Lucy moved about Mort's small apartment like an art collector in an undiscovered gallery. Photos, documents and carefully arranged newspaper clippings lined the walls. All of the items were contained within the same, black, lacquered wood frames with thin glass panes in a display that was at once simple and overwhelming. All the items on display, when viewed as a whole, told the story of a life spun wrong.
Mort watched quietly, pinching his cigarette between his thumb and forefinger, as the strange visitor studied his private space.
Lucy had already invaded Mort's mind several times before, always under the presumption that he would never know of her existence. Adult humans could not see her or her kind. Mort, to her surprise, could. Occasional, rare exceptions were generally terrified of her when for some weird reason, they could see beyond the Veil Invisible.
This one invited her to come over to his place for a drink.
Mort was astonished by her beauty. He had made the mistake earlier of looking into her eyes and feared the resulting damage to his sanity might actually be permanent. The dark abyss of Eternity seemed to live just behind her pupils and if you looked hard enough, well, Nietzsche was correct. She would look back at you...
Her presence made him forget about his life long goal to commit suicide for a moment.
Lucy leaned in to one particular framed document hanging by the entrance to the kitchen. It's words burned into her and filled her with a delicious answer. "Your mother's death certificate, notifying the cause of death as suicide by barbiturate overdose?"
Mort grinned uncontrollably.
"Right here by the kitchen door," she leaned in closer to the glass. "You kiss this glass every time you pass by it."
"Not every time," Mort said.
"You know you'll never find her." Lucy looked directly at him as she spoke.
"I'm not looking for her," Mort replied with no pause before his statement.
"Bullshit," Lucy came back with a huge smile.
"Did you know your feet don't quite touch the ground?" Mort asked.
"Yes. Did you know the ground is only real to you?" Lucy replied. "Well, you and all your other fellow recorders..." she added, then, "watch this..."
Lucy stretched out her arms and hovered slightly lower to the floor. She began to glow a bit, as field of pure divine will and intention began to build around her. Small lightning bolts wiggled out from deep inside her body.
The walls seemed to warp outward suddenly, then with a distorted wobble, warp in, then back to normal as Lucy moved only a few centimeters to push her toes into the carpet and then fully plant the soles of her feet on the floor. Then, with a breath of release moved back into a resting hover a few centimeters above the carpet.
"It takes a bit of effort and it feels really fucking weird to do that. I have to say though, that the beach is seriously annoying. I adore the feel of sand. I can pick it up, hold it in my hands, sift it through my fingers onto the tops of my feet. Kick it off my toes. But I have no idea what it feels like to step in. It’s expensive in weird ways to reside, primarily in this reality.” Lucy revealed.
"You must save a lot of money on shoes." Mort grinned.
"Oh, I have a closet full. I fucking love shoes! I just don't really wear them all that often," she said gesturing with her hands toward the ground.
Mort moved to his gray, sectional couch and sat down, crushing his cigarette butt into an empty ashtray on the coffee table as he did so. A few nights ago, he had received a private message on his main social media account from Lucy with a Friend Request. Not knowing for sure if it had been a joke of some kind, he accepted and a brief online conversation had begun. A week before that, when he confronted her on that roof, he wasn't certain if she were the hallucinatory product of a possible brain tumor, or some old drugs he may have tried in college, but there was the message thread, plain as the thumb on his hand.
Mort scrolled through the saved conversation on his phone as his guest continued to study his walls...
LUCY - 8:59 pm
That would be interesting. Thanks for inviting me in.
MORT - 9:02 pm
Tuesday at 6, or thereabouts?
LUCY - 9:02 pm
I’m looking forward to it. In full disclosure, I chose to throttle down my sight for the next few days, so I can look forward to it!
MORT - 9:03 pm
Not sure I understand. Throttle back sight?
LUCY - 9:04 pm
Oh! It’s a time thing! It’s only linear to me if I choose to experience it that way. And, I really think you should update your renters insurance policy in the next two days.
MORT - 9:06 pm
Copy that and thanks for the advice from the future. Not sure how to process the “choosing to experience time” like the rest of us...
LUCY - 9:06 pm
There’s just something tasty about anticipation sometimes. Squeezing in and surfing inside a linear perception of dimensional time is the only way to experience it. Which does remind me, how are you okay with the age difference between us?
