You Should Still Be Asleep

Needle Episode 08

He starts to notice things, very slowly. One thing at a time.

First of all, stinging pain all over, not like wasp stings but like menthol kicked up a few notches. Second after that, Caleb realizes he is naked.

He notices the candles next, fluttering in the invisible eddies of the air. And finally, he sees June, hair undone, sweat drenching her shirt, and sitting defeated in the rolling chair just a few inches away.

Close enough to touch.

He reaches out and touches one finger to her forehead and as he does, thinks of the Sistine chapel. Absolutely insane. He feels totally insane.

June jumps back, almost falling over.

“I'm sorry.” He says automatically.

“You should still be asleep, you…” she trails off, looking at him with wide, frightened eyes.

Pretty eyes, nevertheless.

He tries to smile, and finds it hard. The menthol stinging lights up across his lips and cheek. It’s a dull pain that hints at a greater pain happening somewhere far away, held back by narcotics or shock or both.

“June…?” He says cautiously. A little bit of fear now. He can't remember getting into bed, or this chair. And he is horribly afraid that in his drunken abandon, he has hurt her or otherwise ruined their one perfect date.

June stammers, afraid and not knowing what to do. She doesn't know how he woke up, let alone why he's not freaking out.

Caleb looks down at his body. In the flickering candlelight and the pale yellow glow of the bug-light, he sees that his torso is covered in black ants.

No.

Not ants.

He knows what it is.

Winding scrollwork, making trails across his body. Occasionally there is a lone symbol, like a guiding star in a constellation. There is one that has seemingly landed in his pubic hair, flattening out a shaved patch like a crater. As June panics and searches for her needle in the dark, Caleb traces the linework of his unfinished tattoos.

They're beautiful. He thinks.

All his life, being so afraid of stepping out of line and doing something that will stay with him always, has been like a seal upon his soul. Like part of life's great depth and mysteries have been padlocked away.

In this moment he feels like the lock is broken, like a kind of virginity has been breached and now he feels opened up, visible for the first time.

June is coming now with the needle. She goes to his shoulder, aiming to fix whatever she messed up. She’s thinking that perhaps she isn't very good after all. Perhaps her sisters have only been tolerating her and her past successes are only the cheap victories of a child.

She feels like crying.

Caleb catches her hand clutching the needle and holds her by the wrist, strong and sure. “What did you do to me?” He doesn’t sound angry, just…curious.

This is what she's always been afraid of. She has power over the men when she's charming them. When the liquor is flowing they lick out of her hands and follow her doggedly. But she's made a mistake, allowed this man to wake up, and see what she's done. Worse; to see what she is.

And now he's going to kill her. Her strength is gone, and she's allowed the brute to wake up in her most sacred place. Now he's going to destroy everything she's worked for–

She swaps the needle from hand to hand, trying to prick him with it. He catched the other hand. “Stop, please!”

Caleb doesn't know what she’s going to do, but he intuits that it will put him back under. Yes, that feels right, like an anesthetic. It has the same scheme.

Now that he has seen what she's doing, he doesn't want to stop watching.

“Don't. You're not finished yet.” He says, searching for her eyes. She is between the lamp and him –only a dark silhouette.

June stammers, struggles, then finally stills.

“You're….you're drunk.” She says, insisting again with the needle.

“No,” Caleb says, keeping his grip. “I'm not. I…want you to finish this.”

The words sound strange to his ears. Like an outsider’s voice, coming up from some subterranean part of him.

Like a voice from a drain pipe.

Whatever you need me to be. Whatever I can be for you. I'll be it. He’s been thinking that all night, hasn’t he?

“Please….Finish it.”

June looks at the man beneath her. His eyes are crystal clear. Devoid of pain and lies and intoxication.

He wants me to keep going.

No one has ever wanted this.

Doesn’t he know what I am?

“You have no idea what’s happening. You don’t know what this means.” She is shaking her head, denying him the explanation. It’s all too much. Most mortal minds would already have broken, snapped like scissors through strained twine.

“No…” He admits. “I don’t. But you could tell me. You can tell me right?”

She keeps shaking her head. Still she wonders…

What would it be like? No one she knows has a living canvas. A willing canvas. Skin and blood are the only medium upon which magic can be wrought with ink, and by that nature mostly dead or dying flesh is all that can be used.

But a living canvas? A skin that heals and grows and bleeds anew. What spells could be realized with such a rare material?

June feels a fluttering jubilation in her gut. No, lower. This is otherworldly, the possibilities are endless, dizzying.

She asks him very softly, very seriously: “Are you sure?”

Caleb is sure. This does not feel like an abasement. He does not feel defiled. He feels like the sum total of his life is at hand, and he's going to create the thing he has always secretly wanted to. The thing he knew when he saw June in all her natural power and intensity. Sure he hadn’t imagined it quite like this….

Perhaps, he thinks, he has been creating this thing all along.

And it's for her.

“Yes.” He whispers, unable to stop the joy from brightening his face. “Tell me,” He touches her hand, the needle still quivering between two thin fingers, to his chest. “what these symbols mean.”

So she tells him. Everything. It’s against the rules. In fact everything she’s done tonight has been a rule cast aside or broken. From letting his laughter make her feel warm inside, to the lengths she went through to keep him from any pain.

When she is done, she sits back and waits and watches him think through it all.

Caleb’s mind is treading the deep waters of a dream-like logic. All he has to navigate this decision is a fragile mind and the oldest stories known to man. He realizes he’s already made his decision and only one question really matters.

“Will I die?”

She nods. “Maybe. But, I’d rather you not.”

“You want me to live?”

She nods.

“Okay. Last question. Can I ask you out again?”

She smiles, and nods quickly as she takes his hand. “You won’t have to.”

Together they turn off the lamp.

She is going to go by candlelight from now on. Above Caleb, June sits like a dark god and sheds her clothes like skin. She warms him with her heat, and feels him shiver in excitement.

She dips a new needle into the well of her heart and begins her work anew.

Caleb feels the heat of the plucking needle. The sound of it ticking hungrily in and out endlessly like she is writing a great american novel across his skin. Every square inch is used, nothing wasted, like he’s the last few pages in her journal.

He breathes steady and deep. His hands rise like wings and find her back, pulling her close and feeling the unseen velvet of her skin.

The dark gets darker. Perhaps he’s closed his eyes.

Exaltation.

Oh god, it is like a prayer made between them.

The End.