shadows, the guillotine penetrated slanted shafts of dusty sunlight. Its shallow cradle was empty, waiting and open. A gray veil hung from the guillotine, like peter-pan curtains framing open windows. It was a gateway to death or an afterlife. Valentine did not believe in eternity, first when Father said that ey would never be an angel, those

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sexless celestial beings because Valentine was Valerie, his daughter, his little girl, and then because there was no reason to believe. Beside em, the Volume full of Valentine’s Decisions of Lasting Import rested, waiting for a new life-goal for which to aim. Valentine thumbed through the empty spaces, tapped the pen against the blue-striped whiteness, the surface of the moon. The guillotine loomed over Valentine, over the Volume, over page after page after page after page. Valentine snapped the Volume closed. Even in its finiteness, life was too much like eternity. Valentine knew why other people committed suicide by guillotine. A guillotine couldn’t be mistaken as an act of passion, a slipped finger on the trigger of a gun. It couldn’t be excused as a pill-popped plea for help. It was deliberate. Conscious. A labor of love to end one’s life, to embrace death, to not be afraid anymore. Valentine found eir place in the Volume and wrote: BUILD A GUILLOTINE. Perhaps, in the time it took build, Valentine would have something new to write in the Volume, something for which to aim, something to shape eir life. But for now, this was as good anything. Then ey poured more alcohol in the shot glass, swirled it, raised it, then drank it down in one gulp. There was too much sex, not enough significance. Too many throbbing members, too little pulsing emotions. Valentine struck words with a black pen, scribbled, scratched, tossed fistfuls of paper towards the overflowing office trash bin. Someone knocked on the door and ey called for whoever it was to come in. It was the secretary/editor—he did all that was required of him in this small and out-of-basement business concerned with the representation of salacious and significant pleasures. “There’s someone to see you, Val.” For the first time, Valentine noticed the black ink splotched over eir fingers and thumb. “For business or for pleasure?” He dropped a wink, raised a brow. “Don’t think she’s the business type. Looked properly embarrassed when she saw the posters of lusty —” “Right,” Valentine said, pushing a clear path to the door. Ey peeked around the corner to see who it was, and there was Laura, perched on the ragged, cigarette scorched, squishy armchair, bent over the coffee table, laboriously placing domino after domino in an almost straight row. The set was incomplete—had been since the director had torn the posters down, transforming the place into an inoffensive home business, and brought his kids down to play because the sitter had flu. Ey had always suspected one of the brats had swallowed a domino in a fit of malevolence. “Newly married and already here,” Valentine said, stepping from the corner, one hand held towards Laura. “Job well done,” and Valentine dropped a wink so that Laura would know ey wasn’t being mean. Laura jerked—a domino slipped from her fingers, colliding into the row. They crashed into each other, falling, splaying across the table and splattering over the floor. Valentine clapped with a “Bravo” and Laura flushed. “Not that newly married,” Laura said. “It’s been months.”

