Becoming the Carnivorous Lamb
a devotion so sweet it'll mutilate
The thick paste smears messily over my cheek. I spread it over the rest of my face. Flat palms pushing up my temples, over my forehead, then smudging the last of it down the length of my neck until it fades around my collarbones, it begins to dry almost immediately in a waxy, latex mask-like consistency. The more I put on, the less of me I saw--me underneath, except the holes for my eyes and mouth, mere black pits.
I extend this black pit by grinning into the mirror and watching the white refuse to move. But, then again, as I try and smile harder or brighten my eyes with the lift of my now non-existent, matted-down brows, I can hardly even see any change in my expression beneath the mask. My cheeks are hot beneath its weight, the sensation is the only thing I have to prove I haven't simply disappeared beneath the cosmetics, the fact that I can still see and think from under it. I allowed my lips to fall shut and stared into my gaze, for a moment thinking I'd only begun to take a knife to the corners of my face, slightly under the curve of my mandible, and started to dig the layers of flesh away, skinning back the false mask to reveal the face of the carnivorous lamb.
This depravity, monstrosity, is this what you are? The skin you wear is the skin of this horror, is it not? Then, where does the lamb begin and the girl end? It's mangled inside you, tangled all throughout you, infecting you, leeching, suckling, needy, and desperate for you to put on its face and admit its obscene, carnal existence, fed off of the meat and desires of the girl. Make no mistake, the corruption of both, though, and the neglect of the lamb inside the girl to grow teeth and a hunger with it that yearns for self-destruction.
I blink and let this vision slip away to proceed in coating two more layers of blue over the heart shape of my physiognomy, leaving the edges of my jaw as white as the vanilla icing of a heavily decorated cake and the center of my face looking like the bloated decay of a rotten corpse. Strawberry pink surrounding dead eyes inked with flies, teeth as yellow as squirming maggots, pointed and bloodied with the shattering force of a self-mutilating hunger, with a black heart over the lines of my mouth, tying the ribbon of my nose into the shape of a lamb's mouth, the ears buried in glossy, fluffed locks completed the transformation. The grotesqueness of it hiding under pretty lace cuffs, a cinched corset, and a pair of delicate gloves that would soon turn cherry red.
There's nothing I can do to separate myself from the performance. I see my reflection staring back at me and feel a pang of pleasure in me at the exhibition of my suffering, but I'm not the only voyeur in this act. The mirror lets me see this desire oozing from my pores like an infection; the source of the sickness licks at its own wounds, and the lamb nestles closer to the maw of its favorite predator. And this lamb has found its wolf.
There are no light sources in this room, although the pink of its walls glows with a pastel consistency as bold as one would find in a nursery. The smooth linoleum floor painted a glossy chartreuse green, reflecting the figure slumped over it in a disproportionate distortion, with limp knees spread outward, his feet still kicked outward, his broad chest rose and fell with the deep, lagging inhales of slumber that tasted of artificial blueberry, until the aching in the awkward bent of his shoulders from his arms twisting over the back of the white chair he was slouched in fluttered his lashes and pulled his brows together with a wince.
The wolf began twisting his body against his bindings even before he fully opened his eyes. The sharpness of his Adam's apple jutting upward in ragged, dry swallows, his lips pressed closed, and the strength of his jaw squeezed before falling open again. Groaning while allowing his head to turn backward, trying to see these bindings before tucking his chin and looking downward at himself. There was another set of bindings, leather straps wrapped around the softness of his abdomen, metal rings clipped to chains that connected his torso to his angles. Even if he did free his wrists--clenching his fists and flexing the ropiness of his forearms with the thought--he wouldn't be able to get far.
Far from where? Wet, black eyes darted outward, and a trickle of sweat beaded from the tufts of matching curls, running down his temple to his jaw and hanging there. At the same time, he yanked at the leather, taking in his surroundings, which were nothing except this chair in the center of the square, pink and green room that had no windows, the walls barren besides a single framed image that he could hardly make out over his shoulder, craning his head further to the side and attempting to move the chair to focus on its picture. Though blurry, he could see it was of a girl posed religiously, saint-like, white-gloved palms held up to a blue lamb's face. The lamb. He couldn't get much more than that, turning his head back and relaxing into the chair with a calm that passed through him. Another inhale, and the scent suddenly hit him. Its sweetness was unmistakable as if his muzzle was buried in her throat.
Drinking her in, a few more moments passed before his attention was drawn toward the far corner, his eyes only then noticing the depth of the line where the two intersected, realizing just as her fuzzy ear and a single eye poked around the corner that it wasn't closed in, but the entryway to the hall. He wondered how long she'd been there or if there was a camera somewhere he couldn't see from which she watched and observed him, even in his sleep. His eyes flickered toward the framed picture long enough that the lamb wrapped her hand around the wall and slipped forward from behind it. Her shoes were hooves, her thin ankles bound in sheepskin that reached her knees before her thighs disappeared under the white layers of lace and satin fabric. She entered the room as a clown would join a children's birthday party; performing.
"I didn't want to wake you." She said as if apologizing for leaving him alone. "I enjoy watching you." Bringing his dark eyes back to hers, even under the blue, the haze in her wide eyes and the trembling of her fidgeting fingers--pinching and pulling at her gloves--told him she was flushed, the heat in her cheeks causing a gentle puffiness to her complexion. She looked away toward the floor and began to move toward him hesitantly. Her smell invaded his senses even worse than before, the aroma of decay choking him, metallic with the twinge of minty earth, different florals blooming from acidic blood and sweat. It nearly stung, but it really just made his mouth water. His tongue prodded the edge of one of his canines, and he couldn't help but smirk at her. Smirking at her fear, timidness, yet desperation, the way she batted her lashes and pressed closer to him, teasing him with this ripe fragrance. The way she was acting so ashamed of herself in his presence, of her own urges. Urges he knew just as well as he enjoyed watching her as much as she did him.
