By D. Marmara
Prudence stared at the leather dog mask in the attendant’s extended hand. “Are you sure this is necessary?”
“It’s Cosmic Connections policy,” said the attendant.
“I already signed the waiver.”
“The waiver includes the wearing of PPE.”
“You’re telling me NIOSH has a standard for pup masks?”
The attendant shrugged. “We used to use modified welding masks, but clients found them heavy and annoying. These are designed to be comfortable.”
Prudence looked at the thick, leather pads over the eyeholes of the mask, the bright silver of the zippers. It had a black snout and floppy, magenta ears. She was pretty sure she’d seen this exact model on a fetish site. “Comfortable.”
“Well, they work anyway.”
“I know electronic communication is a no-go, but wouldn’t it be easier to put me in a blind enclosure?”
“Do you have the budget and blueprints to build one? Or twenty?”
“I’m pretty sure I could build three for the amount you charged me.”
“The demand for in-person matchmaking services isn’t high.”
“Fine, give me the mask.”
The item was snug, the padded, internal lining faintly perfumed with the sweat of others. It was less difficult to breathe through the snout than Prudence expected.
“This reeks,” she said. Her voice was overloud in the interior.
The attendant zipped up the back and snapped on a small padlock, which would prevent Prudence from removing it herself. “Look on the bright side,” she said. “If this goes well you can purchase one of your own.”
* * *
“There’s a glass of lemonade at your eleven,” said her date, whose name Prudence had already forgotten. Or maybe the syllables had bounced off her gray matter in a purposeful, desperate attempt by her brain to maintain its integrity. “There’s a straw in it so you can drink through the mask.”
Prudence felt across the tablecloth and found nothing.
“That’s your two. Eleven is on the other side.”
“Right.”
“No, left.”
“Was that a joke?”
“Was it funny?”
“Maybe.”
“Then no.”
A weird, involuntary laugh escaped her.
Her date chuckled. “Here, let me.”
Prudence opened her hand and a glass, cold and slippery with condensation, was pushed into it. She grabbed for the base, touched something slick and coiled.
She jumped in her chair, and her date withdrew. “Sorry.”
“It’s fine.”
“I didn’t mean to frighten you.”
“You didn’t. Just startled.” Prudence fumbled for the top of the glass, found the straw which slid among clinking ice cubes, and tried to feed it through the hole in the snout. Managed to poke herself in the face. Sucked down some cold lemonade. They’d put cucumbers in it. She hated cucumbers.
“You mentioned you were a scientist,” said her date. “Can I ask what your focus of research is?”
“Oh, it’s flies.”
“What kind of flies?”
“Fruit flies.”
“What did you do with them?”
“Neuroplasticity studies mostly. I’m a postdoc at Brown University. I wrote my dissertation on signaling cascades, but now all the money’s in drug development, so toxicity trials.”
“Fascinating.”
“Not that fascinating.”
“I don’t know anything about flies.”
“Neither do most people. Except how much they suck to have in your kitchen.”
“I tend to have more issues with mosquitoes.”
“Oh, right, because of the water thing?”
Her date made an amused noise like a clogged drain. “Precisely. If the salinity isn’t high enough they breed like, well, mosquitoes.”
“I’m surprised you don’t live right on the coast. In a houseboat or something.”
“I used to. But you can buy pre-made seawater at fish supply stores now. Easier than it used to be.”
“What prompted you to move?”
“Family. My cousin was going through a rough patch.”
“Is that the one on the—?”
“Human side, yes. Cousin is a misnomer, but we’re distantly related.”
“Can I ask you something?”
“You’re asking me things now.”
“Why did you sign up for Cosmic Connections?”
Her date made a sound like a stream of bubbles in a bathtub. A sigh? “Why did you?”
It wasn’t as if she had a profound reason either. “I wanted to try something new.”
“There you have it.”
“But isn’t it difficult to match with someone if they can’t look directly at you?”
“Egregiously. But sight isn’t everything. Between us we have a whole suite of other senses.”
“I guess so.” The pup mask was getting hot.