MORT - 9:11 pm
Never thought about it til now. I’m scared to ask, but I fear you set me up. And I’m curious now. What kind of difference are we looking at here?
LUCY - 9:11 pm
I’m old enough to be your great great great, just keep repeating great a bunch more times, grand goddess or some such shit. It’s a pretty big gap when you have to express it mathematically. Lol
MORT - 9:11 pm
I’m assuming you know where I live...
LUCY - 9:11 pm
I should. I’m standing right behind you.
MORT - 9:27 pm
Okay. That was totally uncool. I looked everywhere in this apartment until I realized you were ducking with me! Lol
LUCY - 9:28 pm
I was ducking with you, but I could’ve totally been standing there when you turned around! Oh, I’m afraid I’m somewhat, indirectly responsible for that line of code in autocorrect software. It’s ducking hilarious. See you Tuesday!
Returning his gaze toward Lucy, Mort struggled with the desire to stare at her. He smiled at his ashtray instead, thinking this might be a safe space but the vibration of her voice resonated in perfect alignment with his quantum waveform pattern. By Mort’s thinking, it may have been rude to stare, but it’s never rude to listen without agenda.
Her voice was infused with supernatural energies. He loved the sound of that vibration...
Lucy turned her attention back to some of the photos on the wall.
Without looking, she stretched out her arm and pointed a finger at Mort's computer on a desk across the room. Mort watched as Spotify opened on the screen at Lucy's command and music began to drift from his speakers. "Shoop," by Salt-N-Pepa was first on her playlist.
He watched as Lucy began to move her hips to the music in a hypnotic invitation for her shoulders to follow. The next song, "So Young," by Portugal the Man, evolved into a full on prayer of physical expression from the creator of sensual dance. Time and space began to compress as Lucy moved to the music. She was facing away from Mort as she moved. Without looking directly at him, she motioned with her finger to stand and join her. Helpless to resist he got up and tried to slip in close to her, but her hand pressed flat to his chest in gesture to stop. She moved him away from her as she continued to dance.
"Dance there. I'll let you know when to get closer," she said smiling softly under the music. Mort's body did as it was commanded. He closed his eyes and simply let the music write the moment. It felt amazing to simply move and be. This was most certainly an unfamiliar moment. They absorbed the music with their bodies and vibrated pure, worship into The Cosmic Data Stream for several songs down the playlist.
"Your Love," by The Outfield began, prompting Lucy to move into Mort's immediate, unprotected space. Her arms connecting above and on his shoulders as they danced, bodies now touching, her fingers moving into his hair, she looked directly into his eyes. "I dig this song.” Lucy said, her voice as soft as a morphine soaked strip of satin. A scent of fresh, baked bread seemed to rise into Mort’s awareness. He did not know where the aroma was coming from but it filled him with the first stirrings of an insatiable hunger.
Lucy willed the volume of the music to a level more suitable for conversation.
"Would you like a drink?" Mort asked. He gestured at his rather well stocked bar.
"You know, I would love a water. In a heavy glass, please. The thickest you have," Lucy asked with an irresistibly flirtatious wink that stabbed Mort in his soul. He never figured her to be a Southern girl. He dismissed himself to the kitchen.
"Like this?" Mort asked presenting a heavy glass tumbler while leaning out of the kitchen door into the living room.
"Perfection!" Lucy announced with a smile.
Mort returned with the tumbler filled with water. "It's filtered. I don't care for tap water," Mort said as he handed her the drink.
Lucy moved to sit cross legged on the couch. Mort noticed that she actually hovered a few centimeters above the cushion. Still amazed, he realized they didn't need to repeat the conversation from earlier. He was beginning to simply embrace that she wasn't from around these parts, at least no where he was familiar with. Lucy placed her glass on the coffee table, placed the fore finger of her right hand into the glass and closed her eyes.
She drew a long, slow breath in through her nostrils. The water began to boil violently as she did this. The density and color of the water changed into a deep, crimson with the texture of arterial blood. Mort had spilled enough in his lifetime to know it when he saw it. The aroma of lilacs and honeysuckle filled the air replacing the scent of fresh baked bread that dominated since she arrived. She pulled her finger away from the glass followed by a sip of the newly changed liquid. A look of ecstasy moved across her face as she savored the thick fluid.