Ey laughed, smoothed wrinkles away from eir pinstriped waistcoat, and said, “What brings you here?” “You.” “Couldn’t call?” “You never answer your phone.” “Couldn’t write?” Laura shifted, arms akimbo, legs apart. “Email or letter?” Valentine lifted a shoulder, hunched eir neck in exaggerated indecision. “Either.” “I did. Both kinds. No response.” “That would be because I’ve given up the habit of checking my mailboxes—virtual or otherwise.” Laura twisted her mouth into a corkscrew. “Your mother’s worried. I’m worried.” “Mothers always do. If it’s not broken bones, it’s broken hearts.” “We haven’t heard from you since the wedding, and that was months ago. I thought we agreed we were friends.” “Been around,” Valentine said. “www dot —” “That’s not what we mean. Personally. Not professionally.” “I’m diving head forward into my career,” Valentine said. “Feminists everywhere should rejoice at my success and resolve.” “Your mother told me you weren’t writing as much as you used to.” “Oh. That sly wench,” Valentine said. “She never did let on that she reads my work.” “Valer-entine.” Laura shook her head and shoulders, smoothing her already smooth summer dress. “How can you be a workaholic if you’re not working?” “Nasty case of writer’s block. I’d stay away if I were you. Might be contagious.” Valentine dipped eir head and chin into an exaggerated nod and whispered, “Possibly fatal.” “Why can’t you be serious?” Laura tapped her shoes against the floor. The carpet was so thick the action didn’t make a sound. “We’re worried. Ever since the wedding—we made plans, remember? Over email? But you canceled. You always cancel whatever plans we make.” Because Steve or whoever always wanted to come too. Ey rubbed lips and mouth with an ink besmirched hand. After a very long pause, Laura said, “You gave yourself a mustache.” “Oh really? Is it very distinguished? Am I a proper gentleman now? Ought I to begin smoking a cigar, sport a fedora perhaps? Will it make people take me very seriously?” Valentine posed with folded arms, back straight, head tilted towards the ceiling. Laura’s back hunched with her shoulders, her head wilted to her chest. “Won’t you have dinner with me tonight? Paul’s been away on a business trip and, Caspar’s ghost, I don’t think I can stand one other tv dinner with just myself for company.” Valentine remembered that eir shipment of lumber was coming in later that afternoon and also that Laura had a history of eating inconveniently early so that she could go to bed at an inconveniently early hour. But there would be no husband. “When?” Laura’s mouth dropped into an o then morphed into a smile. “Fiveish?” Not enough time for Valentine to pick up the lumber and to put it away in the backyard. “I have work to do.”

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“This kind of work?” Laura gestured to the posters of men flaunting their scantily hidden genitalia, at women cupping their breasts, and figures with smooth groins caressing their unearthly bodies. “No” before Valentine could say yes. “Then I want to help you,” Laura said. “Then take you to dinner.” “Fine,” Valentine said, wishing that lies came more quickly to eir tongue and lips as they came to eir fingers. “Only if you promise not to badger me about it.” Breathless, Laura said, “Promise.” Then she was gone. A domino cracked under her heel. Valentine changed into heavy boots and baggy carpenter jeans and a paint smeared t-shirt before meeting up with Laura, who still wore her summer dress and heels from earlier. Valentine laughed—Laura wanted to know what was so funny, but ey waited until they pulled into the lumber yard, air heavy with dust and had-been trees. Laura’s smile melted and she glanced down at her summer sandals, her swishy, knee length dress, and ey laughed again. “You could have warned me.” “What? And ruin the effect of your distinguished elegance for our dinner?” Ey almost said date. A lump hardened in Valentine’s throat and an ache pierced eir stomach, twisting itself around heart and lungs. “Come on. This won’t take long.” “What’s all this for?” Laura asked, carrying her own slightly smaller pile of wood Valentine. “A project. I wasn’t lying when I said that I had been working. It’s just an extra-curricular activity.” “Caspar’s ghost,” Laura muttered. Valentine wiped away saw dust muddy with sweat from skin and hair. “It’s one of my more ambitious projects.” “Yeah?” Laura chewed on her fingernails. “I’ve never burned someone in effigy before,” ey said. “Who you gonna burn?” Laura said, then, dubiously, “Wouldn’t that be like a fire hazard? Illegal?” Lumber clattered into the bed of Valentine’s rented truck, and ey sneezed. “My father.” “Val,” Laura said, then stopped as she puffed out her cheeks, chewing and mulling over the right words. “Val —” “What? He still calls me ‘Valerie,’ you know,” Valentine said, trying to smile like they were sharing juicy snippets of gossip. “Anyway, that’s the last load,” ey said, rubbing palms against thighs, leaving a swathe of tan dust over a plain of knee-patched blue jeans. “Thanks for helping me. Didn’t you say something about dinner?” Laura said over her red wine, “First crush?” Valentine almost swallowed a peach pit before spitting it out into a napkin. Ey wrapped up the napkin, tossed it into a plate and said, “Celebrity or real person,” to stall. By crush, Laura must have meant sexual awakening so that she could understand Valentine or something that made eir head ache. Laura said, “Whatever,” and Valentine remembered stuffing cotton balls into her secret place as Mother euphemistically called it because if a hole is filled then a hole no longer exists. Valentine tried to spoon up some chocolate pudding the server just brought to them, but eir

