A Snake Girl Goes for a Walk

After we die, our words stay forever in the ether. 

THE EVENING

"Tarya, how about today, five o'clock, near that KFC where you worked? We've been texting for a month. Don't you think it's time to meet in person?" Anton hid his hope with histrionic cheerfulness. 

"Eleonora, sweetie, I'm sorry. Day's been a mess. My friend asked me to help with his car. I totally forgot about the dinner with your cousin Tarya," Anton said, playing a fool. 

THE NIGHT

The taste of the lotus tea mixed up with the metallic taste of blood in Tarya's mouth. The pain was a leeway to forget about Anton's body lying on the couch in the living room. She knew eating and drinking would hurt in the morning in the places where small yet deep ulcers were forming. While she was staring blankly outside, toward the selfish darkness of the night, and biting, biting, biting the insides of her lips and cheeks, the only sign that she was in pain was the unshed tears glistening on the precipices of her eyes. A man, cloaked in wine fumes, shouted for his mongrel monotonously and somewhat desperately beneath her window. "Where are you, mate? Where are you? I can't see you." His sudden, full of bestial horror shout: "What the...!" almost tore Tarya from her dream-like state. Leaves of the bushes rustled, and the night became quiet again as if nothing had happened. The faint light from the ceiling lamp motherly - possessively - stroked Tarya's black hair, lulling her to sip the refreshing portion of tea and blood further. She felt no rush to clean, though mountains of dirty dishes piling up in the sink for a week threatened to fall apart; the trash had already started to stink. Avoiding the foul smell was impossible unless, immediately after flaying, you took the mice's skins out to the big garbage bin near the house. And then, on top of the mice's remains, there was Anton's sweaty shirt that Tarya had mechanically picked up from the floor. 

THE EVENING

"I know it's our first date. You have all right to say I rush things. But may I kiss you?" Anton's voice lowered to a plea; that's what will repeat in the ether for years to come.  

THE NIGHT

In its wake, the snake left the bitter aftertaste that Tarya preferred to wash down with a drink: a fresh lotus tea, a pinch of sugar, warm but not hot. As always, while Tarya drank - and the snake was magically punctual in returning to her owner with the last drop from a teapot - the snake enjoyed the freedom. It found tiny holes to slither down, through five stores, to the outside world without disturbing anybody. It didn't care if somebody accidentally noticed a moving shadow under the bed or if a dog started frantically barking at the closet door. People's minds revolted against the idea that something might be watching them from the borderline world of penumbras and muffled sounds. 

THE EVENING

Nobody minded a hugging couple in the lamplight near the multi-story building where Tarya lived. The older people who called the youth to order regretted their missed opportunities; youngsters envied, and the hell was being heated up for adulterers. Anton held the front door for an inebriated person with a small dog, a mongrel with brown-yellow unkempt hair hiding its eyes. It pulled its owner deep into the yard as it saw Tarya.   

"I wish you lived," pliable Tarya whispered to nobody in particular, her voice of angelic quality. Anton didn't listen to her.  

"I'll understand if you don't want this." He lied while his fingers burnt from the sensation of Tarya's flesh under a thin dress.  

The mirror in an elevator was dirty, and words in black marker, 'Maria is a whore' and a telephone number, went from one corner of the left wall to the other. Anton's mind wasn't sure he was doing the right thing; his crotch hurt. He pushed uncertainty away, thinking, with a conviction of an innocent child, that this was a one-time chance. Eleonora gained weight after getting pregnant, and the lovely valleys he liked to explore turned into holes and mountains to conquer. Tarya smelled gorgeously, with a pleasant odor of wildflowers, and he couldn't stop thinking of how he would dig his face into her hair and play with it, feeling its black splendor. 

Her apartment was on the fifth floor, right from the elevator. While Anton was taking off his summer jacket, Tarya went around two rooms, a living room and a bedroom, turning the lights on. She didn't offer him a cup of tea - they had been in KFC - but she neither entered the kitchen nor lightened it, leaving familiar shadows to play hide-and-seek on its walls. To stop the slightest attempts to enter the kitchen, Tarya tightly closed the door. 

