CW
threat of potential violence
The lights snap on: a fuzzy, milky dimness, still bright enough to make me blink. I’ve been waiting, eyes open in the darkness, for you to come home.
The sounds I expect: voices from the kitchen, the sucking surrender of the refrigerator door, scuffle of shoes, the loud clink of flatware on counter. Your voice in laughing protest, then the prolonged silence that means you’re kissing him. Chair legs grate on linoleum, spoons tap sherbet bowls. A hush that I know holds breathing.
A twist of cigarette smoke tangles through the air. I resist the urge to sneeze. I’ve had practice stifling my body’s responses to the mingled odors of mildew, socks, carpet cleaner and animal urine, cobwebs, the fetid between-floors smell rising through the boards on clammy nights.
Voices and motion. His heavy tread. Pipes clang and sing, a door creaks, the air becomes subtly moister. Splashes, laughter. After a time, you come close and switch on the bedroom light. I shield my eyes with a careful, silent hand. You’re humming; you fuss with matches and a lavender-scented candle until he arrives, flicks the light back off. You merge in the jumping shadows, towel-turbaned, I imagine, steam rising from your bodies, and fall to the bed, directly over my head.
Tonight you’re tired. I am grateful for the reprieve, spared your moans and feathery, vulnerable gasps. You squirm, then settle. The bed frame bows above my face. It squeals as he reaches to pinch out the flame. In that instant, your hand drops through the gap between wall and bed, hangs suspended just above the floor. As the room fills with the scent of wick and wax, I slither soundlessly until my mouth is even with your hand. There I sleep, my breath cupped in your palm. Surely you feel the warmth of my exhalation. I imagine that in the dark, you are smiling.
Under the bed: the raw, curled carpet’s edge, floorboards sticky with old finish that catches the nimbuses of dust mice. My only possession, a steak knife with a melted plastic handle, is hidden in the baseboard radiator. A blue biro cap lies beside me. Its much-chewed tip, almost gnawed in two, disgusts me. That would be his doing: he bites his pencil erasers and the stems of his sunglasses, the thick outside tines of his plastic comb, even his toenails and the callused skin around them. Above me, the metal frame sags slightly in its center. The mattress’s underside leaks cotton from three small rips in the ticking. A pale bloodstain of uneven concentric circles, the largest the size of a teacup’s rim, reminds me of a photo of a nebula in Aquarius. I’ve long forgotten its name, but I recall the description clearly: The spheroid, gaseous nature of the shell suggests an explosive internal event. Note the slender filaments radiating from the heart. The blue-striped sheets are tucked in haphazardly. If you saw your bed from here, you would feel some trepidation. It is disquieting, like scars almost hidden by makeup, like a botched tattoo suddenly uncovered at your throat.
Your marmalade cat visits, pokes his muzzle under the trailing edge of your quilt. He sniffs, bristles, parades stiff-legged, then subsides, flopping on his back and purring. I smooth his still-raised hackles. There is little enough to do while I wait for your return, through all these agonizing hours.
I crawl forth, grub emerging to a predatory world. If I’m lucky, it’s raining and instead of creeping or hunching below the bottoms of the windowsills, I walk upright, restored to my manhood by the sky’s obscurity, the darkness of the daytime air. I toilet; if the stall is wet, I shower, clean my teeth with your brush. Since I cannot wash them, I’ve given up on clothes; with my feet dried on your damp towel, I prowl naked to the kitchen, gobble sliced bread and an apple, bury the core deep in the trash. I savor fingerfuls of leftovers from covered plates and bowls, a mouthful of sherbet tongued from the soggy carton. The forage is best after you’ve entertained. Then you both sleep heavily, stumble up and rush to work. I give myself more license, ransack the peanuts and salsa detritus, knowing it has not been reckoned.
Another week passes. Today I treat myself to a swallow of his bourbon. He won’t notice. He’s unobservant, dumb about danger, and I only drink enough to burn my tender lips. On the refrigerator’s top shelf are two oranges, stripped of their zest, planed down to pith. Their strange, raw angularity unsettles and compels me. When I roll them between my hands, their ridged flesh is hard-edged and scabbed. I sniff, hungry for sweetness, but they’ve re-sealed themselves against their injury. I replace them regretfully. They would be missed. Instead I take raisins, a carrot to nibble later.