muscles waited for eir brain to catch up, to stop thinking about the binder that was beginning to chafe, how, as a young girl, just beginning to bud, ey wondered if it was possible to prune the body like Mother snipped away the unwanted roses on the bushes outside. Laura raised her eyebrows over another sip of red wine. “Princess Leia,” Valentine said, taking another sip, and then another, of red wine. Laura did not ask for clarification: bikini clad Leia or pristine Leia, a virgin in her white robes. But it was Leia posing as a bounty hunter, Leia rescuing Han Solo frozen in carbonite that struck a pubescent Valerie. Leia pulling off her helmet, hair messy and flyaways straying across her face, encased in body armor, determined and brave. In that moment, Valentine could have kissed her. Laura replied with “Han Solo,” and they laughed until Valentine swallowed a mouthful of pudding and glanced around the room for a clock. The ache in Valentine’s head pounded with the hammer smashing into the nail. Sweat trickled into eir eyes and mouth, caking eir skin with saw-dust mud. Valentine collapsed against the wood, baked from the sun, and rested. Warmth pooled in eir limbs and seeped through the skin and spread through the empty places between bones, muscles, and tendons like something kin to happiness but not quite. It lulled em to sleep until the evening chill forced Valentine awake and to bed, not even brushing hair or teeth or sneaking a shot from the liquor cabinet. The director stampeded into eir office, Valentine’s latest drafts frothing from his fist. Ey minimized the computer browser which pictures thumb nail sized metal blades, no bigger than razors from the glowing screen. “This isn’t going to get people off,” he said. Valentine did not say that maybe it just wasn’t his cup of tea. “People like the androgynous—but the fascination is in the wonder of whether it’s a chick or a dude and in this —” he brandished the paper in Valentine’s general direction – “that needs to be resolved. But here you just get people pretending to be androgynous when they’re really just sexless people having sex which just doesn’t make any kinds of sense from any sort of view.” He sniffed mightily. “It don’t work, Val. Make it two dudes or two chicks or two straight horndogs. But just change it.” When ey changed it to astronauts meeting aliens on a diplomatic mission that somehow turned into an orgy on their space station, the director crowed while slapping Valentine on the back. “Nabbing the sci-fi nerdlings. That’s my girl. ” Valentine scratched at eir binder, squeezed eir thighs together, and mumbled something like a thank you. It took a long time to find a blade for the guillotine. Ey placed an ad in the local paper and a plea for assistance on Craig’s List: Seeking a smith well used to making blades of all sizes. Will pay for materials and labor. Please contact me at — It took a week before someone responded. “Why would you want that?” the message said. “Trying to start your own revolution are you?”

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“No,” Valentine typed back. “I’m a professor at a local community college. I have discovered that students respond quite well to physical demonstrations.” The price the smith demanded was more than what Valentine had ever spent in one go, but ey paid without mapping out finances, without checking or double checking the budget. Laura dropped by the office sometimes—more often that she ever had when they were seeing each other in half empty theatres, a foreign film reeling across a tattered silver screen. Valentine thought it was because her husband was working two jobs to pay for the diamond squatting on her finger. Sometimes over whisky, ey thought that maybe Laura missed being together. Maybe she didn’t miss saying “I love you,” but missed the togetherness they experienced as the sun toasted their skin while they sipped over-priced coffees on cheap verandas. Laura stared at the newest poster that decorated Valentine’s wall. A girl, green alien skin crawling teasingly over her body, wrapped her legs around another female, who nuzzled the green-tinted flesh while a male body bent over her arching torso, almost kissing her lips. Laura flicked the corner of the poster and it pendulumed back and forth. “I read this one,” she says. “Do people really want to have sex with aliens?” Valentine shrugged. “Somebody—somewhere. Probably. It’s a fascination.” “You’ve never been fascinated with that,” Laura said. Ey crumpled a piece of paper, tattooed front and back, into the trash. “People will get different things out of it.” “It didn’t get me off,” Laura said before she blushed and hid her eyes in the corners of the carpeted floor. Then, “The sex scenes were distracting. It it weren’t for the sex, I may have liked it.” “It’s because we here like to have a story with our sex. Sort of the reason why we set up shop. Or rather why Jake did. I didn’t come till later. But character development is a primary ingredient in our erotica,” Valentine said. “That’s probably what you liked. Our show don’t tell mantra in action—right before your eyes.” Laura shifted her weight from foot to foot. “You certainly showed a lot.” Ey almost laughed, but didn’t because puns were sleazy. “How is your project coming?” Laura said. “What project?” “The one with the lumber. The burn-your-father-in-effigy one.” Valentine hummed. “It’s almost done.” “Can I see it? Can I watch it burn?” “Perhaps.” Laura pouted. Playfully. “So teasing.” Valentine drove a toe into the carpet while clasping eir hands against eir back, peered up at Laura from under heavy black rimmed frames. “Delayed gratification.” “Ha, ha,” Laura said. Laura flicked the corner of the poster again. Tick tock it rasped. “You can have it if you want it,” Valentine said, then threw eir arms out in a sunburst embracing the blank office walls. “There’s really not enough room for it here.”