“I’m not that different from you,” said her date. “I like to read. I can’t use electronics, but I practice calligraphy. Did you know letter writing used to be an art form? I collect stamps.”
“Really?”
“Of course. What do you do in your spare time?”
“The lab doesn’t leave much. But I’m crocheting a bedspread.”
“Oh, I love crocheting! I’ve been working on my coordination and I can generate squares in groups of four now.”
“That would be handy.”
“Is that a joke?”
“Oh, Jesus, I didn’t even—no, I didn’t mean to.”
“It’s fine. What’s the use of having a hundred limbs if you can’t use them for comedy?”
“Do you really have a hundred?”
“More or less.”
“Incredible.”
“They’re a hassle, but I can make bedspreads for days.”
“The one I’m working on has a flower pattern.”
“What’s the color scheme?”
“Tan, with a burgundy border and flowers.”
“Unusual, I like it. What type of yarn?”
“Merino.”
“I usually use silks, but I’ll crochet with wool on occasion. The acrylic fibers stick to me.”
Prudence felt the tension leave her shoulders. “Do you want some brand recommendations?”
“Yes, please.”
Three days later, a letter arrived in Prudence’s mailbox. It was written on thick, pulp paper with a heavy, elegant script. The text was framed by dark red camellias which had been pressed between the folds.
“Dear Prudence,” the letter read. “I thoroughly enjoyed our date. I’d like to see you again? Metaphorically speaking, that is. Does that count as a joke? If you agree, send a reply via the return address and I’ll issue a letter to Cosmic Connections, requesting they arrange another meeting.”
The letter was signed, “Regards, Sep’lissia”.
Prudence tucked the letter inside one of her cookbooks, tore a sheet of paper from a legal pad, and began to draft her response.
* * *
On date number two, Prudence learned to eat spaghetti through a dog mask.
Cosmic Connections, in typical fashion for this type of organization, did not serve food, but rather partnered with a variety of delivery services. Providence was a vibrant capital for cuisine, and the trans-dimensional rift which had opened in the Federal Hill neighborhood three decades prior had not changed this. The flattened buildings had eventually regrown, including a cluster of new restaurants, all manned by hard-eyed, chain-smoking restaurateurs of the type who’d seen everything, and had no fear of an amorphous horror stopping by for a plate of pumpkin curry. Prudence suspected they were mostly from New Jersey.
“I think I’ve made a gross miscalculation,” Prudence said, as she prodded at her spaghetti bolognese with an elongated fork.
“That does look like a challenge with a three-inch snout,” said Sep’lissia. “Do you want to try some of my burrida?”
“Is it thin enough that I can eat it with a straw?”
“Probably. Here, give it a try.”
They shuffled the plates and Sep’lissia pushed a thick straw into her hand.
Prudence sipped the soup. It was dense with the taste of tomatoes and shrimp. “This is good.”
“So’s this. Though I’m surprised you’re not asking.”
“Asking what?”
“If eating seafood soup counts as cannibalism.”
“Why would I? Even if we were from the same dimension, there’s no reason to think you’re closely related to shrimp. If anything, you’re saving me from cannibalism; there’s pork in the bolognese.”
Sep’lissia laughed. “I wouldn’t worry, it isn’t as if hogs won’t eat you in return.”
“You know you’re the first date I’ve ever had who knew that pigs will eat people?”
“Is that a good thing or a bad thing?”
Prudence smiled under the mask. “Jury’s still out. I need at least three replicates for a data point.”
“You’re asking for a third date already?”
“You gave me your soup. My last girlfriend wouldn’t do that until we’d been together for six months.”
“Duly noted. Oh! I brought my most recent crocheting project. Do you want to see? Or I guess feel?”
Prudence wiped her hands carefully and extended them. “Please.”
The silken yarn of the square flowed over her hands like water. She couldn’t see the colors, but she could feel the neatness of the stitches, the raised pattern of the spiral shell at the heart. It had a whorl of tiny ridges, like a chambered nautilus.
“It’s beautiful,” she told Sep’lissia.
