Likes and Dislikes

Margot never liked her name, which was unfortunate because she was sitting in a doctor’s office waiting to hear it. Margot. She sounded like a huffy bulldog of a woman. One of them red-cheeked girls, hiding thin spots in their head with fat curls, with wagon-dragging hips, thick pie-making arms, and hotdog fingers shaking ash off a long cigarette. That is what Margots was like to her. Most importantly, Margots always came white, not just white but white, made a casserole and bitter koolaid for her two-point-five children white. Her husband shifted in the seat next to her, and the movement prompted her to look at the carpet. The stained crimson felt at odds with the patience waiting rooms are supposed to inspire, so she shifted to see if she could see her husband’s blue Ford truck through the window’s vertical blinds. An inexplicable disappointment settled down her back when she only caught sight of the white Plymouth that had been parked next to it.

“Margot Carter.”

She hated this part, the look-around. As usual, the nurse made her neck a swivel, looking at every white woman in the waiting room as if Margot had not started struggling to stand up from her chair. Margot wasn’t any of the things she thought her name sounded like. She was slim, small, and Black—blacker than the devil’s ass, her daddy said. She had big eyes, bug eyes she could admit—but they were the prettiest brown, her husband said. Her slim limbs were paired with knobby joints, and she had the stature of a mischievous child. Her pointed ears—from the forceps when they pulled her out, her mama said—were paired with long eye teeth, almost dog-like (’cause she was a dog, her brother said). Both did nothing to soften her impish impression. But now, seven months pregnant, her rounded belly did curb the effect. She looked older pregnant, even a bit more alluring. She had curve to her now; her nose wasn’t too thin for her face now.

She wasn’t graceful as she rose; she wobbled a bit, trying to get her footing sure before her husband’s warm hand set on her lower back. “There,” the voice deep and low, quiet but sonorous. His other paw, big and firm, wrapped around hers with a grip cultivated to guide and reassure, tight but not binding. “Don’t fall now.”

She didn’t look up at Mr. Carter’s face. Didn’t really want to because lord knows she thought him handsome with his broad nose and sharp jawline, a light well-groomed beard on his chin. When she spent too long looking, she couldn’t keep her lip stiff enough, and he could read admiration on her face with just a glance, returning her attention with his own appreciative gaze that pinned her down, feeling like some sort of chain wrapped around her neck and staked into the ground. She could barely breathe.

He was almost as dark as her, but it suited him. His dark skin reminded her of the summer of 1969. She was more a jit than a woman then, a teenager, working in the Deacons’ house. They were well meaning, for white folks, but exacting. She’d work seven hours each time and receive a quiet but barely audible thank you and four dollars, five if she’d done the floors real good. The cleaner would stain her nose with the scent of lemon and bleach, the dark brown and black grains would glimmer under the wash of sunlight through the windows, warmth emanating through the panes, and Margot would fight the urge to lay down into them boards and just melt into the slick surface, melt until she was flat as the floor, melt until she was nothing no more.

But if Mrs. Deacon was in a mood, she’d grip the banister of the stair railing something vicious, standing thin as a reed, a silk robe around her bone-and-skin frame, a turban on her head, dyed wisps of red hair creeping out to curl on her neck and ears. She’d watch Margot with a scrutiny and scorn that nice folks don’t have—although nice was something Mrs. Deacon certainly pretended to be,

This is African Blackwood, child. Don’t you dare scratch these floors.

Years later, long after she worked there, Mr. Carter had handed her a hundred and some dollars for a broke-down sedan, one not worth saving and asked her for her phone number, square white teeth contrasted by his dark thick lips. She should have hesitated, but she liked the way her fingertips brushed against his rough palm when she took the money. She even liked the way he reminded her of that infallible wood from her adolescence, something so precious that Old Lady Deacon might just apparate out sheer air, just to tell her not to touch. Especially when his skin was oiled or wet, and he’d catch a glow from her nightside lamp when he came in from the hall at night, in a towel, or just his pants, or nothing at all, always just showing something, always indecent, always so wild in his quiet Mr. Carter way.