“That’s okay,” Laura said. “I’m not sure where I’d put it. It’s not like it’d go with the decor, you know? We’re—Paul and I, you know—are aiming for more of a vintage look.” It took two men to deliver the package from the smith, so Valentine contacted the local college newspaper and paid them to run the following: Looking for some strapping young folk to help with a labor intensive project. Will pay for labor. Refreshments included. Valentine baked chocolate chip cookies and squeezed lemons for lemonade. Before the week was out, several students, more than what was strictly required—had responded. Valentine told them all to come, that even if there wasn’t enough work for everyone, there was plenty of money and cookies and lemonade. Together, they lifted the blade and nestled it into the waiting wooden arms. “Holy shit,” said one of the college students. “Off with her head,” someone else said, laughing. “It’s for a class presentation at the high school,” Valentine said. “I teach there.” “Man—nobody ever showed me a guillotine. Maybe if they had, I’d not’ve fallen asleep so much.” “Or spent so much time staring at Jessie’s tits.” They nudged each other’s ribs. Some glared disapprovingly. Valentine pretended eir ears and mind were momentarily turned off. Valentine the high school teacher, eager to give knowledge, eager to impress, to prepare all those young folk for the future. “Are you ready to see the presentation?” “Hell yeah,” they crowed as they poured themselves lemonade in glasses packed with ice. Valentine, hands cupping a green marbled watermelon, deposited it in the narrow wooden cradle under the flashing blade. “Ready?” Soon there was only the sound of lips slurping at rapidly warming lemonade. Valentine pulled the rope. The blade, with a lurch, plummeted. Valentine’s stomach plunged with it. Sliced and crunched, the watermelon split into half, one of which tumbled to the brown-tinged grass. The pink flesh glistened in the reflection of the honed blade, resting on the slab of wood, now defaced by a deep crevice. “Who wants watermelon?” After the students left, leaving cookie crumbs and lemon rinds and flat watermelon seeds (spat all across the lawn), Valentine typed up a two-weeks notice and emailed it to Jake. Laura knocked and wouldn’t stop like an early morning woodpecker, and Valentine couldn’t pretend not to be home, not with the open window and the open curtains and the tang of coffee in the air. “I want to see your project,” Laura said over her coffee with too much milk and too much sugar. Her eyes flickered from Valentine’s towards the dining room window, the one that faced the back yard. Laura very carefully placed the mug on the table. “Val,” Laura said, eyes fixed on her coffee, “why is there a guillotine in your back yard?” The coffee was so black it stung Valentine’s tongue and curdled inside, even though ey never used milk or cream. “Because I built it.” Laura tapped the spoon against her saucer. “Is that the lumber for the project? The burn-your-father-in-effigy project?” Valentine tongued eir molars. “Yes.”

