Viper

There’s a used bookstore downtown. It’s called Alice’s. The owner is a middle-aged lesbian named Debra with grey streaks in her dark, Mediterranean hair and friendly creases beginning to form across her olive-toned face. She is always wearing a silver necklace with a heart-shaped pendant that says Drink Me in a loose, flowing script, which I presume is how she came up with the name. Debra loves the classics, and Debra loves me. I know this because she’s said so every time I’ve stopped in since bringing her my father’s collection of dusty old tomes, from Dickens and Carroll to Lovecraft and Tolkien.

I love you, Georgia, she says, her voice playful and teasing.

Georgia, you’re an angel.

Georgia, if I were twenty years younger...

That’s a phrase she never finishes. She doesn’t need to. Because Debra knows better than to want me. She is not the wild woman she used to be, no longer filled with the desire to consume everything and everyone around her in some ill-conceived act of sexual desperation. Those urges have settled now. Grown complacent, tempered by age. The growling pit is still there in her stomach, though, I’m sure of it, even if she is no longer beholden to its constant demands. I smile at Debra whenever we lock eyes from across the store, whenever our hands touch or our fingers brush over the same weathered spine. I smile because she’s old enough to be my mother. I smile because she’s dangerous enough to be me.

It is not Debra, however, that I’m looking for when I crawl into Alice’s, head bowed, arms hanging limply by my sides. It is not the books I’m interested in, but the shoppers. The college girls with the mousy, brown hair, whose bangs dangle in front of their faces like branches from the willow trees for which they were named; the tall, wispy boys who stalk the shelves in their blazers and sweater vests, lingering just outside of the college girls’ vision; and the oblivious couples who say they’ve come in looking for discount novels, but are actually in search of something (someone) to reinvigorate their now-passionless bedroom rendezvous. Used bookstores are full of intimacy and tension, being the setting of choice for the educated and delusional to bask in each other’s copious sexual repression. The air in Alice’s is heavy with nervous sweat and panting breaths, and there’s always this shiver that runs down my spine when I walk into the damp, stuffy atmosphere contained within those walls. There’s comfort in that stale weight that I just can’t get from fresh air.

On any given day, I am liable to pick haphazardly from the crowd, grabbing hold of the nearest spectacled girl or cigarette-thin malcontent and dragging them back to my apartment with the urgency and disappointment of someone who knows they’re settling, but needs their itch scratched regardless. Debra finds this amusing, and I suppose I don’t mind being her entertainment. Every now and then there will be a patron who genuinely catches my eye. Today it is a blonde, early twenties, with full, bouncy waves in her hair. She has the air of a former cheerleader, or rather, the air of someone trying to give off the impression of former-cheerleaderdom. Her clothes don’t stand out from the fashion of the store’s other patrons, except that they fit her extremely well, drawing grim looks from nearby baggy sweaters and rumpled blouses. She’s humming a tune to herself as I slide down her aisle, my hands wandering over faded dust jackets on the shelf opposite the one she is currently sifting through. I watch from the corner of my eye as she pulls books out by their top corners before sliding them back into place among the rows of ragged binding and yellowed paper. I hold a copy of The Collected Poetry of Herman Melville to my chest as I wait for her to turn. When she does, I spin into her, as if by accident, my Melville spilling out onto the floor.

“Oops!” she says, her voice a breathy squeak. “Sorry, I didn’t see you.”

“You’re fine,” I say, bending to pick up my book from the floor. “I should have been watching where I was going.”

Our eyes meet as I rise up from the ground. There is a pausing of breath, a dilation of the pupils, eyelids peeling back to let each other’s light in. My brain is flipping her around and shaking her, her blushing, open-mouthed expression captured on the back wall of my retinas. My face must be swimming in her mind, too. I give her my most convincing nervous smile and offer her a hand.

“My name’s Georgia,” I say.

“Beth,” she replies.

When I bring Beth back to my apartment, I am glad I remembered to clean. I turn the key in the old-fashioned lock and lead her across the threshold. She quietly takes stock of the place, eyes flickering around between the slightly-crooked cabinets and the dull kitchen sink and the cherry soda stain on the carpet that I told the landlord had been there since before I moved in. I lead her past the kitchen and into the living room, with my faded, thrifted couch pushed up against one wall, opposite a small television that rests upon an overturned bookshelf. Everything in the apartment is second-hand, either bought or borrowed or stolen from others. I don’t mind filling my space with other people’s things— it helps me feel more connected to them, in a way. Like I’ve taken them into myself by inviting their possessions to occupy my room. While Beth looks around and sees shabby, budget interior design, I see the faces and hands of every previous owner, every past tenant, eyes glancing at me from the surface of the coffee table or through the slats in the standing fan I’ve propped up in the corner. I feel suffocated and I love it.

