I.
Kinky died. You have to die to
become a superhero, so Kinky dies, pukes herself inside out. She’s been sick
for years, but now she’s throwing up razor blades in a meaty jelly, snakes, old
weak lovers. Heaving them up at two in the morning – waking with a howl because
she thinks there’s someone in her room again, but there’s no -one. Just Kinky
and her vomit. She went to the doctor but he pulled the waistline of her pants
down too far when he felt her stomach and she knew he was one of them.
II.
Her landlord found her
metaphorically dead body and called her ex-husband. Together they threw her on
the trash heap, and smiled collegially.
III.
Amongst the foul meat scraps and
hair and wrapped sanitary wear, fur grew, soft and brown, from Kinky’s pubis,
spreading up her belly and over her breasts. It ran down her back warmly, like
the stroke of a hand. Her face was horrifying: tiny pink eyes, a nose like a
tumour: downy leaves of skin, lips that looked not mutated but unfinished, or
eaten off by a parasite. But along with her luxuriant fur was one further
wonder - magnificent veined wings, great blankets of leather.
She lifted her
arms that were no longer arms. What glory! What grace. A forearm, tipped with
five protracted cartilaginous digits, all covered in opaque black skin. ‘I am
exquisitely engineered,’ she murmured. Finally, she would be praised for her
design. She called out and the soft vibrations returned to her, showing her the
silver streaks of cars moving toward the city – the buildings where the men
lived.
She pushed
herself forward, upwards, let herself fly, falling a little as her small warm
body melded with the forces around her. She swam through the night. It was dark
blue, balmy and still.
Her sonar told
her where the rapists lived. That was her purpose; she was exquisitely
engineered, after all.
She knew where
they were: the abusers, the subtle mind-fuckers who make you think it’s your
fault. ‘You’re mad.’ ‘You’re paranoid.’ ‘You’re fucked up.’ Tapping a finger to
their temple.
IV.
When she stood on the first man’s
balcony, he saw a young blonde in thigh high black boots. Her hair was long,
her waist small, of course.
‘Who are you?’ he whispered.
‘I’m Kinky Freedom. Raped crusader,’ she added with a post-modern shrug.
He heard the
word but still he grinned. (They don’t recognise themselves. ‘Rapist? Me?’ ‘You’re
mad!’ Tap, tap.) He still thinks he’s special and he’s going to get a fuck from
this chick at his window. But Kinky does something grand and bat-like: she shows
her teeth and emits a piercing screech, bestowing upon him large floppy breasts,
and a vagina with pubic hair like a beard. He’s obsessed with getting Brazilian
waxes and wonders if his labia minora should hang out like that. Is it vulgar? He wants to know, flicking
desperately through another copy of Playboy.
Next she found
the one who repeatedly had sex with his daughter. Once nothing more than a
little blonde doll, she now gives blowjobs to her classmates and they tell her
they hate her. Kinky gives him nightmares he cannot enunciate, and an inexplicable
urge to sleep with men that will humiliate him.
The one who held
his girlfriend down and fucked her in the ass gets low self-esteem – a mundane
insecurity – because there’s nothing worse than being average.
V.
Kinky used to bring home mute 22-year-olds
with delicate curls and mallowy lips. Or she drank margaritas and cough syrup
and spun to disco anthems. But these days she just takes off her boots, undoes
her corset and sits on her windowsill to watch the sun rise from behind the
apartment blocks.
In rooms across the city, women
have grown fur. They are curling their toes around curtain rods, towel rails,
inside wardrobes. They’re wrapping their mink wings about themselves; their
kits hang beside them, purring with milky, fermenting breath. The bat-women
smile in their safe, daylight sleep.
In those other
apartments, Kinky’s men get up. They shower, shaving their legs and armpits and
hairy vaginas. They mop their blood. They go to work, wiping their runny, teary
eyes. Today they can see how it feels to be hated and lied to and feared.
by Tanya Davies