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“So you lied to me. Again. How can we be friends if you lie to me all the time? First about you being a dude—” “—Laura, don’t say it like that—” “And now this. You’re such a liar. ” Valentine breathed deeply from eir abdomen. “I’m not a liar. You’re always asking me things, and it’s my space, my lumber, but people always poke around, wanting to know every single detail, picking me apart.” When Laura didn’t say anything, Valentine said, “I still have left over lumber. I can still burn my father in effigy. It would have just mouldered away if you hadn’t reminded me.” Laura picked up her coffee and took a cautious sip. “But why a guillotine?” “Why did you marry your husband?” Laura squinted at her coffee, then at Valentine. “You gave me that poster. I’ve read the news articles. They all say that the first sign of suicidal tendencies is people giving their possessions away.” “Actually, you refused. Besides. I give lots of people posters,” ey said. “I’m a generous person.” Laura bit her fingernails and her lips. “You were acting fine. Then you started acting strange. Hiding yourself away. Closing yourself off.” “According to my parents,” ne said, “I always act weird.” Laura put her hot hand over Valentine’s cold fingers. Her eyes searched Valentine’s and she leaned over to whisper, “Are you going to hurt yourself?” Valentine squeezed Laura’s hand, leaned forward until she could smell the cream and sugar on Laura’s breath. “No.” “I know that life hasn’t always been good to you,” Laura said. “I know that it could—that it might—perhaps—” Laura widened her eyes, jerked her wrists. “I’m not,” Valentine said. “I choose not to be. Life and its crap is not the boss of me.” Laura gulped at her coffee, even though the cup was empty. “People are a product of their environment. Something happens and then another and —” she slammed her palms together and Valentine flinched – “life’s spun out of control.” “Bullshit,” ey said. Laura smiled a smile that didn’t reach her eyes. “Please call me if you’re ever sad or down or lonely. I’m here for you, okay? Just don’t, don’t—” “—kill myself? It’s not a four letter word. You can say it, you know.” “Don’t be cross with me. Why do you always not care?” “I care. I care about lots of things.” “How do I know that?” Laura said. “You lie.” Valentine sipped eir coffee. Laura palmed her eyes. “Listen. I feel we should talk when I’m not so upset with you. Then we could get coffee. Go to the movies. Something. I’m here for you.” “Okay,” Valentine said. They could have popcorn. Valentine could pay for the popcorn and the ticket with the erotica job. They could sit beside each other. Valentine could go to the men’s restroom and Laura wouldn’t say anything, probably, maybe. Valentine could go to the women’s restroom and nobody would say anything. Valentine could call: Hey, Laura. Let’s go somewhere, okay? And then Laura could say, Wherever you want to go, Val.

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They made plans to go the country fair, then Laura finished her coffee, and left to spend the rest of the day with Paul, saying, just as she got into the car, “Take care of yourself. You’re my friend. You can tell me anything, Valerie.” Valentine nodded and smiled and assured her that everything was fine, just fine. When Laura had gone, Valentine went to the guillotine. It cast a long dark shadow across the lawn. It rippled over eir shins, crawled over thighs, stretched across eir waist-coast until it completely enveloped Valentine in a pseudo twilight. Ey knelt in the grass before the guillotine, and dipped towards it until its wooden cradle cupped Valentine’s neck. The morning turned sideways. A honey bee, fuzzed with pollen, droned in and out of tilted flowers. Valentine, so close to the ground, could distinguish each blade of grass: that one was chewed through, that one was thirstier than its neighbor. The wind blew, and each blade of grass scraped the ground. The wind eased the sweat pooling in the dip of eir arched back. The rope that held the blade grazed eir skin. Valentine’s fingers twitched towards it, the muscles simultaneously stiffening, rebelling, the brain morphing into question marks, urging the body to wait, to just wait for something. A new goal to strive for. To be Valerie again. To be someone that Laura could – The wind kissed Valentine’s eyes closed. Ey flexed eir hands against the sun-baked wood that cradled neck and heart and head in its wooden palms, then folded them over eir stomach, warm and gold in the sun, as the guillotine held Valentine.

Editor: Amanda Dull Layout Designer: Micaela Brody Contributors: Micaela Brody Amanda Dull Victoria Gualtieri Sonja Nitschke Ramona Ostrowski Liz Quinlan

credits

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