He’d said at the wedding and for the year since: Al. You supposed to call me Al now.

But she didn’t call him that, not even on their wedding night. He’d pressed into her, his body a rigid board of heat and strain, and Margot had felt like something new and primordial all at once, felt the disconcerting wetness and resulting embarrassment, the unnatural lust for the most chaste parts of his person, lust for his ears, lust for the space between his fingers. Washed with a fever of it, the unspecified wanting, a frenzied and overwhelming thing that would not, could not, stay still, wanting for his hands—no, his mouth—in one place, but no, actually in another, a need building up from the inside of her ankle to the hair-speckled junction between her thigh and center, right along the trail of kisses he’d laid on her. It was all so resolute with its changing intensity, a static state of desire characterized by its refusal to lie dormant.

But he’d laughed, his stomach clenched, his shoulders trembling, shaking as his weight fell on her when she’d stuttered the words out. Please, Mr. Carter. Laughed before he’d bit her neck. Laughed when she’d finished after him, his hand helping her along. He’d laughed all night. Even in his sleep. So, she didn’t say anything anymore, tried not to make a sound. She could tell he felt bad about it, and she liked that he did.

“I don’t want you to go back with me,” she whispered to him in the office as the nurse motioned for her to follow.

“Right. Just helping you up, Mags.”

She didn’t like Mags for a name either. But Mags was a hell of a lot better than Margot. She nodded in response, but took a jerky step forward, her back bowed so that his touch fell away. She didn’t know why she did that. His hand was solid and warm and big, so big, from one end of her to the other, and she liked that. He let her hand go and took his hat from its place pinned under one of his arms.

“I’m fine.” She held her shoulders real stiff in that way that got him to leave her alone. And she didn’t look back as she left the waiting room. The examination table was cold, the gel was freezing, and the slippery flat pad rubbing on her belly warmed up slower than she expected. She felt the hair on her arms stand up as the technician looked into the black surface, splotches of radio-static white spreading sporadically on the screen. She kept her eyes on the puke-yellow wallpaper that reminded her of dried mustard.

“Everything looks okay from here. Let me see,” the technician’s voice started to drift off as she searched for a new angle. “Yeah, nothing seems to have changed for the worse.”

The doctor, who didn’t seem to be thirty yet, shook his head when he came in. “Things have not gotten better, but ,Margot, I got to tell ya, the fact they haven’t gotten worse.” He put his heavy hand on her shoulder, the skin rough but the gesture not unkind. “That’s a very good thing.” But Margot could only think of Mr. Carter, probably still standing, towering, in the waiting room, his arms and shoulders tight in his blue work button down, an oil stain smudged on his red fabric badge embroidered with a white, cursive Alfred, both hands gripping his brown newsboy cap as if he were an anxious child.

Last time, he’d gone back with her. His mouth had been a tight line, looking for signs of himself in their baby while the technician sat pinch-faced and narrow-eyed, roaming the compression paddle of the ultrasound in slow steady paths that seemed capricious, and to Margot, a bit cruel. Is that normal? Ma’am, is that normal? The anxiety had been odd coming from him, a shaky creaking sound from a stone of a man. But the technician hadn’t said anything. And the doctor had said he thought it might be a chin anomaly, or a mild abnormality due to the early development of teeth. Either way, we are looking at an extensive physical defect. The doctor’s voice had been unnaturally low with severity and strangely melodic, a soulful hymn that, with its ability to live in their minds long after it was heard, could be called catchy, an earworm even.

They had driven home in a reverberating silence that echoed through the night that day. Neither of them spoke. And when he’d pulled her into his arms, stroking a slow circle on her shoulder over and over again, never shifting the weight of her head on his arm or adjusting to chill the layer of shared sweat that grew on their skin, the only illumination in their unadorned bedroom was a flickering streetlight, creating a glow as if a candle rested on the windowsill. She’d breathed in the scent of him, deodorant soap and peppermint, and found comfort that was almost unseated by the rapid, taxing thrum of his heartbeat, thudding in her ears, under her touch. So, she’d kissed him, in a way unlike herself, loving him until he was a lethargic brand of placid, his heartbeat matching hers. When he was at peace, she liked that.

