BooksBarbecue
Back Paradise Rot
Chapters (26)
  1. Cover Page
  2. Halftitle Page
  3. Title Page
  4. Copyright Page
  5. Contents
  6. Milk and Silk
  7. The Chest
  8. The Shadows
  9. The Apartment
  10. The Apples
  11. The Fruitpearls
  12. The Double Sleep
  13. The Moonlip
  14. The Spores
  15. The Brewery
  16. Pym
  17. Seasnails
  18. Prune Skin
  19. The Honey Mushroom
  20. The Lighthouse
  21. The Storm
  22. Goldapple Stems
  23. Eden
  24. Black Fruit
  25. Under the Sea
  26. Epilogue

Carral giggled. When she dipped her tongue in the surface of the warm milk and licked up the skin, I felt the tip of my own tongue get warmer, and when she closed her mouth I could almost feel the milk skin against the roof of my mouth, like slimy cigarette paper.

Later that night when she came over and breathed on my neck again, I felt the same soft skin melt against mine as I’d felt earlier, touching the mushroom cap. I didn’t move but let her envelop me.

The Lighthouse

The Lighthouse

DEWDROPS TRICKLED down from the beams. The railing was slimy and moist. Carral sat on the mezzanine on a large pile of pillows and watched television on mute, the only sound the hum of the TV set and a brief click now and then when the brightness changed. When I sat next to her, she didn’t look up. Her lips were pursed tightly, she looked almost frozen, but when I put my arm on her hand her skin wasn’t cold, just clear, as if it had grown thinner. Underneath the pallor I could see pink flesh and a delicate network of veins that glowed in the TV gleam like neon. On the screen I saw a man stand in front of three women, brandishing a long sword. It had to be Charmed, because when the man pointed at the women, their faces transformed into red beastly devil-heads.

Moon Lips lay next to Carral. After a while she took it and began tugging at the cover.

‘How’s university?’ she asked, without turning from the TV.

‘It’s alright,’ I answered.

‘Are you making friends?’

‘Yeah, some. But most of the students are really young.’

Carral opened Moon Lips, slid her index finger across the stain on the paper that I’d touched too. Then she put her finger to her face and smelled it.

‘Anyone you like particularly?’

‘Sure. Franziska, the German one I told you about, I see all the time. Sometimes we hang out with some of the boys in chemistry class.’

On the TV screen the beast-women started to fade, as though a light was being shone through them. Then they disappeared one by one into the man’s blade, dissolving in white fog.

‘Finally! That’s the end of the demon women,’ Carral whispered and put her index finger in her mouth.

The man sheathed his blade at his hip and crossed his arms.

‘Maybe you should bring your friends here sometime,’ Carral said, turned towards me.

‘Come out with me tonight if you like, then you can meet them yourself,’ I answered and started to collect my things. I didn’t expect an answer, certainly not that she would say yes, but as I washed my face in the bathroom later, she appeared behind me wearing a dress and tights, and just said, ‘I’m ready.’