The universe was built for my girl. God sowed the stars in the sky so Sheridan could watch them sprout and burst into full bloom. The wind pushes thunderclouds and hail and skyscrapers out of the way just to reach her, to caress her golden hair and pearlescent skin.Courting her was like trying to be struck by lightning. It was 24 years ago, but the electricity still simmers and crackles in my veins with no loss of strength. We are married, but she belongs to me only in the way that an eagle belongs to a falconer.I love watching my girl. I love watching her shoulder blades swim beneath her skin like dolphins about to breach the ocean surface when she stretches in the morning. I love watching her twist her wedding ring every time her eyes cloud over with thought. I love it most when she doesn't realize I'm watching.A week ago she took me to England on a business trip. It is cloudy and calm here. She disappears during the day, but I do not mind waiting for her by the windowsill in the hotel room. It is lonely but not unpleasant. The bed is a little smaller than ours at home but my Sheridan still leaves room for me on the left side. When she fixes the sheets in the morning, she spreads many newspapers atop them.She has barely touched me in years, because she is so busy. But here it is another story entirely. I haven't seen her this hungry since we first met.It goes like this: the English sun sets, and Sheridan crashes into the hotel room, dragging me in behind her. We are already kissing. Her hands and lips find my jaw, my chest, my legs. She envelops me - she is everywhere - she looks at me like she doesn't recognize me, and she smiles. She tries things we never used to do. She binds and gags me. She likes knives now. She makes me scream. She takes me over and over and over, she drains every last drop of fluid in my body. I die every night for her, but her hunger is never satisfied. And so the cycle continues.I become whatever she wants me to be. One night I am a stranger she meets at a bar. Another night I am her waiter. Another still I am her taxi driver, her hair stylist. I am her man, I am her woman, I am her Prometheus.An unfamiliar and unpleasant smell begins to seep into the hotel walls. There is a small television that I sometimes flick on during the day while she is out. Usually I do not watch TV, but it helps distract me from the stench. The English news tells tales of soccer matches, a serial killer, and the royal family.One night my Sheridan doesn’t return. I fear the killer on the news got to her, but it’s only an irrational anxiety. I know she will come back to me eventually.There are always sirens on the street outside the window these days, but no sea maiden could light a candle to my Sheridan. She hasn’t come home in three days now. I start to fear I am no longer enough for her, even when I pretend to be someone else. Or perhaps she has learned to hide from me, too.Five days pass. I call for her endlessly, but my throat is full of cotton. I know leaving the hotel room would be a betrayal, but the walls edge closer and closer to me. The stench is unbearable. I keep the windows open. The singing sirens drown out the noise from the television. Images of Sheridan’s naked body mutilated and decaying linger in my mind. Blue eyes gone cloudy, bloated fingers. Hair stringy and matted, breasts flaccid. Horror consumes me. What have they done to my beautiful girl? Why can I smell her corpse?As the fifth day nears its end there’s a knock on the door. I know it’s her. Nobody could rob this world of its greatest blessing. My beautiful wife has come home to me at last! My sweet Sheridan, master of sea and sky. I nearly trip over myself in my hurry to open the door for her, to bow for her, to worship her.But it isn’t her. It’s just a couple of rather pathetic looking men in uniforms.They ask me questions I do not know the answers to. They ask if they can search the hotel room, and I say no, and they do it anyway. They knock over the nightstand and, with greater effort, the dresser. It seems like a performance, like they were written by a satirist. I wonder if the police academies in England have different textbooks.They grunt a lot, especially when moving the mattress. When that’s done they pause. Then they lift the bed frame, much slower now. I can see the veins on their thick necks bulging with the effort. The blood spreads easily under their skin, like wine seeping into white tablecloth.One of them abandons the task to approach me. I wonder if Sheridan would want me to be someone like him for her. He tries to handcuff me. I resist. I don’t want Sheridan to hide behind some English cop or anyone else. But he grabs me forcefully and I no longer have a choice.There seem to be more police officers that I hadn’t noticed come in earlier. They must have decided to take a short nap after all that furniture upending, because they’re laying on the floor where the bed used to be, dressed in the costumes Sheridan would have me wear. They almost look like normal people after a long day of work.