“Thank you.” Prudence could hear the smile in her voice.
Prudence drove back to her apartment, booted up her computer, and started searching for leather masks. Minus the snout this time.
* * *
Building a relationship with Sep’lissia reminded Prudence in some ways of writing her dissertation. A challenge, one which involved quite a bit of esoteric research, but resulted in strange and unexpected rewards.
A month in, they’d tacitly agreed to arrange their next date outside the organization, a feat which involved a drive to a remote, lakeside cabin and a packed picnic lunch.
Prudence parked her truck beside the cabin and unlocked the door. It looked recently swept, though the edges of furniture were lined with dust. She shoved the coffee table to the far side of the room and went about unfolding her picnic blanket on the rough floorboards. She’d gone with homemade bread, three-dollar wine, and a shrimp cocktail from the grocery on College street.
A light rain began to fall as she laid out the food. She checked her watch, donned her new leather mask, and sat down on the floor to wait, unable to shake the feeling she looked like the world’s most bizarre kidnapping victim.
Soon she heard a car outside the cabin. The rattle of the engine shut off, and she heard something heavy drop to the ground with a sound like shoveling wet soil. The door handle turned.
“Gravel,” said Sep’lissia, as if the word was an infestation. “Why do they have to use gravel? It always fucking sticks.”
“I’d imagine because of the snow.”
“Probably. I brought flowers.”
“Oh, thank you.” Prudence reached up and received a light blow of damp blossoms to the chin. She groped for the stems, then reconsidered. “Are these roses?”
“No, camelias.”
“Perfect.” She stroked the soft petals. “What color?”
“Pale pink. I grow them in my garden.”
“How do you manage that without turning the mailman into a vegetable?”
“Ten-foot stone wall.”
“A proper enchanted castle.”
“I’m glad you think so.”
“How do you keep the mulch from sticking to you?”
“Got a bunch of those plastic kiddie pools.”
“The ones shaped like animals?”
“Some of them. One looks like a turtle.” Something rustled nearby. “Brought some plastic drop cloths so I don’t soak the floor.”
“The rental company and my deposit will appreciate it. Shrimp cocktail?”
“Please.”
Prudence’s new mask had a missing chin and lower jaw, which made eating easier if still messy. She scooted closer to where she estimated Sep’lissia to be. “Do you want to cuddle and listen to the rain?”
“On the floor?”
“Maybe on the couch.”
“Let me see if I can drape it.”
The plastic sheeting crinkled louder than the rainfall as Sep’lissia fussed with it.
“Here, climb up.”
Prudence fumbled her way onto the couch. “Like being at my grandmother’s all over again.”
“She puts plastic on her furniture?”
“All of it. But her latkes are amazing, so I forgive her.”
“Come here.”
Prudence rolled and found herself in contact with something massive and wet which smelled of saltwater. Slick tendrils coiled under her hands like living spaghetti. Prudence could feel her shirt getting damp.
“Can I hold your hand?”
“Uh, sure?”
The attempt was mutually graceless, too few fingers grasping for too many. Prudence backed off and tried again. Rows of minuscule suckers attached to her skin.
“That tickles.”
“Is it uncomfortable?”
“Not really.”
“You taste a bit funny.”
“I’ll bet. Where can I put my head?”
Sep’lissia guided her down into something which felt like wet kelp on her chin.
“You smell like the ocean.”
“Yes, we do have a bit of a fish-and-a-bird situation don’t we?”
“It’s alright, penguins are still birds.”
“I like the way you think.”
“We’ll have to go to the beach.”
“Maybe after dark.”
“Or on an island.”
Sep’lissia played with her fingers. “I’ve swum in the Narragansett Bay. Though it’s getting harder to avoid people with all the light.”
“We’ll figure it out.”
The drum of the rain and the wet, bubbling sounds of Sep’lissia’s gills lulled Prudence into a light doze. The strap of the mask dug into the base of her skull and she tugged to reposition it. She lingered on the buckle of the strap a moment.
