Son of the Moon

A short story inspired by the Mecano song of the same name. Lyrics and translation.



Ego

There, Afterwards.

I once met the moon.

It was a dark night – how could it be light, with nothing in the sky to illuminate it?

She came to me, out of the dark. A cold-faced, solemn woman, wrapped in a silver cloak. Her skin was pale, so pale that it seemed to shine. And in her arms, she carried a baby.

Her

I am alone.

It is not that I am not surrounded by people. It is that my ties to them are loose, and could be broken with scarcely a thought. It is that I am alone, and none of the crowds around me have any responsibility for me, and would waste little time in missing me, if I were gone. It is that I need a husband, one to bind me to this group, these people, to keep me safe.

She

Late at night, she climbs to the top of a nearby hill. She kneels before me.

And she asks for a favour.

She asks me for something I may not have for myself. Something which I cannot have, for who would be my equal?

So, in return, I ask the same. I ask for something which I cannot create for myself. After all, if one would give this up, in return for the other, surely they are not worthy of it in the first place?

Her

And I say to her “Silvered lady, what do you intend to do with a child of flesh?”

And she looks back at me, still smiling that calm smile, and says not one word. She waits for my answer.

I say yes.

The next day, a man rides into our encampment. A strong man, one who would not usually be bound to one woman. But he is, bound to me.

And I know this is her doing, his passion, his restraint, all hers, and I know what I am expected to give in exchange.

She

She would seek to deceive me.

Her

I have no intention of keeping my vow.

This is foolish, perhaps. She can find me, anywhere. I look upon her every night, save for those few days a month when she disappears. But I can make it work, I am sure of it. I make plans over those months, endless plans. Stay indoors at night, save when she is not in the sky. Hide myself, and the child. Raise him so that he never looks upon her, for if he does, I know her power is greater than mine, and that he will leave me.

She

Every month I wax, and then I wane again, with nothing to show for it.

Other women wax the same way, their bellies growing full and round. Yet when they wane, there is something to show for it. Blood, admittedly, sometimes, in a rushing flow over their thighs, as they cry and mourn for lost chances. More often…hope. A child. Something which they have created, deep within themselves. As I cannot.

Her

There are hours upon hours of screaming, sweating, crying. The pain is like nothing I’ve felt before. It tears me asunder, and I fear I will break in half.

He waits, outside. Waiting to see his child, the child he insists will be a son. I do not care what it is, as long as it is out of me before it kills me. Still, I know I will not give him up. I will not give her my child.  Luna, you wish to be a mother, but this child is mine.

She

...this child is mine. I engineered his birth. We made a deal, a fair trade, a love for a love, and she attempts to fool me, to hide from me.

She has broken her part of the promise. I will no longer uphold mine.

He

The scales fall from my eyes as the child is born.

She had me bewitched, but no longer, not when I see this creature that comes from her. His skin is white, white as the fur as an ermine. His eyes are grey, instead of olive. This is not my child. This vile witch, she who captured me, has deceived me. But no longer.

She

The man mistakes the white skin. He believes it is a sign that the child isn't his. Instead, it is a sign that he isn't hers.

The intent to create this child was mine. Before he was ever conceived, he was mine.

Her

He comes to me with a knife, as the child cries at the end of our bed. He asks “Whose son is this?” and does not give me time to reply before burying the knife within me, up to the hilt. He does not give my life time to bleed out by itself, gushing between my fingers. He hastens its departure with further blows. I whimper, try to whisper. Luna...

He

I cannot bear to look on this small child, this milk white monster born of the witch I married, who lies now in a pool of her own blood, her eyes fading as they become glassier. I take him to the forest, to the hill, and leave him lying there. Let the wolves have him. Let the moon take him. I do not care.

She

My son.

She Will Be Loved

A story loosely inspired by the song She Will Be Loved by Maroon 5, and originally posted on my livejournal.

She's out there. Right now. Watching me, through the windows.

I can't see her. The windows are closed and locked, the curtains drawn. There's no gap through which someone could peer. Yet, I know she's watching me. She's out there, in the rain.

I want to go to bed, and sleep. I'm so tired, but I'm too terrified to move from this sofa. If I move, she'll get me. If my head isn't covered by the blankets, she'll get me. If I make a noise, she'll get me.

Doesn't every child know how that works?

She doesn't leave, not when I'm alone. No one else can see her. I think she retreats when someone else is around, because then I can't see her either. But when I'm alone...

A tap on the window, audible despite the susurrus of the rain, makes my skin break out in a cold sweat.

