During the process of trying to find a publisher or an agent for Beyond the Horse’s Eye, I was told that I should take incest out of the novel. Some of my buddy writers were also put off, and some even refused to read past the first two pages of the Prologue. Others thought it had no place in a book about lesbian love, because it implied that incest is responsible for women preferring women. I meant no implication, but I didn’t want to be misinterpreted. And I want people to read past the first two pages! (And I founded WordSpace Publications)
So I took incest out.
But: should I have given in?
I am inviting readers to comment.
From an earlier iteration of the Prologue: (Click HERE for published Prologue)
J pulled the covers up to her chin and lay perfectly still. Her bed always gave her away. It made a loud creak every time she moved, even a little bit. She held her breath and listened for every tiny sound. Had she fallen asleep by mistake? She must stay awake to hear the thunder roaring down the hall into her room; his dizzy car sick gasoline stink could rush into her face before she was ready. If she could hear him coming, she could make her body not feel.
When he did come home early and just went to bed, well, then she would just be able to sleep. But first Mommy had to check the room. Under the bed for bears. Push the door flat against the wall so nothing could hide behind it. Close the shade of the fire escape window because shadows from the light outside could become bouncing goblins on the walls. So many things to check. “OK, J, I checked under the bed. No bears. See? No bears. Now close your eyes.” If her singsong voice had that slight “hurry up already” in it, J’s throat would tighten. When Mommy’s voice sounded like that, there’d be no goodnight hug.
Sometimes he didn’t bump down the hall, and later on in the night she would wake up to Mommy crying softly in the bathroom, right next to J’s room. That meant he was finally asleep. Sometimes she’d brave the bears and tiptoe into the bathroom and hold on to Mommy’s back going up and down with her crying. Mommy would be sitting on the bathroom floor next to the tub, her head buried in her arms. She’d just hold Mommy a little bit because Mommy didn’t like hugging, and then she’d tiptoe back to bed before Mommy shooed her away. Sometimes Mommy got really mad right away; that was worse. Mostly she just squeezed Mommy’s crying out of her brain.
Once Daddy’s yelling and thumping had been so loud, the policemen came. J pretended she was asleep when they came into her room, her cheek burning hot when one of them called Mommy “ma’am” and said what a cute little girl she had. Another time, somebody knocked on the pipes. Daddy’s yelling suddenly hushed. Then he was crashing pots in the kitchen. “I’ll show you who to bang at!” as he smashed them against the pipes. Maybe that’s when the policemen came.
Now Daddy was coming home late again. She held her breath real tight so she could hear even the tiniest sound from down the hall. Her room was separated from the living room (where her parents slept) by a long hall. The door to the apartment was in the hall just before the living room.
Keys falling. “Shit!. Motha fuckin’….” A bump, jangling keys, clickity-click-click, followed by the kur-thump of the closing door. Down the hall from the living room, Mommy in singsong: “Shh, the child’s asleep. Here let me get that.” J could smell him now. Smoky gasoline and vomitty. She hated his smelly greasy fingers. Mommy called him a ‘grease monkey,’ but not to his face. He always had black under his nails, and J couldn’t understand why he would rub and rub his hands with that stinky Lava soap that only made him more stinky but didn’t take away the black from under his nails.
Now she shivered as she pushed herself further under the covers: first her neck, then her chin. She pushed her lips tighter and inched until the tip of her blanket touched her nose. Her bed creaked louder than ever.
She stiffened at the roar rolling down the hall to her room. Smelled his grey gasoline coveralls roaring towards her door, saw in her mind the red and blue flying horse and “Mobil” stitched neatly on his greasy pocket. She closed her eyes as tight as she could and turned off. This time, without really trying, she left her body altogether and went floating up to the ceiling. From there she watched him in the semi-darkness as he yanked her covers off. J desperately looked for her Mommy in her head, in that magic way her head sometimes saw things in another room. There down the hall, Mommy was smoking a cigarette. “Just relaxing,” Mommy would say when she smoked a cigarette or sipped a glass of sherry. She wished Mommy would just come in and hold her tight. Just this once.
From high on the ceiling, clutching the ridges of the light fixture, J watched him pull her pajamas bottoms off and heard his breathing quicken. Her fingers were suddenly very slippery. In desperation she flapped her arms in order to stay way above the bed, which worked for a second before she toppled head first into herself.
The child, now stiff and numb, prepared herself for the funny feeling that always came next. The funny feeling made her hate and love him all at the same time.
Then he was suddenly gone and she rolled herself up in a tiny ball under her covers and tried to be very very good. No crying. The house was extremely quiet—too quiet for crying. She strained to hear familiar voices from the living room, or Mommy crying in the bathroom. Anything. She tried looking into the living room with her brain but her magic looking wouldn’t do it.
If only her lady would come to her now. She imagined her lady’s strong and loving hand and placed it on her back, still throbbing from his weight. She heard her lady’s fairy angel words in her ear, and allowed her loving embrace to roll though her back and up into her throat and spill out in a silent crying ecstasy. She made her lady disappear so that she could make her come to her again. In her head she made her lady say, “My poor little baby girl. Everything’s going to be OK now; you’ll see.” Then she made her lady just hold her tight so she could silently cry herself to sleep in her lady’s loving arms.
No, a better idea. Maybe she could pretend her lady helps her get onto the fire escape, and helps her brave the goblins, and then she could dangle her feet through the bars of the fire escape like she always did during the day. And it would feel so good, hanging her legs between the fire escape bars, pee-pee and tummy pressed against the bars, real hard, five stories up. Falling without falling. Surging from her toes to her throat. If the goblins killed her, it wouldn’t matter because then Daddy would never ever do it to her again!
And then Mommy and Daddy would really miss her and would love her oh so much. And Mommy and Daddy would forgive her for being so ugly and dirty, and they would cry like they did when Bubba died.
But before she lets the fire escape goblins get her, she will think up her hugging lady for one last time. Her lady will make her braver. And when she makes it all the way to the fire escape, she’ll quickly hang her feet over the edge and fall without falling before the goblins swoop down and kill her. Such wonderful tingly feelings to die with.
First she searched around her bed and found her pajama bottoms. Then she thought up her lady, put her lady’s hand on her back, and scooted barefoot past the bears (waiting under her bed to grab her ankles) towards the nightmare shadows at the window, very quickly and quietly, so Mommy and Daddy wouldn’t hear anything. By the time she climbed out on the fire escape, she felt dizzy. She sat down, trying to hide from the goblins that were surely very near by, and eased her tushy towards the bars. She pushed each leg out through separate openings until they swayed freely over the alleyway five stories down. Falling without falling.
Maybe it was very late or very early, because the George Washington Bridge trucks were not humm humm humming. Maybe she just didn’t hear them.
This time, when her cry rippled from her spine into her neck and into her throat, while she was falling without falling from the fire escape, J was sure her lady’s hand stroked her head for real. J’s eyes were wet. Her chin was wet. Her cheeks burned hot. And she very much wanted to open her eyes. But she didn’t dare. She didn’t want her make-believe, maybe real live angel lady to go away. And she didn’t.
Then she allowed herself to be lifted and she walked with her lady, her eyes squeezed tight, like she was asleep but awake.
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