The Cannibal's Prayer

The Cannibal's Prayer

pw cooper

Copyright 2013 - pw cooper

All rights reserved.

Table of Contents

Terminus

It is a hot gray day under low looming cloud and she is dreaming of rebirth the world seems smaller on such days cowering beneath its cotton shroud like a child pulling the covers up overhead to keep back monsters of the night. Evening creeps close now and the street lights are starting to come on their dull orange glow is the single coal fallen from the fire and burning out in the dirt. The gulls wheel lazily over the empty parking lot their sharp cries filling the silence. She looks across that great expanse like a stony plateau all strewn with garbage there is garbage everywhere this could be the ruin of the world this could be the end of man all that remains of him is his garbage his crumpled papers his twisted wrappers his words warped and torn and fluttering in the wind beneath the call of gulls keening absent any answering white noise rumble of tireless ocean waves someday all this will be swept off carried away on some rising water everything will be made clean again and what will crawl up out of the damp? could it be us? could we return after this as though from a memory formed in childhood and never forgotten absorbed deep into the giving soil of youth and thought where nothing is certain and the world is as yet new untamed untested and waiting with such a warm and gentle anticipation to be known.

* * *

I find the celebrity floating face-up in the bathtub with a stomach full of sleeping pills. What right does she have to do this? What right does she have to take her own life? Her life does not belong to her, it is ours who have made her a god. We have given everything for her and now we will take what is ours. Her fame runs from her mouth like drool and we claw to be the ones to lick it from her chin. We have destroyed ourselves for her, have given up everything, and she thinks that she has the right to die here? I hate her and I love her.

She was famous once, famous in that glittering way. Beyond human, beyond woman. She was light in its purest form. Stalking down the scarlet carpet while we stared up with our mouths open and our eyes open and our hearts open and our hands closed. Projected glittering on the movie screen: our beatific deity.

Oh, to be near her! Oh, to touch her! Oh, anything if only just to taste the air that she had breathed! She belongs to us and we to her.

And I find her here in the bathtub of her hotel room. This hotel where my grandfather the construction worker labored, raising the building from the ground on steel wings and concrete feathers. This same hotel where my father the bellhop and my uncle the cook and my mother the maid toiled away the dreary hours of their lives. And I. I am the manager of the hotel, all this is entrusted to me. See how the fortunes of my family rise through the generations?

But it is nothing without her. I thought I could never rise high enough to touch her, neither I nor my descendants. What strange fate it is, that I would be chosen for this, that she would come to me.

I force my finger down her throat. Her lips are full red and her mouth is warm. Her throat closes on my finger, wet as a cunt. Her eyes flutter open and for a moment she looks up at me. Before she vomits she sees me. The expulsion dribbles down her naked belly. I want to lick it off her. I can see the pills there, can see them dissolving, soft and bloated. I caress her wet skin. She is softer than anything I have ever known.

* * *

-It was a lovely service Mrs. Glaser.

-I suppose it was / you're Vanessa?

-That's right / It's a pleasure to meet you / I wish the circumstances

-I know I know / come on I'll drive you back to the house.

-I'm sorry?

-I thought that you might as well stay with me / I just assumed.

-Oh.

-Is that a problem?

-No I just / you're very generous.

-Not at all / this could be a big project no point staying in a hotel when I have all those empty rooms.

-Is there a lot to go through?

-I sometimes think my husband may have been a what do you call it a compulsive writer.

-Hypergraphia / they say Dostoevsky had it.

-Well then that would explain a few things about Dostoevsky.

-You don't like him?

-I like him just fine / only it seems I just never have the time for books that long anymore / I suppose I ought to make time my students would riot if they found out I've never read The Idiot.

-So how much is there to go through?

-Quite a lot I'm afraid / a dozen boxes at least in the basement / piles and piles of papers in his study / who knows what he has / had rather / at the university / I can't imagine all of it's worth looking through / but then if you don't look through it all

-You never know if you missed something special.

-Exactly.

-So how long do you think?

-Are you in a rush?

-No I just don't want to intrude.

-Oh please what's an old woman like me going to get up to all by herself anyway / I could use the company.

-Come on now you're not that old.

-Aren't you sweet.

-How long?

-A week maybe / we'll just have to see now won't we?

* * *

She's been here before. Here in this hotel, before. I remember it so clearly, the weary way she crept through the lobby, a goddess crawling like a dog. I saw her at once, watched gaping as her retinue escorted her to the desk, a man of hers checking in for her. She pushed up her dark glasses against her eyes, as though she could hide, as though that would be enough to disguise her from us. Her eyes meant nothing to me. She could not hide her body, her true self. I found her shyness endearing. I knew that I was in love.

They were shooting a movie out on the other side of the city. She would come back so tired at the end of the day. I pitied her, hated the filmmakers for what seemed abuse. I would have killed them if I could, wrapped my fingers around their fat throats and squeezed until the life left their piggish eyes. For her.

I would let myself into her room with the master key whenever she left for the day's filming, whenever the room was empty. I would bury my face in the rumpled bedsheets, would feed on the scent of her. I ran my tongue over the drain of the bathtub, kissed the strands of perfect golden hair caught there, kissed the soft dark curls of pubic hair. I used to rub my genitals with objects of hers. Her panties, her jewelry, her toothbrush. I ate scraps from her garbage and licked the toilet bowl clean. Little things. The adoration of a worshiper from afar, no more. I always left the room spotless.

I saw the movie when it came out. Pitiful, of course, nothing but melodramatic trash for wide-eyed children. It was beneath her; she deserved better. She was nude in one scene, and stimulated sex in another. I saw the film six times, masturbating beneath my heavy coat. No one saw me, I think. I always sat in the back, though I fantasized about doing it in the front row, of tearing off all my clothing and lying naked beneath her immense image as it writhed above me impossibly large, impossibly masterful. I was a slave to her sex.

