Vivienne

Excerpt

His face is lit violet and blue in the pre-dawn room as he reads comments which look blurry to Vivienne. He raises his eyebrows and she laughs, throwing her head back. They sit in silence, her book splayed open on her legs. There’s something mad about Vivienne’s laugh. Must be genetic, Lou thinks, as Velour does it, too—the two women like drugged and deluded birds. Sometimes, she throws her head back so fast Lou thinks she’ll get whiplash. He’s tried to do the same backwards motion with his own head, but it just doesn’t move like that. His own mother’s laugh is quiet and rare. There’s a fadeout quality to his mother — faint, fuzzy. Vivienne and Velour, on the other hand, are hard and distinct. They're made from some difficult-to-dispose-of heavy metal that conducts electricity. Lou thinks of the non-ferrous metals like lead, gold, and tin, which can be recycled much more easily than ferrous ones like cast iron or steel. The Machine-Gunneress in a State of Grace is made of metal and wood.

-What are you thinking about? Vivienne asks.

-Nothing. That doll in the basement.

-I’d love to see it, she says, blinking, thin and persistent as a cursor, into the black center of the room.

-But you hate that thing.

-I don’t. I just choose not to interact, Vivienne says, staring into the distance as she does—looking at something invisible. Lou stares at the same spot, and they get quiet.

-Why do you think Velour keeps it locked up in the basement? he asks.

-She hopes it's accruing value. Karmic, psychic, financial, I guess.

-Karmic value, Lou repeats, sounds like her.

-Can you bring it up here before you leave for work? Vivienne whispers. She seems to be gone, as though whatever she’s staring at has kidnapped her.

-Are you okay?

-Can you get the doll?

-I’d rather not. Lou wonders if this is a test. He senses, at times, that the women are testing him. Their constant obscure references to bizarre figures, the errands they send him on. Even Vesta tests him, with her suspicious looks and bitchy asides. He envisions himself throwing the sculpture in the truck and watching as it gets crushed into a cube with the town’s garbage. He’s seen used sex dolls in there before, and when he pictures Bellmer’s sculpture alongside the heaps they pick up each day, a warmth permeates his body. Remnants and remains riding through town in a truck filled with art.

After he changes into his work jumpsuit, he walks quietly down the hallway and peeks into Vesta’s room, as he does every morning on his way down. It's a compulsion at this point, fearing that if he does not confirm her existence, she'll disappear. There's an effervescent unrealness about the girl, fortified by the way the dog follows her everywhere. She's sleeping, arm around the mutt. Franz looks up, tilts his head. Lou retreats, then descends down the spiral stairs quietly, at medium speed. When he sees Velour on the couch, robe and mouth open, legs sprawled and quietly snoring, his heart pounds. He stands over her, reaching his arm out, then backs away and walks toward the basement door, like in a dream. He opens it to a rush of cold air and flips on the light. Velour stirs. He walks down the old wooden stairs.



In the damp basement, Lou has to crouch so he doesn’t hit his head. Above him, cobwebs. There are three rooms but no doors, an old television, an oil tank, toys, a wooden door to the outside, and the doll. The doll is not a doll. Not really. It’s right here: in a clear and locked box, emitting a mauve light, an assemblage of air and ball joints. He steps closer, surprised that he can hear Velour’s loud breathing above him and above that, music, and Vesta's teeth grinding. He hears rustling in the field, the squawk of a creature sweeping through cold grass, and the first chirping birds. He won’t be able to put the entire see-through rectangular box on his back and take it up to Viv. Still, he attempts to lift the alien thing and its clunky case as though he’s being directed. He coughs, winces. He tries again, lifting it higher off the ground this time. How much time has passed?

-What are you doing? Velour asks.

Lou sets the doll's case down and sits down on the floor beneath Velour as she unlocks the plexiglass door and touches the doll clinically, as though checking its vitals. From below, Velour and the doll are one contraption: pinkish, thin, lit from within. Lou’s arm reaches up as though it’s remote-controlled—like it’s not his arm at all—in one long pawing gesture toward Velour's robe. Unsure why he's on the floor, he jolts when his hand makes contact. Lou senses they’re being held between ball and socket, suspended in muscle jelly, not quite alone.

Velour's dirty white robe falls to the floor and he lies down on the velvety, animalesque mass. His heart pounds. She stands naked in front of the doll. Lou touches a spot of dried blood mixed with mud on her thigh. The clear case hangs open like a mouth. The Machine-Gunneress frames her, smooth flippers beneath an eyeless head and clown breast. Velour, a tentacular woman-girl-machine, convulses. Her head jolts back as though glitching before she falls toward him, the thick basement air retarding her dive. Up close, her eyes are shut and her face contorts into a grimace. Lou’s own face repeats the expression and their bodies entwine on cold concrete.

She’s amorphous . . . something like a horse, her mouth reaching for Lou's back, coffin bone knifing the softer parts of his spine. Lou shoves himself into a hole and Velour buckles, moans. Warmth. Her sounds travel into him and get stuck, turning. When he opens his eyes, all’s blurry, like he’s trying to see through a layer of marrow. He blinks and when the creature finally comes into focus, her mouth is a beak. There's a gust of wind. Another shift—electrically arcing into hot plasma, blood spreading around him. Their bodies go slack simultaneously and when she relaxes back into herself, Lou’s struck by the terrible and alluring sensation that he’ll have to live inside this residue forever, the way the letters of his own name are nested in the letters of hers, a fact he hadn’t thought of until just now. Silence.

-What are you looking at? asks Velour.

His body is zapped, like he's been hanging off the back of the truck. He zips his jumpsuit up and runs a finger over his embroidered nametag, to verify: here. Velour closes the case and locks the doll back up.

-I have to go to work, Lou says, reaching up. She helps him to his feet.

Upstairs, Vivienne smiles into the bluing blackness.


Emmalea Russo is a writer and astrologer. Her books of poetry are G, Wave Archive, Confetti, and Magenta. Recent work has appeared in Artforum, BOMB, Spike Art Magazine, and Los Angeles Review of Books. Vivienne is her first novel.

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