Sep’lissia’s breathing had slowed, a steady rhythm that suggested sleep. Prudence had never seen her sleep. She shifted a slight bit, fingers on the buckle, but Sep’lissia didn’t respond.
The Cosmic Connectionswaiver forms had been blunt. Vomiting, loss of bodily function, psychosis, persistent hallucinations, stress-induced cardiac arrest, all were risks she’d acknowledged with a breadcrumb trail of initials and signatures.
Yet, here she was, in the supposed maw of the beast, no worse for wear. She’d mapped much of Sep’lissia’s limbs with eager, curious fingers, and the sensory feedback was peculiar but otherwise unremarkable. Prudence already knew what she looked like, so to speak. What reason was there to think her brain might rebel?
She played with the buckle of the mask. Thought of hot wax spilled on feathers by Psyche’s hand. A terrifying monster which all men fear to look upon, which was also an icon of love. Light was a wave and a particle; two things could be true at the same time.
Just a quick peek, she thought. A little test for her mental fortitude.
She loosened the buckle until she felt the tightness of the mask ease. Light leaked from the seam around her nose. She held her breath, tugged the cap backwards until it began to slide up the bridge of her nose.
She’d gained a visual field of about an inch when Sep’lissia moved. The unexpected twitch shattered Prudence’s overstretched nerves, and she yanked.
The mask came away, and Prudence blinked into the rainy light of the cabin and Sep’lissia’s horrified face. She had just long enough to register a cry of her name before her brain underwent a violent reboot.
The experience of being face-to-face with Sep’lissia put Prudence in mind of being lost in a vast, underwater cyclone, a Charybdis of light and noise. She saw unspeakable tessellations of indescribable shapes, angles of space and time which threatened to devour her, as if her college calculus textbook had sprung to horrifying life. She saw pulsing movements of the spheres, huge, living shadows which throbbed and squirmed and unspooled themselves into quantum threads. It felt as if something enormous held her optic nerves, gripped tight like a pair of reins, pulling until she thought her head might burst and run as rotted fruit.
Oh, wow, thought the part of Prudence’s brain which wasn’t trying to escape through her nasal cavity, she has compound eyes.
* * *
Prudence awoke in the back of a moving vehicle with a bag over her head. “Sep’lissia?”
“Here.” Sep’lissia sounded tense, like a pipe fitting under pressure.
“Where are we?”
“On our way to the hospital. To get you an EEG, you absolute fucking idiot.”
“In my defense, I’m not the one who threw me in the backseat with no seatbelt.”
Sep’lissia swore in a language which Prudence could only half hear and a quarter understand. “We’re only going thirty miles an hour. Just hang on.”
“I think I’m okay actually.”
“Only because I nearly smothered you while blocking off your line of sight.”
“Yeah, I gotta admit, the tentacles are sexy as hell, but also nicer in theory than in practice.”
“This isn’t funny, Prudence.”
“But more funny than an ER bill. Pull over.”
“You have insurance. They make you sign an affidavit when you join Cosmic Connections.”
“They wouldn’t classify this as an act of God?”
“No. Brown negotiates for these kinds of special circumstances for their group coverage. And I’m not a god. No matter what that one church of weirdos up in Ipswich says.”
“Half of one then? Do they cover fifty percent of the cost?”
“Damn it, Prudence, you scared the shit out of me!”
The shout and the rocking of the van made Prudence’s stomach lurch. Or perhaps it was the novel brain trauma. “I’m sorry.”
“What the fuck were you thinking?”
“I was thinking I wanted to see my girlfriend.”
“You knew going in that wasn’t an option.”
“Then I guess I wasn’t thinking.”
Sep’lissia made an incoherent noise of frustration.
“I’m sorry, really. Also I’m sorry because I think I’m about to puke in your car.”
“It’s fine, I lined it with fiberglass. It’ll hose down.”
“In the interest of not waterboarding myself in my own vomit, which way is safe to face?”
“Turn ninety degrees to your right.”
Prudence complied. Then she pulled the bag up over her nose and emptied her stomach.
When she had finished dry heaving, Sep’lissia said, “There’s a couple bottles of drinking water back there. Further back, in the cup holder.”
