Dressed stone had never seemed so close to comfort beneath her sleeping bag as Susan opened her eyes, to dust-grey walls and light made feather-soft and reticent, as though held between two hands.  A long night and a day passed over her amid the cold smell of wind and water; a pulsing pain redoubled in her mouth when she turned upon her back, encased in the stale warmth of clothing that had dried around her while she slept.  Shuffling sounds and faint, blown smoke curled in through the arch that stood open to a formless, cloud-coloured sky.  She paid them as much heed as the hands that sometimes parted her cocoon to wipe at the smears on her face and chart the bruises mottling through a dull, plumbaceous spectrum on her left side.  Dimly, beneath hooded lids, she saw fresh scars sawed into the skin of the attending arms.  Water swayed in a pail set by her side, its thin steam redolent of greening metal.  She ignored her name and was allowed to, and went back to sleep.



Through the arch another day declared an end, recalling the colour loaned to the vaulting overhead and leaving them in variated monochromes.  Her gaze followed the fluted shapes in stone toward the wall, noting for the first time that it bore an image in the plaster elsewhere dissolved and sloughed away, the robust and wide-eyed figure of a mounted saint.  His halo seemed no less sturdy than his plicated robe, its royal blue deposed by natron grey where the tempera proved as perished and forgotten as the order that had raised the remote redoubt.

From somewhere overhead the smell of another fire issued its primal invitation, en suite with the echoed, disjunct sounds of someone moving with a purpose she could scarcely envision, pain and torpor having pupated into something far more comprehensive.  In its depths she was grateful for the enclosing seclusion provided by the surrounding structure, a quality promoted from its former station as the blandest facet of entitlement and beatified alongside the faded saint.  Her pack lay against the wall, half-gutted of its contents.  Banks of needles crowded the corners of the chamber, sere tokens of abandonment and solitude.  

She rolled onto her side and was struck immediately by a sensation like the intrusion of a blade, an outward-looping vertigo drawing back the walls and floor as though on rubber bands.  They swayed, one version doubled over the other, returning only as the agony began to slacken, leaving her tightly knotted.  Susan opened her mouth to breathe and inched backward onto her shoulders, the taste of festering gore flushed from under her tongue as she stroked her broken tooth and the flesh that pounded all around it.  Though startled by the hinges grinding by the rust-streaked door she lay still as Sachiin eased a dark shape balanced on his head around the partition, a copper pail in each hand, nodding the bundle of fraying fabric onto the floor and arranging its cache of fresh pine needles against the wall.  With the same discretion he set down the carton of cigarettes beneath his arm, letting himself onto his knees beside the smaller pail.  

"It'll be warm for about ten more minutes."  Allowing for her apathy, he waited half that time before reaching back into her pack for her face cloth.  "The drool is fucking with your bloodstains now, poupée..." he added, attempting remediation from which she rolled toward the wall despite the toll exacted by her tooth.  Sitting back, he sighed and took up the box of cigarettes, plucking the golden tab encircling its cellophane and drawing out the crisp, beguiling sounds of its removal.

"Just give me one and go away." she croaked, clearing her throat.

"I thought you were giving up." he smiled to himself, sitting the damp, balled flannel on the side of her head when she did not reply.  Susan turned again toward him, dark stare framed by strands of rain-washed hair and fluvial deposits, then dragged herself onto her hands, leaning over the bucket to lap the water from its rim.  "How's your tooth?" 
"Where is everyone?" she murmured, lapsing back against the stone.
"He's out jerking off somewhere.  Haven't seen Pet yet."

She lay still.

"Now I can't call him Edward."  He waited for her to elaborate with the same forbearance, two fresh cigarettes parked between his teeth.  "It sounds... wrong... once you've seen him... doing things."
“I know.  It's like calling Satan Toodles.  Kar-lar-amaat-yah…” he suggested in a lugubrious tone, though she did not seem to have heard him.  Squinting, Sachiin lit the cigarettes and piped the smoke from the corner of his mouth.  "Allez... a problem shared is everybody’s problem.”  He shrugged at her lack of response.  "Well, I've got nowhere else to go, so y..."
“Stop being so fucking nice..." she snapped.  He glanced around himself uncertainly.  "I ran away and left you, alright?  They could have been... ripping your fucking arms off...”  The feeble glow from the arch diminished again as the sun dropped beyond the unseen horizon.  Sachiin folded his legs.

