Prelude

Her name was Dylan.

The first time I saw her I was wearing someone else’s sweat. The guy next to me looked so stupid in that sombrero, bare chested with pupils like dinner plates. Every time he jumped I was coated in a fresh trail of his lather. It ruined the gig for me. I doubt he even noticed.

The final song began. I just wanted this to be over now. But once he’d bounced his way through the crowd, chiselling a path before him with that sharpened chin, it was then that I caught a glimpse of her. Just for a second. Not even all of her. Just her bare back with its feminine arch. The pinks and blues of the LEDs washing her naked torso in rapid patterns of colour, those shoulder blades shining as she threw her arms above the people around her. It was humid, dark, and there was her bright shape amongst the silhouette of everything else. I could only see her back, the rest hidden from me, a little circle tattoo right at the apex, a pair of what looked like horns atop it. It was all I could focus on.

As quickly as the gap was carved it sealed over. There I was, smelling of armpits that were not my own, now contorting myself to try and find those horns once more.

The lights went out and noise erupted. A five thousand strong mob of people were stilled in applause, many enraptured by what they had experienced, most embracing someone, anyone, in their search for skin and intimacy.

All but me. I could only dream of what it must have felt like to inhabit this commonality of human experience. All I could do was sigh.

Sombrero guy came back my way, his stubble glistening with a fresh throw of glitter. He gave me a thumbs up which I returned lazily, without thinking. The ensuing leer was too apparent. There was irony in how much I hated, but, how grateful I was for him.

-

I saw her again at another gig some months later. This one was smaller. Just in one of the local venues. Sticky floor, no air, the scent of lager. A warehouse by any standard. Adjacent to bars and clubs with more focus on taste, less on atmosphere.

I hadn’t forgotten her. By this point I knew what the circle with the horns was. I’d drawn it a dozen times before a customer of mine caught a glimpse.

“Taurus,” said offhanded.

It didn’t click with me at first.

“You know, the bull? Zodiac stuff.”

With the band playing it was her Taurus horns I noticed first. She had a top on this time, a lacy thing that revealed that little tattoo underneath. The circle with the horns on top. She was only a few people away this time, diagonally too so that now I could see that angled jaw, the way some of her short hair fell in front of her ear, and subtle glimpses of her eyes. Every time I looked back at the stage my attention made its way towards her once more. To her perfect lips in a Cupid’s bow and the way she mouthed the lyrics like they were a whisper, not a shout.

I wanted her to notice me. I wanted there to be some hint of connection, some tendril I could cling to and pray she held on.

But, again. The music ended. Everyone found each other. And there I was with but a dashed hope, no idea, and another sigh.

-

The next time I saw her took me by surprise. I’m still not sure how I managed a word.

I knew her tattoo well now. I knew, like me, the music she liked. I knew no more about her character than what I had dreamt up in the weeks intervening. It was too easy to imagine, and in the absence of truth, too easy to believe.

The first real thing I learnt about her, which is a cliche considering what that tattoo advertised, is that she was stubborn. By the end of the night I understood it well. This was absolutely confirmation bias, I’m no idiot, but I am sucker for such detail. And in this case it was accurate.

What was most ridiculous was that I had been afforded a third chance at all. Twice I had seen this girl and she had consumed me. Her Taurus tattoo had imprinted. I hate admitting it, but I had kept on looking for her, tracing the neckline of every feminine back I laid eyes on. It was exhausting. But I hadn’t let it go, let her go.

Another show. It was our pattern.

At the bar I searched for a gap. I found one and crammed myself in. There, inches below my nose, partially concealed by a pale shirt, was the Taurus tattoo. Right here, right in front of me, as if beckoning.

I don’t at all believe in serendipity. I do however believe that had I not said something I would have scalded myself for another six months.

Her hair was different now. She turned with her drinks in hand to stare right at me.

“Hi.”

“Hi,” I clumsily returned, lost in the first real vision of her.

She smiled at my dumb face, flicked her eyes left and right, and finally motioned politely with a lean of her head for me to step out of the way.

“Oh, right. Yeah. Sorry.” The way my head drooped was shockingly embarrassing.

She went off into the night, my eyes following that tattoo again. That circle which left a scar in my vision.

I choked the sigh this time, having messed up yet again. I just stood there, waiting for nothing, balling my fists deprecatingly, wondering why I was so bereft of charm.

Then a tap. Gentle, on my spine.

I turned and there she was, and there were her eyes again, commanding, deep pools at the base of a waterfall, somehow so perilous.