Her gaze flickered back and forth from his unrelenting stare to his body and back to the floor, to her hands, pressing her lips together and waiting for him to do something. To snap through his restraints and snatch her. Standing so close, it would have taken him less than four seconds to do so and to gobble her whole. But the wolf simply tucked his head to the side and continued watching her with fascination. Because the thing about hunger is there is just as much pleasure in the anticipation of satiation as there is in subduing those cravings, if not more so. The blood rises as a tender bruise, and teases release, violence curling inward itself and muddling the difference between pain and pleasure, often becoming both at the same time. Just as the lamb had become infected and overcome by the sickness that oozed from her now in his presence, she'd learned to love this sickness and find bliss in its most agonizing moments. She'd call this condition--her addiction--her devotion, the devotion to love at its most extreme. And through her loyalty, he would find worship and dependence for her cruelty. He saw this in her eyes, the way she looked him over, and recognized the same in his own nature. He thought back to the picture on the wall again, to the ecstasy of this theology. There was no denying it. Every predator had its prey, designed to taste best for and be consumed by or evade them. The predator would starve and die without this prey, so it loved it. The wolf and lamb; this chase was their purpose of being.
The lamb lowered herself to the wolf's feet and freed his ankles with a few fumbles of the lock, then stood back up and moved behind him. She paused there, the wolf's chin over his shoulder, feeling her muscles tense as she prepared to run. A giddy sort of excitement bubbling up the back of her throat, oily and slick like bile splashing from the wriggling piles of maggots, filled her stomach with unease.
The sound of the chains falling free was already far behind her once she turned the key. It clanged against the floor, echoing through the room she was no longer in, and she flew down the hall in a flurry of white and the heavy smack of her hooves clicking and scratching against the linoleum. Her ankles wobbled over their height, and she slapped her palms against the walls for stability that would not come to her, turning one corner, then rounding the narrow space, winding deeper and deeper until the pink became purples, colors fading into one another the longer she ran until the pink, creams, blues and blotched red of her own being was the only colored thing in contrast to the swirling black and white tunnel she inhabited... and he was right behind her, popping up in her peripheral in a dark haze of looming carnality that she began to taste blood at the back of her throat the longer she fled.
The wolf's fingertips grazed the sway of her skirt, his nose turned downward as he led her further until the lamb found herself plunging through the spiral, a fuzzy blur of pink and green slipping through the disorienting surroundings, her hands extending upward--or what she thought was up--until she felt her descent slow.
A hazy blue trickle through the thick blanket of trees waving their limbs allowed the dim, last of the day's sunlight to seep into the soil and illuminate the bottom of the woods. It was almost night, the first breath of winter's chill hinting at an early autumn. The aspens, who blink their emotionless eyes from between the fir, had already begun to flutter hues of yolk-yellow and burnt oranges, the same dull tone as gold, or the last flicker of the sunset. Crickets and other bugs offer an orchestra of clicking and clapping as background noise to the distant snapping of thicker, fallen branches alongside the heavy panting of the wolf.
Flinging himself forward after tripping on an exposed root, he landed awkwardly on his hands, the loose rock shredding the callouses of his palms before his body followed. Embedding in the pads of his fingers as they dug into the dirt and soaked it in beads of blood already rising to the surface, it clumped under the bed of his nails. At the same time, he pushed himself to the side with a pained groan, holding his now trembling hands to his chest as soon as he sprawled to his back.
The leather cuffs and straps still restricted his movements. He wasn't sure if one of the chains got caught on something or his legs simply gave out. Still, the gentle sway of the trees against the delicate breeze stilled just long enough for her to hear the wheezes and grunts escaping him, frustrated cries as he attempted to free himself of the shackles still loose on his limbs, refusing to release him from her control.
Blood smeared over his back, chest, stomach, and hips from the eager branches threatening to grab him as he ran alongside the rocks he sliced himself open on. The earth was hungry for him, though not as hungry as her. He knew that, and whimpering while falling back to his front, his injured hands slid forward, pushing the soil and foliage away in an attempt to pick himself back up. However, with the clearing of what was beneath, the wolf saw the glint of dirtied but unmistakable chartreuse green linoleum floors.
A single breath caught just behind his teeth before he felt something clamp down around his neck. Something he wasn't sure was there the entire time, but it was a collar, matching the restraints on his wrists and ankles; this one connected to a chain at the back as though he were a dog and being yanked back from a good stench. The wolf rose to his knees and grabbed at the collar in defiance while his throat was pulled back, causing his spine to arch and teeth to grind together before he fell to his shoulders and twisted there, now on cold, polished floors clear of debris. It wasn’t the same room as before; the walls were of painted trees, the same that previously surrounded him, only made of various shaded acrylic colors. One look toward the middle of the room would reveal where his chain was attached, the mechanism in place keeping him chasing. But he just looked at the mirror on the opposite side of the room, turning his head as if he’d known it was there the entire time, just like he knew he was always in the collar and tied to the leash, just like he knew those trees had never been real.
The paint covered the silver, but his face was still visible between the trunks and within the crooked branches. In the flushed red blush of his complexion, in the glistening sweat smeared over his brow and widened eyes, their black pupils dilated in the center of the red heart, he could, however, no longer see himself but her reflection—the face of a carnivorous lamb staring back at him.