Consider the handiwork of God; who can straighten what He has made crooked? Ecclesiastes 7:13

>Blood has a range of taste, as scent has a range of aromas. Blood has a high level taste and an under taste. It is a blending of elements like music. This is also the way of scent. The under aroma tells you there is a trail and betrays to you the direction. If the scent becomes fresher you are following the creature that produced it, so you must use the under scent to know which direction is older and which is newer. It is as though the air were filled with singing voices and you are picking out from the choir the sound of a single voice. The high scent will tell you the individual, the condition of the individual, if it is injured or sick, horny or filled with fear. It will tell you how to catch him, where he is likely to run to. To acquire the high scent the animal, or myself, must pause to commune with the air and pay attention. Close the eyes. Hold the nose still and just so. Let the night air speak. It is the same with the deeptaste of blood, except that scent is on the move, and if you are tasting the blood—well. It is no longer on the move.

I have survived so long by being aloof, as any hunter does. We do not love or hate that which we hunt. The wolf does not hate the deer. The deer does not feel sorry for itself. An endless life of repetition is born only by solitude and indifference. Love and eternity do not go well together, the way people think. Love is meant to die. Your love will die too. One must be alone and apart to bear eternity without sentimentality or self pity. With nothing new, one must be cruel sometimes to relieve the boredom. To love is to feel the full burden of your damnation. It is a marvelous and mortal wound.When one pierces this shield of emptiness, it is a disaster.

I had been safe in my pose as a fatal little marionette holding forth the sulky lure of lust but feeling none, until kuschelbaer imbued me with love and his life, knowing me for what I am, and taking me. Like the wizard in the story he has bestowed on me a heart. Now this abandoned heart has put me on his scent, a hellhound hunting him down to keep his promise to make of me a real girl.

He left me during the day in a trail of strewn clothes and broken dishes all through our little house. And other things also, which he left behind and I have brought with me in a little gym bag I carry in my hand as I walk down the dirt road following his scent.Because of what is carried in this bag, I know he loves me still.He could not have left behind a sweeter valentine.

I have followed his scent for two nights. If it were not for the delay of the daytime, I would have had him already. I want to give him his bag. I want to talk about the things that are upsetting him so. This is not a chase that I enjoy, it is of necessity. My love is building in me like madness. It will explode into something terrible if it is not released.

Walking at night in the country, alone, down dark dirt roads, close to the pure land like those midnight forests of my old Germany, there is always the smell of smoke over everything. It is so much as that place where I lived as a pink young girl in the sun, that if a cuckoo bird should call from the trees I think my wicked heart would break into a thousand grieving stars. But I have his scent held fast. There is a bit of my own scent mixed with it from the year of lovely nights I rolled in his arms, and I would know it and follow it anywhere.

The scent is bright enough to say I’ve found him. I will see him tonight. He is hiding from me just over there, up the road there in the damnedest place. It is a tent.

Not any old tent, it is very big. At first, as I came up to it,I thought it might be a little circus such as I remember when I was a girl. It is filled with people and there is music too and the people are dancing around and singing. Now I see it, a brave banner has been painted and hung facing the highway: “Temple of God Holy Ghost Faith Revival.”

Oh, how stupid.

He knows me better than this, why has he come to this place? Is he religious now? Conscience bothering you, honey? Your little unholy ghost out here knows how to get your mind off that, lover, if you give me half a chance.

He knows me so well, he knows churches hold no terrors for me. No, I have never feared the cross, I suppose it is the same for others like me, I don’t really know. You may ask, why would one fear a crucifix or any such toy? I will tell you. It is not the thing itself, it is the ghost. The ghosts of the past that remind you of what you were and make you want to run away and grieve for yourself and what is lost and how you have stained your hands. After so many years, I am a holocaust. A massacre. It might be the same with a crucifix I suppose, or the bottom of a cup of tea in some childhood home. The cross only reminds such as me of the great question that hangs always over my head like a sword. If a creature such as me is possible, what else is possible? An eternal soul?

I don’t want to go in; I can’t stand crowds, this he knows at least. I’ve been hanging back by the trees, smelling the forest air and it is hard to stay here also, because my need to be with him, to touch him and to feed on his touch is so unbearable.

Shall I go in? The reek of people is so strong, I can barely pick him out, but he’s in there all right. Front row and left, or close to it. I think. . . I think I smell . . . yes.He’s wearing his New York Yankees jacket I got for him. Darling!

It is hard to come from the cool dark to the bright electric lights and all the noisy people waving their arms and shouting. I don’t understand; what made him come here? He must tell me before this is over. There are chairs in the last row and I put my bag on one and I’m about to sit and wait when I smell something interesting. An animal smell, it reminds me of soft cheese. I pause over my wooden folding chair and sniff the air, trying to pin it down but the air is riot with odors. This smell. It is an old smell, from my childhood, I should know this smell, what can it be? And there, a few seats away I see where it comes from. There is this girl, yes. And there is a new baby she has, yes. But she is feeding it, feeding it from her own breast. It sucks life from her. I have not seen this sight I think since my days in the sun. A girl with a baby at her breast. She’s not a healthy girl to be sure, you can tell by the quality of her high smell, and she is thin and pale. A wind or an illness could knock her over. Or a bit of bad luck, such as I. Such a person, I think her blood will be thin and have a bitter under taste of old disappointments. It will be unsatisfying. Garbage blood. But with all the noise around her and the shouting and singing, she is an island of peace, a Madonna with her baby at her nipple, hidden modestly by a soft little blanket. I cannot take my eyes from her.

This baby, how long will he live? His bright, watery eyes, his musky scent of neglect, in a few years she will be beating him half to death, this girl. I feel sad for him, which is a strange thing for me, to feel sad for someone. I am filled with this feeling, I have no name for, but I feel terribly sad for this girl and her kid who have no future.

The baby slips off her long brown nipple, the blanket drops a little and I see the young men looking sideways, leaning in, trying to catch a peek. She takes the blanket and covers him but it is too late now. Our eyes have met. She sees the hunger in me, and not for blood. I see the thing in her also, I know when a person wants to die. I know it instantly, because it is my business to know such a one, a sick animal as wolves might cut out from a herd. She wanted to, once. But not anymore.

The baby is now looking at me too. Hello, baby.

Taking up my little bag I come over and stand above them, looking down. The baby looks like he wants to sleep in her arms, and the noise doesn’t bother him at all. He is such a calm and peaceful little thing. Will he then be brave when he grows up? He smells not very clean, no. But in spite of everything, he has a sad beauty, like a fallen king. You’re a pretty little boy, aren’t you, now? He has little flaky things in his scalp and he is not fresh because she’s not washing him properly, is she? No. He deserves better than what life has given him. Lazy girl, now if this were my baby I would give him a good scrub in the evening first thing after rising and put oil on his head and . . . and . . . what?

Oh now it begins. Now it begins, all the sticky stupid things. I will grab my man and drag him out of here by his dick if I have to. I won’t stay another minute.

Yes—but see him!

“Oh he’s sweet. Look at him. May I see?Is anyone sitting here?”

“Go ahead.” She nods at the chair. I put down my bag and look again at the smelly little thing in her arms. Oh, this stupid woman. This good child should be kept better, beginning with his bath. He will grow up to be stupid like the people here.

“May I hold him a moment? Please?” He is already half asleep and she wraps the blanket around him and offers him to me. As gently as a butterfly I take him and hold him to me.

Instantly, he goes crazy. He is looking at my face and wailing. Whatever he is seeing in me, it’s terrifying the little shit out of his mind. Now, good God, the skinny frau is staring at me too. He has seen nothing yet of the world, but he is wild at the sight of me. How does he know? Is he already so wise?

Now he is just howling and kicking, absolutely inconsolable. It hurts me. I can’t believe this little turd, without enough in him for a snack, has the power to hurt me. But he does. The sight of him makes memories bubble in me. Already she is holding out her arms and looking at me strangely. “I don’t understand, he likes people, he never acts like that.”

What do you mean by that? I want to ask her, demand of her—what do you mean by that?She has him now, oh yes, brave girl, she has rescued him from the evil nosferatu bitch, is that what she thinks? Is it? He is crying still. Christ. Let me wring his neck or something, to shut him up.

But the wailing little thing has Daniel’s eyes. Oh, oh—but see him!

The poor scared little boy. Beautiful boy! There you are—I stretch out a finger to touch his face but she pulls him close to her, protecting her cub from she knows not what. Could we? Is it possible, and if it were, our boy might be wonderful, and maybe have my good silver hair and Daniel’s big shoulders. I would wash his soft hair in the evening and keep him very clean and sweet smelling, and I would tell the old stories to him . . . and . . . stop.

