When Lilith Winds it Tight
By Mouran Boutros
Adam's wife, his first. Beware of her.
Her beauty's one boast is her dangerous hair.
When Lilith winds it tight around young men
She doesn't soon let go of them again.
From Faust: The First Part of the Tragedy
“I was afraid of her. Noise would erupt with her whispers in my ears and now she is gone. I am alone and it’s because of you, because of all of you,” Adam said to Nick on a bright morning. Nick, Adam’s literary agent, had no idea what really happened. As far as he was concerned, this was a simple story. Adam was just another example of a new author that started out promising and ended up disappointing.
Nick looked around Adam’s duplex apartment. A crust of dust layered the parquet floor’s usually spick and span polish. A litter of clothing reinforced the door that Nick had to break open because Adam wouldn’t answer the door. Across the hall, blood underscored Adam’s gothic replica paintings with five irregular lines. In the living room, shards of glass sparkled across the floor when Nick dragged open the heavy curtains that blotted out the sun. Rotten food and dirty dishes littered the kitchen’s bar.
A fog of dust lingered in the path of light that focused in through the window and shone a spotlight on Adam who was hunched down on his knees. He was unrecognizable, his face barely visible under a thick auburn beard and greasy long hair. His deep blue eyes had turned into overripe purple figs. His tattered shirt was marked with what Nick thought to be wine stains. Adam was a shell of his former self and he reeked foul.
Nick could no longer hold in his frustration. Looking at Adam with a mix of disdain and pity, he finally said, “This is some metamorphosis, Adam. If you were aiming for the starving artist look, you certainly hit the mark.”
It was clear to Nick that Adam had gone mad. But the story was not so simple. It began months ago on Valentine’s Day.
***
A slim vase of clear glass held a long lone red rose close to the stem in the middle of the round table in Adam’s living room. Champagne on ice and a china-plate full of chocolate truffles seconded the vase. It was a day of celebration for Adam and it had nothing to do with Valentine the Saint or romance. The façade on the table had everything to do with his date.
As always, Adam had a clean-shaven look with his hair kept short. At twenty-five, he had numerous books on the shelf at his side that attested to his accomplishments. A year ago, he moved from his two-room apartment to the four-room duplex studio. He drove the latest Audi RS4; in mock pomp, he called it the fast and mean silvery machine.
Adam had plenty of reasons to celebrate. The date was only the cherry on the top of a long list of accomplishments. And what a cherry she was.
Her small flush lips nibbled at a truffle and her tongue caressed her lips clear of chocolate powder. She was a redhead with creamy skin flushed with freckles and slim to perfection. She was beauty itself dressed in a white shirt and a tight grey suit.
He raised his glass of champagne to her, his books, and career. He had made it and was still, in her words, “oh so young.”
He started writing at fifteen and by the age of eighteen, he began his first novel. At twenty, Adam inherited a small fortune from his deceased father and self-published his horror novel. A High to Remember was a macabre tale of lust for flesh. Eventually it caught on with readers and a publishing house offered to purchase the rights to the book. Two years later, he went on to finish a vampire tale obsessed with the artificial. Ornate had a complex plot that spanned centuries of changing fashion and 600 pages later, materialism still held sway. Adam made the bestseller lists at twenty-three. He followed Ornate with a sequel and his fans leaped at the chance to be seduced once more. His pulse suddenly quickened at the sound of his date moaning over her truffle.
She shut her eyes in orgasmic pretense and sighed when the chocolate melted and then gave out. She looked smart in her suit, her red hair stood out in contrast to the grey of her vest, and her face looked perfectly hand-drawn. Her nails gleamed with jet-black polish as she held her glass high in response to Adam’s toast.
Adam found the black nail polish extremely attractive when he first met her on Halloween. She was supposed to be a witch that night, although she looked nothing like one. She said that she wore the black polish for him on this occasion, but he knew she wore it because it was fashionable.
“Good thing you didn’t get licorice chocolate,” she taunted. “These are so much more, um what is the word?”
“Rousing,” he said, as he flashed his sly grin. She had to be in bed at midnight if she wanted to make her eight o’clock appointment at the spa. Adam’s night was only beginning but it was getting late for his date so he had to have her now. His thoughts were all too clear. You are rousing.
