Female Mantis

****

“Privalov, are you an idiot? Are you an idiot, Privalov?”

No, he’s finally gotten on my last nerve: hunched over the computer, snorting with pleasure, stuffing his face and smearing himself with mayonnaise from a sandwich.

“Whose plane leaves in three hours? Mine?”

My mother-in-law keeps starting up about grandchildren. Dumped her overgrown child on me and is happy, and now I’m the one who has to suffer. Some people shouldn’t be allowed to reproduce at all, so they don’t pollute the gene pool with defective material.

“Lerk, Lerk, just look!”

He cranked the sound to full: on the screen, a bug with bulging eyes and a ghastly look crunched noisily on a green creature just like itself. The spectacle, I had to admit, was mesmerizing. So lively, and with a kind of childish immediacy.

“The female mantis bites the male’s head off after mating!”

“Don’t forget your suitcase, young naturalist!”

“No, but do you get it!” I hadn’t seen Privalov this inspired in ages. Since he got the Master badge in his tank game. “She doesn’t even eat the male every time, only in fifty percent of cases. So that means he didn’t satisfy her, right? Morally or physically, I wonder?”

“You should talk less during sex…”

“No, but how’s he supposed to know? She’s so uncommunicative. Quiet, you could say, modest…”

“Privalov, stop burdening me with your cockroaches—the call of duty beckons, travel allowances are weeping.”

“They’re not cockroaches, they’re mantises,” he pouted, dropping his slippers in the hallway. “You’re an insensitive woman, Valeria. There’s no spirituality or flight of thought in you.”

“If you don’t leave in five minutes, I’ll bite you myself,” I promised darkly.

The dialogue, as usual, threatened to drag on forever, bogging down in philosophical thickets about global good and universal injustice.

I shoved the laptop bag into his hands right on the doorstep. A hurried “smack-smack” and we parted, hoping to temper our characters in separation, strengthen our feelings, and stock up on patience for further family life. Privalov gets sent on business trips regularly, so as far as patience goes, we’re already well trained.

I went back into the room and sat at the desk. On the monitor, the bulging-eyed monster was frozen mid-frame. I shuddered. Minimizing the image, I read the caption under the clip:

“Female mantises happily eat their boyfriends, but not before the latter manage to pass on their genes to the next generation.

For the most part, female mantises eat their partners immediately after mating. Entomologists believe that male insects even want this. In this way they provide the mother of their children with food and thus give their offspring a better chance of survival.”

Blah-blah-blah, blah-blah-blah, blah-blah-blah.

Ugh… disgusting.

I turned off the computer and went to the bathroom.

When Privalov leaves, I still sleep on my side of the bed. Habit. Even when he’s home and sitting at the computer almost until dawn. At the beginning of our life together, his hissing nighttime hysterics about how I’d warmed his pillow and now the poor, miserable creature wouldn’t fall asleep until morning, suffering from the unbearable cruelty of evil Lerks, almost amused me. Then I gave up—sound sleep is the basis of health and longevity, after all, so I stopped giving advice about where he could stick his pillow.

“I have to get up early tomorrow,” I muttered out of habit when I felt his hand demandingly slip under my nightgown. “Privalov, what—did you miss your flight?”

I woke up fully and jerked, trying in the dark to kick my beloved husband with my heel. His lips covered my mouth, and his body pressed down on me, pushing me into the mattress.

“The flight got delayed,” he murmured when I stopped struggling. “Until morning…”

That’s Privalov all over. He’s always unbelievably unlucky with trains, planes, buses, kayaks, and canoes. He used to scare me half to death with these nighttime returns, but then I got used to them and even began to see a certain charm in them. On such nights Privalov would be especially gentle and passionate, having sex with focused, methodical purpose, as if everything he was doing with me were an important part of his favorite job.

I relaxed, and he let my palms feel his damp skin, as if fresh from the shower.

Privalov slept like a puppy, nose buried in the pillow, and I swayed softly on waves of drowsiness, gradually sinking into sleep full of stirring images and visions. The phone on the nightstand vibrated unpleasantly.

“Yeah…” I whispered, still smiling the satisfied smile of a cat that had eaten its fill of rich cream.