I offer Beth a seat on the couch. She takes it, settling stiffly into the uneven cushions. I retreat into the kitchen to fetch drinks.

“Wine?” I ask.

“Yes, please,” Beth says, “that would be lovely.”

I take a bottle down from the back of the shelf. One I got from Debra, which I only use for guests of particular interest. I pour into my maternal great-grandmother’s vintage glasses, the kind of heirloom stemware that my mother used to only take out at parties. I don’t host parties, but I do host visitors, and I’ve found that heirloom glasses always make people like Beth feel special. Which is why I’ve used them so often by now that they hardly feel special at all.

I bring the wine back into the living room and seat myself next to Beth on the couch, not so close as to be forward, but not so far away, either, that it drains the tension entirely. This is a delicate balance that must be struck during an attempted seduction. Beth is fingering her hair, weaving between her loose, blonde curls. She giggles as we’re sipping wine and smiles at me over the top of her glass. I’m not sure what we’re talking about because I’m fixated on her lips, glossy and full. They are the kind of lips you could slide right through, frictionless. I think of her mouth touching mine, the delicate way she would kiss me, the short moment of hesitation before taking the plunge. I notice the small lighter sticking out of her pocket, and I wonder if I might still be able to taste the ash behind her teeth.

“And what about you, Georgia?” she asks.

I am shaken from my stupor by her voice. “I don’t know,” I say, which is the truth, because I haven’t been paying attention.

“Come on,” she says, prodding. “You have to be able to name at least one.”

I blink. Take a sip of my wine. God, I want to do it right now, I think. I want to pounce on her and be done with it. But I have to remind myself that humoring her is part of the fun, part of the challenge. The snarling voice in my stomach won’t be satisfied unless I earn something. So I sit. And wait. And chat politely about favorite books and childhood pets, movies I’ve seen and even some that I haven’t. That’s right, Georgia, murmurs my rumbling gut, play with your food.

The sun has gone down. I’ve noticed its slow descent over the city skyline. We’ve been here a while. Beth is still drinking, showing no signs of withdrawing. I let my eyes wander over her body, much more relaxed now, reclining languidly on my couch. We’re facing one another, legs outstretched and intertwined. She looks across at me and smiles, her eyes glittering as she does so. Her blonde hair cascades over the far arm of the sofa, a cream-colored waterfall that shifts and dangles about her face the moment she sits up.

“This is nice,” she says, “being here. With you.”

The corners of my mouth perk up in response. While I may also be a few drinks in, my drunkenness is mostly affect. Beth sees it as true authenticity, however, not a carefully constructed mimicry.

“Georgia, you’re like… an angel…”

Her voice trails off as she begins rubbing my leg, thumb stroking my calf before moving up, slowly, inching, until her fingers have brushed past my knee. She stays there for a moment, this connective spot where my bones meet, palm pressed up against my skin. She still has a glass in her other hand, still holding a splash of dark liquid, and I know she is going to throw it back and set it on the floor a full minute before she does so.

I lift myself a little, only just enough so that she has to lean further in to meet me. I hold her gaze, snake an arm over her collarbone and around her neck, losing my fingers to her dense waves. Her breaths are erratic, her pupils dilated. I can feel the blood pounding in her veins, pumping up through her throat as her lips part and her mouth opens. I meet her, tongue to tongue, and I know I have her because she can’t escape, it’s too late now, there’s nowhere to run. We are locked in this embrace, twisting, pulling. She’s kissing me and I’m consuming her, my eyes wide open while hers are screwed shut.

I see her jaw muscles stretch and tighten, inviting me in, begging, pleading. The shifting of her hands. The way her brows pull together so hard they cramp. The blood rushing to her face, the rise and fall of her chest, the taste of adrenaline in her sweat. This is pure ecstasy, and it’s almost a shame when I remember she has to go.

The bones pop in my mouth, jaw swinging fully open. My skin pulls wider and wider until eventually, her whole head is inside my mouth. She doesn’t struggle, doesn’t fight back. She’s kissing me all the way down. My tongue dances over her skin as more and more of her body slides into mine. I fit over her neck, then her shoulders. I nearly choke on the mass of blonde hair now sticking to the roof of my mouth. I resist the urge to pluck it out, not wanting to see its former beauty reduced to a stringy clump, coated in the dull shine of saliva.