This time, Margot emerged from the doctor’s office to find Mr. Carter had pulled around to pick her up, sparing her the long hobble to their parking space. As she climbed in, she was reminded how Mr. Carter’s truck would go missing once a month, and him with it. He’d pack a bag of jeans and his undershirts, take his two work uniforms and go. She didn’t wonder so much what he did during those days, he worked and not much else, a glutton for stretches of quiet and sitting in solitude. But she found it disconcerting that he never talked about why, never acknowledged that he left because of her, nor explained the times he decided not to leave, when his presence was both an unexpected light and a crushing burden. She wanted to tell him to be careful, to warn him about the dangers of getting lost, how it makes you positively feral, being where people ain’t. She wanted to tell him because she knew how that was, knew very well, and the wolf in her knew even more so. But for the very same reason, she never spoke to him about it.

There’s a dead rabbit in your truck. I think. It’s kinda every which way in there. Mangled. Margot had frozen at the doorjamb of the kitchen he stood in, reminding herself to breathe, to count as she kept her eyes trained on the yellow polka dots of the wallpaper they both didn’t like very much. She stood there for minutes in silence, the taste of it still on her tongue, decay in her nose. When she spoke, he’d jumped a bit, most likely surprised that she was standing there. He’d been stoic, without a usual smile or the unusual grumble. Even so, Mr. Carter’s hands shook as he picked up the pieces of the thing, hunks of torn pelt and clumps of gore-globbed fur were left to be rinsed out of the truck bed. Margot stood in the middle of the driveway, in front of the truck, and looked at the house instead, a nice little split-level that Mr. Carter had bought after he got home from the war. She kept her arms folded after wrapping Mr. Carter’s flannel around her body like a security blanket.

“Margot.” The red light impeded the soothing effect Margot felt during long car rides like the one from the doctor’s office as Mr. Carter’s voice brought her out of a memory that both soothed and haunted her. The combination inspired a deep dislike in her, a dislike for traffic lights, and the laws that empowered them, and the men that obeyed them, surrendering to the authority of three colored lamps.

She hummed a response, kept her eyes on the passing houses: boxes, complete with garages too narrow for an actual car, their doors barely wide enough for a compact vehicle in the best of circumstances.

He stammered, “You think it’s—The baby. I mean—You think that it’s changing?”

The stammering wasn’t like him, so she studied his face, looking for a tell. His profile was what she might call fancy, or classic, his features full but tamed with long even lines: the straight bridge of his nose, his square cut jaw, the balance of width and length of his face, just long enough to avoid being too square. It was as if he were a carving, a statue carved to live in the memory of generations. And how odd it was that he was just made of flesh, like any human being. It contrasted against his uncharacteristic uncertainty in a way that made her irritable. She didn’t like it, that uncertainty.

“Nothing is changing,” she’d said sharply, “She’s a wolf.”

“She.” He repeated, correcting himself. Margot looked at the hair on his knuckles as he made his voice sickeningly sweet, another tone she didn’t like. “How do you feel about it?”

“I don’t feel about it. It is what it is. We got married. A baby next. That’s what you wanted.”

A rumble from his throat. “I want you, Margot. You act like I’mma mastermind. Like I made some kinda plan that you had to follow.”

She went back to looking at houses, fighting the urge to roll down the window and feel the breeze on her face. When he continued, the hangdog of his delivery was even more off-putting than he had been before. She bit her lip, creasing her brow at his resignation.

After a mile of silence, he spoke again. “I held out my hand and you took it. I don’t know why. Maybe just to get away from your family, but you took it.”

She sucked her teeth instead of replying and just sat there, staring out the window, thinking of that rabbit in his truck bed. Pieces and pieces and pieces.