Claudia and her father weren’t Jewish because they hadn’t been able to afford to go to Temple. Claudia was the spitting image of her father, who was dead. Her father’s father, Claude, was dead too (Holocaust), and Claudia was named after him.Claudia’s mother was probably Catholic. She had Claudia very young and screamed at Claudia’s father for three years straight until she got sick of it and left.When Claudia’s father died, she was adopted by her mother’s sister. Claudia liked her aunt and uncle very much because they did not expect anything of her. Plus her uncle was a very good cook.Claudia lived in a small town in Pennsylvania, which she did not like. Her family had moved there when Claudia was a newborn, and they could not yet wedge themselves into the generations of history that held the rest of the town together.Mal was Claudia’s best friend. They met in kindergarten and had been inseparable ever since. Mal knew more about Claudia than anyone, but she would never tell a soul.When they were in high school, the exact same shift occurred for both of them, barely one year apart. Winter of sophomore year, Claudia started avoiding Mal’s hands because they made her feel something new and scary. Winter of junior year, Mal started seeking out Claudia’s hands for the same reason.Claudia’s uncle was such a good cook, the food always made her sleepy.The first time Claudia and Mal kissed was very strange for both of them, but it got better over time. They kept their secret fiercely.Claudia was not supposed to get her period on her 18th birthday. She was not supposed to get it the next day, either. But she was supposed to get it the day after that, and she did not.In the coming months her belly exploded. Already doughy, Claudia had thought she was just putting on extra weight. She threw up often because she had a weak stomach.When Mal accused Claudia of betraying her, she did not understand why. She cried. She cried, too. She screamed, and she screamed.Claudia hated her dad for dying. It was an overdose, and she had found him.Her aunt did not know what to do, so she sent Claudia to church. Her body hated her. The priest did not believe her when she told him she was a virgin. She swore. He demanded to see her hymen. He spread her legs. It was intact.The priest came to her aunt and uncle’s house. Over coffee, he told them Claudia was carrying the second coming of Christ. The town would be notified, and she would be made a saint immediately. They cried.Claudia tried to kill her baby three times. The first was by flinging herself down the stairs. It hurt a lot more than she expected it to, and she cried out for Mal, who did not come. The second was with a coat wire (this one was the messiest). The third was with an herbal tea she had read about that tasted funny. Her stomach never stopped growing.The town suddenly revered her. She would get stopped on the street by everyone she passed. They said they prayed to her. They said she was glowing and kind. Claudia stopped leaving the house, and asked her aunt to homeschool her.Mal would not look at her.The months were slow. Claudia wrangled with her belly. The town was not deterred by her hiding; she received heaps of tear-stained letters. She pretended to ignore them. People kept asking her for things. For health, for money. She had nothing to offer.Food would show up on their doorstep. Claudia’s aunt and uncle did not let her eat it, for fear it may be poisoned (it wasn’t). They had to start taking out the trash three times a day.One of Claudia’s former classmates died. He got mowed down by a car with New York plates. The body wasn’t found for days. The school dedicated the upcoming football game to the deceased. His surviving girlfriend made a speech at the game where she prayed to Claudia and her baby.The town was preparing for the baby’s arrival. The church was very busy collecting money from everybody. The town council even agreed to implement a Jesus tax since the occasion was so special.The tax was steep. Claudia and her family quickly became the only ones not struggling to make ends meet.Mal came by. Claudia let her in. They tried to apologize to each other, to clarify things. It sort of worked.
Claudia asked Mal if she was seeing anyone. She was. Mal asked Claudia if she was really a saint. She wasn’t.Claudia was in labor for 39 hours.When the baby finally came out it was silent. Claudia did not ask to hold it, which is why she did not notice it was dead. When the doctor finally told her, she sighed.Claudia returned home from the hospital to the windows broken and the word “LIAR” spray painted on the front door. Her aunt cried. Her uncle stared. Claudia turned around and walked to the only place she could think to go.Mal’s father answered the door, and swiftly shut it in her face. Claudia thought that was fair.The walk back was long. The house had been gutted. It would have been more merciful (and Catholic) to just set the place ablaze, but the town was hungry.