Prudence groped and found one. She rinsed her mouth and tried to catch her breath. “What model of car is this?”
“It’s a Chrysler. They make a wheelchair adaptive minivan.”
“Oh yeah, that makes way more sense.”
The van jolted to a halt. “Hospital ER,” said Sep’lissia. “You’re going to have to open the back. The windows are tinted and polarized, but I can’t—I can’t help you.”
“I know. It’s alright.”
“It’s really not.”
“I’m a grown up, I’ll manage.”
“I know.”
“When can I see you again?”
“Have them check your heart, not just your brain.”
“I will. When can I see you again?”
“They should give you something for the nausea.”
“Wait for me in the parking lot? I’ll cover the ticket cost.”
“Goodbye, Prudence.”
When they finally discharged Prudence from the hospital, Sep’lissia had long since departed.
* * *
Prudence’s first three letters went unanswered.
“I don’t think I could match your dedication,” said Rotem, one of the graduate students in Professor Rice’s lab, as she leaned over her Tupperware of leftover kugel to better eye Prudence’s developing letter. “Imagine if you had to write a physical note for every Tinder message? It’d be worse than sexting via telegraph.”
“It’s not sexting.”
“Clearly. You wouldn’t look so stressed otherwise. Hey, do you know if she can draw you a picture of her—”
“Not helping.”
“Whatever. I’m just saying, I don’t think I even own stamps.”
“You should buy some. It supports the post office.”
“I’ll add it to the long list of items I’ll dream of owning once I have any disposable income.”
“Don’t you have flies you need to be counting?”
Rotem waved a careless hand. “They can wait. They’ll just be getting laid in your honor, since you’ve got your whole Medusa babe thing going on.”
“It’s not like Medusa. Looking at her caused an uncontrollable spike of acetylcholine and serotonin in my brain.”
“Fuck. She really could have killed you.”
“But she didn’t.”
“Prudence, this isn’t Barry Marshall drinking H. pylori to win the Nobel Prize. You could wind up like Frank in the physics department.”
“They proved the thing with Frank was black mold poisoning.”
“Worse than Frank.”
Prudence slumped over her letter. She’d bought a pad of fancy, blue stationary with a design of a nautilus on the upper right, delicate tentacles trailing across the page. “She said she was just like me, Ro. We’re not that different and I….”
“What?”
“I don’t want to lose her.”
“Maybe it’s just not meant to be.”
“Maybe.”
“Look at it like this: There are worse ways for a relationship to end.”
Prudence stared at her stationary, despondent.
“Anyway, I’ve got flies to count.” Rotem patted her on the shoulder. “Don’t you have a Western Blot to run?”
“Blocking it overnight.”
“Look at you, not killing yourself with work. Maybe Medusa babe is good for you.”
“Her name’s Sep’lissia.”
“Sounds like a bitch to write on a birthday cake.”
“I can learn.”
“That’s the spirit.”
Prudence watched her leave the break room. She tapped the fancy fountain pen on the Formica table and began to write.
Four days later, a letter arrived in her mailbox. It contained only three words in Sep’lissia’s elegant script: “Alright, I’ll come.”
* * *
Prudence got up early on Saturday morning, and baked lemon bars.
She juiced the lemons and whisked the eggs into the curd. Blind baked the shortbread crust with cardamom and poured the golden liquid into the pan. She set the bars to bake, abandoned the bright yellow lemon rinds on her countertop, and went to clean her living room.
After assembling her tea set with the painted sprigs of lavender blossoms on the coffee table, she covered her couch in plastic sheeting and dragged in the kiddie pool she’d purchased from Walmart. She filled the pool with water and added some dried flowers.
The oven timer chimed an hour before her guest was set to arrive. Not much time to let the bars cool, but she sliced and arranged them on a plate. Made her final arrangements, then unlocked her apartment door, donned the mask, and sat on her couch to wait.
The blindfold distorted her sense of time, and she couldn’t be certain how long she’d sat there when she heard the turn of the doorknob.