“I can't say how it looked to you, but I don't think we were ever going to be dancing around with their nutsacks on our heads, so don't feel like you stole our chance at glory.  If you hadn't been there, personally I’d still be headed downstream like there was a fucking inboard up my arsehole."  He smiled and offered her a cigarette.  "We made it out in three good pieces... pas de probléme."  A glance related the inadequacy of his assurances and he reclaimed the damp cloth, warming it once more in the bucket.  She did not protest its application.  "I've always thought the chick who wrote The Art of War should have done one called the art of not getting into shit in the first place, but then none of the hot mess headed for the front line actually fucking read, do they?  I mean, I look like I fell out of a fucking cement mixer and I didn't get that way smoking a bowl in a titty bar after bugging out of Nuristan before I got my head kicked in..." he laughed.  "And that's because I'm a retard.  But like I said, pas de probléme... if you live, pick up your ninja wings... you just qualified.  As for running like a little bitch, I think that was me powering right past you.  I probably pushed you over trying to put on speed."  
She closed her eyes again against his arguments.
"You're not fucking useless... I am.  I can't carry my pack, you had to go back and get it... I can't do fucking anything."
"Silence, mortal." Sachiin pronounced.  "Would I steal a box of home-brand Ukranian cigarettes from a vampyre for a useless person?  I went back for your pack because I'm too much of a fucking gimp to watch you suffer."  He lifted the end of the sleeping bag and made a quick survey of her feet.  "That's not heroic, and it's all bullshit anyway... heroic people are just impatient cowards.  The dickhead who throws himself on the grenade is the same dickhead who would have bolted like everybody else if he'd thought about it, but then boom... he's human stucco, and stucco can't express regret.  So stop feeling bad, immediately.  How's your tooth?"  
She drew her feet beneath the covers.
“Pet doesn't want me here.” 
“Did she say that?"
"She didn't have to."
"Ouais, she's suffering you in silence because politeness is like a religion to her." he laughed, rolling his eyes.  "Christabel, you just startled her dead arse.”  He reached back toward her boots.  “Come on... you can bring your hump upstairs.”

With the night settling around them she could not reconcile the ruin’s shape with her uncertain memories, following a curving case of steps cut into the boss of stone shrugged out from the mountainside like something worn upon its shoulder.  The pain in her skull flared with the effort of the ascent but she kept her hand from her face and her head down, mouth pressed tightly against any verbal demonstration.  The colonnade shared its contour with a surmounting parapet, castellated by ragged failures and dressed with supple, intrepid birches, their white shapes persisting in the darkness.  It hemmed the eastern edge of a roof yard, bare but for an orphaned bench and narrow wooden table silvered by the elements.  The supporting ridge rose sheerly to the west in a face like blank ship steel before leaning once more away.  Behind an arm of rolling cloud the moon paid scant regard to the land laid out beneath her, couching it in flattened shades of sooty black and benthic blue.  No light or road or sign of habitation troubled the darkness.

“Where is this?” Susan asked, the sleeping bag still clasped around her shoulders.

“It’s all Dacia to me.  But it’s very roomy and scenic, poupée, honestly... no rent, no…”  Sachiin extended the syllable and then smiled again, gesturing toward the steps.  “Look, they have piglets...”   

A small and strangely-formed intruder skipped up onto the roof with an air of slight, inquiring disapprobation, quadrupedal, jacketed in longitudinal stripes of creme, sable and russet and wearing a pair of bat-like ears on its narrow head.  Small bronze eyes followed a questing snout; the piglet paused, peering at her suspiciously before trotting across the flags on tiny hooves and placing its nose against her leg in a brief, assertive nudge.  Susan bent down to touch its back but was checked hard by her tooth, an imposition it scurried from anyway with its tail erect.  From the same steps came the ruin’s heavily-swathed chatelaine, coat fastened about her neck as though the swiftly-settling cold demanded it.  An almost clockwork transit took her along the parapet, though for a moment the vampyre paused and frowned at the sight of her porcine companion standing on its hind hooves and gazing up at Sachiin, who stroked its velvet ears and picked it up.

“My little darlink Fyodor.” Petrouchka sighed.  Her stare settled on Susan, who had sat down on the stony margin and embraced herself beneath her quilted cloak.  “You... walk to here?"  Her guest nodded without looking up.  “My god.  Now I know why you look such a horror.”  The observation finally commanded Susan's attention, but the steps projected the small sounds of Edward’s approach, distracting them both.  He carried a pair of loosely gracile shapes in the crook of his arm; two hares twitched stiffly in the rigor of their recent deaths when he lay them in her lap, the warm blood oozing from their mouths soaking her jeans while one kicked against her stomach.  Susan sat imprisoned between dread and disbelief, looking up at him with both flagged in her expression.  His mouth drew back over his teeth in a strange, embryonic expression of contempt, its brevity integral to its power.

“Where would you be if nothing ever died for your convenience?” he asked her.  Across the yard the vampyre tisked and rolled her stony eyes, both of them watching Susan rise and let the dead beasts slide onto the flags before retreating to the corner of the parapet.  Sachiin berated him acidly.  "Sis'thle vahd'ya si srihyaan." Edward muttered as he quit them.  Fresh tears slid down her face as she turned it toward the gorge, her misery unwittingly compounded by its spectators.  Petrouchka regarded Sachiin implacably from across the yard as he concluded his admonition.