I fucking hate this song. It’s sluggish, and repetitive, and one of Erin’s favorites. She looks sort of happy, at least. Her eyeliner has faded from the corners of her eyes.Erin isn’t cool because she smokes cigarettes, but it certainly helps. Everything about her is small except her voice. “Maybe I just need to be single for a while,” she says, taking a long drag. The chain link fence molds to her body. “Focus on myself or some shit.”I pretend not to hear her. Erin’s portable speaker buzzes on the curb a few inches from where her cigarette lands. She crushes it with a platform boot.I take the tray out of my backpack and balance it on my knees. I’m not good at rolling, but Erin’s completely hopeless. I used to like that about her – I liked being needed – but it got old fast. “I still can’t believe him,” Erin continues. “Like, I get he has a shitty home life, but come on. He’s a grown ass man. I don’t know.”She plucks the wonky joint from my tray and puts it to her lips, dipping her head down to me expectantly. Face to face like this, we’re almost kids at the community pool again, daring each other off the diving board. Erin always made the jump easily. I stood there petrified, staring at the water like it was gonna swell up and swallow me whole.Something tightens in my chest as I cup my hand around the joint and light it for her.“I get obsessive, I think. It’s not healthy. Maybe I need to go back on adderall or something.” She passes me the joint. I inhale deeply. The guy at the deli totally ripped me off with this shit – I don’t feel anything. I want to say something about the therapist Erin almost saw once, but I just hand the joint back silently.Erin’s terrible music floats on the city air. I think about how we used to drive to Fort Lee Park in the middle of the night, staring longingly at the Manhattan skyline. It was always freezing, but so quiet. All you could hear were the lapping waves of the Hudson. Across the water, the cars looked like snails sliding across ice. Sometimes Erin talked about her dad, and how she dreamt he wrote her a beautiful letter explaining everything. Sometimes I talked about Peter, the frog my dad caught for me at rehab. He was the only thing I really cared for other than myself.Once, Erin asked me to kiss her, and I got the same feeling as when I found Peter dead behind the couch.Erin pushes herself off the fence and starts walking in slow circles around me. “It was worth a shot, right? With Carter, I mean.” She’s not looking for a response, so I don’t give her one. “Maybe he’ll get over his issues and come crawling back. And when he does, I’ll be like, ‘Screw you, dude. You had your chance. I’m only into girls now.’”When we were little, I never expected Erin to turn out like this. We were always fighting to be top of the class, first one to complete the test, fastest to the finish line. I thought she was going to be a doctor, and myself maybe a teacher. I used to think we were the two smartest people in the world, but now I just stare blankly at everything, and Erin can’t stand being alone. Everything used to feel so important, so significant. Now we’re just perpetually trying to kill time.“Anyway. How are your classes going? Make anything cool yet?” Erin’s pacing is making me dizzy. I’m finally starting to feel buzzed. I stare at the yellowish hickey peering out from her shirt collar. “I miss you.”“We’re together like, all the time,” I murmur, knowing it’ll make her stop walking around.She sits down beside me on the curb and bumps her shoulder into mine. “Not all the time. And even still, you only feel like talking when you’re high.”I bristle. “I…don’t have much to say.”“We both know that’s not true.” It’s quiet again. Erin is staring fixedly at something across the street. I twirl the joint between my fingers, smoke it, cough. Finally, she says, “What happened, Liv?”I look away, hoping she won’t push it. Of course she does. “I know you don’t want to talk about it, but I don’t care. I tried to ignore it, I tried to give you space, but you’re still cold. Something changed this summer. What was it? What did I do?”I don’t know why I agreed to come out and smoke with her. I was just about to head to the studio to fire before she showed up at my door. But she doesn’t have her own weed, and maybe a part of me wanted to fight, to strike a match in the bone-dry air between us. “Can we not do this right now?”She stands up, brushes dirt off her jeans. “Whatever. I’m going to the deli.”I stamp down the urge to chase after her. She left me with the end of the joint, and I smoke it even though it burns up my throat. When it’s done, I roll another. Her speaker dies and I find myself missing her shitty music.
Erin comes back with a six-pack in each hand. She wordlessly slams them down in front of me. I hand her the new joint and fumble for the bottle opener on my keychain. Her pockets are too shallow for her to carry anything but her phone.We sip our beers and smoke in silence. Finally, she says, “I miss them. Jessie and Wren. And Vince. I really miss Vince.” When I entered the school district in third grade, Vince was the only person who wanted anything to do with me. He became my closest friend, and I was infatuated with him all the way until sophomore year of high school, when he and Erin started dating. I thought he had the biggest heart, before I knew any better.“They’re not that far. Just a couple hours.”“Jesus Christ, Liv, you know what I mean.” She turns to me sharply. “Why are you such a bitch all the time? Seriously! You know, I felt so fucking guilty being with Vince, because I knew you couldn’t handle it. Two fucking years of guilt. And when we finally broke up, I thought you’d be cool again. I thought, at least I’ll have my best friend back. But you’re…you’re worse than ever. I need you, and you don’t even fucking talk to me. Like, what the actual fuck?” she croaks.Sometimes, on really bad nights, I fantasize about telling her. It was the last night of our Vermont trip, before Vince and Erin separated for college. We were all drunk and saying things we didn’t mean. I should’ve just gone on that stupid walk with Erin and Jessie and Wren.“I’m sorry,” I mumble pathetically.“Fuck you, Liv. Honestly. We used to tell each other everything. Don’t you remember?” Her eyes flash, and I think she’s about to accuse me of something. But she just slumps instead. A tear gathers at the bulb of her nose, falls. The world tilts around me.I rack my brain for something to say that can fix this, but I can’t think of anything.