ACT II
Trojan Horse
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1
Robin
New Orleans, Louisiana
Saint Louis Cemetery
October 31st, 2014
Time: 4:00 AM
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She drank Earl Grey as a way to forget about her past.
"Ten minutes for ten letters."
Slowly, tentatively; the warmth nestled inside her mouth – chalk-full of floral tastes and French-vanilla creamer, singeing off her tastebuds with a delicate sweetness. But even through the hazy heat, she still heard them: his plaintive cries, the sound of baby blood dripping onto her palms like oil; her muscles clenched around the weeping saw; her breaths ragged, his pulse underneath her fingertips; guards pulling her away, screaming, sobbing. She heard it all, and she drowned in the fragrant aftertaste of Earl Grey as he said it more adamantly.
"Ten minutes for ten more letters."
The Mississippi hissed against Virgilʼs head-stone. Crashing, mournfully singing, recoiling against her body hitting the ground. Her knees were as widespread as the grave was, and the ache in her head throbbed, and she let out a choked, panicked cry – her throat burning, tears streaming down her face. The engraver grabbed her throat, squeezing against the tight band of muscles, chamomile sap as slick as the blood that trickled down her thighs from her rectum. Gritting her teeth, Robinʼs nails bit into the headstone, clamping down, the stone slitting the skin against the center of her palm. Her hatred for the engraver, for his lecherous libido, for his forceful hunger – it slimed into her stomach, threatening to burst like vomit.
If she were back in Cuba, and if sheʼd been slammed onto her stomach by Jorge Cortéz, the hospital's ward, or forced to s*ck down Lyman Bycroft and his incestuous brother for papers, or m*lested by her adopted daddy when she cleaned up the house – she would have tried to drink the Earl Grey. Try to soak in the pure essence of it and swallow any discomfort she felt, like a fasting woman slobbering over the precious waters of Jerusalem to quench a thirst.
But this wasnʼt Cuba.
And instead of feeling the urge to vomit; to puke...
She felt nothing.
"Another ten minutes for ten more letters; but since youʼre Sebastian Princeʼs b*tch, Iʼll give you fifteen for ten."
He said it like it was a blessing to her.
Gasping, she sucked in air, and he closed his eyes, digging his hands into her waist, and the words were a record on vinyl. Playing over-and-over in her mind. The taste of the Earl Grey grew intoxicatingly disgusting in her mouth. Metal that made her gag; her mouth foaming with saliva as she let out another gut-wrenching cry. The silence that stunted her throat made it rigid, raucous, and as she clenched around him – her claws dug into the tombstone. The tightness was too much for him, too much for her, and as the last remnants of her soul slipped down to her guts with every thrust he made, she let out a hollow suck of air that was etched in the back of her throat like the rapid loss of air from a petty balloon.
"Remember, ten minutes for ten – ah, f*ck."
Lo siento, bebé; lo siento, Virgil; mijo.
He clutched onto her hips as if she were wriggling away, like a bait on a hook. But she didnʼt wriggle away; she didnʼt even fight it. She abhorred him, the engraver, his flesh on hers, his ragged breath. But not once did she sl*t his wrists with her claws, or listen to him choke on curdles of his blood as she ripped out his beating heart with her hands. She just panted, hollow and limp against him, sweat gumming up her skin and pain: excruciating, bladelike, pain blossomed inside her with a familiar fervor.
"Ten minutes..."
VIRGIL DEMARCUS
February 2002 to May 2002
IN LOVING MEMORY...
The Earl Grey died in her hands like a faded ember, cool to the touch, and everything was a blur. As she sat on the ground, in front of Virgilʼs
grave – her baby boyʼs grave – she shaved off the dawn-colored stones and sawdust from the headstone protectively, almost possessively; ethereal wisps cling onto the clawed sycamore branches. The wind howled with the hooting owls as Robin sat, damp in New Orleansʼ dampest hell; blinded, suffocated, flooded by the blackness, the darkness, the smoke of the night.
Desolation filled the sky in Saint Louisʼ like melted obsidian and as the trees hunched over her – Robin listened to the covetous backlash of the wind, the vicious howls, the owls cawing, the rains pouring down; whipping at her back almost in protest. Cleansing the world with its frosty touch.
Peering down, the tomb exposed itself to her; dark, brown, damp as tentacles of her tea spread along the ground with soft, light-filled caresses. Swallowing the earth the way this goddamned earth swallowed her.
She was hollow at, first. Clutching Virgilʼs dead body, red as a beet, tightly – his eyes staring up at her, lifeless. He was only a few months old when he died, her Virgil was, still swathed in that baby blue; his skin was flooded with preserving balm. Sprigs of red berries adorned the baby blue blanket, Scottish soil kissing the soil, and then...
She cried.
Silently, muffled by the way her teeth dug into her lips and as her throat mad her gag. The tears flowed in the same, oval-shaped pattern down her face, blanching her skin, a darkened sea of stormy blue tears that never stopped, never relented, followed her down the darkened road of her self-hatred and self-loathing. She screamed, hysterically in anger, clawing at his corpse and refusing to let go. She gripped him until she lost all circulation and her knuckles turned stark-white to the point where it pained her.
She cried until she couldnʼt cry anymore.
Grief struck her ashen face, and as she rested her head against his shoulder, seeking solace, the blackness of his eyes matched the blackness of a viper and the blackness of the night. Wrapping an arm around her shoulder, he stood. Still, still, stricken, the embers and smoke of the night rising into the darkening sky.
The Earl Gray was empty, dead inside.
And so was she.