"Avai'sahdi..." he sighed, looking back to Susan.  "I'm sorry... I do have to go and walk the river.  If we have to get out of here we need to know where to get across."  She sat hunched as he kissed her head and took the stairs himself.

C O N T I N U E D   N E X T   W E E K
© céili o'keefe   do not reproduce

Everywhere I look recently there's been a tonne of online comment about public harassment of women by men.  Women expressing anger and the idea that it's getting worse, male commentators reacting both defensively and offensively, disparaging the complainants for being disingenuous and oversensitive, and feminism per se for encouraging women to reject the sentiments involved.  We're all heartless bitches, uppity sluts and emasculating contrarians; catcalling perpetrators are misunderstood heroes of romance and round and round it goes, devolving into trolling and #sloganeering and no one is the wiser or happier for any of it.

This displeases me.  Like most women, I've had my share of shit from randoms, my particular physical presentation possibly incurring more than the usual sample and by that I mean everything from smiling appreciation to hardcore physical assault.  I was treated to three separate instances of sexual harassment on the 5 km walk I took yesterday.  Five fucking kilometres, equating to one incident every 1600 metres.  All of which underscores the importance of the feminist imperatives that inform my conduct and expectations.  It's been these principles that have helped me enjoy deeply intimate relationships with a number of wonderful men, demanding that I treat them fairly and as individuals without particular regard for the traditional roles that are tyrannous to both genders.  I love male company, respect our various differences and cannot imagine my life without at least one schlong-wielding flesh-unit therein, lol.  I just want to declare that so no skirt-hater can comfort themselves with the idea that I'm a seething misandrist hosebeast.

It's been this regard for the men in my personal orbit as much as anything else that has led me to ponder exactly why other guys shout stuff at women on the street.  I mean really.  Why do they do it?  Is it even about us?  Here are my conclusions, and these have been fairly candidly informed by the men I've questioned on the matter. 

Dudes generally catcall because: 
A- they think you're hot and feel entitled to hoot that basic shit at you: it really is that retarded
B- their peers expect them to do so/they are seeking spurious distinction and conspicuous differentiation
C- they don't have much interpersonal success and are soliciting attention any way they can
D- they explicitly desire to verbally intimidate or victimise you
E- they're initiating the auto-arousal that precedes physical sexual offending against women

Maybe you can think of other reasons, but I think this is a fairly comprehensive list of motivations.

Some catcallers argue they're just keeping shit real by vocalising their observations but if that's the case, why aren't they telling that really big guy walking past that he looks like a gorilla and should ease up on the free weights?  Or that they worry his penis might be larger than theirs?  Because the overwhelming majority of men who indulge in this behaviour are perfectly aware it is objectionable, fear even reasonable consequence and exercise scrupulous discretion in regard to their own safety whilst denigrating women for trying to protect theirs.  Which makes them hypocritical chickenshits.  It's perfectly alright to find someone attractive, but dude, if your attention is making the recipient angry or uncomfortable, you're doing it wrong.

When men subject women to public judgements about their attractiveness or lack thereof or impose contact, they do so from a notional and physical position of power.  That very default power is the thing that shelters many men from considering how it feels to have personalised sexual remarks hollered at them, importantly, by someone who has the ability and possibly the inclination to act on them.  Which is why that drunk chick slurring nice asssss at a guy at 3.45am on a saturday morning is not the same thing.  The possibility of her dragging him into the park across the street and sexually assaulting him with the support of her friends is extraordinarily minimal.  But reverse the genders and everything changes.

As a catcaller, your comments, however you intend them, are loaded with a subtext you might not have considered and cannot control.  When you shout nice tits or hey baby where you going, most of us aren't hearing that you enjoy our physical expression even if that is all you meant to say.  Instead, we get this: that complete stranger shouting sexualised innuendo could probably overpower me.  He's trying to force me to engage with him personally even though I've indicated no interest whatsoever in the prospect.  There's a good chance no one will help me if he decides to follow me down the street and grab my arm.  How would I explain the bruises to my partner?  Are those guys in that car across the road his friends?  Even if that's not going to happen right now, fear of that prospect has destroyed a lot of the pleasure I might have been taking in my current activity.  

Because we are often afraid of what men can do to us.  Many of us are struggling with what they have already done.  As a subject cohort, we have many excellent and unimpeachably rational reasons not to trust the scope of male empathy or restraint.  That distrust is informed by our parents and peers, popular culture, official exhortation and, most deplorably, our personal experiences.  I don't think many men have given much thought to the sheer ubiquity of male-on-female aggression, either because they feel it doesn't affect them directly, or because it's depressing and embarrassing to acknowledge.  Some men seem to feel that women complaining about their verbal impositions equates to a wholesale rejection of male regard, but they should understand that it's not regard they are projecting.

