Content Warnings for: Violence, death, surreality, shitty exes.
Hard wood floors groaned under her feet as she entered, dust swirling in the air as the door shut behind her. Everything was covered in dust, a fine gray-black layer over a perfect Victorian bedroom. Dark woods prevailed: from the small canopied bed and the towering mirror face of the wardrobe, to the agonized faces in the carved relief above the fireplace and the writing desk that lay opposite. Cobwebs hung heavy from the crown molding. The dying embers in the hearth cast a low and cooling light, but despite this Stella still felt the terrible heat.
A small chair faced away towards the fireplace. A pedestal was set next to it with a crystal glass of bourbon. In the chair was a woman. She wore an expansive white dress that trailed on the floor towards the fireplace, ends burnt and smoking as if she had been feeding it to the flames. Light blonde hair curled towards her face, with its porcelain features. When she spoke Stella knew it was with a startling solidity, hard as diamond.
Primrose Dearly looked at her with deep, vacuous eyes. She had been Stella's first girlfriend, her confidant, her rival. Prim had ardently challenged her at any opportunity and on any topic. In high-school she used to pull Stella out of the driver's seat anytime she tried to drive, tossing her to the pavement and chastising Stella for her awful driving and self defense alike. They had been co-presidents of the school's bible study group for two months, before being simultaneously kicked out. Stella would beat her GPA and Prim would break into her room, stealing anything not nailed down. Prim won a contest to visit Hawaii and Stella made out with other girls until she'd gotten mono and then gave it to Prim the week before the trip.
It had taken Stella years and a lot of therapy to really understand what had been so toxic in their relationship; the therapy had been a last ditch effort by her mother, after a particularly disastrous anniversary of Prim's death. Stella knew that the woman in front of her wasn't her Prim, was just another copy, she had seen the body, but this Prim was staring at her in that exact way and with that specific, totally fake, grin. The corners of her mouth pulled up just so, neutrally happy but very amused, like she had known all along what happened next. Stella used to practice it in the mirror. That longing, which had died with Primrose and been buried in church and therapy, was returned to her.
"Is this really you?" asked Primrose. "You have so many pretenders," and she stood up, dust falling away from her body like dry sand. It flicked away last from her lashes as she finally blinked, her eyes off of Stella for a microsecond. It was cold outside her gaze.
"I think I knew you were here," replied Stella.
"I have seen you here exponentially, but none of them knew me and fewer found me," she took a drink, the film of dust on the liquor’s surface not reacting, like a ghost, "and do you know how sad it is, to find that someone you hold so highly in your heart knows you in only, what, one in a thousand lifetimes? But, now you're here, and mine again."
"You aren't mine," said Stella, her thoughts held supernaturally still.
"We understand each other, regardless." She smiled, revealing perfect white teeth. "Please follow me, dearest." The wardrobe opened to reveal a staircase. The mirror face turned and Stella saw herself in the reflection. Taller by more than a head next to Primrose, dark hair unkempt and her clothes shabby. Her eyes were glassy and filled with something she didn’t recognize. The ends of her dress had torn, while the borrowed shoes were damp and uncomfortable. She looked like a chronically tired and messy woman.
Prim stepped into the wardrobe and through to a cold stone staircase, her gown trailing downwards behind her. Completely anachronistic to the warm room they had left above, here everything was damp. The walls were sealed with a waxy slime that oozed thickest from the higher bricks and grew darker in color as they spiraled down. Every step had large indentations where her feet set down, like people had been walking this pathway for hundreds of years. The walls closed in on them as they descended, narrower and tighter until Stella’s shoulders brushed against the sides. Brown wax clung to her.
Primrose was always just out of sight, her trailing dress kept Stella several steps behind. Her thin frame was perfectly suited to the tight space, like it had been built for her. Absently, the barest passing thought, Stella wondered why she wasn't frightened. She wasn't afraid, nor did she feel she could throw her arms around Prim and cry with the relief of seeing her again.
“You wore glasses. My you did.” said Stella; talking was the only thing she seemed capable of.
“I did as well. I got better, this place has miracles if you put your faith in it.”
“To me, you died.”
“So passive. You died as well,” Primrose paused, “I missed you.”
“I missed you.”
“Was it fire?”
“Yes,” Stella said slowly.
“I died. I… died,” Primrose rolled the word on her tongue. Testing it out.
“Years of therapy.”
“Mrs. Worlington?”
“No, I left town. Big city shrink.”
“I stayed. I stayed and walked by the ruin of your house every day knowing you were no longer within. That sounds like a much worse fate.”
“The city has to be worse. Thousands and thousands of people who don’t give a shit about you, packed tight like sardines. Also, it smells terrible. Like Weed, and Piss, and Gasoline.” This was a familiar rapport.
“And full of therapists who are not Mrs. Worlington and her lisp.”