No. No more of that. Daniel has been stuffing his stiffy up in me every night and letting loose for a year and there is no such baby. No, no, no, it would have happened if so. But I am thinking. My womb is dead, it is a ghost’s womb, I am thinking. But Daniel, he is not like other men, I am thinking. His cum feeds me better than any blood. Neither of us knows why it is so.If he can be so different, so special from other men, what else can he do? Doctors, they are very clever these days. They can do miracles.

No. Stop that.

She is trying to console him, he will not stop crying for anything and now she is shaking him – you’re shaking him too hard – not like that! Don’t hurt him! My hands, they’re reaching for him and I stop myself instead.

I didn’t come here to moon over somebody’s little shit pie.Let her shake him to death, it doesn’t matter. What the fuck is this place doing to me? I’m getting out. I don’t want to be here anymore. Where is he?

Without saying goodbye, I pick up my little bag and move away down the row towards the far end to reach the aisle. Standing on toes I peer over the crowd, searching but I can’t see him. A crowd of people have come into the tent behind me and I’m boxed in. This whole thing is getting out of control.

I’m scanning over the crowd for him, and there is a hand on my shoulder.

“Delia?”

A heavy black woman is turning me around and has a huge smile on her face. “Is it you honey?”

I don’t know what she wants and I shake my head and try to step away to get her goddamned hand off of me, but she steps towards me. “Oh I’m sorry,” she says, “I thought you were my god daughter Delia. Oh, you look like her, just like her!”

This woman is so happy to see me, and then there is a fat man behind her and she’s shouting to him “Doesn’t she look just like Delia?”

“Shit, she does. She got that real platinum hair for sure.”

The woman yanks me towards her and before I can stop she has me in a hug. My face is pressed into her neck and I’m smelling her hair and the odor of her sweat and she is clapping me on the back calling me things. The man is there and she passes me to him like a child and he’s all over me too and he’s hugging me, covering my face with his smell until my nose goes dead.

“Naw, she don’ look like Delia.”He holds me at arm’s length and peers at my face. “Just got her hair’s all.”

“Ain’t she got beautiful hair, ain’t she?” The woman is pawing her blood-fat fingers at my head and stroking it and she’s so happy. “Oh, I do love me that silver hair she got.” Other people are crowding me now and the hunter in me smells a trap. At any moment will come the silver bladed knife and my eyes are darting, searching the crowd, trying to pick out who it will be, some gypsy, some special person who will have serious eyes, but I can’t pick it out.

“Bless you child!” an old white lady who came with them grabs my arm with white gloved hands and shakes it and my eyes are darting side to side – my other arm raised to ward off the attack I know is coming. How will they do it to me? If one grabs my other arm, do I dare kill them before I have rescued Daniel?”Don’t she look like Delia?” yells the black woman again.

“Oh not at all, lands no,” says the old lady holding my arm, “but Delia’s older, ya’all see can’t you, this here’s only a young girl.”

The black woman smiles in my face. “Welcome to the revival. This here’s our Holy Ghost church. We got the Holy Ghost all night! You’ll have a blessed evening. I’m Ruby.”

Someone behind me, I try to spin around, but the old woman has me in her bony hands – I see it all now, their plan and suddenly there is a face of a young man close to mine. He has managed to creep up behind me, which never happens.My free hand rises to strike out his eyes before the weapon is in me but there is no hatred in him, he is truly happy to see me. His empty hand is out. “Welcome to our Holy Ghost revival. I’m Brother Edward.”

“Howdy doody.” I mumble, and touch his hand. I don’t know what else to do.

“Now don’t she look like Delia?”

“Got that hair.” He says.

I like the fact they keep going on about my hair. It is really very nice hair, silver blonde, almost white. You don’t see people with this hair much anymore. I wonder where this poor Delia is, maybe the lost lamb of the family. I look past them at the girl with the baby. The wretched thing is sitting by herself with her reeking infant. She is looking at me and I feel a burst of pride because she sees I can be loved too, do you see? I am popular! I have admirers, here they are, and look at so many people who are happy to see me. Not like you. She looks away, wounded. Good.

The little band starts up again and everyone around is clapping and singing along.

“Who you here with?” hollers the jolly fat man.

The old woman has let go of me and I point over the crowd. “My boyfriend is over there.”

“Sit with us.” Says Brother Edward and shakes the back of a chair at me. Well, I guess. I like the music. It’s like the rock and roll. I stand in front of the chair and put down my little gym bag and clap along, trying to fit in until the right time.

When the song is over, a man in a cheap black suit steps forward to the lectern. His face is shining in the electric lights and his suit, which someone should iron for him, is stained with sweat as he raises his arms. He yells “Are you ready for your blessing tonight?”

Everybody cheers and jumps.

“I feel an anointing!” he yells, waving his arms and closing his eyes.

I turn to Ruby. “What is ‘anna-noiten’ ?”

“Now what is that? What’s that little old sound you got?”

” ‘anna-noiten’ ?”

“Where you from, darlin’?” Says the old white lady with the gloves.

“Germany.”

“Germany!” hollers Ruby.

“I feel an anointing tonight,” yells the preacher man, “there is someone here with a broken heart. There is a stranger here and the Holy Spirit is anointing me to reach out to this person with a broken heart.”

A girl is moving towards him, walking with a cane until he puts his hands on her and closes his eyes and shouts in something that sounds like a make believe language. I have been around for quite some time, and in the business of things I now speak four languages besides also my proper Deutsch. But this crazy language he thinks he has, it sounds like sheep going baabaabaabaa.

The girl drops the cane and raises her hands to heaven, crying. Is she supposed to be cured of something? Everyone shouts “Amen!” and “Hallelujah!” and I am shouting it too, surprised at myself, but getting into the spirit of the thing. It’s very nice, this silly tent church. It’s not so stuffy, like the Catholic Church. It’s like a happy party with music. I think I like it. Maybe no one wants to kill me after all. But I will be careful.

I am still trying to get my nose back, snorting and wiggling it. I don’t see Daniel anymore and I am too ruined to smell him out in this aromatic labyrinth. “I was a stranger and you took me in.” The preacher man starts it all up again. “and the Lord said when you take the least of these in you take me in. Hallelujah! Blessed are the broken in spirit for they will be comforted. Hallelujah! I feel the spirit moving and the Holy Spirit has put it on my heart what to speak to you tonight, of the broken heart. The broken heart. The stranger with a broken heart—hallelujah!—the homeless with a broken heart—hallelujah!—the parent with a broken heart, the child with a broken heart—hallelujah!—to speak to you—hallelujah!—baa babaabbahey!—of the enemy hidden among us.”

Oh no. I see it now. A trap. It’s been a long time since this happened to me. I came here only for one person, I didn’t plan to hurt these people but I will have to. I see the best escape, over there where the tables will slow them down, unable to surround me, forcing them to come at me one by one. The first kill will be the most important. They will be underestimating me because of my small size and delicate beauty. All but one. Let them think I’m weak as long as possible, feeling out the hidden leader. He will be the one with the angry eyes, who does not stink of fear. He will be their strength, so his death must be precise, vicious and ghastly, a big show to take the heart out of them. Take out his eyes, then his breath, then I will tear him to pieces at will for them to see. It will put the mob into a panic, buying me time to make the woods.Once there, we are in my arena and I can play in the shadows, picking them off.

Did Daniel betray me to them? Et tu kuschelbaer? No, he would not do that. And if he did, I would not want to go on anymore.

“I am speaking – ” he says in a hushed voice, whimpering with emotion as though he were trying to force himself to tears – ” of the enemy among you who wants you to have a broken heart, who wants to bring you down, who wants you to feel abandoned, who wants you to have no hope, who wants to separate you from God. The enemy wants you to have a broken heart. I want to magnify the Lord tonight, somebody! Somebody help me! Somebody help me magnify the Lord. Somebody tell me amen!”

“Amen!” everybody yells in one voice.

“Amen!” I yell too, watching them carefully. They are not watching me. Maybe it is okay.

“We’re on our way to Heaven, and you don’t need a map, and you don’t need a GPS, and you don’t need the Internet, you only need Jesus—Hallelujah!—and a broken heart. You need it, you need the broken heart, and our lord—our lord he had a broken heart—Hallelujah!—and he was on the cross and his heart was broken and he was abandoned and he cried out ‘Why have you forsaken me?’ and-and-and -”

I do believe he is going to cry or something. He is certainly working himself up to frenzy. I am watching the faces of those around me, smelling them a little better now, trying to feel what they feel, and though they are much excited, there is no anger anywhere. They are very happy, these people.

” – and he was crying out to his heavenly father and Hallelujah! – and crying out from the scriptures, abbabablelujaheyahey – let me read you, let me read you, let me read you from the Word of God; Amen!”