The arms are fitted to her chest now, like a straitjacket, unable to move as my lips trail over her breasts, her ribs, her soft stomach. She is curling up inside my mouth, wrapping herself up like a fetus in the wet heat of the womb. As Beth disappears, I think of Debra, sweet Debra, who has probably done this very same thing countless times before. Perhaps she’s even done it on this couch. I imagine Debra in my mouth, marveling as I feed. Her jaw aching because she wants to be on the other side, fingernails digging into her thighs to keep her hands from shaking. That grey streak of her hair falling over her face as she struggles to contain herself, as my mouth grows wider and wider. This is what you want, isn’t it? You want to know me? You want to feel that sickening pull on your insides, the sting of my tongue across your body? And then she’ll cough from how heavy she’s breathing, from how tight her chest has gotten with the tension of restraint. Oh, Georgia, she whispers. Georgia, Georgia, Georgia.

The legs are next, her thighs and calves. We’re nearing the end, where the body begins to taper. Few issues remain once you’ve made it over the hips. By the time her feet pass through, I can see the toes are flexed and curled. No doubt she’s feeling something so few people can imagine, a kind of euphoria known only to the dead and dying. Once her body has brought itself fully into my mouth, I hold her for a moment. Listen to her heartbeat, the slow, rhythmic pulsing of her chest on my tongue. Then, once I’ve committed the taste of her to memory, I swallow.

The muscles in my throat squeeze Beth down my gullet. Beth, with hair as thick as Debra’s, thighs as full as Debra’s, pouting lips and green eyes that scream DebraDebraDebra. This is the girl being crushed in my esophagus, whose ribs are cracking with each pull, whose lungs are being wrung out, breath by choking breath. There is a lump in my throat named Beth, and I am digesting her, distilling her essence and absorbing her into my bloodstream. The chasm in my body yawns wide, gleeful and ravenous in its appetite. The Beth-bulge continues to fall, closer and closer to that screaming pit as my mouth begins to reform and regain its shape. In a few hours, no one will know that she was ever there.

Yes, Georgia, yes! my stomach cries, filling its mouth with Beth’s stolen climax. The voice washes over me in waves, blinding me with fresh ecstasy. And then, the intestinal walls close in around her, and Beth is gone.

I drag myself from the couch, crawling to the kitchen to put the glasses in the sink. One slips from my hand, shatters on the floor of my apartment as I realize, Beth wasn’t enough. Of course she wasn’t. My hand curls around the shards of broken glass, picking them up full-fisted while panic swells in my chest. I grit my teeth, my insides screaming. My gut isn’t satisfied, never satisfied. It’s growling and clawing and feels like it’s going to burst through my skin.

I stumble out into the night, my head swimming from the clean air. I make turns as if by instinct, my body knowing where it will lead me before my mind does. The little bell above the doorway rings as I slink into Alice’s, sink into the relief of its stuffiness.

Debra is across the store from me, reshelving misplaced books. She glances up when she hears the ringing, eyes peering over the rims of her glasses.

“Georgia,” she says. Like she’s not even surprised to see me.

She smiles, sets her pile down on the counter, and leans against it, staring at me from across the room.

I lurch forward, unable to mask my intent. My tongue flickers across my lips as my eyes bore into her, wide and unblinking.

“Georgia,” she says, speaking softly. “Georgia, you know I love you. But you don’t want this.”

“I do,” I say. “I do.”

I nearly collapse at her feet. She stares down at me, my hair stringy and disheveled. She brushes it out of my eyes with her fingers, letting her hand travel gently down my face and follow the line of my jaw. Her eyes are searching through me, transfixing me with their melancholy. She wants me, I know she does. I can feel it. I can feel it in the electricity humming between our skins, those little pinpricks of energy passing between our nerves. This is what you wanted, isn’t it?

However this night ends, I know it will destroy me. But I’m ready to be destroyed, if it means I can finally have this one thing, if the screaming in my stomach will finally stop. I can’t control myself anymore, and no amount of Beth or anyone else could ever make me feel whole. I need to take her now, to let her fill me, feel her coiling around and around in my guts until I’m all Debra, Debra in my veins, Debra in my bones.

I bring my mouth to her leg, kiss her gently on the inside of her thigh. My hands reach upward, gripping, clawing at the waistband of her jeans. She holds my head against her for a moment, lets out a long, deep sigh. Then I feel the darkness enveloping me.

Georgia, she whispers. The sound comes from all around me.

Georgia, Georgia, Georgia.

Yes, I reply. Yes, it’s me. If I can’t have you, then swallow me whole.

***

Brittany Davis (She/They) is a writer and poet based out of Myrtle Beach, SC. She is currently working towards an MA in Writing at Coastal Carolina University, with plans to pursue an MFA after graduation. Her work has appeared in several publications, including Beyond Queer Words, The Petigru Review, and Cerasus. She was also a finalist for the 2023 Tobias Wolff Award for Fiction and has work forthcoming in The Bellingham Review.