BEAUTIFUL LIVING THROUGH SCIENCE

Lamber sceptra, bibere vitam, potestas eius finem rixae!

The flame tucked and shimmied to the sound of a flap.

Every eye was on the candle, and not on the soft skin pouring out of the bunched thin white sheet that was spilling off of the table.

“Say it again. I don’t feel anything. Except cold.”

“Shush,” said Ahndee, and tapped Gorgeous’ exposed bottom. “Sororibus, we must put the words again upon the aether, and upon the perch of resonance.”

“Yes, regina mater,” came the chorus of the supplicants.

Flicker of Wi-Fi, scale of Zoom pane, eye of laptop pin camera, wing of Hooters drenched in molasses and spice, the coven had assembled to blend their magicks as the old ways would: a common of the feminine, a single of devotion, a sincerity of womb-bearers shall they sacrifice of their bodies if the misandry cometh unclean, all covered under the mystic secrecy of a rainy autumn night and the hearty woods of condominiums.

They chanted, and in the pause, virtual members would turn to their fermented potables. Kombucha beith the slake of the nymph’s fancy for she can cull of the fruits of the true Lord’s garden. Or wine drawn from a cask forged as if by Delos to spite the Oracle of Delphi.

Charist, who was also in the room with Gorgeous, broke from the voices when they received a vibration. They looked to their magic shard and said, “And then a bitch went for a walk. Mami just put the Si! in single.” With a flick of their finger, a smile came across their face, wide as a velvet rope.

“Soror!” popped several of the faces in the panes. “Focus!”

And slurps and sips mussed up the stygian air, with Gorgeous adding, “Do I really need my ankles tied down if everybody’s watching ‘Housewives’ on a split screen? Maybe could I at least keep my underwear on?”

“I said shush!” and Ahndee swatted Gorgeous’ bottom more firmly. “Sororibus, please. The true Lord taketh by our coven’s strength our words. Now we all need a, ahem… a bitch to focus.”

“Yes, regina mater,” droned the chorus again.

“I’m sorry, Gorgeous,” said Charist.

A cathedral’s window, but motion from the art, solemn face beside solemn face in the frame, put the chant out from the laptop facing the two sibs, seated on their stools beside their own laptops, and Gorgeous, who was stretched out, her limbs tied down, on the large table in the dining room. Finally, the candle flame puckered, and went out. Ahndee rose from zhis stool, while the group continued with their chant. Zhe took the candle carefully from its stand, and stood over Gorgeous, who arched her back just some in nervous anticipation. Zhe lifted the candle high over her back before tilting it slowly, pouring a thin line of wax onto her bare skin. Gorgeous yelped, and quickly pinched her mouth to prevent the cry, as the wax cooled. She tugged on her binds, creating motion that pushed the sheet off and completely to the ground. The binds, little more than delicate chains from costume jewelry, snapped, and Gorgeous sat up, and reached to swipe the wax from her back. Ahndee handed her an old t-shirt to use, and the synthetic vibrato of cheers came stuttering and mixed into feedback from the cathedral window.

Gorgeous stood up, and looked about for the robe Ahndee had left nearby, while some of the sibs chattered to sign off. She quickly wrapped herself into the short kimono, and went to the next room to look through her bags. She removed a vape pen from a pocket, took a glass of wine from the kitchen counter, and went outside to the balcony, while Charist and Ahndee moved things about to restore the dining room.

Gorgeous was looking out at the rain when Charist joined with their own glass of wine, and said, “You know, for a bitch that’s always working out, you make some of the stupidest choices I can think of: smoking, seriously? You know what nicotine does to that body?”

“It’s cannabis,” replied Gorgeous cooly.

“It’s an inhibitor. Did you secretly get a degree in biochemistry? You, of all people, messing with your shots like that.”

Ahndee was ending a phone call as zhe came out to the balcony to hand Gorgeous her phone. Gorgeous looked into her messages. A cheery note of encouragement from Berekah. A reminder about the new time for the costume fitting tomorrow from Dawnald. But nothing else.

“Okay then, bye,” said Ahndee, looking at Gorgeous as zhe put zhis phone down. “Don’t look like that. You know it doesn’t work like a light switch. We’ve done our part, and now the mothering hand will make the right in the time of a flower. Remember when you wanted to grow an avocado? How long did that flower take?”

Charist, with their mild accent, livened quickly, “Don’t just say avocado like you won’t start thinking of tacos. Mmm, mami, we can go there tomorrow for brunchesito? What’s that place, with everything that has fried fruit in the desserts?”

