Work Text:
“I mean it, Villanelle.”
It was Tuesday evening, late September, and Villanelle was curled on the couch with her laptop open. The day had been unseasonably hot, but an autumn breeze now crept through the window, cool and welcome. It tickled her ear.
“Villanelle!” Eve called again. Villanelle looked up. She saw Eve through the half-open kitchen, opening cupboards, looking for snacks. Her phone was weirdly wedged in her armpit. “I said, stop.”
Um, no? Why would she stop? This was the most fun she’d had all week. It was even better than Friday night when she and Eve had broken into a neighbor’s house, so they could eat dinner at a clean table, neither wanting to do their own dishes.
She glanced at the flowers by the window, yellows and blues. She reached for her wine.
Twenty-five years together with Eve. It still surprised her.
Life with Eve? Never boring.
Life in general? Same old shit.
At least she didn’t kill anymore. She didn’t miss it. In retrospect, it was very messy and a little exhausting. Clearly, she had been exploited. Still, she used to miss the power. The creativity. The chance to show off. Until she’d found another way.
Villanelle was a celebrity now.
Eve had planted the seed of her fame, some years earlier, at JFK airport, after their first visit to New England. A flight delay had trapped them in the departure lounge for five long hours, where Villanelle had entertained Eve with glorious tales of her most gruesome kills.
“This could be a TV show,” Eve had joked, as she’d downed her third Bloody Mary. She probably hadn’t meant much by it. But throw away lines could do that at times: change her life.
(Sorry, baby? Are you wearing it?)
Write it down.
The idea sprouted. Back home, Villanelle decided to tell her life story. It couldn’t be a TV show though. Those motherfuckers were not to be trusted. She would write it. It was a very fascinating story. She’d always had a knack for language.
Even her name. So poetic. Preordained.
After a few false starts with form - creative nonfiction? essays? memoir? - Villanelle had settled on prose poetry. A perfect fit. Life wouldn’t be blank anymore. She’d fill its pages with ink and memory, pretty and staining.
****
Her first book, I Think About You, was a collection of poems on psychopath love and her struggle to unite the two concepts. It wasn’t that good. Too pedantic. She saw that now. Age had given her amazing perspective. Writing was a lot like killing. She’d needed time to hone her craft. Still, the book had done okay. A minor splash in the literary pool.
Her second book, Souls Sink In, did much better. Critics had written rave reviews: “Bleak and brilliant.” “An unflinching look at the human condition.” “A must-read for those seeking to grapple with the complex tapestry of modern existence.”
Alone with Eve, Villanelle grumbled that people preferred descriptions of murder to statements of love. Eve related. So be it. A condition of late capitalism, probably.
It helped her land a six-figure contract for her next project.
That book, Push it in Slowly, catapulted her into the limelight, from indie darling to literary star. Twelve poems of threat and seduction, thrill and dread. They linked. They spiraled. They reached a devastating climax.
The book was an overnight sensation.
With Eve at her side, Villanelle toured Europe, then North America. Young women swarmed to her readings. They camped outside hotels and bookstores. They tattooed her words onto their bodies.
Eve found it amusing.
Her fourth book - Devastating, Obviously - would come out next month, an exploration of sex and celebrity. She’d tour again. Eve would join her. They’d turn it into a long vacation.
To create a buzz of anticipation, her agent told her to launch and maintain an online presence. Boring! Villanelle hired an assistant to do it. Two or three. They often quit. She had no interest in interacting with whiney, needy, pouty fans. Sometimes, though, she liked to look. Online lesbians loved her poems, feeding her words into poetry bots - “me and who?” - and matching quotes to screenshots from their favorite shows: sapphic cannibals, psychopath vampires, lady-demons thirsty for blood. It made her giggle. Her kills had been superior. Keeping secrets was very sexy.
But adoration had its limits. Sometimes she needed to stir things up.
“Villanelle,” Eve called again. “Jasmine says to cut you off.”
****
“What do you think this line means?” Villanelle had tweeted, mid-afternoon, quoting one of her most famous poems. “The woman wore my blood on her knuckles, a thousand tiny deaths at her fingers.”
The meaning was obvious, of course. Villanelle loved to get fucked on her period. Orgasm was extra intense. She knew that. The fans knew that. But…
“Wrong!” She gleefully replied to a fan who dared to answer. “Nothing in the poem supports it.”