“Mrs. Worlington never actually cared if you showed up, just marked your session as complete and billed it. You ditched every one, didn’t you?” The city, big enough and loud enough an organ to animate in the stead of her own beating red heart, removed and locked still away in a dream blue tote kept under the stairs of a house that didn’t exist.
They had come down to a landing, where Prim paused and looked at her again, trail gathered in one hand. The blazing heat returned. She was smiling eye to eye, the genuine article.
“I am coming to believe that you may be more yourself than when I knew you. Come on.” She gathered the train and took Stella’s hand, leading her down the last of the stairs. Her palm was clammy and rough fingernails were scraping against Stella’s hand where they touched.
The flight emptied them out onto uneven ground. It felt like outside air, moving idly and even colder than the stairs. The space around them was massive and covered in a light mist; barely visible above them was a kind of metal framework, like a spider’s web. The floor was concrete, but loose carpet tiles had been piled all around in the millions. If Stella had squinted, the scene might have resembled a black desert, the tiles forming dunes around them. Prim walked out onto the mounds, still leading. Hills spread out into the fog farther than she could see.
After several minutes, they crested the largest dune yet, and looked over a massive crowd. Thousands of Sodomites stood shoulder to shoulder. White flakes of salt pooled around their ankles. Every eyeless head turned to look at the pair, and with a casual flick of her wrist, Prim parted the sea. The ground itself sent debris retreating from her. The masses were scrambling over each other to keep clear of her. Some twisted and shook with what looked like fear.
“Come quickly, before Pharaoh catches us,” Prim said quietly.
At the very center of the amassed crowd was another hill of carpet tiles, upon which stood a long white table. Two places had been set at the table, crystal glasses and fine porcelain dishware that Stella knew from Prim’s mother’s house. It had always sat behind glass when Stella was over. A quite large serving platter and silver lid had been placed in the very center.
Prim led her to a chair, where Stella sat. A candle near her place setting had melted nearly all the way down. Wax had pooled under her forks.
“I lit those candles months ago, in anticipation of you, but they had never burned lower until this evening.” She walked to her setting and retrieved a knife. It was long and slender with a forked end. A carving knife. “I am still in love with you,” she said, hand on the cloche.
Slowly, with a gravity all its own, she revealed their course. It was Stella. Naked, foggy eyed, and younger, her hands and feet were bound with red ribbon. Stella barely saw her for how she had been locked into Prim’s eyes. The blue heart of flame that was burning at her edges. Prim took the girl’s head by the hair and dragged her limply across the table and right to Stella’s plate. The girl moaned at the rough contact.
“I love you. I love you and I missed you. I love you, I love you and I know— I know that you are so right for me.” Prim shifted her grip on the knife. The girl met Stella’s eyes. They were foggy with cataracts, like she had spent a decade staring at the sun. Under the fog, Stella saw her own horror looking back at her. Both of them were stuck, their bodies kept limp.
Prim tucked the knife under the tied girl’s chin and turned her face to the rapt crowd around them.
"For myself," she cut the neck in a fluid motion, watching the blood spill onto Stella’s plate and into her cup. She lowered the knife across the body, "and for you," she sliced open the skin low on the stomach and dropped the knife, reaching her hand into the new folds in the skin. Prim pulled tenderly on the flailing girl's organs, revealing the long red mass within. Straining against her ribbon ties, the girl let out a whinging breath. Intestine connected Prim's hand to her, a red string between them, as several feet emerged from the wound. Blood ran off the table. It was steaming in the cold air. Prim took the organ in both hands and released it like a dove into the air. The intestine flew only a few feet. It landed heavy in Stella’s lap.
Primrose slumped her back, the ceremony draining out of her, and she licked her fingers clean of the blood. It lingered on her lips. Mirroring the motion Stella touched her own lips, the last of her lipstick from the wedding coming off red and wet on her fingers. The organ's pulse was loud against her thighs. The poor girl looked vaguely at the mess on Stella’s thighs, but stayed still. Neither of them could move, or take any unpermitted action.
Opposite her, Prim stood up, whispering softly, "alright," which was what signaled the ocean of sodomites below the table to swarm. They came for the body, piling on top of it, piling over Stella. A thousand hands pulled at her, reaching for the meat in her lap. This was how the girl really died, being pulled apart. The long cut to her neck had quickened things, maybe it had made her fade faster, feel fewer of the hands that broke her down. Stella saw her face once more before it was taken, and thought that the girl might have been the right age to be Lue’s sister.
“I hope you see. That you understand.” Prim was barely audible over the noise.
The salt covered men chunked the girl, secreting away the remains and restoring the cleanliness of the church. A finger to one, a foot to another, pieces of skull and sodden innards were all separated and carried away by the indistinct figures. That they also tore at Stella, trampled her in their blind flailing for an ounce of flesh, was just as indigestion. It did not take long, under this crush of flesh and spreading gore, for her to be gracelessly overtaken.