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Incubate
Most
parents treat their kids’ imaginary friends with some degree of amused derision.
They patronize and trivialize, and simply tolerate until said phase fades into
obscurity as they usually tend to do. “Martok wants a sandwich, too,” or
“Martok needs to recharge his Xylon-5 Energy Pack”: the folks nod and smile,
and say, “That’s nice dear. Did you and Billy have fun at the pool yesterday?”
while rolling their eyes at their guests to indicate the exasperating weirdness
of the entire situation. Beyond that, they simply wait for Martok the
purple alien to give way to basketball and "Strike Force Gamma" figures
with kung-fu grip and realistic exploding head action.
My
folks, however, did no such thing. At first, they (and the guests) only gave
me these horrified “where-the-hell-did-you-hear-that?” faces that really only
made them look like confused howler monkeys this when I informed them that my
imaginary friend Phyllis had personally prompted the “Omaha Seven” to engage
themselves in their bloody, month-long spree of random murders by appealing to
Jacob Grismond’s love of avant-garde splatter art (he was the leader of the
group, if you don’t recall). They excused themselves and took me aside,
and told me that it wasn’t nice to say such things and that they didn’t ever
want to hear me say anything like that ever again. They also took away my
TV privileges because, obviously, the great glowing box had warped my impressionable
little mind with its violent, desensitizing images -- never mind that I only
really watched Read Along and Sesame Street (which I’m sure have warped my mind
in other ways, but that’s an entirely different story).
I
was only five years old at the time, so apparently I had met Phyllis at some indistinct
point before that. I don’t really remember the first time she came into
my life. I only have vague memories of a misty sort of shadow dancing against
the walls while I was alone in my bed late at night -- darker than all the rest
but not really as terrifying as the thought of monsters under the bed waiting
to grab me when I got up to pee. I knew that she -- it had to be a she --
was watching me every night, and when I told my dad he just said that it was probably
the tree outside casting shadows in through the window. Grown-ups, I am
still certain, have a major understanding dysfunction.
Sooner
or later she began to speak to me -- at first she’d only say things like, “Hi,
how are you?” or “Don’t be afraid, I’m just watching,” or something like that,
her voice always very sweet and very breathy. Eventually I began to speak
back, though she never let me see her. She told me that her voice was so thick
because it had to be, seeing as how she was a succubus; I asked her what a
“suckibiss” was, but she told me that I was too young to understand and gave a
low sort of chuckle.
Over
the years we talked more and more during the nights -- my mom always wondered
why I slept so much during the daytime -- and Phyllis related to me a
whole myriad of stories. Some of them, like the one
mentioned above, were macabre and disturbing, though these never seemed to
bother me very much. I just took them as fact and went on with my life,
as if she'd told me that she'd once had a beagle named Pepper. Other
times, though, she unfolded these amazing, shadowy adventure stories that
filled my head with wonder night and day. It seemed as if at once they
were true stories from a strange world of long ago, and as if she made them up
as she went along: dark knights wielding swords that flashed with starlight and
blood, riding megalithic stallions and battling against twisted sorcerers with poltergeist eyes; mountainous
dragons ravaging the countryside and sleeping on their hoards of untold riches
and human skulls. As I grew older she began to put them into verse, and
sometimes sang them like a Danish bard relating his epics a thousand years ago.
Often
I would tell her about my days, playing in the sandbox with my friends at recess
or having to read a book every week -- I wished, I told her once, that
someone would have written something like the stories she
told me. I felt her draw near, felt my skin tingle as her warm weight
pressed down on me without touching me.
"No one," she breathed,
"will tell you stories like I will."