That had done it.
The fans were bereft! They thought they were stupid. They’d got it all wrong. They begged for forgiveness. They needed her grace and her kind instruction.
Self-flagellation! Groveling rodents! Villanelle toyed with their feelings for hours.
Too fun.
Until.
Early evening, something had shifted. Maybe adults had got home from work? Maybe fans in a different time-zone were not so submissive? Whatever the reason, the little shits had started to argue. They challenged her. Her! The poet! Villanelle.
Bring it on.
“That doesn’t make sense,” one of them tweeted.
“Can’t poems have multiple meanings?”
Of course they could. That wasn’t the point. This was the point.
“Loser!” Villanelle replied.
“The French translation of tiny death is petite mort which also means orgasm,” one insisted.
French? Translation? Oh-ho! A worthy opponent?
“DO NOT,” Villanelle typed, caps-lock on. “EROTICIZE MY TOXIC RELATIONSHIP”
“Villanelle!” Eve walked over. “What the fuck? Jasmine is shitting bricks.” She flopped on the couch beside Villanelle, putting her fuzzy-socked feet on the coffee table. She carried a box of half-eaten chocolates.
Villanelle peeked. “Did you finish the nutty ones?”
Eve shrugged. She popped a chocolate in Villanelle’s mouth. Villanelle chewed, undecided. Orange creme?
“Look,” she preened. “It is amazing.” She slid the laptop over to Eve.
Eve looked. “You are a child.”
“I am a genius.”
“Hmm.” Eve leaned across Villanelle to steal her wine glass from the side table. She lingered on the press of their bodies, then drank deeply, as she scrolled. “They think you’re an asshole.”
“No, Eve. They think I’m an intellectual sensation.” Villanelle tapped her head and nodded.
“Some, maybe, but look here.” Eve clicked on a different thread. She slid her fingers up the screen. “Old. Boring. White. Entitled.”
“Where? No! It doesn’t say that.” Villanelle chose a different chocolate. She sniffed it gingerly.
“Arrogant dick,” Eve continued. “Sounds about right.” She pressed a kiss to Villanelle’s temple. “Wait. No. This one is best. She’s worse than my mom.”
“Eve, stop!” Villanelle huffed. She put down the chocolates. They all were shit. “Why are they trying to ruin this for me?”
Eve snorted. “Oh come on. You wanted this! You provoked them.”
“They’re doing it wrong.”
Villanelle felt defeated. She didn’t know why. She did know this. She’d make it stop.
“You know what? I don’t need an online presence. That is for forgettable people who do not have my talent or poise. I have mystique.” She pulled a prissy face at Eve and started to type, still talking. “Text Jasmine. Tell her she’s fired. Tomorrow, I will fire my agent. Maybe I will cancel the book. Maybe I am done with celebrity.”
“Villanelle?”
“Shh, Eve.” She snatched the laptop and stabbed at the keyboard.
GOODBYE LOSERS WHO DO NOT KNOW ENOUGH ABOUT WORDS OR WOMEN OR SEX TO KNOW HOW TO READ AN EXCELLENT POEM. I WROTE IT! VILLANELLE! I’M WHAT MATTERS! NOT YOU AND YOUR SHITTY PROJECTIONS AND IMMATURE DAYDREAMS IF YOU CAN’T MATCH MY BODY COUNT YOU DO NOT DESERVE…
Eve reached over and shut the screen.
“Villanelle…”
“Hey!”
“No.”
“You can’t…”
“I did.”
Eve put the laptop on the table. Thieving Eve. Villanelle sneered. Eve copied. Villanelle crossed her arms and pouted.
“What’s going on?”
“Nothing, Eve.” This was nothing. It didn’t mean anything. She was fine. She was fantastic. “I’m just bored. I’m always bored.”
“Bullshit. I know when you’re bored.”
“I know when you’re bored,” Villanelle mimicked.
“You’re upset.”
“No.”
“Worried.”
“No!”
“Scared.”
“Eve! Just because we’re an old married couple, doesn’t mean you can…”
“Come here.”
Villanelle was already close. She scooted closer. Eve smelled of sugar and motor oil. Last month, she’d enrolled in an evening class on car mechanics. Butch little Eve.
“It’s been a year since I got my period,” Villanelle spoke to a stain on Eve’s jeans.
