“’Anna and I are going to produce a movie.’”

Philippe Djian’s “Elle” Translated by Michael Katims

“She never told me her last name (I found it out much later, from the Ouija board).”

Pedro Juan Gutiérrez’s “Dirty Havana Trilogy” Translated by Natasha Wimmer

Letter to Anna from 2009, May [X]

Subject: A reminiscence of an out of body experience.

Anna

Do you remember those intense moments around the periphery? Being outside ourselves, watching; offering extra limbs into an already crowded bed?

I can’t make out what you’re saying. Are they words?

You are clutched around me, I can feel the cross of your arms behind my neck—tighter than usual, your sounds disturbed by one of them—I can make out pieces, a syllable. The rest is lost in the moment—I can tell they’re out stretched behind us; I sense the tension in your fingers, as I feel the effort to … catch them, send them back, I want to say, but I can’t speak.

Do you dream in these moments. Do you watch outside yourself when our cheeks touch, as we move our heads in time so our mouths brush … no more—when we need vantage to reckon with what’s coming, do you wish for an extra limb as I lift a hand and find space between your neck and the back of your head, show me, I make out, and spread my fingers through your hair and ease your eyes forward. We make a gap where there was none: so tightly, so braced we find ourselves at the end. I hear you now, still quiet, but rising with a wash of heat; there’s a sweetness on it.

Closer, I hear, and another, punctuated on irregular breath. I can feel you move beneath my free hand, urging it up. I find your shoulders and feel more of your back than I see—it’s not dark but—I think my eyes are closed—I still watch us, dissembled from our slowly moving bodies, hiding, above us, silent. You don’t need me to hold you down, you press into my hands and find your own space, inside our space, quickening, letting go an incoherence I recognise. You take my arms, searching for something, anything for your fingers to find the right latch.

I relax my hands and find yours. There’s little I can change now, we’re beyond change. From above I see two liquid masses; and we’re both making sounds—was I talking? Would she hear? —there are no words—just sound mimicking irregular motion.

With my eyes closed, I feel everything. I cannot see the gentle movements under your skin, as they murmur from your thighs through mine as they leverage for position beside me.

Like fluid you shift, hold my face. I can feel both your hands, and your fingers, but am distracted by your breathing, are you watching? You ask, as I open my eyes. I try to tell her I’m always watching but cannot speak—you hear me anyway: I breathe differently when you smile; slower. You tighten your legs, the pressure on my face increases as I move closer, our mouths brush again, not yet, you seem to say. We’ve been here before.

I can’t watch, and I can’t take my eyes off you as what’s happening, is happening around us, to us, as though we’re joining the cadence of other peoples’ bodies. It never feels real as a thousand thoughts rush at once and rouse a complete contraction. There’s a silence ravaged by complications, past and present and heavy exhalation. A peace.

We return, relax, and remove the tendrils which added to the moment.

I have nothing to say, I say. The irony isn’t lost—you let me off, squeeze my arm. And I can’t speak, you say.

I see what you did there, I think, but don’t tell her.

I think we’ve said everything.

—JustD

*image created by an unknown creator. I’m sorry.