Several
times I had incidents like the one involving the Omaha Seven, and it didn't
take long for my parents to begin questioning my mental health.times they overheard my talks with Phyllis,
but as soon as
they came into the room, she would vanish as if I were in some Calvin and
Hobbes nightmare. Then I would have to explain that I was merely talking
to my friend but that she didn't like anyone else to see her because she was
shy. After they found a picture I had drawn of the great sorcerer Dungeld
ripping apart a man with his mind, though, they decided that they'd had enough
and threw me into therapy with a stocky, balding child psychologist by the name of Dr. Fondler who was one
conical cap away from being a real-life gnome. Apart from his rather unfortunate
name and his frumpy appearance he seemed a good enough man, and had a sincere
desire to help kids like me. He had an absurdly sweet disposition, however,
and I always felt as if he were merely trying to placate me. He decided,
eventually, that I must have experienced some sort of early trauma and that I
had repressed it, and so he began poking into my healthy flesh over and over
again until I eventually developed a rash (figuratively speaking). One time
he asked me to draw a picture of Phyllis, and I answered that I couldn't, because
I'd never actually seen her; she was merely a voice that came to me, and a
feeling. Later on I heard my parents ask him if I might be schizophrenic,
and he said in his nasal little voice that it was really too early to tell yet,
and that I might just be "pretending really hard." I told Phyllis
all about it during our nightly talks -- it never entered my mind that I might
actually be delusional as I had heard my parents and Dr. Fondler whispering --
and she suggested that we keep our friendship a secret from now on so that I
wouldn't get in any more trouble. After that, things got much easier;
although I still had to see Dr. Fondler for awhile, I got off the hook without
being forced to take any pills or being committed. I developed some tremendous
acting skills during those few months.
The
more I was with Phyllis, she said, the stronger our bond would get. Soon she
began to come around in the daytime, too, and I'd talk to her in the bathroom
or on the way home from school. I could feel her watching me as I played
with my friends, and she even helped me with my homework. She began to
become less of a shadow over time, filling out and becoming
more and more flesh like. I soon realized that she must be a really pretty
lady, like the ones on TV that wore those tiny bathing suits. Only there
was something about her that made her much prettier -- some sense of heaviness
that always hung about her. She didn't always let me see her -- most of
the time she remained a walking shadow -- but when she did she always wore a
night-colored, skintight dress that covered every inch of skin up to her
neck. Her long, jet hair always danced about her head as if composed of a
thousand thousand miniscule snakes or as if it had been drawn straight from a
Japanese anime cartoon. A slate gray film over her eyes glowed darkly,
pools of mercury swimming around in her sockets.
Sometimes
she wouldn’t speak, but I felt her presence whenever she came around. She
protected me like some sort of perverted, tainted guardian angel, whether from
bullies in the schoolyard (she knocked Tommy Roberts flat on his ass once, and
he never bothered me after that) or from automobiles barreling down on me on
our street; the driver of that Buick had no idea what hit him. Whenever I
used to wonder about my sanity, I’d think back to that that oil-drum sized gash
in the front of his car and visualize the paramedics pulling
his prostrate body from the wreckage like a big, bloody side of beef. I
never found out whether he lived or not.
She
played G.I. Joe with me, and made it look like their guns actually fired red-hot
laser bolts that exploded in a fountain of fireworks any time they hit their
targets (it was also cool when she made the helicopter rotors spin on their
own). She’d sit there and let the shadows of the room swirl around her, and
tell me about the hyena-like men she’d seduced and how she’d consumed them at
the very height of their passion. Of course I didn’t know what any of
that meant at first, but I learned. She told me about great, bloody
battles and the horrible truths about humanity, and I told her how I hated
Jenny Freeman and why wouldn’t she stop pulling my hair and throwing rocks at
me? Phyllis often smiled at that.
As I
got into junior high, though, Phyllis stopped showing herself to me. She continued
to follow me around and chat with me and look over my shoulder, but
the only hints of her presence were that bizarre twisting of
shadows and that powerful sensation that, like a skunk spray, clings to the
skin and refuses to let go. Sometimes I could smell blood on her -- in
her -- and I knew that another man had given himself up inside her. Only
at this time, though, did I truly begin to understand her.
Thoughts
of sex and girls began to creep into my head, and I began looking at Jenny
Freeman in a whole new way every day in English class. My friend Wayne once
swiped one of his dad's porno mags and brought it to show us; as I looked at
the men and women gripping and thrusting inside, I suddenly realized who Phyllis
was. What she was. Succubus. A darkling. I regarded the
"lovers" on the page in front of me, and imagined Phyllis creeping
into a room at night on the shadow of an oak tree. I saw her arousing her poor
victim in his sleep, teasing him until he couldn't resist. I saw her
climbing on top of him and swallowing him up, seducing and feeding for days and
days...
Yet
still, I didn't fear her. She came to me as soon as the images left my head,
and I could feel her gaze roaming over me.
"You
understand," her breathy voice sounded in my head. I felt my blood thicken.