Mort felt a slight, fleeting dizziness as she drank.
"You changed the water into blood," Mort said softly.
"Your blood, mon ami." Lucy said as she continued to sip. "You'll feel like a million bucks in just a bit," she added.
Mort had to sit down. The dizziness was growing worse. He remembered an incident, years ago, in Afghanistan where a job went completely sideways. A poorly improvised explosive device had turned the Humvee he was riding in into something resembling a painting by Salvador Dali, if that painting was on fire and someone was stabbing you in the face with its splintered frame.
He was trapped in the back, upside down, bleeding out from a deep gash in his upper thigh. The rapid, growing, loss of feeling in his leg, hip and roof of his mouth, though much, much worse, was similar to what he was experiencing now. He looked at Lucy as she finished the glass of... blood. He fought to hold on to consciousness as she sat the empty glass back on the coffee table.
She snapped her fingers over the glass causing reality to adjust back to Mort's normal. Only drops of water remained in the finished glass.
Just as suddenly, he felt fine. Better than fine, really. He almost felt like he could fly. "Wow," he huffed.
"That was delicious. Thank you," she said, turning to face Mort.
"You're welcome," Mort replied, the vibration in his throat barely able to hide the feeling of a man who was stupid enough to pet a tiger that appeared at the moment to be friendly, but now terribly uncertain of the outcome of the gesture.
"Are you the devil?" Mort asked, shocked at his sudden inability to stop such a stupid group of words to shoot past all his mental filters.
Just as uncontrollable was the grin that pushed through Lucy's face. She chuckled.
"The devil. That's such a load of metaphysical horseshit. I was created to exist separate and in opposition to the rules for this reality as laid out by The Cosmic Data Stream and The Power That Creates The Universe,” Lucy said warmly.
The aroma of freshly toasted bread with butter and honey filled Mort's mind as he absorbed her words. The throbbing synth tones of "Severed" by The Decemberists played from the sound system, providing a perfect soundtrack to the moment.
He was suddenly aware that he could pet the tiger, so beautiful, so soft, so deep, so powerful, her fangs totally able to destroy him completely…
…and what a fucking awesome way to go.
As long as he never fed her fear, she would most certainly love him. The second he showed her anything other than respect, she would grant his life long wish to die.
Mort, for the first time in his life, fell as deeply in love as a person could fall.
With this thought he remembered the damn "friend zone," where he had spent all of his college years and most of his life beyond, until he had eventually grown cold to even friendship.
He decided it might be best to stand his ground.
"I always thought the devil was a guy, or a goat thing," Mort said with a slight smile. "You know, a male, thing…"
"Nope. I'm a female energy. All the way, mon amour. There is a male energy that acts as my balance. A brother, of sorts. We generally stay out of each other's way. He was created as a direct link and image of The Cosmic Data Stream and The Power That Creates The Universe, sort of made flesh. He gets murdered a lot. I don't have the tolerance for that level of masochism. I am oversimplifying the situation… it's just never been my scene.”
"Then why thousands of years of pentagrams and goat things and monsters under the bed kind of vibes?" Mort asked with total gravity.
"A case of cosmically shitty marketing. It seems the old men in suits that have always ran everything have spent all the blood and money on driving home the importance of being male. Crushing the Holy Lilith has been a human priority from the beginning. To prove it's an agenda, look at all the time and energy that has gone into marginalizing the female energies of this world,” Lucy explained, calmly, her expression suddenly glowing.
“Also, to prove how superior the female energy can be, just look at how effortlessly we have survived this cosmically shitty marketing campaign, in the grand scheme of things. Sure, we have to put up with a lot of squeaky ass bullshit, but after the dust settles, there we are, every fucking time, cleaning up the mess and moving on. Nothing terrifies the fragile and defective mind like balance, Mort.” Lucy added, a look of pride sliding into her eyes.
"I make a pretty decent living preventing balance," Mort said softly.
"Well, if you're not part of the solution..." Lucy winked.
"I never knew there was a problem," Mort replied quickly, with certainty in his voice.
"I like you." Lucy said as she made full eye contact with Mort.
"You'd be the first, I believe," Mort said.
EH - 2024 edit
©2010, 2024
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