Sep’lissia made a squelching noise as she crossed the laminate flooring. She halted, stood in silence for several agonizing moments, and then Prudence heard the splash of displaced water as she climbed into the pool.
“Thank you for coming.”
“I almost didn’t.”
“I know. I’m still glad you did.”
Sep’lissia blew a gurgling string of bubbles. “I still don’t think this is a good idea.”
“Because you’re worried about me, or you?”
“I almost killed you, Prudence.”
“You wouldn’t be the first. My high school boyfriend nearly wrapped us around a tree in his stupid Ford Explorer.”
“Be serious, please.”
“I am. The doctor said my brain bounced back just fine. Clean bill of health.”
“And what about the next time?”
“Are you planning on hopping out of my pantry when I’m not expecting you?”
“No.”
“Then what’s the issue?”
“The issue is you were fine, this time. You do stats work, how much does the likelihood go up that we’ll slip go up in a year? Ten years?”
“Planning for our anniversary already?”
“Prudence.”
“Just hear me out. Have some tea and a snack. You’ll have to pour; I haven’t mastered the art of not spilling it on the table.”
Sep’lissia grumbled, but Prudence heard the rattling of her tea set a moment later.
“Tea at your eleven. Lemon bar at noon.”
“Thank you. How are the bars?”
“Fishing for compliments?”
“Just tell me.”
“Sour. More sour than expected.”
“Bad?”
“No. They have a good flavor.”
“I’ve always liked them extra sour, ever since I was a little girl. Do you know what the prevailing theory is on the evolution of sour taste buds in humans?”
“No?”
“They think it’s one of the oldest tastes. That we’ve had it since our ancestors were fish. So we could taste danger. Something we couldn’t see, or sense as vibration or electrical currents. An invisible danger, acidic in the mouth and on the gills, burning like fire. And we’re all still fish.”
“I’m not following.”
“I’m getting there. So we—those fish that were us—carried the memory. In our mouths and in our flesh. Here is something deadly, something evil, something to be avoided.”
“You’re telling me you’re afraid of lemons?”
“I’m telling you we used to be. But then our primate ancestors ate fruit in the forest and found that we liked the taste of that fear-memory. What’s more, we needed it.”
“I’m aware of your absurd limitations on manufacturing your own ascorbic acid.”
“There’s something about you, about those like you, that reaches straight back into that fish brain and triggers another fear-memory. Something visceral and terrifying we don’t fully understand.”
“I’m not hearing a reason for why this is a good idea.”
“Because I’m not an animal, Sep’lissia. I’m not blindly exhibiting chemotaxis behavior. I can make my own decisions, what to eat, how to be, who to love. And I know how incredibly adaptable the human brain can be.” She felt forward and grabbed the plate in front of her. “I can choose to take something to which I originally evolved a negative reaction…” She took a bite of the lemon bar. Crumbs rained on her lap as she chewed. “You see?”
Sep’lissia was silent.
Prudence touched the edge of the table; the plate rattled as she set it down. “If you don’t want this because you’ve changed your mind, or it’s too much of an inconvenience, then so be it. But don’t give up because you think I can’t handle it.”
They sat in silence, and then Prudence heard a sound like wet laundry hitting her floor.
The plastic couch cover crinkled as Sep’lissia climbed up beside her. She leaned cautiously into Prudence, and her slime coat began to soak through her shirt.
“You’re not an inconvenience,” said Sep’lissia. “And I never wanted to change my mind.”
Prudence cuddled into her and resolved to purchase a rash guard. “I’m glad.”
“Do you really think we can make this work?”
“I think if Rotem could train me to eat raw habanero chilis, the limits of human adaptability haven’t been fully explored.”
Sep’lissia stroked her chin with a tendril so slick it was soft. “We’ll find some middle ground then.”
“Looking forward to it,” said Prudence, and kissed her.
* * *
D. Marmara was born and reared in Midwestern USA and now lives in California with her girlfriend, her mother, and her cat. She has an abiding love for parasites, weird fiction, and cooking. A former researcher, she now works in laboratory safety.