My stomach aches from scraps bolted too eagerly. I slurp water from the tap. I scratch myself, roll on the rug to sop up the last damp. Dry-skinned, amorous and bored, I lie on your soft bed and think of you, and oranges, and dust. So I will dream until the sounds of rush hour penetrate my sleep. I will tug your blanket smooth, plump your pillow, return to my nest, the hollow you made, the empty place you’ve filled with me.
I’m not sure when I became the man under your bed, the burglar from whom you’ve stolen, the trespasser whose threshold you’ve transgressed, a body you’ve made shadow, the other you’ve sent out of yourself. I didn’t used to hide myself in darkness.
Sometimes I doubt you know I’m here. Do you feel an echo, a fear, a distant wish? I am the eunuch set at your gates, the loyal servant and guardian whose presence inhibits intimacy with your lover. I am the demon, substantial as smoke, curling, expanding, infesting your dreams. I would rise from the dead, impelled by your desire; I would lie heavy, soft upon you as you slept, muffle your cries with perfumed lips, drink your breath while beside you he uttered his sodden snores. He thinks he has you, and he is wrong.
What I know is that I wasn’t always under your bed. I don’t remember if I’ve always been a man. I am not certain if this exile, this domestic ultima Thule, is punishment or reward.
Sounds of lovemaking mingle with the drone of local news. I protect you from harm; I am an amulet against these men. They think you are their prize. Their names, their distinguishing pocks and blemishes, are recited nightly by grave voices, breathlessly excited by the horror of this world. But neither are you blameless, you who urge your lover to ever more passionate displays, then shush him, giggling. Who do you think might hear his grunts and endearments, if not I?
The fact is, when I’ve had enough, when moved by boredom or despair, I begin to stretch and yawn, consider my escape, you trail your hand down the margin of the blanket, arrest me in my wavering resolve. Or spend the weekend in bed with him, aware, I am sure, that I am trapped, powerless to stir. Once, blinking, I emerged while he was out; naked and disarrayed, I rasped questions in my hoarse forgotten voice. You shooed me back with a broom, poked me with its coarse and filthy bristles until I scuttled back under, where I belong. Sometimes, you’ve slid beneath the bed, wrapped me in your silky limbs, a spider comforting her prey. You whisper, “Soon….” Is this a promise or a threat?
It is easier to stay than go. I am out of the habits of work and speech. I have no home, no money, no clothes. In any case, I worry that if I leave, your life will change. My exit will be an essential event; having left, I would never learn what all this meant to you. Perhaps you would love him then, and I would miss the instant in which you realized that you do, that you love him unrestrainedly, without obstacles or regrets, with joyous relief. Or you might realize that without my silent presence, he is dull, unappetizing. You would abandon him, leave him as bereft as you left me. Or you would know what it is to lack me, and weep. I could not bear not knowing, not having you, in its many guises.
It seems to me that even if I rise, steal a suit and twenty dollars from his dresser, walk the streets in the attitude of a free man, I will still find myself under your bed, hungering for, shuddering with the sounds and soundlessness above.
Therefore I rest here, a drunk who has stumbled into a ditch and now lies facedown, dreaming of the stars.
I am sure that my story is true. Possibly I am its only fiction. After all, you know who and what you are. You seem to know exactly what you’re doing.
Shoshana D. Kerewsky (she/her, ze/zer) writes in many genres. Her work has appeared in fiction international, Sojourner, Crab Creek Review, Little Patuxent Review, 96th of October, Which Lilith, Every Woman I’ve Ever Loved, and elsewhere. Her books include 50 Days in May: Reflections the Camino de Santiago and the award-winning memoir Cancer, Kintsugi, Camino and novel The Codex of Christian Surname. A retired psychologist and faculty emerita, Shoshana teaches for Chuckanut Writers and Whatcom Community College.
Shoshana’s poetry has been featured in three previous HamLit issues: “Three years” in Harmattan Season: Well Runs Dry, “Rondeau: I wore nothing” in Special Issue ’25 After Dark, and “The crisp swssh, swssh” in Autumnal Equinox: Hearth Song.
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