“Let me out,” she said, her skin hot.

“We’re almost home.”

“Let me out.” She folded her arms, glared at him.

“No.” He sighed. “I’ll drop you off and go. You won’t have to deal with me.”

“For days?” Her voice wasn’t as stone as she wanted it to be.

“For days.” His was.

Mr. Carter dropped her off without a word, no hang tight or kiss me, girl, or lock the door behind you because she always forgot. She’d denied him any satisfaction of seeing her look back, muttering a barely audible goodbye and waddling into the house. There was nothing left to do once inside but sweep it, mop it, scrub it. She wiped down the counters and glossed up the windows and dusted the ceiling fan, cleared cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling, until there was nothing left to clean, but herself. So, she scrubbed with hot water, and soap, and a threadbare washcloth, rubbing the thick layers of skin on her knees, her shins, off with fervent scouring.

And she thought of calling her mama. But then she’d have to tell her that she was right. That she needed her help. That she was pregnant. That she had no idea what to do, cause like she’d been told, she couldn’t keep no man. She thought of praying, too, probably set to say the same things to God himself, but she hadn’t spoken to either of them in so long, and she’d convinced herself that she’d rather drown in that river than build a bridge to cross it. Better to lay down and cry herself to sleep instead, her hand on Mr. Carter’s pillow.

“Mags…”

The voice was slow, and she barely heard it over the growl, over the feeling of it vibrating her chest, the fur on her spine raised. She was on her feet, her paws digging into the plush of the bed before she knew it. She bared her teeth so that her gums felt the cool night wind of her open bedroom window. The comforter was her favorite, with its blue color, even faded, its floral intricate swirls. She liked it a great deal, along with the way her small feet were still steady on its worn surface.

“It’s just me, Mags.”

Him. Mr. Carter. Who makes it complicated, makes things harder. She snapped her teeth, growled some more for good measure.

“Stop that now.” He stood in the hallway before he took a couple steps into the bedroom, triggering a threatening unease that sent her hackles up. His voice was steady, but the eyes had it, the wet gleam of fear, sagging lower lids of anxious uncertainty. She could see it in his demeanor, she could smell it on him. Peppermint and an acrid hint of sweat underneath, and booze. Booze? She lifted her snout higher, huffed away the lingering alcohol out her nose. She hated the stuff. A drunk father had taught her to, a drunk brother too, both prone to bearing claws and teeth in the middle of the night. Carter knew she didn’t like it. He knew that. The indignation lurched her forward. He lifted the bottle slowly, and she noticed for the first time that it was in his hand. It felt like a betrayal of their marital bed, bringing such a thing into a place that was just for them. Her lips peeled back again, but she remained still, her nose pointed down, her eyes looking up past silver, furrowed, brows.

“I know. I’m sorry.” He set it down slowly on the ground, kept his eyes on her nose. She waited for his gaze to drift though, waited to meet him eye to eye, wanted the challenge. She let out another growl to goad him into it. He looked at the nightstand instead, and she stifled a whine.

“Don’t give me that wolf act, Mags. I know you recognize me.” He stepped forward, taking off his watch and setting it next to their alarm clock. It stayed on her side. He’d sleep right through it. He sat on the edge of the bed, on her side—hers!—and she saw red, butting her head against his intruding form, a nip at his side before his hand held the back of her neck with a solid grip, her head pressed down at an angle to see him and not much else. Her mouth open, she released a gargling snarl from the back of her throat.

“If you didn’t like me leaving, you should have just said so.”

Her eyes met his. She liked the way he looked to her true sight on these nights. A grey presence, like an angel etched into the stone of a cathedral, the hazy pastel world around him illuminated in low light. His brown eyes were black and gleaming, every hair on his head a single ribbon of defined curls. She stilled but looked away when he finally gave her the challenge she’d wanted, keeping dark orbs trained on the lupine gold of her own. As usual, she was unable to tolerate his stern gaze.

“All that fussing and you nothing more than a lil fox now, huh?”