“Okay.”
Okay? That was it? Eve appeared to miss the significance.
“A year, Eve. Exactly. Today.”
“Okay. But we knew it was happening.”
True. And? Menopause was a very big deal, especially now it was medically official. Eve might choose to be undramatic, but only because she’d done it first. Selfish, Eve.
“I thought you liked getting old.”
“People like me don’t get old,” Villanelle huffed. She twisted a little to look at Eve’s face. The gray at her temples. The lines at her eyes. She had them too. A sign of survival. She softened a little. “People like us. We did it, Eve. We beat the odds. I love every moment.” Her voice trailed off.
“But?”
Villanelle scoffed. Sometimes Eve was really slow. She toed the laptop on the table.
“The poem?” Eve asked, trying to catch up.
Villanelle closed her eyes and recited:
The bottle breaks
I crawl over the glass to meet her
The woman wore my blood on her knuckles, a thousand tiny deaths at her fingers
I beg to shatter again.
“I still can’t believe you published that.”
“It’s over, Eve.”
Eve looked at her curiously. “What is?”
“Your knuckles.” Villanelle picked up Eve’s hand and traced her thumb over the joints. “My blood.”
“Ohhh.” Eve understood now.
“I miss it, Eve.”
“But we still do it.”
“It’s different, though.” That was true. Villanelle knew it. Eve knew it too. “With the blood, it felt like you killed me.”
Eve laid her hand on Villanelle’s leg. She laughed suddenly.
“Remember that time when we stayed in Savannah and I stole the sheets from the hotel because I thought it looked like a murder scene?”
“You were so cute.”
“Were?”
“Mmm,” Villanelle nodded. She bugged her eyes and stuck out her lip. Fake remorse. A face for the ages.
“Asshole.” A love language too. “What else do you miss?”
“It always felt like you ripped out my heart. It felt like you owned me.”
“I always own you.”
Villanelle moved Eve’s hand to her stomach, under her shirt. Eve’s thumb circled her bellybutton. Familiar touch. Favorite comfort. Villanelle sighed.
“What if I’m past my prime, Eve?”
“What if you’re always a baby?” Eve slid her thumb into Villanelle’s navel. It always tickled. Villanelle giggled. She ducked her head onto Eve’s shoulder. A smear of chocolate streaked Eve’s jaw. How was Eve always this messy?
“What if you don’t like my shriveled-up vagina?”
Eve’s laugh was loose and free. It bounced between them. “I’ll endure. More questions?”
“What if our best days are over?”
It felt good to say it. She loved what they’d built. She missed what was passing. Maybe missing things wasn’t so bad. To live a life worth reminiscing.
“What if we’re just getting started?” Eve said.
Villanelle was decent at math. They’d been together for 25 years. Eve had been 43 when this started. Maybe she would live till her 90s. Maybe they were halfway through. Maybe Eve should start eating healthier.
Eve reached for the bottle of wine. “Want to help me finish this?”
Villanelle sipped wine from her glass then pulled Eve in for an open-mouthed kiss. Messy and red, the berry-dark liquid dribbled between them, down Eve’s chin and onto her t-shirt, white and already stained with oil.
Eve shrieked, laughing loudly.
The autumn breeze picked up. It lifted the curtain, which knocked the vase that held the flowers they’d stolen from the neighbor’s garden. “I should move those,” Eve said, wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.
Villanelle stretched. Her back cracked. She’d sat on the couch for far too long. She went to the kitchen to get a drink.
Eve followed. Villanelle passed her a glass of water.
“The bottle broke,” Eve recited, tossing the wine bottle in the recycling.
“Breaks, Eve. Present tense.”
Eve shrugged. Lazy reader. Terrible fan.
The woman wore a wine-wet t-shirt.
Villanelle put down her glass.
“Take that off.”
Eve smirked. “You do it. You did it.”
Villanelle would run to meet her.
She tugged the t-shirt over Eve’s head. She marveled at the body before her. They got old. This never got old. She pressed her mouth to Eve’s knuckles.
Eve shivered. The room was chilly. Autumn was Villanelle’s favorite season. Days grew shorter. Nights stretched long. The gift of time with Eve in darkness.
Villanelle moved to close the window.
“Want to have an early night?”
A thousand tiny deaths before them.
“Yes.”
****