“I think you want turon,” said Ahndee, to a vivid clap from Charist and a humming, dancing affirmation of the delicacies they were anticipating. Zhe continued to watch poor Gorgeous. She struggled with herself before hormones, before every moment of living threatened to tip a crushing tide of mood that would leave her scraped empty and alone. Meeting people was such a casual event in those years that ended with three A.M. meals. In a flicker of a smile, attraction was assessed, or lack thereof. People would quickly fulfill their descriptions of being the funny one, or the loud one, or someone whose abrasive statements betrayed uncorrected privilege in their youth. Ahndee would catch her leaving her parents’ house too angry to decide what to eat, making self-deprecating points about her leggings or her hair, and by the end of the night Gorgeous was sitting beside some nymph decorated in the uniform of partially vintage clothes, discussing the best shoes to complete her look. Gorgeous would be lost, smiling, watching the way eyes savor craft art full of seascapes and magical animals, and a glimmer of something would pass across her face, a sliver of shadow passing deep behind the limpid curiosity in her eyes, as a small sigh escaped. The taunts of her religion would become the demons in the room, that only she could see. The playground would be noisy in every direction but where she was seated by herself. The looks at the roller skating rink glowed under the black light, filled with anger and disgust, directed at the small thin boy who always ruined everything with his embarrassing dance moves. The adults supervising things would speak to each other by covering an ear like a microphone while looking in her direction, before one of them would come over and try to cheer her up with a round of basketball at one of the ticket dispensing machines. Gorgeous was always living in the haunt of such memories no one else saw, through every conversation that happened on those nights.

Finding peace was always finding something to think about or talk about like fashion or movie stars, and the faces to meet on any given night may well have been a tarot deck for all the clarity they offered about the soul beneath them. People don’t look like they watched endless episodes of Davy and Goliath, or met every Thursday night for study group. They don’t even look like they secretly discovered each other when they said they were going to someone’s house to go swimming, or stared at a poster to distract from the discomfort of an act that wasn’t cheating because it wasn’t what you were only supposed to do if you were married. Everyone would be molded by years of training before getting to the nightclub, or the house party. And every bit of it was silent, every idea about morality and every boast about love for thy neighbor walked around invisible as all the shows inside of a television set, until Gorgeous would speak, or meet, and then the volume would become violently loud. Gorgeous said people were usually a haircut to her, before they spoke, before their clothes said anything, which usually wasn’t much. Hi, I like sports, which is to say, I only speak in aggressive jokes and forcing things entertains me, which is to say, sophistication and nuance easily deplete my attention span, and anger diminishes confusion; I am a barking dog, and I am fiercely loyal to things I like, like these baggy shorts or the belief that stereotyping endures because it carries an ounce of honesty. Hi, I’m comfortable in baggy clothes because it hides that I am physically weaker or heavier than I’d like to be, which means the manufacturing system for my hormones isn’t the superior Ferrari specialist making the gasoline for the athletic ones, who ask me why I can’t just pick up my mood and be happy; don’t mistake my quiet demeanor for a depth of intellect, because I have produced a dense, bellicose arrogance to shield me from most inquisition.

Ahndee liked to say that those nightclubs had been the crucible of the bonds that had been made over those years. Certainly the dance areas with their poor ventilation, especially at warehouse parties, would melt things, like makeup, or shame. The stray drug use was even catalytic. It cannot be expected that norms and roles can impose such pressure on the will for too long before an alternative social lubricant to football games and harvest themed beach parties is found. It was there that the sibs found one another, found in the unseen desert carpeting the normal world like a ghost, voices as lost as their own, made whole by their common yearning. The Sisters of the Mirror, with their sacred texts of Vogue and Haraway, collected one other, until they were an unholy number, a free number, a number of power.

But deep inside of every philosophy is the number two. Every soul looks for at least one other that is a complement, in a way that is unique to that soul. Every soul requires something unique, and it is the horror of all universes ever composed that this may never be met before the worm turns. Before children, before civilization, before machines, must be appeased that appetite. And this would be Miyk, or rather, Gorgeous wanted so much that this should be Miyk. She had hurried her doctor into admitting that she was physically recovered from her procedures, so that she could intensify her personal witchcraft. But, of course, she wanted, on what should have been a dance filled Walpurgis night, to hedge her efforts with the favor of her true lord, and direct a love spell to absolute strength by the power of her coven.