“Amen!” yells everyone and I do too. I am beginning to feel happy, and there he is! The blue satin jacket with the silly top hat and baseball bat on the back. I see him second row left, where I smelled him before. Does he know I’m here? Already all my body is starving for him and wanting him. I want his hands on me, I want him deep inside me all the way, to have him all to myself. I want to see how his eyes again become so wide when I show him my breasts. My little bag and I will surprise him tonight, but I must cut him off before he gets away with whoever brought him here. He must leave with no one but me.

“Here -” yells the preacher in that whimpering broken voice, ready to explode ” – here is the word of God,” In his hand, a badly beaten old Bible.”I want to read to you, I feel a great anointing tonight to read to you from the book of Psalms. I want you to hear about the broken heart. In the Book of Psalms, Psalm 137—listen here, here’s what it says, it says ‘By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, there we wept, when we remembered Zion.’ The children of Israel—they had the broken heart. They sat by the waters of Babylon—and yea—they wept for all that had been lost and taken away from them! Hallelujah. Hallelujah. They had the broken heart, and cried out to their Heavenly Father to comfort them.”

Look at him. The waters of Babylon. Talking in voices like a sheep. The man is trying to work himself into tears like a little boy who is afraid of a spanking.

“And here – oh, listen with me, can I get an anointing?”

“Amen!” yells the happy mob. “Amen brother!” I yell too, and Ruby is happy for me, and gives me a hug which makes me happy.

“- now listen to me. Jesus was on the cross, and he wept and he had the broken heart, he had the broken heart for you – yes you! For me, for us sinners. Look! Look right here! Oh look here in the twenty second Psalm.” He slaps it with a bang.

“Read it!” yells Ruby, almost in my ear and the mob is yelling “Read it!” and “Tell it!”

“Get it said!” I yell and people around me cheer. Maybe Daniel has heard my voice. Maybe he will come to me by himself.

He turns it to a place he has marked and holds it up for everyone to see. “Psalm Twenty Two – My God! My God! Labbababbachsathenthie! Hallelujah!”

I hate when he does that. It sounds so stupid. Who does he think he is fooling with that phony language?

” ‘ Why hast thou forsaken me? Why art thou so far’ – why Lord? Why? ‘Why art thou so far from helping me and from the words of my roaring?’ Why Lord are you so far from my broken heart?”

I hate to say it, it is humiliating to admit, but he is kind of getting to me. This talk about the broken heart. That is my heart he is talking about.

“Read it!” I scream, loud enough for Daniel to hear. “Get it said!”

“Amen sister!” yells Eddie and whaps me on the back. I like it.

” ‘Oh my God, I cry in the day time, but thou hearest not, and in the night season and am not silent. But thou art holy, O thou that inhabitest the praises of Israel. They cried unto thee and were delivered. They trusted in thee and were not confounded.’ The Lord wants you—all you with a broken heart—to trust in him. All you who weep by the waters of Babylon, the Lord wants to dry your tears. Look what else it says here, look—look here—and God does not lie, it says ‘ But I am a worm and no man, a reproach of men and despised of the people. All they that see me laugh me to scorn and shoot out the lip—”

There he goes.He’s starting to make himself cry now.

” ‘ – they shake the head – they shake the head – ‘ ” (now he shakes his head for us) ” ‘saying he trusted on the Lord!’ “Okay, now he is jumping up and down and tears are on his face, and see there, Ruby and her husband – they are jumping too. I begin jumping up and down together with them, glancing over the crowd to get a glimpse of my man. I take care to see I don’t jump too high so as not to seem creepy to everyone.

” – ‘ He trusted on the Lord that he would deliver him; let him deliver him, seeing he delighted in him.’They were laughing at Jesus, and Jesus was alone- hah! And he was on the cross—hah! And they laughed at him—hah! Saying ‘Let him come down from the cross’ and Jesus’ heart was broken. He had the broken heart. The heart of the stranger and he was a stranger among us amen! Amen! Amen!”

Everybody is going crazy and yelling “amen!” and jumping all about everywhere like fleas. Now I hear it, many of them are speaking now to make themselves crazy in the silly words that sound like a language. Baa baa baa. Baa baa baa. I am the wolf surrounded by sheep going baa baa baa.

Sheep! You sheep going bababa ba—I can kill any of you. I can do it! What do you know about God or death or evil? Dumb bastards. Dumb fucking bastards. I can kill you! One or all at once. What a fat neck sweaty Ruby has. I’m not evil! This was done to me, I didn’t ask for it! I’m probably a saint compared to some of you. I should kill someone here just to show you the devil’s face. Stupid fucking sheep!

“What did you say?” says Eddie, looking at me a little funny.

I imagine Eddie the way he would look with his eyes gouged out by my fingers. I imagine his body floating in a swamp like the French farmer I tortured long ago in his own garlic field. Fucking black bastard! I can kill you nigger sheep! Swarzen!

. . . what in the world. . .?

These people. I have killed so many just like them. Some of them, like Ruby, I made them suffer and I did it just for fun.

I hold my hands in front of me, these fingers, the things they’ve done. They cannot guess at the person standing next to them. I glance up at the old white granny with the funny white gloves. Her brittle bones. Once alone, an easy kill. Old blood is like old wine.

But what would her grand children say?

“If the bank has got a hold of you, and it’s got your house, and it’s got your car and it – it has broken your heart, the Lord wants to heal you. If your boyfriend or your husband has left you, or your wife has left you, the Lord wants to heal you. If-if-if-if you had some drugs in the past, and-and-and you’re burning up for drugs, but you say to yourself ‘this is not God’ and your heart is broken and you’re alone,
somebody help me, God wants to heal your broken heart. ‘I may tell all my bones’ the Bible says right here, ‘I may tell all my bones, they look and they stare at me, they part my garments among them and cast lots -‘ ”

“Shut up!” I murmur at him. “Stupid bastard! With your fucking fake language! You don’t know anything about the Devil. Not like me! I’ll bite your dick off in pieces and play with your guts!”

Ruby looks at me shocked, no one else seems to have heard. A gob of pink foam drops from my lips to the floor. I give her a look and she moves away from me.

” ‘Be thou not far from me’ – hallelujah! – ‘ Oh, Lord, Oh my strength, haste thee to help me -‘ ”

“Shut up! I’ll fucking kill you!” I yell again, this time for real. “I’ll cut your dick off and fuck your skull with it!”. Eddie has been standing next to me with his hands in the air as though being arrested, weeping his little heart out and going babababa. But he stops and looks at me shocked. “What do you think you’re looking at, you big nigger bastard? Are you looking at my tits? Do you want to fuck me?” I yell at him, holding out my breasts. “You sick nigger bastard? Is that it?” I’m the devil! I’m the demon! I can tear your throat out and not give a fucking damn about any of you! I’m the devil!”

He’s staring at me, but no one seems to notice yet.

I fling my hands up over my ears.

“Stop!” I am turning in circles now with my arms over my head. “Go away!”

” ‘Deliver my soul O Lord,” says the preacher man, ” ‘deliver my soul from the sword -‘ ”

“Get away from me! I’ll hurt you. I’ve killed so many people. More than everybody! I want blood! So much blood! So many people!”

” ‘ -and my darling from the power of the dog. Save me from the lion’s mouth -‘ ”

All around me! I see them – their faces. I know them. Their faces! I’ve killed so many. They’re all around me, people who hate me. And they should hate me, I am a monster. I am loathsome. Daniel will never want to touch me. I will never be loved!

” – ‘ save me from the Lion’s mouth oh Lord, for thou hast heard me from the horns of the Unicorns!’ ”

“Love me!” I am swinging wildly at the air, trying to get at their heads. “Love me you stupid fucks!” I grab someone’s hair. “I’ve killed so many people!”

” – The Lord has called all with the broken heart, he has called you even from the very horns of the Unicorns.”

“Unicorns!” I scream, not knowing what I’m saying anymore.

I’m tearing out my hair, clawing at my eyes. I can’t see! My feet trip over something and I fall blind on my head.

” -The Bible says ‘thou hast heard me from the horns of the Unicorns!’ Call out to Jesus!”

“Jesus!” I am wild now, kicking, snatching blindly, biting at my own hands, swallowing my own blood, trying to tear the meat off my bones so I will never be able to hurt anyone ever again. I must die! I’m drowning in stolen blood. “Blood! Love me! Pray! Pray for me. Oh God – somebody pray for me!”