“Hi.”

-

In the following weeks I quickly became conditioned to the presence of that tattoo. But each time I noticed it I was reminded of how this all began.

We never came to speak of it. I never mentioned for how long I had held it in my thoughts. Held her. For how long I had sought out that tiny symbol, unknowing of any meaning it held, imbuing it with my own.

Her bra was hanging from my hat hook. It had been there for a while now. I didn’t dare remove it. She just sat with me watching the sunset, head half turned, our bodies connected. Even when she fell asleep I wasn’t willing to move, to give this up. I would lay next to her and gaze into that circle, those horns, and feel things. Things that compiled since that first moment through the crowd. Our story, like any, had strange origins, and I couldn’t discount them. I also couldn’t speak of them.

-

What I liked most about dancing with her was how unpredictable she was. I had never felt comfortable moving my body to a beat, but with her it was easier. And she loved it. I watched her, occasionally trying to mimic, but mostly just allowing myself this space.

My feet were sticking to the floor again. Different venue, same surface I had trodden dozens of times to different tunes. Being here with her made it so very different. I had never found myself at the front of a crowd. Now that I had reached it I couldn’t imagine otherwise. The press of limbs and bodies against my own, the crush of contact, the delight in intensity. It was secure. It was chaos. It was arousing. It was safe.

I wove my fingers through hers. I let one palm glide over her belly, and felt her do the same. I felt her breath on me, my sweat on her, our lips connected and eyes upon us. But I was lost in her. We were lost together.

Then, a subtle shift in weight. Her body went heavy. It fell, dragging my arms down with it. I tried my best to catch her, only managing to slow the descent. Until I saw it, The Taurus tattoo staring back up at me, and the space around us exploded.

-

“How do you feel about death?”

Her bra still on my hat hook, her chest facing upwards as the sunlight washed over her form.

I paused. “I don’t think I have an opinion.”

She seemed to wrestle with that a moment.

“Do you ever think about how you want to die?”

I held my breath, not knowing the right answer. Our conversation had segued quickly, unexpectedly. “I’m not sure. No, I guess. Not really.”

“I do. I want it to be something big.” She sucked on the paper she had just rolled, thick lilac smoke trailing off her tongue as she continued. “Not something plain. No clinic. No drip. None of those pills. Not, like, normal.”

It was the way she said normal. I knew more about her with that pronunciation than I could ever learn through interrogation.

-

I knew something was going wrong. There were all the warning signs. She flirted with distance, between volatile, reclusive, and cold. Usually so direct and honest, she seemed cryptic. Then completely herself again. But no matter what I said I knew it was wrong.

She was a bull, headstrong and defiant, insisting all was fine. Whenever her body convulsed and collapsed I was there. When her eyes opened they had that same peril I noticed the first time I looked into them. When they opened she would hurl herself upwards, marching off in silence, solitude becoming a tool of mending.

She wouldn’t sleep. Couldn’t. But would determinedly go about her ways. Always on and on.

Increasingly she wasn’t around. Only little signs of her remained. I didn’t always know where she went and didn’t dare ask. She wasn’t one for taming, but I longed to run wild with her.

While I was working I would occasionally see her come in. She would stride up and embrace me, deeply, with apology, intimacy, and desperation, oblivious of anything, and I would be consumed all over again. In those moments I could feel the crowd parting. I could see her spine and the Taurus at the top. Then as she peeled away the walls would close in, obscuring her once more.

-

Two days she’d known now. Two days since the specialist had done their best to placate the unknown. The diagnosis was too vague. Too arbitrary. The same as she’d heard before.

There was a fading smile on her lips, half turned to me, the other half leading her away.

Her bra was no longer on the hat hook. She pulled her top back on, sliding it down her spine. I felt a flutter in my chest as those horns disappeared, I feared forever.

I leapt from the sheets to wrap my arms around hers. Defiance. At it all, at what and when and why. I held her, no words needed for what I was saying.

She tightened. She trembled quietly. I did not know she was capable of it.

-

The last time I saw those horns she was walking away.

The last time I saw those horns I knew she was leaving, and I didn’t have the words.

The last time I saw those horns they were blue and faded, etched in their canvas long ago. Her shoulders were more fragile. Her skin paler. Yet her spirit remained. As did her will.

The last time I saw her she had chosen her end. Wild, and powerful, and free. And I was so sad, so angry, but so proud to watch her go. I had never known her kind before.

She half turned, her signature. She smiled. And all I could do was nod.

Her name was Dylan.