Bad Habit by Alana S. Portero

Author:Alana S. Portero
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2024-04-23T00:00:00+00:00

Nocturne

I arrived punctually to the five-cornered wasteland. I was wearing a formfitting water dress, and my wings were only half unfurled as befitted the hour of night, when the spheres were not yet singing but did reveal themselves. It was my first waxing gibbous in Leo and the sixth meeting with other creatures of the forest in the summer of Antares. My obsidian heels were hurting because I wasn’t used to wearing them, but as soon as my wings unfurled and I managed to relieve the load off my feet, that discomfort disappeared, and I could flaunt them with the nimbleness demanded of me.

Soon the space filled, and we joined others, wings with horns, backbones with cleft hooves, skins of flame layered with moss. As soon as the hunchbacked queen debuted, she poured her light into our mouths, and we surrendered, as one should, our eternal souls to start the dance. An almost bitter taste sloshed over my tongue, and suddenly everything became bodies responding to the moon’s lunacy, to the music of the spheres, to pain and pleasure and each and every step between one and the other. I wanted to approach the void, to look into the face of the great sorceress without going blind, but the internal currents of the dance swaying to the rattle of the sistrum and the ensuing tectonic flesh games jostled me involuntarily left and right. To even glimpse the source, entire lives had to take part in the dance. I stopped trying and closed my wings, only to return to the obsidian pain and entrust myself to the stabs of some dragon who smelled fresh meat that night. I lost myself in the ritual until a jolt pulled me from him. A voice behind me, the voice of a man who had his hand on my right shoulder, asked if I was okay. He slowly undid our union. I turned around, kissed him very unhurriedly and deeply, with the cadence of abandon and the tired passion of gratitude; he tasted of dragon. I didn’t say anything to him or touch him again. I left that hot darkness and entered the part of the place that was illuminated. I didn’t know if I should look for the bathroom to drink some water—I was dying of thirst—or look for the exit. I stood for a moment in the middle of that space, somewhat less packed than the one I’d left behind, settling into a cold sludge that presaged a bad break of day. I asked for the time with a gesture, tapping my fingers on the wrist of an androgynous and incredibly sad Hermes who was in a full-body embrace of a loudspeaker booming “Better Things” by Massive Attack. He looked into my eyes and said nothing; he just moved his head very slowly, trying and failing to follow the beat, as if he were hearing a different rhythm inside him. His distance made me horny, and I considered dragging him into the darkness

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