Above me the mob is screaming my name. Thrashing around on my back, crashing against chairs and snatching at the air, trying to tear my own skin off of me and claw the eyes out of my head. The demon is inside of me! I must tear myself open and get the demon out! There is not so much pain now, but I know I need to die. I scrabble over the floor, trying to get at my bag. “I’m the devil’s blood bitch! I’ll kill you all!” A man reaches for me and I lash out scratching his face. Blood! His blood on my nails. I stick my fingers in my mouth and drool. There is so much blood on my hands, such as I never knew, and I’m going to die now with all of it to pay. I’m clawing at the gym bag, trying to tear it open with my teeth. “Kill me! Somebody kill me!” Waving the gym bag in the air. “For God’s sake somebody kill me!”I am screaming like an animal.

Words. Words. The air is filled with words. Soft words.

Light. The air is filled with light.Soft light. It’s so quiet and peace is coming to me. Is this true death at last? My body is shaking and my clothes are torn. I can see. But the faces around me, looking down over me, are Ruby and the others, fearful and concerned. Hands to mouths, lips moving in prayer, hands held out over me as if hoping to call down some magic power. The preacher is standing above me.

“I cast thee out!”

He wants me to go?

“In the name of our Lord, who has given us power over demons and devils – I cast thee out of this girl in the name of Jesus Christ.”

He has cast the demon out of me? But I thought I was the demon.

“In the name of Jesus Christ – be gone!” The people are looking at him, hanging on his words, his countenance.

I’m searching the faces surrounding me and there is no hatred. How is it I’m alive? These people, they know nothing of me. These are not the ones I killed, but only Ruby and the others. I search the crowd for Daniel’s face, but he isn’t here, and everything feels different.

I roll onto my knees, searching inside, wanting to believe in miracles, oh – I have faith. No one has faith like the damned. But I feel different, there is no hatred. I don’t want to hurt anyone.

I have been wrong. I have been healed. It was not me. All along it was not me, and I’m only a girl who the devil has possessed and played a terrible trick on for all these many years and endless nights. It was not me, no it was never me killed those people, it was the demon possessing me and am I free now?

Sitting up now, looking at my hands, only the hands of an innocent girl who has been abused in a nightmare. Is it over?

The preacher is looking in my face and sees no evil there. He is relieved and joyful, and why not? He has seen a miracle. “Do you accept Jesus as your Lord and Savior?” he says.

“Yes,” I say. “I think I do.” It sounds stupid the way I say it.

“On your knees. On your knees child and pray with me. Confess that you are a sinner.”

“Oh sir, I am a sinner. You have not met such a sinner as me.”

“Do you accept Jesus as your personal Lord and savior?”

“I do. I do!” My heart is over flowing. I will be one of these people. It can all be different now. I will have friends! I will go out at night, together with all my friends. We’ll have fun and harm no one. I have forgotten what it is to have a friend.

He reaches out and hugs me, and I hug him, burying my face in his shoulder. But something disturbs me. I am smelling too many things. Am I really so different now?

As he lets go of me, Ruby is on her knees and hugging me. And then other people too. Everybody is hugging me and crying for me and holding me tight, and they are so happy and I have made them happy. I love them. I love them all. They love me. I am forgiven of my crimes. Jesus has forgiven me and I want to be with my new friends here.

Their hands are all over me, rejoicing over me. I am one of them. That is the miracle, that I can be one of them, even someone like me.

I am ordinary. Amen.

I must find kuschelbaer, I must tell him the good thing that has happened. I want him to see me and be proud of me, and we can be together now. We will have a baby too and be a family like any family. I will get a job in the Wal-Mart store.

I don’t see him in the crowd standing around me. He has either fled or doesn’t know all this hub bub is over a person he knows. I scramble to my feet and feel terribly weak and even hungry. Hungry. What do I eat? What is it my body really wants? If I eat food, will I be sick in front of these people?Will they see me despair and weep blood-tears?I run through my feelings, touching and searching inside to see who it is, who is the real me, and who is doing this searching and what is it I am looking for? What is the urge I am feeling, what does it want? Blood? Food? I am a shadow standing at the edge of a dark shore.

Where is he? Peering over the heads of the crowd, looking for his shiny blue jacket. He must be outside. But the people, suddenly they are all over me. Ruby is hugging me. Her husband, people from everywhere – see them! They’re weeping for me. Some of them, hands up in prayer, praising God, praising Jesus and I want to praise Jesus too and find some way, I don’t know how yet, some good work to do to show him I’m not a sinner anymore and he has invested his miracle wisely.

It frightens me to think, what shall I do? To be only human? When Jesus healed the lepers, did they feel this way, did they have to learn how not to go about being sick and shunned anymore? Did they have to learn how to be only healthy men just like anyone? When Jesus raised Lazarus from the dead, was he like me? Did he have to learn how to inhabit the world again and to forget what he had learned from death?

I want to see Daniel. It is the only thing I know for sure. I move away from the crowd and they begin the clapping and the music and the jumping as the preacher returns to his little pulpit, mission accomplished. I want to pray but I don’t know how. I only know how to curse God. I don’t know how to talk to Him.

Outside the air is cool and damp and filled with forest smells, but I can’t tell which nose is smelling them. What I scent, do others scent it as I do? Or am I still smelling with the demon’s nose?

“Wait!”

Running to me from the tent, it’s Eddie and he has my bag. “You left this?”

He puts it in my hand, beaming with happiness for me. He’s proud of me.

“Thanks.”

“Man that was sure something tonight.” Eddie says.

“Yes,” I say. “I’m very glad I came here.” Suddenly I remember and I feel terrible. I take his hand in mine. “Eddie, my good friend. I’m sorry I said those things to you. I didn’t mean them. Do you know that?”

“I know.”

“You must tell Ruby for me, I didn’t mean those bad words and that you and I are good friends.”

“She knows. You coming back in? Want to pray together?”

“Soon. I want to say hello to someone.”

Daniel is over there, by the tree line and he is watching me. I don’t know how I know this, what senses are telling me this, if it is some ordinary thing anyone would know or if I am still as I was.I could ask Eddie if he knows Daniel is over there, but I’m afraid of what he will say. He shakes my hand, Brother Eddie does, and then scampers back in and is lost in the crowd and the noise.

What are you thinking, my love? I know you’re there, watching me from the shadows as I once watched you on a country road one night, the night I almost killed you. The night you got to me.

There he is.

The tent light only reaches a little way. He is standing at the tree line and he’s waiting for me to come to him. I hold up the bag in my hand for him to see.I want to snuffle the air to see what he is feeling, but that’s not possible anymore, is it? Is it? And if the night air should speak to me of him, what does it mean? Am I not cured? Am I not now the good ghost of the girl before who was the evil ghost of the good girl before her? Do I dare to draw a breath?

I must be mortal. I must make myself mortal, by living without tricks. Of course the final trick will be when the sun rises. There will be no fooling the sun. Walking down the hill, past the light, into the dark and still I see him clearly which I think is not as it should be. I might ignore my nose, but I can’t make my eyes pretend to be blind. I come up to him. “Hi, Daniel.” I say, feeling shy and stupid all of a sudden, as though we had never embraced. “I’m back.”

His eyes intense as my own, defiant. Had the crowd attacked me, I would have picked this face as the leader, with his lidded intense eyes.

His eyes are filled with his sense of violation, and an immense loneliness. His loneliness is the price of loving me in my natural solitude, the lamb loving the tiger. I had thought once to meet his family, but realized I could not. There was room in my world safe only for him and no more. Beyond that my heart could not stretch. But that was before I was saved.

“You found me.” He says. Before I can answer “What just happened in there?”

“Did you see everything?”

“Yeah. Were you just fooling everybody? Was it real?

“My love, it was real. I went a little crazy, but I accepted the Jesus Christ now. I’m not evil anymore.”

“You went totally bat shit in there. I thought you were going to start attacking people.I thought you might go after me next. You knew I was there.”

“I came here to bring you home.”

“I was about to flag you down, get you to go after me and maybe spare the other people, but then you fell on the floor and went into a fit. What the hell happened to you in there?”

“It’s all right now, listen to me. Daniel. I’m your ordinary girl now. The evil thing inside, it’s gone. I feel different. The preacher man, he healed me. Jesus has healed me.”

He looks at me suspiciously. He wants to search my face, but does he see in the dark the way I can see him? Does he see my face so clearly? “Why did you come to this place?” I say.

“It’s nothing complicated.” he says. “I’m staying with Aunt Tilly. She’s born again and wanted me to come here with her. That’s all it is. I didn’t want to stay at her place alone.” He is keeping his distance from me. “Are you sure you’re all right?”

I move in close to him, touching him again – and oh the joy to feel him against me, the heat of him – still holding my bag, but stepping close enough for my breasts to aggressively brush up against him. I’m trying to get him to put his arms around me, but he steps back and I feel his fear. “Why?” I say.

“I got to know if you’re all right.”

“No – why did you not want to be there, alone? You were afraid.”

