Everything she sees she understands;

Everything can be made from her hands.

It wasn’t a long story, and I read most of it before the tub was full. It was the mythical tale of a girl, a biologist, whom I guessed was supposed to be me. The girl met a man, who of course reminded me of Pym:

His body so tight, his arms so strong,

His hair as red as fire.

The biologist had created the world, but she had also created another girl – who had to be Carral – and the whole thing ended in a strange sex orgy where the two girls took turns at satisfying the man’s every sexual fantasy and eventually melted into him:

They thought him strong, he thought them pale.

They covered him like a long, white veil.

And so he saw the world through her eyes,

The world that she created.

THE END

I splashed some water in my face and shook my head. Was this really how he saw me? Did he want me to show him a different world, or did he just want to have a threesome with Carral and I? I went to close the book, but noticed little prints on the paper. I turned the page. On the flip side of what I had thought was the final page were several more stanzas written in completely different handwriting:

But wait! This story isn’t over yet,

Another scene has just been set.

And then Pym’s book continued with a short grotesque feast:

The women feast on the poor man’s flesh,

And chew each bone whilst it is fresh,

So the two women can become one with a kiss;

The dream of every biologist!

To grow together is their pursuit,

And his red flesh their forbidden fruit,

He stumbles and gasps and finally dies;

From his ashes will a four-breasted creature arise.

I recognised the handwriting from notes and shopping lists. Carral’s. I shut the book and squeezed my eyes shut, trying to push the final lines out of my head. But behind my eyelids the images returned again and again, as I dried my hair, brushed my teeth and snuck out of the bathroom: Carral looking straight at me while Pym thrust himself in and out of her body, Pym’s tongue burrowing into my mouth, Franziska saying, ‘You seem so close,’ Carral giving me a muffin, sitting next to me on the compost lid, peeing down my thigh.

There she was, in the middle of the kitchen floor outside the bathroom, waiting for me. It was dark now and there was no light on, so I couldn’t see her face, just the silhouette of her body shining in the glints of light from the chandelier. She moved towards me on slender legs that stuck out under a nightshirt, silent and jagged, a deer sneaking tentatively into a clearing.

‘Jo? Have you been in the bathroom this whole time?’

‘I guess.’