To casual catcallers and men who maybe questioning their conduct, please consider that you are quite possibly imposing unwanted sexual attention on someone who was raped three days ago.  Or molested by a number of relatives.  Or is being pressured into sex by her partner.  Or has been told three minutes ago by the guys down the road that they'd like to gangbang her.  The generalised official statistic representing the experience of sexual violence is one in three women.  I'm here to tell you that's lowball, and to remind verbal offenders that a number of your male acquaintances have also suffered sexual trauma and the aggression you are perpetrating in their company is more distressing than they will probably ever be willing to articulate.

Is violating the safety and privacy of other people really what you want to be doing with your life?  Why, for fuck's sake?  Would you tolerate it on behalf of your own relatives and friends?

Catcallers, that is why we don't thank you for those kind words.  You're not making us feel special or appreciated.  You're not making yourselves extra-manly or astonishingly heterosexual or scintillatingly attractive.  You're reminding us why we didn't want you in the first place.  You're forcing us to decide, in ten seconds or less, exactly which of the abovementioned bulletpoint motivations prompted your remarks.  Again.  If your goal was to appear desperately thirsty, sociopathic and to confirm to everyone that you're that guy who doesn't care about consent, relax: mission accomplished.  


Perhaps imagine how you'd feel if, as an average, unaccompanied dude not into rough group action, you had to walk past a yard full of drunk gang members while they joked about fucking your pretty mouth and passing your skinny arse around.  Before the laughter dies away and all eyes are on you.  Sound like the kind of thing you'd enjoy on a regular basis?  Are you grateful for the attention?  Ever felt more beautiful or desired?

It is true that some women will occasionally express pleasure in the attention of randoms, and they are completely entitled to do so, but that approval needs far more qualification than it commonly seems to receive.  Personally, I enjoy well-intentioned compliments from men of my acquaintance.  This is very narrow and specific licence, not the same thing as verbal breast assessment by strangers, and we are entitled to insist on the distinction.  I'm also pretty interested in the way this 'stated receptivity' is so often tailored to the gender of its audience, and highly suspicious of its appeasing flavour.  When I hear a woman saying how much she enjoys that kind of attention, I hear someone admitting they're overly invested in pandering to people who don't give a fuck what she thinks in the first place.  Dignity, like charity, begins at home, and yes, some women need to look into that.  But a socially viable and fully-realised adult doesn't seek to exploit other peoples' lack of self esteem or confusion about their basic human entitlements by using those deficits as justification for their own shitty behaviour.  
 
In summary- as women, every time we hear catcalls, we have to determine if they're just the idle flatulence of some self-regarding cockhead, the preface to an angry confrontation with someone twice our size, or the sound of a rapist reaching for the keys to a van with painted-out windows.  Every fucking time.  That gets old.  So it would be great if you just didn't.  Don't let your penis make all your decisions; it looks bad.  

My closest male friend once admitted to me that he'd catcalled at girls a few times when he was a young teen.  I asked him why he desisted; he laughed and said because I felt like a fucking dick as though it was utterly self-evident, and I'll always love him for that.  And to the other fine men who do give a shit, don't let your friends be catcalling dicks either.  We love that you care (and may go down on you later.  Or not.  It'll be a surprise.)

I was going to get on catcalling and sexual harassment for my MondayslashTuesday bit but decided to make it more of a Selected Ravings piece and am thus reserving it for midweek.  Which leaves me with fuck-all to say here on the first day of winter (southern).  Except maybe look at the awesome vintage bluebird/swallow earrings I picked up a while ago online.  They were worn once, apparently, by the vendor's mother on her 21st birthday then put away, and I can believe that because there was not a single atom missing from the little buggers.  

Some Victorian bluebird jewellery is still extant but it's pricy and almost always missing bits.  These midcentury German versions are the best in my humble opinion, with their fine guilloché detailing and the translucency of the enamel; the modern ones look so horribly cheesy in comparison.  Think I paid about $40, which is high-end for a broke-arse comme moi, but I regret nothing.  They're on these rather whacky long hooks because I'm a freak about earrings hanging correctly relative to your lobes and the rest of your features.

Wrong-length earrings on a bitch make me question everything else about them.

Here's some Tricky.  
Underneath
the weeping willow
lies a
weeping wino

Wish I'd written that.  Tricky should have called himself Persistent because this shit will stick in your head for the next six to eight days.  But there are worse things.  Ponderosa and indeed, Maxinquaye as a whole are like a heart murmur everyone can enjoy, saltatory and hypoxic.  Check it out if you never have.

I cropped the hoof I know, alright?  This was film.  Shut up.