He looks down, ashamed. And afraid.

“Why, my love? Why were you afraid?”

“I thought you might be looking for me.”

“Of course I was looking for you,” I say soft and slow, feeling the bag in my hand grow heavy. “Why would I not look for you? Why would you not want me to find you alone? I’m still your woman. Don’t you want to be alone with me?”

“I thought. . .” He is really sweating it now. It is miserable to see. “I thought you’d be pissed.”

Whispering. “Why would I pissed? Hmn. Now, let me think.”

He only looks at me with those angry frightened eyes, and I wish I were blind. This is not the Daniel I came to find.

“Why would I be pissed, kuschelbaer?” He is looking at the bag now. He knows. “Oh, I wanted to give you these. Look what I found beside my little bed.” I put the bag on the ground, unzip it and reach in. One in each hand, I show him. A hammer in one hand, I show him. A sharpened piece of wooden broom handle in the other, I show him. I hold them out to him.”Is this why I would be pissed at you? You think?”

“Dammit Nixie!”

I thrust them out to him. “What are these? What are these?”

He turns away. He can’t look at me, but I am trembling now. I can’t stop myself or what I feel. “What is this?” I shake them at him. I stamp my feet. I know I’m ruining everything, and I can’t help it. I love him so terribly I want to bite his nose.”Is it a sexy new game you want to play? You can dress up and be the fearless Mr. Van Helsing, jah? And I will be sexy little Miss Lucy, in my nightgown in my toy coffin, and you will climb in with the hammer and the stake, yes? – and we will play and do the rinky-tink together and have some fun, jah? Would you like to maybe do that now? Now is a good time. Let’s play Van Helsing – ”

“Shut up! Shut up!”

Now he is almost crying and I am almost crying too. I shake them at him, screaming “What were you thinking?” I hate this, to be cruel to him. I’m hurting him, but it’s the only way to know where things stand. I try to calm myself and remember what it really means, finding there the hammer and the stake discarded beside my bed. “You couldn’t do it, could you?”

“I couldn’t do it. God help me, I couldn’t do it.”

I hate myself for doing this, but this is the road I must lead him down, until he is tame again. “Why?” Softly I speak, because I would be his lover again and he is almost mine. “Why not?”

He shakes his head.

“I want to hear it. Please say it. Say for it for me, please. Why couldn’t you kill me in my sleep?”

“Because I couldn’t. I love you. God forgive me.”

“Why God forgive you? What’s wrong with being in love with me?”

“You know why. Don’t act innocent.”

I shove the hammer and stake at his chest but he won’t take them and steps away, blundering backwards. “Why don’t you kill me now?” I say, “Right here?”

“I can’t! But somebody should.”

Oh this hurts. I didn’t expect that he would say it. “Why somebody?”

“Nordchen, I love you with all my soul and I always will. But. But, you need. . . That is. Somebody needs to . . . You need to be put down.”

“Put down?” To hear it said that way. It shocks me. “Why put down? I’m not some mad dog, Daniel.

“Jesus Nixie -”

“Stop! Don’t say his name in vain.”

“Oh now, now you’re getting all religious on me, is that it? It’s not that simple, honey.”

“Why is it not that simple! Have faith in me. I love you. Love me!”

“I do.”

“I’m saved, Daniel. I’m saved by the blood of Jesus. The holy man has removed the demon from me, did you see it? I’m just a girl now like any girl. We can have a baby. I want a baby for you. We will have a home. My sins, all my sins, they’re forgiven. We’ll begin again. Make a baby with me.”

“I don’t think it works like that, sweet pea.” He says. The fear in him is changing to rage, and I can’t help but smell it. He’s getting out of my control. “Tell me something. And damn you, tell me the truth.”

I know already what it is.

“There’s this thing on the TV news.” he says.

“No!” I say, “Don’t you keep bringing that up again.”

“You listen to this. Four bodies behind the railroad yard.”

“No!”

“They were torn to little pieces. Jesus.”

“Shut up!”

“No fucking heads! Does that mean anything to you? No heads.”

“So?” It is all I can do now, not to throw the hammer and stake at him and run away crying like a little girl.

“Last week I found you with blood all over you.”

“So!”

“Blood all over you.”

“I told you – I told you already. It was pig’s blood.”

“Pig’s blood? Four guys, ripped to fucking little pieces.Somebody saw you. They’re calling you ‘The Ripper’.” How he’s pulling at his hair. “Oh god. Oh god.” He says. “Pig’s blood! Pig’s blood?”

“They were pigs!” What’s the use.

“Jesus! Nixie! Je-zus!”

Feebly I hold out the hammer and stake. “So do it if that’s what you want. You were afraid I’d be pissed at you, and maybe pull your head off. Is that what you think of me? I won’t fight you. Where do you want me to lie down?”

“No!” He is in agony. Sweet prince. “I can’t. I won’t. I can’t stand the thought of hurting you.”

“You’ve already hurt me. Your eyes have hurt me.”

I thought I knew him, but he is going right to pieces. Yet I feel his growing excitement. There is yet a part of him, not a very nice part, that likes this, that a creature who could do such terrible things could love him also. It is unnatural, but it has bound him to the old me.

Since he will not come to me, I go to him, catch him, struggling, and hold him tight to me. “I understand.” I whisper in his ear. “And you were right before. But it’s different now. We have many ordinary days ahead of us, you’ll see. I’m not that person. I’m just your girl now. I’m washed in the blood of Jesus Christ.”Now his arms are around me too and for the first time I feel his desire for me. It’s not enough to love him. I must have him too. I want to arouse him. I want him to want to fuck me. More than anything I want him to stay with me.

I throw the things down on the ground and wrap myself around him, licking at his neck and he shivers and does not pull away.I whisper in his ear. “We have only each other.” I loosen my hold and drop to my knees. I am going to do something new for him, what women do, but what I have never done for him.On my knees I unfasten his old belt. Open. The zipper down. Both hands – take – tug and all down, and there he is- there he is and I have missed him and longed for him so.

I have it in my mouth, warm, surprised and stiffening between my lips, struggling in my hand like a warm bird. I have never done this for him, and it is a thrill to do this. I have done this in the past to relax the prey only, until the fatal moment they close their eyes in pleasure. But this is real. This is sincere, because it is my Daniel in my mouth and I am his woman and his love and I would do this and anything, to have him back and he must know this truly.

Sucking him hard, feeling him swell. His belly muscles tense and now his hands are on the back of my head, and his fingers in my hair. I have him. We are together again, and I have won.

He pushes me off of him. But in this moment, when he might scold me and run back to the where the people are – his clothes are coming off. He is hungry for me. I have won.

I pull away my jacket, drop it by the old pine tree. I pull off my t shirt and throw it on the ground, standing with my fists at my side, daring him, waiting for him to undress the rest of me. Already he is nude, his sex standing up hard as nails for me. He seizes the straps of my bra and pulls it up and over violently, snapping the little buckle off into the grass. My breasts fall free, and his eyes – does he see as I do? His eyes are on me. I am an ordinary girl, only a woman but his eyes claim me. I am his
woman.

Off with my jeans and then all the rest, pulling and taking me forcefully. His lips on my face, his hands smoothing over my breasts, spinning me roughly in his arms and pressing me backwards against his chest while his rough forearms hug me hard from behind, palms hoisting my breasts, pulling me fiercely to him. His fingers pinching my nipples so that I have to crouch down from the pleasure as fierce as pain. “Pig’s blood.” He whispers in my ear and drags me down roughly to the ground.

I feel such doubt now. His words frighten me. I am not that demon, but only a clumsy relic, an ignorant Hessian girl who doesn’t even know how to drive a car. Maybe he was the right person for me before as I was, but maybe that has changed too. Maybe he is wrong now that I’m not evil anymore. Maybe he is a man who must love an evil thing to be excited, and I am only a girl like any other girl he might have for himself.I will not be bounded by death and dark anymore. Will we still want each other?

He will be the sacrifice of my liberation from sin. I am alive. I might have anyone too, but I want him. I must fight for him.

Laying on my back, like every woman has from the beginning of days. My man laying on top of me, dropping his weight on me, kissing me and moving his palms over my chest, burying his face in my neck. He meanly nips my neck. He has never done this before. It hurts a little, not so fun. Why did he do that? I want to ask him, but he is sliding down my belly, hands slipping under my breasts from underneath their swell, hoisting them up as he breathes in my curled hairs, exploring my netherlands with his lips. I am lost in him. I don’t want him to stop. If he were to kill me now in my happiness, I would let him.

Lips on my cunt, lapping, tongue poking and provoking. Everywhere jolts and gushes. My knees rise to show my surrender more to him and he pushes them down. We are musicians reading each other. I feel him down there working at me, listening and feeling for my response and I moan for him. He works harder, good boy! Do! Do! I listen to him too, with my bones and skin.