She smelled the coppery iron, the blood pooling on his shirt from her bite, a deep one. His breath hitched and she whined at the sound. She was small for a wolf, a runt, and she was thankful for his big body that had space for her. She pressed herself down, and moved over his leg, padding herself onto his lap with her paws before rolling over, showing him her bulged belly as he held her steady on his lap.

“Oh, you sorry now?”

She let her front legs fold.

“Okay.”

She huffed and scampered off him then. She didn’t like prostrating. He’d never seen her on her back for long. Never. There was a small thread of shame running through her because he’d seen her do it at all. She growled a little, a much more harmless sound in her subdued state, and he chuckled. Her ears perked at the sound before she started to nervously pace his body on the bed, sniffing at his side. She scratched at it with her paw.

“Ah, stop.”

She scratched again, an investigation of the pain she’d caused taking precedence over any prevention of causing more of it.

“Stop it, Margot.”

A bark, more dog than wolf.

He sighed, pulling up his shirt. The deep teeth marks made her stomach lurch. The broken flesh had small pockets of pooling blood, the edges with drying cracked splotches of its first bloodshed. And she whined again. Felt familiar anxiety bundled beside her whelp, the pup in her, with sharp teeth and a ferocity formed in the heat of her blood, sparked by anything, the scent of air after rain enough to fuel it, would she too put her teeth in him?

The rabbit had been an understandable fatality in the face of her nature, but its mutilation, there, in that truck, in the one space that didn’t need to be hers to feel like hers, just as she was his without being his. And she’d ruined that space, spots of blood still found occasionally in its bed, easily mistaken for spots of rust, a sacred place where she’d sit in the night, the song of crickets punctuating her lonely howls. Her wildness, tearing it in pieces, wanting to see it open, unfold it, creating something akin to seams, new ends and beginnings to an unfortunate corpse was a mastery of savagery. Her daughter could not possibly escape this curse, this hereditary need, to tear things down to their smallest pieces, and could they do that to him, would they do that to him in time? Her own paws holding him down as their baby’s little muzzle bit into him again and again. Would he be pieces, pieces, pieces?

She gave into the darkest dread and bent to her side, biting into her own hind quarter for a release, to do something with the frustration, her jaws fluttering into a scratching scrape, blood spotting into her fur, the pain a comfort. She bit down hard for a second time, ignoring Mr. Carter’s hands that gripped at her frantically, without much of an idea of how to stop her at first. She dragged her teeth, hooking and pulling at the flesh with a damaging swiftness, wanting to hurt more than him, for the guilt and regret to give way to a sharp agony that could actually fade.

“Stop that.” His hand pulled at her muzzle, and she snapped at him, her teeth clicking. He shook his hand, “Dammit Margot, I’m tougher than I look. It’s just a bite.”

He didn’t usually cuss her. He knew she didn’t like it. It reminded her of all the other times she’d been cussed at. Reminded her of the bad days, the pack days, the days he’d rescued her from. He brought his lips inward. His chest moved in a rhythm that made her want to lie against him, made her long for her own long skinny fingers that he’d wrap in his hand, kissing her knuckles in a way that made her feel silly, but so loved. And oh, how she liked the feeling of that.

He laid back, his legs still hanging off the bed and she sought the rise and fall of his middle, laying against him, curling up at his side, her head on her tail, her baby’s heart beating against her own.

“I can deal with you being a wolf, if you can deal with me loving you for it.” The words were kind of flimsy, a floppy singsong that showed his tipsy state. She wanted to reject the statement, felt a tension in her shoulders wash over her before it dissipated as she sighed. She’d roll her eyes if they were open. But they weren’t. They were closed, so that she could focus on that slight shift in his body, his breathing not unlike the drag of a wave of water, a push and pull that made her heart sway, and the smell of his blood in her nose, and the warmth at her back that built between their bodies as his thumb lazily stroked the top of her head. She felt those words burrow into her, past her fur and under her bones, and took them to heart, deciding that it was something to try, that she’d like to.

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