“Lerk!” Privalov shouted cheerfully from the phone. “Can you believe it, our flight got delayed! Until morning! We sat in a café with the guys for a bit! But don’t worry—I’m fine!”

I listened stupidly to the voice from the tiny speaker, realizing that right now, at this very moment, something monumental and unshakeable had collapsed and flattened me. The thing my fragile, unreliable world had rested on. I felt the weight of a man’s hand lying on my stomach. Cold sweat broke out. Somewhere inside, an icy snake stirred, settling in more comfortably.

“Lerk!” Privalov yelled louder. “Can you hear me!? I bought you a keychain!”

“Yeah…” I croaked.

“Who’s that?” came Privalov’s dissatisfied voice beside me.

“Th-that’s… Lyuska,” I felt the hand on me tense. “She’s with the girls, at a club…”

“I’m not in a club!” Privalov barked again into the phone. “I’m at the airport!”

“Yeah, of course,” I muttered, while my thoughts raced in panic, smashing into a stone wall of horror. My arms and legs went numb. “I’m just…”

“Well, that’s it! Bye!”

Short beeps echoed in the bedroom silence. I clenched the mobile. My chin trembled.

“Everything okay?” Privalov gently stroked my thigh.

“Everything…” I exhaled and squeezed my eyes shut. “I need to…”

I jerked, but froze when I felt the ring of arms tighten around my waist. Iron.

“We’re not finished yet… You’ve rested?”

He moved almost flush against me. I could feel his arousal again. I wanted to scream. My heart pounded like mad.

“I’ve rested… but I… I need to…”

The arm holding me loosened. Trying not to rush, I carefully slid off the bed and, without looking back, went to the door. Out in the hallway, barely breathing, I tiptoed to the exit. Unruly fingers fumbled for the lock in the dark, and my huge fluttering heart seemed to fill my whole chest. Nausea rose in my throat.

“What are you doing?” a calm voice sounded behind me, and the light above flicked on. I froze, almost sobbing in despair.

“I… I thought you didn’t lock the door…”

“Don’t worry…” he jingled keys. “Even locked the bottom bolt…”

I slowly turned around. He stood in the bedroom doorway. Naked, his damp, glossy skin gleaming. Tousled hair the color of stale straw, gray eyes, the appendectomy scar… Privalov… I’d gone mad…

“Don’t be long.”

“I need to call,” I mumbled.

“Sorry, I bumped into it,” he said calmly. Two halves of the casing and some little parts fell to the floor. It looked as if a tractor had run over my phone. “Oops…”

“I’m going to the shower.”

Carefully placing one foot after another, I shuffled into the bathroom, turned on the water, and clamped my hands over my mouth, trying to muffle my sobs.

“Darling?” someone scratched insistently at the door.

Darling? Darling!?

“Just a minute!” My voice broke into a falsetto.

I frantically rummaged in the dust under the tub, tossing aside a plunger, some filthy jars, an old stubby broom…

“Sweetheart…”

He seemed to be losing patience; the flimsy door shook.

“Just a minute!”

My fingers touched something cold…

“…Privalov, are you an idiot? Why do you need an axe?”

“What if a zombie apocalypse suddenly happens? Imagine: enemies all around, and I’ve got an axe! You’ll thank me someday!”

With a horrible scrape, the axe slid out from under the tub. An ordinary one—from a hardware store. At first Privalov had run around with it like a cherished toy, even taking it to bed until I threw a fit. Offended, the head of the family, defender of the oppressed and downtrodden, dragged it to the bathroom, muttering about black ingratitude. Now the handle was darkened with mold, but the blade still looked menacing.

Another blow shook the door.

The axe was fairly heavy. Gripping the handle with both hands, I raised it for a swing.

Another strike tore the door off its hinges, and a naked figure of Privalov appeared in the doorway. Brushing aside the falling door like a fly, he calmly looked at me.

“Come on.”

“Who are you!?” I choked out. “Don’t come closer, freak!”

“You’ll like it,” he looked me straight in the eyes. “You always did.”

“Get out!” my hands trembled from tension. “Get the hell out!”

“Soon it’ll be morning,” he said. “And we’re not finished yet.”