She went to the bathroom without uttering a word, just waving her hand toward the living room. Anton contemplated going after her to wash his hands but decided to wipe them with wet wipes instead. He wasn't ready for such a turn of events. The worm of anxiety in his head still ingeminated that Tarya's compliance, her silent openness, was a trap made up by her and Eleonora. 

In the bathroom, the noise of flowing water was accompanied by the rustling of clothes. Anton tried slowing his heart pounding in his ears, not his chest, by tracing the book spines on a lonely bookshelf in the living room. Anton made a mental note to ask Tarya about the books: these were all about religion. In different editions, in various languages, the Bible and Quran, Bhagavad Gita, and the Tripitakas formed a pattern of four that extended far beyond the shelf. Four snake figures on the windowsill, four pillows on the off-white couch, and four very realistic wide-opened blue eyes with fake long lashes in the golden frames on the wall. Anton touched the eyelashes on one eye with his finger and felt how soft and resilient they were, how alive they seemed. 

Anton turned when the creaking bathroom door flung open. Tarya was naked. Her hair was utterly wet, with no towel on them, and the water dripped on the floor with a sound of a rattling rain. A twenty-four-year-old creature with Bambi eyes and swarthy skin, Tarya looked fragile without clothes. Anton feared he could break her bones if he squeezed her too hard. How do you make love to a woman with a snake living inside her? And if you don't know about the snake? Tarya approached Anton and stood beside him, as wordless as a statue of a goddess. Anton didn't go for her lips. He held Tarya, cupped her small breasts gently, and drank her nipples as he had done with grapes when he was a malnourished kid; prolonging the pleasure by doing it slowly and thoughtfully. 

THE SHADOW WORLD 

Anton's hand felt the tension in Tarya's body, yet the snake was still sleepy and only slightly wiggled its tail, anticipating the future attack. Black, grey, and brown-red colors shimmered on the snake as Tarya drowned her fingers in Anton's curly hair. Between the warm waves emanating from below her belly, waves that were the only way to wake up the snake, Tarya almost regretted she lured Anton to her place. Her gaze wandered around the ceiling, looking for something to anchor her in this reality of love and lust, which played the role of synonyms for the evening. Tarya's pencil legs buckled, and Anton merely caught her before she hit the floor. 

"You okay?" He asked. She just nodded, droplets of sweat as small diamonds adoring her forehead: the snake started to move upward. 

When Anton put Tarya on the sofa, she lay unmoving, listless, with paleness taking away the colors. Anton kissed her eyelids, cheeks, and eye lobes, unable to control himself and, at the same time, fearing she might faint any minute. He managed to bring Tarya to life: her thin lips trembled as if she was about to cry, but her body waitingly ached toward Anton's body, burning in fever, from lust or from pain, who knew, as the snake inside her, without causing any harm, flew toward Tarya's head. With the strength that caught Anton by surprise, Tarya threw him onto the sofa and, slipping from under his body, mounted him. She pulled away his shirt with one brisk movement, revealing the bare chest with a forest of coarse hair. Anton wanted to comment on the quick, unnatural pulsation of her body's veins and arteries because they got swollen, flashed with red or blue, and switched off as a Christmas garland. Tarya bared her teeth half-smiling, then opened her mouth, and Anton shrieked: a snake - triangular skull, sharp jawline, and elliptical eyes - landed on his face with an appalling swoosh. Before he could shake the snake off, it dived head-first into his mouth, distorted in horror; squirming as live ribbon, squeezing itself deeper and deeper into his throat, causing vomiting spasms until he couldn't breathe. With feral strength, Tarya pinned Anton's kicking legs and arms so he couldn't pull the snake out, and she fought with the same fierce determination as the snake, which tore Anton's insides by forcefully slithering through them. 

In the second before Anton's chest heaved for the last time, his lips blue, Tarya imagined she could see her absolution in his bulging eyes. An image of a hellish fire reflected in the corner of his left eye, and then his body relaxed. 

Anton's phone blicked in the dark. "Waiting F U. My cousin Tarya called in sick. Call me back when you can. LV you."

"I love you," Tarya said to Anton. Maybe in another life, they could become lovers. As for now, Tarya wanted to set the snake free. 

Tarya lifted herself from the couch and went to the kitchen to get something to drink. After creeping out from inside Anton, the snake headed for the street.