Haunted by Chuck Palahniuk (best time to read books txt) 📕

The flashlight, the little halogen lightbulb must be hot, because he's squealing, squirming so hard it takes all of them to hold him down. To hold his legs apart and force him open for a look.

Someone says, “What's it look like?”

The rest of the group wait for their turn.

“Miranda” thrashing on the table, the group leans over him, his pearl necklace breaks and goes rolling everywhere. The pins drop out of his hair. His breasts bounce and jiggle, two mounds of gelatin.

And someone pinches one by the nipple, tweaking it and saying, “Shake 'em, sexy mama.”

Someone else says, “We just want to see where you put your balls, bitch.”

It's an interesting juxtaposition. A fascinating sociopolitical power relationship, being fully clothed and examining a naked person held down, wearing only his high heels and jewelry.

The two women digging between his legs, they stop. Someone says, “Wait.”

The one holding the little flashlight says, “Hold him still,” and she leans in, forcing the flashlight deeper. She asks him, “Is this what you wanted to happen?”

“Miranda,” spread-eagled on the table, he sobs, trying to bring his knees together. To roll to one side and curl into a ball.

“Miranda” is sobbing, saying: No. Saying: Please stop. Saying: It hurts.

Oh, it hurts. Boo-hoo. You're hurting me.

The woman with the flashlight, she looks the longest time, squinting and frowning, twisting the flashlight and poking it around. Then she stands straight and says, “The batteries are dead,” and towers there, looking down on “Miranda,” his legs still spread open in front of her.

The woman looks down at the table smeared with makeup and tears, the pearls scattered on the floor, and she says for us to let go. She swallows nothing, her eyes touching all over the body on the table. Then she sighs and tells “Miranda” to get up. Get up and get dressed. Get dressed and get out. Get out and not to come back.

Someone says maybe the flashlight's just turned off and asks to look at it.

And the woman puts her flashlight in her tote bag and says, “Don't.”

Someone says, “What did you see?”

We saw what we wanted to see, the woman says. We all did.

The woman with the flashlight, she says, “What just happened here?” She says, “How did we get this way?”

From the minute he sat down, we tried to explain. We don't allow men. This is a women-only safe space. The purpose of our group . . .

16

To some of us, the nights are too long. To some, the days. The lights come on when Sister Vigilante raises the sun, but at sunrise today, it's a smell that pulls us out of bed. The perfect dream of a smell that pulls us out of our dressing rooms, into the hallway. Us, zombie-walking, pulled along by the nose.

Director Denial steps into the hall, falling halfway to the floor before her hands brace against the wall opposite her open door. Wedged against the wall to stay upright, she says, “Cora? Kitty, kitty?”

In the hallway, Reverend Godless struggles with both hands to zipper his matador pants, the pants that fit yesterday. “The ghost,” he says, “must be shrinking our clothes.”

The choker of brass bells cuts into the skin of Mother Nature's neck, so tight that every time she swallows you hear them jingle. “Damn,” she says, “I shouldn't have had that extra helping of Comrade Snarky.”

Out of the next door comes the Missing Link, his head tipped back so far his nostril hair is the tallest part of him. He sniffs and steps past Director Denial and Reverend Godless. Still sniffing the air, his nostrils flared into big black-hairy holes, he takes another step toward the stage and the auditorium beyond.

Director Denial says, “Cora . . .” and slides to the floor.

Out of another door comes Mrs. Clark, saying, “We'll need to wrap up Comrade Snarky today. She needs to go with Mr. Whittier.”

From the floor, Director Denial says, “Cora . . .”

“Fuck that cat,” Miss America says. Wearing a long Mandarin Chinese coat, embroidered with dragons, she leans in the doorway to her dressing room, her spidery hands clutching the doorframe. Her face is pale around the black smear of her mouth as Miss America says, “My head is killing me,” rubbing her face with one open hand.

Miss America shrugs the Mandarin coat off one shoulder and snakes out a thin white arm. She lifts the arm over her head, the hand limp, dark hair sprouting in her armpit. She says, “Feel my lymph nodes. They're huge.”

Up and down her thin, bare arm run long red scratches. Cat scratches, running close together. Trails and miles of cat scratch marks.

Looking up-close at her face, the Missing Link says, “You look terrible.” He says, “Your tongue is black.”

And Miss America drops her arm to hang limp along the doorframe. Her thick, black tongue licking her lips, leaving her lips black, she says, “I was so hungry. Last night, I ate all my lipsticks.”

Stepping over Director Denial, she says, “What is that smell?”

You can smell breakfast toast and eggs fried in grease. A greasy-fat smell. A shared hallucination of our hunger. It's the smell of escargots and lobster tails. The smell of English muffins, dripping.

The Earl of Slander follows the Missing Link follows Mrs. Clark follows Sister Vigilante. We're all following the smell across the stage and up the center aisle toward the lobby.

Miss Sneezy blows her nose. Then she sniffs the air and says, “It's butter.”

The smell of hot butter.

The ghost in every movie theater.

It's the greasy ghost of Comrade Snarky, what we'll have to smell every time we use the microwave. We're breathing her spirit. Her sweet buttery stink will haunt us.

The only other smell is Mother Nature's breath, from eating a bayberry aromatherapy candle.

Halfway up the center aisle, we stop.

Faint and outside, we hear hail falling. Or machine-gun fire. Or a drumroll.

A blizzard of snaps and bangs come on top of each other. This fast, faint rattle comes from the lobby.

Us,