***
The next night Adam surfed on the Internet with little purpose. His new leather chair swallowed him in comfort as he sat gazing at the screen. After coming across an insulting review of his book, he lost all the elation he had built up on Valentine's. Suddenly, he missed his old chair, its familiar fade of grey fabric with two distinct cigarette burns. Most of all, he missed its small size and the discomfort.
Adam knew he missed writing, its frustrations and gratifications. He missed the discomfort of ignoring his hunger for food and over-indulging the hunger of his imagination. He missed the feel of smoking cigarettes and the stale taste of coffee gone cold. Most of all, he missed the ungovernable chaos he called his writing schedule - the odd hours and the sleepless nights.
It had been a year since he sat down for a real writing session. It was as if in overcoming his addiction to cigarettes, he lost his compulsive drive to write. Adam had blamed the loss on writer’s block. He knew that this was not entirely true, although he didn’t know the cause of his impotency. Frustrated, he packed his laptop, walked out of his home office, and went downstairs to fetch the keys to his mean silvery machine.
He revved the Audi RS4 on the highway with no particular destination in mind. Miles later he stopped at the first open café in sight. After a cream cheese bagel, Adam was ready to leave when he noticed a theatrical flyer underneath the table that read: Lilith the Succubus — a headline he repeated several times like a mantra.
He set his laptop on the table and ordered coffee. He knew that Lilith was supposed to be the biblical Adam’s first wife. No snake tempted her to fall from grace. It was her doing because she refused to submit. For that, she was to become a demon. The vampire succubus. His mind raced with the possibilities of such a character and thought: who better than another Adam to rewrite her story?
Adam was writing again. When he took a sip from his forgotten mug, he couldn’t suppress a whimsical smile at the stale taste of the coffee gone cold.
***
Nick was deliriously glad that Adam was writing again. He had sent Adam’s idea to the publishers and a few weeks ago they signed the book deal. Now Adam had a deadline to meet.
Adam focused on the screen and reread a scene, glad to be writing Lilith into existence. She was still an abstract idea, a perfect woman. But he struggled as he translated his thoughts into words. It had been two months since the night at the café. Since then he had been writing an average of ten hours a day. Lately, he did most of his writing during the night. He was precise and fast like his silvery machine.
Yet for all his perseverance, Lilith was a hard egg to crack open on the white pages of his screen. She was resistant to all of Adam’s advances. He had tried day and night, hour after hour. He placed her in the hustle and bustle of an ancient city in one scene, and while she seemed perceptive to the merchants, Adam, for the life of him, could not clearly see her. Lilith always resisted.
He tried her at her home. It was a house with no ceiling with a fourth wall missing. Two stone columns framed the two edges exposed by the missing wall. A coffin graced the interior like an altar. The house centered a lush valley. Above, stars glittered in the night sky. Lilith was a vampire and this was her eternal home. He gave her everything, Eden be damned.
At five in the morning, Adam gave in and went to sleep. He spread his hands and legs on the king-size bed. Within moments, darkness took his exhaustion and he sank into deep slumber.
Gone under, Lilith found Adam. She rose before him. Her skin was white in the dark and her rich black hair glistened against it. A black robe of silk folded around her like a toga. It twisted and turned as if of its own free will. In motion, it exposed glimpses of skin only to cloak back when Adam stared.
When she spread for him, he gasped. Abruptly, she clutched him. Her full weight pounced at his chest. He had to catch his breath, even in sleep. His eyes flickered under eyelids. He fought to wake up. Still she resisted. Adam, you have returned.
He forced his eyes open. Lilith was still riding him.
“Jesus!” he squealed.
Her laugh was melodic.
She leaned towards him. Her mouth hovered over his neck and then she whispered in his ear, “You know, I was there when he was crucified.”
He wanted to get up but exhaustion drained him. She drained him. Darkness took Adam once more.
***
When he awoke, she was gone. He limped out of bed drowsy but aware that it was late afternoon. He went downstairs to his kitchen; the ready-made coffee in his timed machine was already cold. He poured some and, looking at the mess of newspapers on the bar, he noticed a pack of cigarettes that Nick must have forgotten.
Later, he fidgeted with a cigarette that wouldn’t extinguish in the ashtray. Finished, he sipped some stale coffee. He sat in his home office facing the blank screen of his laptop. She was not real.