"You're
a demon..."
I
didn't ask any questions about her after that; although I had a whole horde of
curiosities running around in my brain, I knew she preferred that I keep them
to myself. It wasn't necessary, really, when I look at it -- I already knew
enough. Our pleasant, contented construct of little boy and imaginary friend
had suddenly morphed into young man and demon friend; every word, every brush
of shadow against skin seethed with this new essence. However, I don't think
the word evil entered my head even once.
I
began going to church, though I never felt any conviction towards God or against
Phyllis -- at least not in the Christian sense, anyway. Phyllis and I rarely
talked about God or salvation except on the most superficial level; to use a
cliché, she never really tried to pull me toward the darkness. Her darkness.
I had an ever-present sense of it, yet it didn't give rise to any sense of
revulsion or repugnance within me. It was seductive, yes, but only because
she was seductive.
Even
after the revelation, though, she refused to show herself to me. I knew that
she did it to protect me -- that, if my adolescent and ragingly horny eyes
never fell on her, our relationship would remain safe.
Usually, she kept herself insubstantial to the point where we could only talk
and I could but barely feel her; every time she drew nearer, though, and spoke
with that heavy, syrupy voice, I just about went mad. She only did it to
tease me, really – a lighthearted joke meant to arouse me so that she could
watch me masturbate. I hated it when she did that, but had no choice, really --
once she set me going, I couldn't think straight until I had "turned
myself off," so to speak.
I
began to draw under Phyllis' guidance as I grew older, producing hordes of hellish,
Münch-like worlds that dripped in blood and sorrow. Seduction andlies swirled like hurricane winds onto the paper from my
charcoal-smeared hands. Sometimes I tried sketching a simple tree or a
house, but my hand twisted the idyllic scenes in my head somehow and the
etchings always warped under Phyllis' wine-colored sun. Regardless of
their hideousness, they were beautiful drawings. If you've ever seen La
Guernica, you know what I mean; the most hideous, emotionally scarred images
can show such a purity of artistic perception -- a message clearer than if it
had been written in the stars. I think that's why people began to buy
them -- why they bought so many.
Phyllis
led me through high school and college, sometimes sending me images of beautiful
naked women during the day or helping me study for tests. She helped give
me confidence when I asked for my first date and, when three boys jumped my
friend Larry after school, she wrapped herself like a blanket of angry night around
me and pumped me so full of bloodlust that I don’t know how many bones I broke.
They'd bloodied Larry a good bit and broken his nose by the time I got to them,
but they all ended up far worse. Afterwards, Phyllis fogged their minds
so that they never could quite be certain who had attacked them.
When
I lost my virginity, Phyllis crawled inside me to revel in my lust. I could
feel her dark femininity pulsing through my veins like some marvelous elixir.
When I climaxed, she boiled and tossed and pressed inside me -- enveloped me in
the aftermath of her lust.
After
that, every sexual encounter merely dissolved into an attempt at that blissful,
all obliterating lust that washed over like a storm surge when Phyllis and I
merged and felt it together. I could never keep a steady relationship,
and nor did I even want to -- Phyllis was my true sexual partner, my best
friend. Hookers, cheerleaders, neglected housewives: each one served as a
mere tool. She again began to show herself to me in all her dark splendor.
We seemed like soul mates.
But
demons, I now know, make dangerous soul mates. At first I would have said
that my sex life was perfectly healthy in all physical regards if a little promiscuous.
But the more and more I shared those moments with Phyllis, the more I began to
want other things. Time after time she and I joined in orgiastic ecstasy,
and I never imagined that a demon’s will could be so strong. It leaked
into me, slowly at first, but more and more each time. Sex wasn’t just
sex anymore. To satisfy me to satisfy Phyllis I needed antagonism. Pain.
When the cravings first hit I satisfied myself with spankings and handcuffs.
Kinky stuff. That worked at first, but the Phyllis in me kept crying out
for more. Soon I bought a cat o’ nine tails from the sex shop, never once
glancing around me to see if anyone I knew had seen me go in like I used to
like most horny young men do. The whip worked well, for awhile. A few
of my partners fled at first sight of the thing, covering themselves and calling
me a pervert as they ran out of my door, but you’d be surprised how many of
them actually lit up at the prospect. Hell, I was surprised myself.
My
art grew more vicious, more disturbed. It grew more sexual, more bizarre.