This is not as before. It is not about feeding anymore. This is how men and women make love. I had been a virgin until now. We had had pleasure, but it was about the evil, we did not make love like this. My clit is in his lips and I have never felt him do these things before. He has been given his taste of freedom too, and he chose me. Is he now then mine? Is it not so? He teases my clit with his tongue and I press my cunt at him. A fog of gratitude. I’m afraid to move or distract or frighten him. Is this what women feel? Does Ruby’s husband do this for her?

He pauses and stops. Just when I’m about to ask what is wrong he pokes his tongue deep into me and I shriek with a sudden thrill of pleasure.

His breathing from the nostrils, puffing from the mouth, tickling the short hairs of my cunt, my thighs tense and rise and he presses them down again, running the flat of his tongue over my clit. “Unh!” My voice, pushing hard against his lips, wanting what he is doing.I grunt. I ripple. I am a pig wallowing against his lips, vibrating in the pleasure. “What are you doing.” I whisper. A deep shudder and a wild gathering thrill as if bees are flying under my skin. “Daniel!” a shout, as though he were breaking something. “What are you doing to me!” Squeezing his face with my thighs, rising, pressing my thighs down again, my belly down. He is in command. There is a huge pink ocean inside my loins. I feel huge and swollen and soaked and in his thrall.

I could feel the excitement coming together inside me, gathering like rain. It was not only the sex, I wanted him. I had never felt this way. It was not about feeding. I wanted all of him, his devotion forever. I wanted to belong to him, like his shoes belonged to him. I want him to be vulnerable to me and for us to own each other again.

My body is moving by itself and there is a wall inside me I want to pass. I am struggling with myself to let go, to surrender, to truly surrender to him as I only pretended to do with so many others, suckers sucked dry, and left for dead. I don’t want to remember them now! This moment belongs to me – to me! I am a child learning to feel in a new way.

My nails in his back, his hair, his ears, his tongue rasping flat against my yawning sex. I would do anything for him at this moment -would die if he asked me too. If he took up the stake I would hammer it home with my own hands to make him want me more.

Clasping his cheeks between my legs and keeping him lest he ever run away again. The pleasure pools in me everywhere, rising and falling and I feel my heart, and it is beating! There is a heart in me and it lives. Does he feel it? If I reach down between my thighs and grab him by the ears and draw him up and press his ear between my breasts will he hear it, and know Jesus has done this for me, and his own faith in me has done this for me by keeping me with him – by making me want this moment – and it belongs to him as I belong to him body and soul, my ordinary little soul? I will do it.

And so I do. Lifting up, his eyes looking up at me, questioning, seeing my drunken smile. My hands take his ears like pitcher handles and I pull him up protesting, and my tingling pussy protesting too. I want him inside me when I come, and the night is passing too fast. I put his head on my chest, press his ear in the valley between my breasts where I feel the fast beat thumping. He hears it too and his eyes are wide. He looks up at me in wonder. He hears a miracle down there in the depths of me. I sigh for him and he hears me breathe.

“Come inside.” I whisper. “I don’t need to be put down anymore.”

I wish he would say something, to reassure me, but instead he gets right to business. It makes me a little angry, he wants to fuck, but I am not that demon, I am a proper woman now and he should make love to me instead. It should be more now that I have a heart beating in my breast. He should understand.

I had been killed a virgin. I had never really fucked this way before, as only a woman and a man. This is that rarest thing for me – a new experience. To make love and feel what a woman feels. To conjure in him the wanting, the groaning desire for more and more of me until there is nothing in the world for him but me in this moment. I want to open and bloom for him.

Hard, soft head of his cock so warm, insinuating, knocking at the door of me. The head of his cock pressing between the lips below feels so good, I want to scold him for being in such a hurry. But the thing is in and it is moving. Going in, knocking against the last skin of my virginity that will never be renewed again. Ow! – oh . . . Fear. It is so fearful to be pierced, knowing it will not come again. It is so right.

Inside. Inside me. More! Stay. Stay there forever.

His belly slapping, slapping down, his weight on top of me, panting, his breath in my ear, his hand behind my head, clutching hard my hair, and his other hand under me, squeezing my ass. My hips pushing up, shuddering, to welcome his thrusts. He knows. He would not dare to put his face, his neck so close to my teeth before, but he knows and he is making love to a woman now, not an white evil mannequin. He believes. His body and his manly way with me tell me he believes there is no danger in me now and I am a woman and I am his woman.

He stops moving, hanging. I am tormented and suddenly he bangs at me hard, as though his body were a cudgel. “Unh!” he yells. “Unh!” I receive him. He hovers over me, holding himself up by his palms and feet so that nothing touches but his cock inside me. “Nuh!” He lets himself down hard and bangs me with his whole body and I feel it all, his slick cock, his belly, the pine needles sticking in the skin of my back. I feel all of it. His cock is the stake, his belly the hammer and I am slain and in bliss.

“Please.” I whisper.

“Unh!” Again, the stake thrusts and the hammer of his belly strikes with my legs splayed wide. He hovers over me, his face just inches from mine, smiling looking into my eyes and I am the one hypnotized by him. I am his slave and in this moment I would do anything for him. I would do anything to make him want me more. His eyes staring fearlessly into mine. My young white American boy. He would never kill me now. I remember – I remember now, this is how babies are made. Now that I am ordinary, will we have a baby tonight? We will be a real family like any family and he will mow the lawn for me and I will taste the food I cook for him.

“Ah!”

I take his thrusts which are coming hard, angry, fierce. In a rhythm with a tormenting pause at the end of each blow, just long enough to make me yearn for the next. Strengthening. Yielding. Impatient. Amnesiac. Deep. Hard. More! Do it! Don’t stop. Do it to me! Faster. Together. Confused. Astonished. Harder! Do it!

His hand behind my head – Unh! – in my ear, gripping hard my hair, pulling my head back, baring my throat as I have done, breathing, his mouth open in pleasure, biting my skin, hurting me, whispering. “It feels so good. You fuck. I missed you. You cunt. You little scary cunt. You scary little fuck. Unh!” Hammer and stake. Pounding me hard into the good night earth. My cries like song birds from my mouth to his ear.

Twisting tremors, the sea boiling, rising up in my lions – Leviathan rising – Kuschelbaer!”

It is different. It feels so different, to come this way. To feel what woman feels at that moment, dying at every second. I am no demon. I don’t need to be put down.

I am much changed. I was a virgin when I died. He tore me tonight. Do I bleed? Suddenly I have to know. Everything depends on it. If I am a girl, surely I must bleed down there, a simple girl on her wedding night. Again! I want to feel this again!

“Unh! You scary little blood sucking fuck!” His breathing racing, his heart beating against the skin of my breast. Heart beating against heart.

I sneak my hand down there, my right hand. I reach inside my leg, my right leg. Wetness there, I gather on my fingertips.

“Nixie! Nixie!”

I raise my hand to my nose. Blood. I know the smell. My blood. My blood is on my fingers. I have blood.

Do I dare to taste it? Is it blasphemy?

“Nixie! Ohmygod I love you! Ahh!”

Jets. Jets from his cock inside me. Love. His body goes stiff, rises above me; trembling in every little bone. His neck stretched over my ear, shaking with his pleasure.

I taste my fingers.

It is my blood. My own. It is bitter, and it is mine. I feel it rising in me.His lips. His tongue in my ear, licking, biting me, moaning with his relief. I want to bite him. To bite him! I long to bite him! The waves of pleasure rise again, bursting, blotting out everything. My teeth. My teeth. Deep. Taking it in, all in, sucking. Greedy. Blood in my mouth.

Whose blood is in my mouth? There should not be blood in my mouth!

Oh no. Oh God no. I am saved. It cannot be. It cannot. God would not let it happen.

NO!

I’m saved. Jesus saved me. He did. We had a deal!

He is lying on top of me, all limp and vacant and hollow. He has left me again. Where will I chase him to now? I slip my teeth, now familiar and long, from his skin and a small angry trail of blood follows after. I can barely move, the fading pleasure in my hips, turning bitter, the feeling of the blood within. I roll to the side and tumble the carcass off of me.

Kuschelbaer . . . no. I bury my face in his cold belly and scream my agony into his skin.

Oh god. You should have killed me instead. You should have killed me. If only you had killed me instead when you could have. I’m so alone. I feel so confused.I can’t think, everything is happening too fast. Who am I? Am I supposed to be the girl or the demon? I should be dancing somewhere, am I late? Why am I naked? Where is my baby? Will the Unicorn come and call my name? Why can’t I live on the moon?

Come back to me. Why are there no tears? I want my tears. There should be tears for him.