A note of reproach flickered in his voice. Sweat stung my eyes. My knees trembled.

“Don’t come closer!” I shrieked, raising the axe overhead. A little more and I’d break. My lower back ached.

“Darling…” he took another step.

I sobbed.

“Dear…” he looked into my eyes.

“Don’t come closerrr!!!”

“We don’t have much time…”

His face shifted subtly, as if a rubber mask had crumpled. He took a step… And then I saw it… It bulged, rolling under the skin, flowing across his chest to the arm reaching toward me… Not an arm—a tentacle covered in dirty brown slime burst through the splitting skin and lunged at me.

I squeezed my eyes shut. My hands holding the axe dropped, pulled by its weight. With a wet thud the blade sank into yielding flesh. Something warm splashed my face. I cracked my eyes open. The axe stuck out of his shoulder. The tentacle writhed, trying to grab the handle. It jerked and contracted like a huge segmented worm. The monster with Privalov’s face calmly looked at the embedded blade, from under which thick dark-green ooze flowed. I pulled the axe toward me. It came free surprisingly easily. A tearing sound followed, like a knife ripping through a wet foam mattress. The creature’s skin split, exposing something shifting, chirring, formless, like a huge knot of yellowish, intertwining, glossy tendrils. They quivered wetly, reaching toward me with their blind, squelching snouts, oozing purulent slime.

I screamed. I shrieked, striking without looking, anywhere. Something slimy and disgusting squelched under my bare feet, and the axe handle grew wet, slipping in my cramped fingers. I stopped only when I was completely exhausted, my body numb with strain. Dropping the axe into the gelatinous heap at my feet, I stared at the slime splattered on the walls. My dirty nightgown clung to my body, and foul bubbling muck ran down my hair. Heavy drops fell onto my chest. I collapsed to my knees, smearing across my face a mixture of sweat, tears, and what remained of Privalov.

I have no idea how long I sat like that. The apathy receded as suddenly as it had come. My legs were numb, and to stand I had to grab the edge of the tub. I looked at my hands, then for some reason licked the sticky, viscous mass covering them and, stepping over the dark-green substance spread across the floor, went into the hallway.

A few hours later only the mangled bathroom door, leaning forlornly against the wall, reminded me of what had happened. I simply flushed the green gelatinous mess down the toilet, watching each portion of the porous, loose, already decomposing filth go with satisfaction. Then I spent half a day scrubbing the tub and hallway of the stinking slime. After a moment’s thought, I burned the nightshirt in the kitchen sink. I watched the fire, feeling a strange sucking emptiness inside. I closed my eyes and saw my hands plunging into the viscous dark-green goo. I relished the coolness, softness, and pliancy. I clenched my fists, and the gel-like mass slid through my fingers, causing a convulsive desire to scoop it up by the handful and greedily devour it, gulping and spitting, burying my face in my palms. Again and again. The formless, faceless something drew me in, dissolving me, making me part of something larger.

I vomited straight into the sink onto the remains of the nightshirt.

I hadn’t slept for two days. Or three. I wasn’t tired. My own reflection irritated me. I covered the mirrors with sheets. Only the dark, blank plasma screen showed the figure curled on the edge of the couch. My figure. I didn’t move. Didn’t think. Didn’t eat. I stared and stared at my own dark, vague shadow crouched in the corner of the screen, waiting for it to get up and walk away while I remained lying there…

The nasty buzz of the intercom broke the cozy silence.

“Lerk! Open up!”

Twelfth floor. I pressed the button and leaned my forehead against the cool door. From the outside we’re people. But look inside—and suddenly you might find a hamster, a gopher, a lion, or a hyena hiding there… Or a woodpecker… Or a mantis. Some particularly gifted ones even have a female. And she needs to be fed.

“There are several opinions about female mantises eating males.

1. The female eats the male deliberately; by biting off his head, his movements quicken, thereby increasing the amount of sperm transferred to the female.

2. Such behavior is explained by the need for a large amount of protein for egg development; females have to resort to this type of prey.

3. And a third version, where the mantis may remain alive if he’s lucky.”

Idiots. Idiots! Got it? The female mantis is simply curious about what they all have inside!

The door handle turned, the lock clicked. I stepped back and raised the axe.