“I went to the kitchen and fixed myself another drink. Then I went over to the door leading out to the deck and looked through its glass window. The sky, mottled and ominous, looked like it was on the verge of pouring ravens. The womb-gods are cooperating, I thought.

   I returned to the living room, to my standing and staring spot. D.J. hadn’t moved a muscle. Serenity and seduction, perfectly ordered.

   Am I to keep looking at you?

   Yes.

   For how much longer?

   A little while.

   I stared at D.J. and drank. The gin, or D.J., or both were starting to take hold. I grew flush and feverishly weak with happiness. A sense that anything could happen, and everything was alright.

   D.J.’s expression was coyly imperious, the Queen of the cats. She spoke in a controlled hush—You want this body, don’t you? You want to possess it, in every sense of the word, isn’t that right? Isn’t that right Alex?

   Before I could respond she spoke my name again. And then again. She kept repeating my name, a soft insistent drone that picked up steam, Alex Alex Alex, void of meaning and context, Alex, no longer a name but the enunciated pulse in a revival chant.”

Raking the Dust