***
Well past midnight, Adam took the beating from the pressurized showerhead on his back with relish. He used his hands to steady himself on the opposite wall as if complying with arrest. With his eyes shut, he looked far beyond him onto a mountain trail that descended and twisted deep. Moonlight kept darkness at bay. A cliff signaled the end of the trail and revealed the sublime path of a precipice. Wind howled in crescendo as it filled the valley and the waterfall responded with bass booming as it smothered the rocks below. In reflex, his hands tensed in response to the intense drop. Then a melodic voice completed the song and he relaxed his grip. Adam, won’t you just fall.
Fall he did and in his mind many times over. His head throbbed with pain. Water poured down incessantly on his face. He jerked his face aside but the water kept pouring down and he thought he would drown. The water abruptly stopped.
“Calm Adam, I am not so cruel.” Lilith said.
He struggled to regain sight. The blur of light slowly focused into view. She wasn’t in sight. He was surprised that he had forgotten that he was taking a shower. Painfully he emerged from the tub and left the bathroom quickly when a feeling of claustrophobia threatened him.
Lilith was there on his bed. She raised her white hand and pointed towards him without staring. Her black cloak rustled as ripples waved towards her and she hovered off the bed.
Transfixed, he relinquished control as she led him downstairs. They stopped as he faced the round table in his living room. His manuscript, Lilith Revamped, circled the table in neat piles. Adam had arranged the story clockwise. Lilith rearranged the piles counterclockwise as she read through them. When Adam finally summoned up something to say, Lilith looked up intently and he turned mute. Then she said it.
“You will set me free.”
***
One month later, Adam sat at the same table in the café where he had found the theatrical flyer. His laptop and papers, coffee and bagel surrounded him. He had more visitations from Lilith, but none since he came here so he decided to make this quiet place a part of his new routine. Tonight he had been writing at a good pace. He reread the first line of his book. “No,” Lilith said to God.
Adam went outside when he craved a smoke. Suddenly vibrations struck his chest and fear paralyzed him. But then the digital tune of his cell calmed him down; his agent was on the line.
“Where have you been? I’ve been calling for weeks,” Nick said to Adam when he finally reached him on the phone.
“Relax, Nick.”
“You haven’t been staying locked up at home, have you?”
“I’ve been writing.”
“That’s good, Adam. That’s good. Keep up the good work, but listen, we need the changes to the Lilith character,” Nick stammered. When Adam didn’t reply, he pressed on.
“She is way out there, out of control, some controversy is good for marketing but…”
“I thought we liked pushing the envelope,” Adam cut in.
“We do, all I am saying is to clear your mind before you continue.”
Nothing could keep his mind off Lilith. He was a sacrificial host for one hungry leech and, what was worse, Adam liked giving her the attention she craved.
“No worries. I changed my routine.” He said.
“Glad to hear it, what’s going on with what’s her name, your redhead?”
Adam flicked his cigarette on the floor and exhaled a puff of smoke. Not even she could take his mind off Lilith. He assured Nick that there was nothing to worry about; his book was well on its way. Finished with the call, Adam flipped his phone shut.
When he looked before him, there was Lilith walking towards him. She was slimmer than before, but she still had those fiery dark eyes, the white skin and the black hair. In one sweeping motion, she pinned him with her knee in between his legs against the wall. Her right hand pressed hard on his chest. Her left hand caressed the back of his ear and neck.
“You are not real,” Adam said.
“Hush, lover,” Lilith murmured in his ear. “Come, let's go back home.”
“You are not real.”
“Then why are you taking me home?”
***
At night, Lilith was the mistress of the house. During the day, she was weakest. The more Adam made changes, the less she appeared. He was rewriting the last chapter late in the afternoon. Soon it would be nightfall.
A racket of noise erupted at midnight as he sat hard at work in his home office. He tensed, knowing retribution had arrived.
He stalled for time on his way downstairs only to find a feature about ravens playing on the television when he arrived. As he hunched down to turn off the TV, he heard what he knew was long coming, the voice of Lilith. “A bad omen if I ever saw one.”
His hair stood stiff and a chill loosened his back as he turned to find her standing by his round table, the slim vase in her hands. To his surprise, she looked exactly like the redhead.
“Stick with Eve, you can’t handle me.” Lilith said when she launched the vase to the ground. It shattered.
He dropped to the ground in disbelief. When he looked back up, Lilith was herself again.
“You will set me free,” she said, and with those words, she was gone.
Adam grasped a handful of the shattered glass tightly, hoping the sting would numb his pain.