Jamie Joy Gatto   is a New Orleans writer who's short fiction has appeared in Black Sheets, The Unmade Bed: Twentieth Century Erotica, and most recently in Best Bisexual Erotica 2000. More of her work is scheduled to appear in Unlimited Desires: an International Anthology of Bisexual Erotica. She also writes an alternative sexuality advice column for Scarlet Letters called "Power Principles". Her fascination with sex and death has lead her to write unusual, psychological erotica which will be included in the forthcoming Tears on Black Roses and the zine Parchment Symbols. Read on for a taste of her new self-titled genre,"sexnoir". 

Correspond with Jamie Joy Gatto 

Water Fall
by Jamie Joy Gatto

When he kissed me as I slept, I opened my eyes, or so I dreamt I did, and looked up into dark, shallow waters, where I saw him as a smooth, hairless, man-headed snake wrapping softly around me. The sun glistened through the black surface of the water and broke into golden prismatic showers, which highlighted the subtle variegations coloring the scales on his face and arms, which had suddenly broken away from his long, solid body and into two separate limbs that embraced me. His scales were almost black, but his kind eyes remained an earthly brilliant blue. In the darkness of my half-sleep, I could feel him kissing me all over my face, his lips wet and cold, my face and eyes hot from tears became cool and comforted with his touch. My hair that had stuck to my cheeks in strands, moist from sweat, was then suddenly smoothed as his large, gentle hands washed over my face and head. My mouth opened to take his into mine, to take his hungry tongue, his liquid lips rushing into mine. I could not wake up, nor did I want to. 

I had been crying in my sleep again, apparently sobbing loud enough to wake Russ sleeping next to me in my bed, calling him with my unconscious need for protection, consolation, and he was right there. I could feel him kissing me, holding me, and my body fully responded, my lips opened to meet his, yet I couldn't open my eyes, couldn't commit to full consciousness, couldn't pull myself from the depths of exhausted slumber. I didn't want to leave the water of my dreams. It had been four days since Mona drowned, two days since the funeral, five days since I'd last been with her. I couldn't bear to think of her body still there, still somewhere out there in the cold, brackish waters of Lake Pontchartrain. I wondered if she'd made it out to The Gulf of Mexico. 

Without Russ, without his care and kindness, I would not have had the strength to even feed or bathe myself. I had been lying in bed for three days with little to eat and suffering from almost narcoleptic fits of broken sleep brought on by the wear of weeping, and then, only abiding sleep shattered with intense dreams, always dreams of water. In water, I was safe. 

When there were no tears left, I felt an unfailing sadness and the distinct feeling that something was very wrong, terribly wrong. If Mona could fall into water and never return, then certainly anything in this life was questionable. I expected a ghost, at least, instead there was silence. And so I slept. 

The crisp cotton bed linens grew from under and around my body to become fluid green strands of seaweed weaving their fleshy, feathery fronds through my limbs, tangling gently in my hair, brushing along my skin as they seemed to probe at my body in wispy strokes, finding their way in between my legs to the place where my vulva should have been, but it felt as if it were no longer, where the long strands should have been able to probe and reach their plumed tips to tickle my clit and enter my walls, though it felt as if a hot mitt had covered my organs, so hot, growing hotter. 

I wriggled in my liquid sea bed, trying to mentally open my cunt to take the cool strands in, feeling the need to let myself be filled with healing waters, want washing over me like the hand of Hygeia, along with the strange, benevolent fingers of the benign green life form. Finally, the hot barrier covering my cunt burst forth, cold water rushed in to soothe the sexual ache. I wanted to take them all into me, let each long strand find me, fuck me, let each one clean me out, wash my transgressions away with a shower of my come mixed with salt water flowing from me like the tides, to let the sea foam seed my own private ocean, to make little Venus' come to life in the lovely shape of Mona. I felt myself coming, bubbles rising in my belly, shivering up inside of me, my clit spasmed from sheer pleasure. Suddenly, there they were, Monas all around me, Monas rising up and opening out from nacreous shells, nude Monas standing on of a bed of open oysters, the feeling of her was right there with me once again, lots of Monas smiling, opening their lips as if to speak but never saying anything. 

Consciousness yanked me from my sea of dreams. It was almost dawn; the sky was the deep, eggplant shade of a bruise. I awoke to find the flat sheet completely wrapped around me, constricting my lower legs into a rigid mummy-like pose. My flannel gown was wedged between my legs and stuffed tightly into my damp crotch. Russ was there in bed with me, sleeping on his back without covers, lightly snoring, one kind hand reached out toward me, almost touching my face. As I began to unwind myself from the tangle of sheets, morning began to color the room and us both a promising shade of blue. 

My stomach rumbled, the first sign of life within my body in days. I actually felt hunger. I smiled to myself, happy to be feeling anything other than loss. I reached over to touch his face; he smiled a little, still sleeping. I thought of Mona: the days we spent doing nothing together, comfortable enough with one another not to have to speak, able to be with each other without questions, without feeling the need to be entertaining, no expectations, no lies. Sex with Mona was like sex with myself. I knew her so well, I could anticipate her reaction, I could feel what she would feel, and I did. With my hand inside her and my mouth upon her, our bodies so different in shape and dimension, yet still the same, we were in fact one, and in that moment, I often wondered if I were real. 

Watching Russ sleep gave me a weak sense of peace; like a transparent veil, the feeling fell over me, but did not warm me, it left me feeling somehow incomplete. If I trusted myself enough to love him as much as I loved Mona, would he be snatched away as fast as one day? Would he fall to his death the way she had done, without a trace, not even a plastic-coated dolled-up body to mourn in a casket? Who would care for me then? Maybe I, too would die. I pressed my eyes shut and tried to think of what being dead might feel like. Maybe I'd be happy, maybe I'd feel nothing at all. 

The dream washed over me as fast as I could lie still and close my eyes. With dawn's light filtering through the room, I could barely discern the dream from the color of red the sun's light created on my closed lids. And there I was, surrounded by sparkling red water: water so fresh and pure that it felt as if it were filled with powerful energy, bright red shimmering waves of this energy spread through me as I swam, freely floating, turning somersaults like a child, suspended and held from all around like a pair of warm, fluid hands, gravity be damned. I frolicked and rolled, tumbling in smooth, carefree circles until my head felt dizzy. The lightheadedness evened out, then rose into a strange, heightened euphoria. Then I heard it, the lulling sound, the thumping, constant, metered beating that synchronized with my own heart's beat. I was a child within the womb, and I finally slept, thumb in mouth, sucking rhythmically, finding my peace in the haven of total darkness, finally free of death, free of dreams. 

Copyright © 2000 Jamie Joy Gatto. All rights reserved.

Copyright © 2000 Mind Caviar. All rights reserved. Mind Caviar is a trademark of Two Blondes Productions.