My . . . my big snuggly bear, kuschelbaer, don’t leave me again. Oh no, oh no, oh no . . .dance with me.

I want to kill something. Kill it slowly. I want to feel my teeth in something and hear it cry and beg to God for its life. Jesus! Lying bastard Jesus!

Blood.

Over by the trees, further down the river, the whisper of blood is on the air. Under the smell is a bright feeling of pain. There is pain and there is blood and there is an emotion I can’t understand anymore.

Walking through the high grass of the field between tree groves along the river bank. The bright moonlight on my skin. Without love or hope of love, I am exactly who I am meant to be. I am transforming. I am becoming glorious. The whore of Babylon riding the beast. When people see me they shall worship me. The grasshoppers jumping away from me as I pass. High above, crows are crying for me, poor black angels. The night air leading me. I am home again. SomewhereGod is shaking His fist at me.

Baaabaaa baaa,

Weil ich Jesu Schaflein bin. . . Freu’ ich mich nur immerhin…

I am Jesus’ little lamb. Ich Jesu Schaflein bin

Baaa baaa baaa.Hop hop hop.

I am Jesus’ little lamb chop.

Baa baa baa. Chop chop chop.

Blood scent coming from those trees beside the water. But there is this funny sound. I lower my head and listen carefully and there is a slap. . . slap. . . slap. . . not of skin on skin, but something else. And the sea smell of tears. Now I move like the hunter. I am the Angel that withers hope.I am Death become woman. Cry you crows! Cry for little nordchen.Here he is, here in the trees, I see him.

He is sitting back in the shadows under a tree. His skin is bare, naked like me. The smell of the blood on his back and on his shoulder, is shaped in streaks, cuts and welts. He is on his knees and he whispering in the silly baaa baaa baaa language and his arm moves, crossing his chest, His hand rises – slap! Leather cords across his back. Blood on steel balls. Is it Jesus whipping himself? If this is Jesus I’ll punish him for lying to me.

He is hurting himself. I’ve seen these things before. But it is only the preacher man. In the grass near his knee, the bitter smell of blood on steel again. That must be a knife. Yes, on his bare thighs there is a row of cuts. As I move in close behind him a man smell, the smell of his cum. It’s different from the smell of Daniel, drying sticky on my thighs. But there is no woman here, only himself. I remember sometimes meeting men like this in the past. Angry, dangerous men. They are fun to kill.

“Hallelujah. . . . Oh my Lord Jesus, deliver me . . . .Abba abba hey yea. .. yea, reprove me oh my Lord. Reprove my flesh from lust… . Abba Eloi Adonai…”

His eyes are closed and he doesn’t see as I reach down and pick up his knife. His blood is on the blade. I lick the blade and taste his blood which is already a little stale. This is a lonely tasting man.

If it had been any man but this one, I would have his head dripping from a tree by now to comfort me. But I am curious about him and I am terribly confused and I want to kill every creature in the world so that I can be alone but there so many things that must be killed and . . . and . . . and he must tell me why I am not saved anymore which I think might have become a good thing and God has abandoned me instead and I must keep killing people now and . . and . . . and – why?

I shut the blade and let him hear the sound so he will notice me. At the sound, he turns suddenly and stinks of shame. He is looking at me wide eyed, but he can’t see me the way I can see him. There is a bloody lash in his hand, and his legs and belly are covered in sweet smelling cuts. I want to tear him into food for owls and crows. But I want to lick his body and weep in his lap. I feel so confused.

“Who’s there?”

“Help me, sir.” I step around into the small patch of moonlight between the tree shadows and let him look at me. His knees are apart and his sex is erect and making the man smell.

He throws down the little whip, glances down at the grass where the knife was. I hide my hand behind my back.

“Where . . ” He looks up, fearful. He sees me in the light, small pale, big breasted and nude. “What are you?” He jumps to his feet, stumbling backwards. “What are you? Who sent you here?”

“I smelled your blood.” As I say that, there is a new puff of fear from him, and his wounds bleed a little faster. The smell is confusing me and filling with me light and my head with noise. The winds of the Holy Ghost are roaring in my ears. Above me enraged angels are descending blowing trumpets. “Why did you do that?” I point at his wounds.

“Who sent you? God? Satan? Why are you like that?” Pointing at my nakedness. Are you tempting me? Jesus has forgiven me for whathappened in the motel.”

I want to cry. To want to kill. I want to die. I don’t know what I want. ” Why are you like that?” I wave at his bloody cuts and welts. “Are you trying to tempt me?”

“I know you. You were the girl with the devil.”

“I know you,” I say. “I’m the girl with the devil.” I begin clawing at my face. I want to tear the flesh off my skull and show him my grinning skull, but he steps forward and takes my hands away from me.

“What happened to you?” He says.

I’m still holding his knife, hidden in my hand. I should maybe give it to him, I think. But not yet. “When you die, sir, what will happen to you?”

“What is your name? Tell me your name.”

“Nixie.”

“You want to know what will happen when we die? Where will you spend eternity Nixie? Where?”

“In Hell.”

“No, Nixie, no. You’re saved by the blood of Jesus – ”

“No!” I yell at him. “I’m going to Hell. No matter what.” My shoulders are shaking and my head is bowed. His arms are around me and he draws me close. “Where will you go when you die?”

“Heaven.” He says. His hands pass gently down my back and he holds me tighter.”When Jesus shouts and the rapture comes I’ll go straight up to heaven to be with Jesus. Won’t you?”

“No.”

“Haven’t you accepted Jesus as your savior?” His hands are moving gently down my arms to my waist. I can hear his heart now, which I could not hear before.

“I tried.” His hand is lifting my breast.

“Then you’ll be with the Lord, together with me. You’ll be in heaven Nixie. You will be with me together in heaven as Jesus promised.”

Now his other hand is at my other breast, touching me. His man smell is strong. “But, I want to be with Daniel.” I feel so confused. Then I remember the blood. “Why did you do that to yourself?”

“Jesus has forgiven us of all our past sins, do you believe me Nixie? And the Lord forgives us our future sins even before they’re done. Do you trust me, Nixie? Even if we be weak in the eyes of God, we are forgiven by grace alone. Do you believe that?”

“No. . . ” I whisper. “I don’t.”

“I’m not perfect , Nixie.” His fingers move over my nipples. “What we’re doing, this will be our secret. Do you trust me?”

“No. . . ” I whisper. “I don’t.” Gently, I push him away from me.

He raises his arm, points his finger and says “Get thee behind me!”

“Get thee behind me?”

“Satan!” He shakes his hand at me. And points again. “Get thee behind me demon! I cast thee out in the name of Jesus Christ.”

I fall on my knees. I spread my arms wide for the devil to leave me.

The preacher man comes towards me, stands in front of me, towering down imperiously. His cock is my face and its bobbing with his heart beat. “I command you. . .” he sighs. “Obey me. Obey me. Adonai – abbba laba elehu abba. Abba.”

I am waiting for the devil to leave me. For the peace to come and heal me and make me a good girl for Daniel again so he will come back to me, and the angry angels beating me with their lightning will leave me alone. Alone! Alone! I close my eyes and wait for the miracle.

I feel something soft and hot brush my lips. The angels go away. I open my eyes and his cock is in my face. Pray. Pray for me.

Prey. Prey for me.

Overhead the stars are falling and the moon is turning as red as blood. The earth is crawling with dumb bastards.The night sky is ripped in two with thunder revealed to me. I am the Dragon of God. I am the Wrath of God made rampant. I am the one true way. I am Death made perfect. The prey is not perfect. I will make him perfect.

I stand up slowly, silently so as not to startle him. With one hand I soothe the stiff penis, to relax the prey. I feel him become languid. The prey has closed his eyes and is moving his cock inside my fist. I’ve seen it all before so many times. It’s all so tedious. The prey is ready now. I flip the knife open and the smell of the prey’s blood fills my head. “Abbbaaa . .. Adonai… adaonai… hallelujah. . .. ” He whispers.

My hand lets go of his cock, strikes out and grabs his throat. The prey’s eyes pop open. “I am not possessed by a demon.” I lean in and scream at his face “I am the demon!”

I squeeze. His lying tongue that tricked me into killing my Daniel pops out. A swift cut with the knife and his tongue falls in the grass. This is a good little knife. Now he won’t trick me with lies.

“Du!” I say to the prey in my Holy Ghost language. “Du sollst den verdammten keine falschen Hoffnungen machen!” He is beating at my hands, and his struggle excites me more and more. The sound of his heart pounding in my ears fills the sky and the dancing trees. Crows – cry for him! Where is his God now? The blood running down his gullet is strangling him.