*

I'd known her for years, that girl with the broken smile. Since she was fourteen, when she started at the high school where I worked.

She was teased a lot, like most of the kids who visited me. Unattractive, at least on the surface. She was overweight. Not enough to be obese, but enough that it was the first thing you noticed about her. I'd seen enough kids growing their awkward phases to suspect that it was merely puppy fat. No one ever believes that explanation until it melts away, when they're fifteen or sixteen. Generally, it's not even as noticable to other people as it is to them - but, in her case, the excess weight rested on her face. In the slight double chin, the puffy cheeks. The full lips merely looked swollen, rather than impactful, as they became when her body lengthened, and she became beautiful. Her eyes were hidden, partly by the cheeks and partly by the thick glasses she wore. After those years, could anyone blame her for not realising that she was beautiful, once she was?

She saw me a lot over those years. Every week, or two weeks. I'd sit here with a notepad. The kids always thought I was writing notes. Really, I just doodled. Prompted them sometimes, to think back on something they'd said. Puzzle out whatever was bugging them.

Hattie - that was her name - well, Hattie's problems were simple, and easy to figure out, but no less painful for that. She came from a broken home. They were pretty rare when I was growing up - first latchkey kid on my block got teased something awful - but they're more common now. And there were so many other things to tease Hattie about.

It was Hattie's father who'd left, coming back every fortnight or so to treat her to an ice cream cone, or a trip to the zoo, or whatever. She told me about that. How he'd started missing visits, becoming bored with her. How, by the time she started coming to see me, the visits had tailed off altogether. How'd she desperatly missed him.

Hattie wanted approval, like every teenager. And, more specifically, she wanted approval from her father. A girl's father is usually her template for men in general, and as far as Hattie was concerned, men left. You didn't give them what they wanted, they left. Heck, even if you did give them what they wanted, they left. Just not as quickly. Hattie always convinced herself that it was something in her that drove them away. That if she could somehow be better, more perfect, then maybe, next time, the time she finally managed it, they'd stay. Maybe if she was perfect, she'd be worth a man sticking around for.

That's what I gathered from her talks with me. It took her a while to open up to me. I'm an attractive man, despite my age. In fact, I'd say my age distinguishes me from the schoolboys here. I keep myself in good shape. Hattie was obviously very attracted to me. And, more than that, she wanted my approval as well, like she did that of most other males, in lieu of her absent father's.

*

A malicious smile, shining through the darkness.

I don't mind spending every day out on your corner in the pouring rain.

*

It was shortly after her sixteenth birthday that things changed. She changed, more than anything. She didn't realise - she noticed the changes, of course, but didn't associate them with a positive affect on her appearance. They did though.

At first, Hattie thought they were kidding. That they were playing a prank on her, setting her up to be the butt of the joke, like they always did. Once she realised that that wasn't it, that they really did like her as she was now...well, the results were unavoidable.

She didn't tell me about the first, though I knew anyway. It was there, in the smile that crept up on her when she thought no one was looking. The way she hugged her knees to herself and rocked on her seat. The way she seemed so eager for our sessions to end, when before she'd pray that the time would crawl. The way she applied make-up with increasing skill, making the most of those lips of hers. Blow-job lips they were, and you could see that now that the puppy fat was gone. They could see it now, rather. I'd always seen the woman inside the girl she had been. But then, I had experience in these matters.

It didn't take too long for her to grow bored with that first one. She complained that he only seemed to be interested in one thing, and that she didn't feel happy any more. More mundane than anything. Hattie didn't understand the concept of her pleasure being the point of anything, and how could one expect that teenage boy to pay anything more than lip service to the idea? Many of them probably claim that they give pleasure to their partners, real or fictitious. Many of them probably mean it, and probably do want their girls to enjoy it. But when the girls themselves don't yet know what that entails, and when they've been brought up - as most are - to believe that only slutty girls take pleasure from it, can one really blame them for being giving? Some of them fake it, or believe that the merest flutter is the real thing, and so the boys never learn. No, what Hattie needed was a real man.

"It's not always rainbows and butterflies," I told her. Real advice, which I knew she'd ignore. When she did, casting this boy aside for another who'd shown an interest, the rumours started. And she came to me again. She didn't tell me about this either, not explicitly, but, really, does she think no one else does? She wasn't the only student I counselled, and Hattie was the hottest source of gossip - at least for that month.

She wanted to talk that time, but didn't. She'd come to it, in time. Right then, I think it was necessary for her to internalise the pain.

"Hattie," I told her, holding the door open as she left. "My door's always open. You can come any time you want."