Several times I frightened myself with the things I was drawing. I bit my
first partner, tasted her blood and loved it. She didn’t. I ended
up having to go to S&M chatrooms online to satisfy the Marquis de Sade in
me, the predator that I felt growing there. There were plenty of women
willing to take as much pain as it took to satiate me. People with screen
names like Hurtme69 or MassoKiss. Or was I really trying to satiate
Phyllis? I couldn’t I can’t tell the difference anymore. But
with every lash, with every razorblade slice, I heard her breathy voice in the
back of my head, moaning with delight. Enough to drive a man mad. Some
nights I would lay awake after a marathon of depravity, milling over the taste
of coppery blood and other bodily juices on my tongue after Phyllis had left me
to rest, and wish that she would go ahead and consume me like all her other
prey. It seemed the only way out of this heroin-pull nightmare.
Phyllis
still defended me, still told me fantastic stories to inspire my art. My
demonic muse had me crush a mugger’s throat and leave him on the streets.
I
didn’t even remember it had happened until I saw it on the
news that night. No one knew who had done it. There were still
heroes and villains in the stories, only now things ended in misery as often as
not. I asked her to tell me the stories I remembered from my childhood; I
sensed her smile as she told me that I had outgrown those sorts of
things. Did she mean me harm? I don’t think so. I think she
was as much a victim of her demonic nature as I was.
But,
just as with all other drugs, I grew accustomed to my usual dosages. I needed
more potency. The women that I abused, they wanted it. They enjoyed
it. When I realized that late one night, sitting naked on bloodstained
sheets after the latest one had left, I knew that S&M would never be enough
again. I had no idea what could give me peace. I begged Phyllis to
leave me alone just for awhile, to let me think. I had lost control.
She gave me a shadowy embrace and, to my surprise, did as I asked.
The
next morning I thought I had found peace. I felt a tremendous lightness, felt
I had found what I had been searching for all this time. I went through the
day with the most positive outlook I’d had in years. But all too soon,
the predator crept back. I had been a crocodile, a shark for so long, I
couldn’t deny it. My body shook, headaches came as I tried to think of
myself as a deer. No peace. None.
I went into my
gallery show the next night, my body and my mind both wracked with
withdrawal. Whether Phyllis had intended it or not, I was a warped
thing. A predator. The only way to find peace was to come to terms with
it, embrace it. I could only be happy if I gave into my body’s demands. I
milled around the room, mingling and mixing, a lion watching the herd for stragglers.
I made small talk and discussed my disgusting paintings, arranging sales and
never caring a damn for what people thought of me. And then I saw her: a
beautiful young thing, in the flower of her innocence. She wore a rose-red
dress that showed off her magnificent cocoa flesh, wore an expensive diamond
necklace and impeccable makeup. Prey.
I stalked her out
of the corner of my eye until the end of the show, when she left with her
friends. I excused myself and followed them to the café across the
corner, knowing that I could introduce myself, take advantage of my artistic
status to get her to spread her legs. I didn’t want that. I wanted anonymity,
I wanted to pounce and devour. I waited outside until she left, followed
her home. I snuck up behind her, grabbed her, dragged her into a dark alley
and did my business. I left her sobbing, feeling finally calm. At peace.
And now I sit on
my rooftop, alone. I’m burning inside. The peace, it didn’t last
any longer than it took me to get home. The predator in me wants more.
The person in me, whatever is left of it, keeps seeing her horrified face and
her torn clothes, and replaying the desperate rabbit noises she made. I’m
horrified and hungry at once. I can’t live with this. I can’t keep
pushing and devouring and always doing worse, worse things -- things I don’t
even want to imagine. No. I won’t. But it’s too late to go
back. I’m already a demon in all but name.
I see only one
way out.
I am going to
call to Phyllis, and she will come. Because she loves me, she will show
herself to me when I ask her to. I will lose myself in her unworldly beauty.
I will abandon myself at last to her warm, seductive embrace. Because she
loves me, she will give me ecstasy and devour me alive. She will give me peace.
R.Thomas Hogg is currently a graduate student in New York City who prefers not to consider
the masochistic implications of this status. A chapter from his novel, "The
Sinner's Saint," was selected for reading at the 2000 Art & Soul Literary
Conference at Baylor University.
Email: R. Thomas Hogg
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