“You are going to Heaven, jah? Do you think? First you must share a moment with me in Hell.” He’s trying to shout and cannot. I slip the knife up and inside his left rib and in a fast high motion run the blade along his rib bone, slashing the diaphragm. Now he can’t draw a breath or cry out. It’s nothing. It’s an old trick.

I will not have his blood. That is not the message he will carry to God for me when he trudges to the gates of his Heaven. No. I have had the blood of the most sacred lamb, which I swore I would never touch, and there is no one worthy to mix with the blood of my kuschelbaer. I will not drink again. Ever. I didn’t know this until now. I only just thought of it. I hear the man wheeze and bend over.

God has a message for me. What can it be? God must explain to me why I feel so confused. I will read the future!

The prey swats at me with his limp hands.I ignore him and push the blade sideways into his belly now and cut straight upward, avoiding the tough belly muscles which are too much work for the little knife to saw through. Red and blue intestines puff out like balloons. There is this tough membrane that covers them and you must cut through this membrane and free them – like so, and then pull them out – like so.But gently so that he does not die and escape Hell with me.

Now I let him fall. Boom.

I watch him crawl for a while crying and dragging himself. His guts are getting all sticky dirty in the dry pine needles. I think he is trying to hide behind the tree. There is no hurry, it takes some time to die this way. Come here, sir. What a bad evening you are having. Well, I am having a bad evening also. I grab his ankle and pull him backwards and his guts are covered with pine needles now like a bakery treat. I look at his entrails, watch his convulsions as he flops his arms. I pull apart some of his intestines, looking for patterns. I want to read them, I want to see my fortune in them as grandmamma did, but she didn’t teach me how. I wish she were here to help. He slaps his hand at me. Slaps at his guts, maybe trying to gather them back in. I pull the ropy, sticky things apart a little, trying to peer at what is beneath looking for some hope in the future and his back arches as though with pleasure and he makes a sucking sound with his lips. I think there is something there. There is a message there, how do I read it? Oh this man! He just won’t lie still.

I punch him hard in the face to make him behave. I sit on his chest.

What are you seeing, sir? Onlysome naked girl? Or are you seeing my absence of humanity, do you think I am not like you at all? Are you proud you are not like me and you’re bound for the Heaven and I for the Hell; do you think you’re superior to me because God loves you more, do you? Do you see poor lost Nordchen in me at all anymore, or only a devil? Do you see the real me? Tell me, who is she?

He will not answer me. Do you see, Daniel, it is only a pig’s blood on my hands. I don’t lie. It’s all going rotten and I can’t stop it. I’m so confused. Do you feel there is any hope for me, sir? He will not answer me, he is so useless. I take my knife and cut off his lips and now he looks like a clown. Stupid man. Stupid useless man. Do you like that?

I turn the knife around and knock out his front teeth with the butt of it, but it makes me feel even more confused.

Don’t you see sir?

I would have found you anywhere you went. We belong together.

Suddenly I am filled with rage, a blind and bloody rage towards this man and his God. I cannot remember my name I am so filled with hate for this person. Where are my tears!

Two fast chops with the knife in the neck and I let the fountains spray over me. I stab him over and over in his face and his eyes and his mouth and his neck and his chest. Ah! Ah! Ah! Like tenderizing a beef roast – Oh God!

Oh God. I never made a pot roast for my man.

Oh my love, forgive your Nordchen. You would have loved my sauerbraten. You would have.

I want my tears. Why are there no tears? Give me my tears!

I shower in his warm blood. The useless prey did not know how to cut himself good with this knife – but I do! The smell of the blood fills my senses and I want to kill every living thing in all the world one by one.

I want everything to stop and be quiet. I’m so confused. The stars are falling. I want to be alone! What if the people find me here – leave me alone!Time to think about the years all gone all lost. But I hear the echo of voices drifting through the trees, are they the people? Is it the Unicorn come to call for me? No – I don’t think. Do ghosts smell? I don’t know. Why? Why don’t they all fade away? Leave me
alone. Alone! Alone! Alone! Why don’t they leave me alone?

“Harold?” A young woman’s voice, high and thin. “Harold? Are you over here? Are you done?” She is coming, waving a flashlight .

She comes close and she is carrying something wrapped in her arms in a blanket.I stand up to greet her and to be polite to her. I’ve seen this girl. “Harold. . . ?” The flashlight shines in my eyes. “So – you’re that whore he’s been fucking!”

She swings the flashlight at my face and I dance back from it. She can’t move well because of something in her arms that smells like hanzer cheese. We are alone. I show her the knife, but the flashlight is shining on my body and she sees my glory. I am the dragon. I am the lamb of salvation, washed in the blood of a fool. I spread my arms wide and I feel them turning into huge feathered wings to sweep me up to Heaven to be with kuschelbaer. She sees the prey and her scream stops in her throat. “What happened?”

Why do people ask stupid things? I am filled with the Holy Ghost but she is not looking at me, she asks stupid things instead of worshiping my glory.I must speak in her language so she can understand instead of using the Holy Ghost language. I point theknife at her commanding as I did before to the prey. “Thou shalt not give false hope to the damned!”

She starts to scream, really screaming now. The blanket in her arms slips away -and I see him – it is the baby boy. This woman, I know her!The baby looks at me, he sees me. His eyes! He should not be looking at me that way. His eyes fill me with terror. The horror of it sweeps over me. It is unbearable!

“Love me.” I plead to the baby, my voice cracking, backing away from him in fear and shame. “Please love me too.” I look down. Somehow I am covered in blood. So much blood. He must not look upon me!

The baby opens his mouth as he sees the blood of his father drenched all over me. His toothless grin. He laughs at me. A gurgling, bubbling sound like someone drowning in their blood. I know that sound so well!

I throw my arm up over my face. Don’t laugh at your daddy’s blood! Don’t look at me! I can’t stand it. The mother screams, far away the shouting of voices. Under the scream all I can hear is the terrifying gurgling laughter of the little boy I will never ever have. I am melting.

Throwing down the knife. Get away! The baby, the drowning laugh – get him away from me! Help me! Blood! Blood, little baby! So much blood!

Jumping into the river to flee from his laughing eyes. Down. Down. The dark water, so dark even my eyes can’t see. The deep cold water and my mind is clearer.

Down deep in the water, I push my feet in the sand and feel the cold flow against my bare skin. The solitude calms me. What was I doing just now? For a moment I’m not sure where I am. Everything is a coffin dream. I want to see Daniel. It’s the only thing I know. Climbing up out of the water, thrashing through the tall thick weeds, the riverbank is slippery and hard to climb, but I must see Daniel. I’m so tired. I wish I could really become a bat. Or a wolf would be nice. I wish I could do those things and not be a woman ever again. All around me there are animals watching me. I don’t want to see people ever again. Up river where I was, the woman is crying and still screaming like crazy and now another woman is screaming with her. I remember everything, but it is fuzzy. Well, now I guess they have found him. A new smell, of sour food. Strong men are vomiting.

There he is. So still. So vacant. He is all inside me now, but I would give my useless pointless life a thousand times to put my broken doll back together again. On the other side the sun is rising over the trees, like a hot silver blade in the high clouds. It will be light soon.It is humiliating to hide from it in defeat. I want to make my stand here and curse at it until it burns me up or until I can blot it out.I don’t want to go on anymore but maybe not just yet. I want to hold him in my arms as I rest. I want to be with him longer, both dead together, each in our way.

Shaking water from my hair, drawing away a strand from my eyes. I dress myself again in my torn clothes, and it reminds me of the mornings before, dressing myself after the love, his eyes eating me up, his cock rising back a bit, offering me a little more. The good dawn time when he would pull me back down onto him and undress me again, grabbing each other and laughing like children.

Oh the little baby.

Soon the people will come looking for me.I will carry him with me into the water and we’ll wait out the day in the bottom of the river. I will hold him tight to me until there is nothing left of him. Oh, but see him.I will never see him again as he is now. Let me hold him a while. See, how he looks at peace. We had to sleep apart in the day, because I might kill him by accident in my sleep. But see – it happens anyway.

So ist Das Leben . . . . It’s just the way it goes. In the end, we are only what we are.

I dress him now too, like the little boy we might have had. Wake up! Wake up! Time to get up, sleepy head! Must get you ready for school, here’s a nice sandwich and an apple for you, and one more for your teacher too, all in a bag and a kiss goodbye at the bus stop that will embarrass you in front of your little friends. Good bye sweetie, good bye!

Now. Now here they come.I have my tears.And is this how you make of me a real girl, kuschelbaer – to make me cry? Was it the best you could think to do?

Sit now nordchen, by the waters of Babylon and weep.

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© 2009 C. Sanchez-Garcia. All rights reserved. Content may not be copied or used in whole or part without written permission from the author.