*

My sister arrives. My wife left long ago, unable to live with the gossip surrounding us. I freeze when I hear the door open, and it takes all of my courage to peek out from under the blanket. I suspect that it's her, Amelia, but for a second, I think maybe it isn't. Though, of course, I know that Hattie never comes inside.

Amelia sighs as she sits down on the sofa next to me. "John..."

She rests her hand on my shoulder, but doesn't say anything else. I can live with her disapproval as long as she returns every so often, to scare the ghosts away. I relax a little. Amelia stands up, and walks over to the curtains, drawing them apart enough to look through them. Under her arm, I see Hattie, outside, soaked with rain, wet hair plastered to her face.

*

Hattie, angry at the rumours, embraced them. After the second, there was another, then another. It angered me, though, of course I couldn't show it. What kind of psychiatrist would I be then? But still; I was always there to help her, and yet she always belonged to someone else.

She was seventeen, the first time. It began softly, subtly as these things do. She flirted, experimenting with this new ability of hers. Wearing shorter skirts, growing her hair longer. Lower bust lines. All for my benefit, of course. She'd play with her glasses, as she talked, taking them off, puting them back on, angling her face to show the best angles.

She was seventeen the first time a boy tired of her before she left him. Her tears smudged her carefully applied eyeliner, even as she desperately avoided talking about what was really bothering her.

"Sometimes, I get so insecure..."

She pulled her sleeve over her hand to wipe her face, a gesture that made her look smaller and more childlike than she was. She'd kept some of her larger clothes, and I suspect that they were purely to contrast with her new size.

I leaned across and kissed her. She'd hinted enough.

She pulled away a little at first. Nerves. Maybe not able to believe that this was really happening.

"Hattie," I murmured between kisses. "I want to make you feel beautiful."

She didn't resist after that, not more than a token amount. The affair continued for seven months. Until Hattie's eighteenth birthday. Until the day my wife found out.

*

Amelia draws the curtains again. I am frozen. She holds me until I warm up, until I unfreeze.

I wonder why she's not soaked, having just come in from the rain? I ask her.

"What rain?" She replies.

It's always raining. My clothes always have a residual dampness. My shoes slosh as I walk, even brand new pairs. I can never be fully dry, ever again, even indoors. Nor can Hattie.

*

It's another student who discovers us. A young girl, a freshman. This would have been her first appointment, had she not been too eager and arrived too early. I think, afterwards, that I should have insisted that a lock be put on the door. Hindsight is always 20/20.

The girl goes to a teacher, and tells her what she's seen. The teacher, a friend of the family, calls my wife before the headmaster.

I'm lucky that Hattie cannot be identified, they tell me. A statement from her, or even her mother learning of our affair would result in a charge against me for stuatory rape. As it is, I will probably be asked to step down quietly. No fuss, no mess. Except from my wife.

She demands to know who it was, if she is the first, how old she is, how long it's been going on - nothing I intend to answer. My silence angers her more, until she storms out into the night.

There is a school dance that evening, that I know Hattie will attend. Although the girls will whisper in corners and exclude her from their groups, the boys won't, taking it in turns to garner her attention. Hattie will be the belle of the ball.

The other students assume I am there as a chaperone, and are not surprised when I take Hattie to one side. We go outside.

"We were caught." I tell her.

She raises her head, her now well-defined chin jutting out, strong and determined. "So what happens now?"

"Nothing, if you keep your mouth shut."

She laughs then. "Like I'd ever tell anyone that I fucked you."

I am angered. "Why did you?"

"Fuck you? I was bored. And you seemed desperate."

I grab her then, smash my mouth against hers, crushing the familiar parts of her body with my hands. She slaps me. I hit her back.

Her nose is bleeding, and her eyes fill with tears. She sobs, reverting to type, looking as unattractive then as she did at thirteen, at fourteen, fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, when I was the one she relied on to catch her every time she fell.

She's still a kid, in so many ways. So petty. It's no wonder she felt the need to lash out at me, to be so crude and insulting when she thought we might be in trouble.

She ran away from me. I got a lift home with another teacher, rather than walk back through the school to the parking lot.

The police tell me that she didn't return to the dance. I'd left my keys in the car - I hadn't expected to be there long.

They dragged my car up from the bottom of the lake a week later, Hattie still inside it.

*

I don't remember the last time I left the house. I don't attend the gym religiously, as I once did. I've stopped dying my hair. It doesn't matter because I never look in the mirror any more. Sometimes, I see her there, looking at me over my shoulder.

She said goodbye, but I know now that goodbye means nothing at all.