Of all the questions I have asked myself over the years, of some I have now answered, I always come back to the nebulous, simple question: why me? A question without an answer, pervading my life like the inky blackness of the space between stars. Dark space, where bright burning factoids link together to form a greater picture, like a constellation of lions eating a gazelle. With every hope of finding an answer, I need to piece together the minute details. So, I revise my question, focusing the lens of my broken telescope on one star, on one fact turned question: why did I give birth to it?
I suppose, in retrospect, the easiest answer is curiosity. Simply wondering what that thing inside me looked like. What it was. But unlike the age-old adage, I know the easiest answer here is not the correct answer. The correct answer is love. A love grown large over time like the thing nestled in my womb. Love does that, makes you question it at first, question whether it will embrace you with open arms or tear you apart with saw blade teeth. And if you don’t question it, you oughta.
I think back to that evening and I can picture it in real time, a horror movie stamped onto my memory.
Clarke walks in and it is love at first sight. Love at first sight, what a lovely thought. What a bullshit thought. What a fake thought lacing my brain like woven blinders over my eyes, hiding the saw blades as they sink in deep.
He is a classic kind of handsome, even better looking than his profile picture, in a custom suit with that rugged type of throwback hair styled just enough to make me feel special. Like every detail, from the hair to his shoes, was picked out just for tonight. Just for me. Was I picked out for him? Targeted? Prey? Another question, not today.
Drinks and dinner go fast at a high-end place downtown laced with gold and white décor. White wine in a long-stemmed glass. Bitter salad. More wine than salad. Clarke is interesting, engaging, and we talk for hours about anything and everything. I catch the scent of his cologne as he reaches for his drink, deep and warm and musky, and all I want is more. He has this slight accent I can’t put my finger on. Is it real? We share a lot, more than usual for a first date. He flashes me a slick smile and it makes me feel safe. I was not. It was the last date I would ever go on.
Back at my place, halfway through another bottle and the conversation stops, interrupted as the kissing starts. Soft, slow, cautious at first. Kissing that asks, do I want this? before the walls come crumbling down. I do. He does. Adios walls.
We finally come up for air and smile at each other. He tastes good, even better than the expensive wine we had earlier. One more sip from the glass in front of me and I take his hand, leading him to the bedroom. The kissing starts again, this time on the bed and it’s stronger, hotter. His hands start exploring my body and mine his. I unbutton his shirt and he slides it off while I slip out of my black dress. My hands brush over a crease along his spine, a scar long since healed. Who doesn’t have some form of scars? I think. Who doesn’t, indeed.
We make love and it’s better than I have had in a long time. The room around me shudders, and I feel myself getting close. I press my hands softly against his body, a faux attempt at slowing him down, but he pushes through it and speeds up. My hands fall against the sheets and I close my eyes. Seconds later I arch my back, pressing against the bed and moaning loudly as the muscles in my body tighten in climax. My back lowers against the bed once more as the tingling running through my body washes over me and away.
I open my eyes to see the ceiling and the edge of the bed’s headboard when quick movement catches my attention. Clarke is across the room, near the far corner, standing naked in the darkness and staring at me. Watching me. Waiting. But it was only seconds ago I felt his warmth on top of me, how did he get there so fast without me noticing? Then I feel it. Whatever rigid lump it was that I thought was Clarke is still inside me. I look down only to see its ropey tail flicking between my legs. I try to sit up and push myself away, but before I can react the thing crawls further and the tail disappears within my body.
My mind is racing and I want to scream at Clarke, but the pain of the heavy thing inside me takes away my voice. And, as I crawl back against the headboard, Clarke begins to move. I’m afraid he’s coming for me, but he doesn’t. Instead, he bends at the waist and his fingers dance across the carpet as he twists back and forth, his arms and head swinging like a limp metronome. There is a black shadow along the scar on his back. No, not a shadow, it is something coming out of the scar. It is like watching a tree grow in fast forward. Thick shelled limbs rise out of his back as he shakes, reaching up past the curled skin edge in ragged chunks. They make a proud clapping noise as they grow and wriggle and slap against one another. An unnatural amount of them have grown from him when Clarke’s shuddering slows and the mass topples over, quickly using its new limbs to skitter across the floor. As his sock puppet body is pulled away, Clarke’s head bounces off the bedroom door frame and he flashes me one last dead eyed smile. It is the last time I ever see Clarke.
I go to the police but they are no help, and what am I supposed to even say? They take his name, but there is little else they do. His clothes, snagged by one of the limbs, are gone. His dating profile is gone. Clarke is a ghost, leaving only a seed behind.
Fear becomes my life. I am afraid of the thing lingering in me. At first, I question if it is even really there, or if it was all some crazy dream. A nightmare. I want it out, but I’m too afraid to talk to anyone about it, so I keep it inside. And maybe it will go away on its own.
My body balloons, faster than a normal pregnancy I think, and my symptoms change every few weeks. One week, I wake up every day to the sound of a hollow scratching coming from my belly, like the sound a rat trapped behind a wall would make as it tries scraping its way out. But I don’t feel anything. Then, one day, it just stops and I begin to get nauseous. I feel sick all the time but can only vomit a small amount, and it resembles freshly ground, red meat. Some days, I wake up to pink gel-like lines, shaped like the tail, staining the sheets of my bed beneath my pelvis. I try to stay awake at night, try to catch it as it sneaks out, but it knows when I’m awake and I never see it. And so, the symptoms continue, worsen. The pregnancy lasts a total of five months.
Then, in the dead of night, in the middle of winter, in the same bed Clarke and I made “love”, I give birth. I am awake and screaming and feeling every moment of overwhelming pain as I begin pushing against the thing inside of me. It goes slow and the pain grows. I wonder what sort of hooks this creature has dug in within my body to slow its ejection. Again I push with ferocity, and feel the hooks tear free, a new pain like pointed teeth scouring my insides as it slides down and finally leaves my body.
I swallow grand breaths of air past sweaty lips and groan while I lay there, questioning what I’m going to see when I look down. Flashes of Clarke’s heavy limbs cross my mind and I am repulsed, but pregnancy has changed me and I have a bond with whatever I have just given birth to. I want to feel its warmth against me, to care for it, to shower it with love, to watch it grow like the thick limbs of its father. I twist to see past the remaining roundness of my body, but it doesn’t work, so carefully I prop myself up onto my arms and look.
There, in a red puddle, between the pink-gel lines, wiggling around in the sheets, is a beautiful baby boy.
Beautiful.
Finally, my memories fade and I return to the present. I can hear the baby in the other room as he begins to wake. His cries have changed over time, from the vocal cries of a normal baby to a sharper, throaty, barking growl. A hungry growl. I pick him up and sit in a chair as I lift my shirt and he attaches to my breast. When he is done, I lower my shirt and hold him against my chest, rubbing my hand along the little line running down his back.
So, again I ask, why me?
How did I get so lucky?