And now she has returned and she is not so famous anymore. Her face is not on the magazine stands in the grocery store checkout aisles, her name is not up in lights over the filthy sidewalks. How quickly the public eye wanders. But a true believer never forgets. There are those of us who believe in her, who will never forget, who never can. My need for her grows with every passing moment. And now she is mine.

* * *

The faculty offices are little more than cubicles there are pictures thumb-tacked up to the soft walls of her office pictures her students her childhood her graduation from Sarah Lawrence pictures of her sitting on the lawn with her father he is dead now has been dead for a long time but in the picture taken so many years ago he seems vital and full of life like he will live forever in another picture taken years later she is wearing cut-off shorts and has her hair pulled back and she doesn't look anything like her at the time fifty-odd years she wonders if she looks much older now DC isn't in any of the pictures he usually took them himself he insisted on being the one to hold the camera to craft the image and as a result he isn't in any of the pictures well that's how it goes now isn't it she touches the photos with the tips of her fingers against the glossy surfaces. In her mailbox across the hall there are assignments which her students have turned in late essays and portfolios full of fumbling poetry and eager short stories some of them also left little gifts for her well-wishes or letters of sympathy she pushes them all into her desk drawer without reading any of them she can't bear it why would they give her those? are they mocking her or could it be that maybe they love her? she doesn't see how that is possible.

* * *

I carry her body to the bed and set her down there. My toes and my fingers are tingling with excitement, with need. On some level it feels impossible: she is fantasy turned real. How odd it is to think that a person of the screen can come full-bodied into this world, be made flesh and blood, all to come here, to lie in my arms. She lies still, suspended in blissful unconscious. I dry her. I lie beside her; I touch her, explore her body. All the sweet crevices and the supple swells. The curve of the breast and of the hip, the curve of the soft belly, of the shoulder and the thigh.

I tie her limbs to the posts of the bed, spread her like a starfish on white sheets. I tie her gently, firmly, spread for me, her arms in an imitation of Christ and her legs spread wantonly, only for me. I struggle to work my cock through the zipper of my slacks. I cannot bear to see my own nakedness, my vast and grotesque expanse. I hate her for her slim body, always collapsing into the arms of the chiseled dullard, the empty-eyed automaton, the fantasy male of unachievable glamor and beauty who snatches her always her from the jaws of more deserving men. Now she is mine.

She sighs when I enter her. I realize that I am doing her a true favor. She cannot bear to choose, cannot bear to accept. She must be forced. She must be made to experience pleasure. An actress is like an animal. Though it knows it not it must be tamed. Be broken. Consent is beyond her. She wishes to be my slave but cannot ask. It must be imposed upon her.

My ejaculate falls from me after only a few strokes. I hide my cock and push the seed deeper in with my fingers. She twists against her bonds, moaning with unconscious pleasure.

* * *

-I know Joanna I know it's a hell of a thing to ask.

-It isn't that Bradley / I just don't know.

-This is too fucking cruel of me / I feel like shit Joanna I want you to know that I really do feel like shit about it.

-We haven't even read the will yet is all I don't know if he wanted / I don't even know if he knew / it wasn't like he was expecting to die after all.

-None of us are / none of us are.

-He never talked to you about it?

-Not about this but he did sound pretty damn excited about this new thing he was working on and personally personally I don't think he would have wanted it to go to waste I mean you know how he was the man lived for his work.

-Brad

-Fuck Joanna sweetie I'm so fucking sorry that came out all wrong / look I haven't slept for days not since I heard / the man was my friend you know how it was he was family to me you're family to me / is there anything I can do for you?

-I just want all of this to be over it seems like it never stops.

-I know I know when my mom died

-It's not the funeral it's all of this / I never wanted it / I never wanted the fame I guess you'd call it fame.

-I know what you mean it's a fucked up thing / the thing is Joanna the thing is this / there are people out there people who neither of us have ever met probably never will met and they are tearing their hearts out like they just lost their only child there are people who DC touched you know really touched in a fucking spiritual way / I know it's hard to think about them right now I mean fuck em right?

-Brad I

-Maybe this is insensitive of me and god fucking knows I don't wanna be insensitive to you right now you're like family to me but those people were his family too I know it's fucked up but that's how it is / and if if there's something left / something he made / well we owe it to those people to find it / you know what I mean?

-I know what you mean Bradley.

-You understand where I'm coming from?

-I understand.

-You're an angel Joanna / say when are you ever going to send me that novel you keep talking about?

-I can't

-I know I know bad timing / just don't forget me / you know that you're like family to me.

-I know / you too.

-This is such a fucked up thing Joanna / I am so fucking sorry about this I mean who could have / that man was an ox I never thought I'd outlive him to be honest.

-I know.

-A fucking heart attack.

-It's / well it is what it is isn't it?

-Yeah / oh hey I'm sending Vanessa down there she'll be there for the funeral.

-Who's Vanessa?

-Vanessa.

-I don't know who that is Bradley I don't know any Vanessa.

-Of course you know Vanessa / DC's assistant.

-My husband had an assistant?

-I / uh / you don't know Vanessa?

-I have never met a Vanessa no.

-Huh / well I guess you're gonna meet her then / she'll help with the heavy lifting clearing out the junk you know / if there's anything there worth pulling out she'll know it / you really never met Vanessa?

-I never did Bradley.

-Huh / look sorry I can't make it to the funeral / sorry about all of this / what can you do / fucking life isn't it?

-Fucking life Bradley.

* * *

I keep her in the hotel room for days, for weeks. I fuck her when I please. I use her how I please. She exists to please me. Fame is a whore to be twisted for the pleasure of the strong. Those lips which wrapped around the cocks