Poltergeist – German origin, “knocking ghost”.
You’re not going to believe me, but we got geisted, geisted good and hard. But before we get into that, why don’t we start from scratch.
I’ve never been a fan of fabrics that conceal—shower curtains especially, for all the obvious insert-horror-film-scene-here reasons, but I don’t like my windows covered either; so I suppose, yeah, my beef lies exclusively with curtains. Lace, cotton, silk, the fabric itself doesn’t matter; it’s the veil they create that I don’t trust. The inherent secrecy. If there’s a window, I want to see beyond the glass; I shouldn’t have to peel a wrinkled burlap sack off the pane to see my front lawn. That’s the whole purpose of the window—to let me look out without feeling trapped inside—which let’s face it, most days, we are in one sense or another. I don’t want the distorted cottony view; I want the unadulterated green of suburbia, the fresh sunrise shooting straight through, obliterating my retinas. It’s better than a piping hot double espresso, I kid you not.
But here’s the thing. I got married last month (thank you, thank you, I know it’s great but please get a grip and hold your applause so that I can continue without further interruption). Anyway, one of the compromises my wife insisted I make—well now that I think about it, it’s the only one—is that we put up some g-d drapes in this naked house. I just so happened to prefer it barren, but that’s what my sex life’s going to become if I don’t cooperate, and we can’t have that. I don’t have to tell you why. You get it.
Untended urges lead down dark paths. Okay, there, I went and told you.
*
The second we came home from the honeymoon, she dove headfirst into this manic project—sculpted a whole week out of jotting down the window dimensions, dragging us to every store in a fifty-mile radius that sold fabrics, rings, and rods. All the accoutrements, you get the picture. She was happier than a ref in the World Cup final to make the calls, and I was happy to let her, happy, in the interest of total honesty, to be relieved of this high-stakes hassle. My wife spent half our time abroad admiring gauche floral sun dresses, anyway, dreaming of the perfect discreet manner in which she could successfully strip them off the tourists she was spying on without them noticing. Hell, I’m pretty sure she, given the chance, would’ve hung them in the windows as is, bodies included.
She dreamt of sheer perfection and wasted many of our beachside hours running her fingers down her own dresses—manipulating the folds of the fabric until all the tension, ridges, and rivulets met her many, many tough-to-please standards.
Watching her sit there in that trancelike state, it occurred to me, that okay, maybe she’s a little loony. I know, I know, we’re not supposed to say that nowadays (sure as hell shouldn’t be devoting it to a fresh-from-the-church spouse), but please, allow me to demonstrate my point—the woman was obsessed.
And it didn’t stop there. Things were about to get a lot weirder.
Look, we’d tied the proverbial knot already, what was I supposed to do? To be honest, I’m shocked she didn’t insist on sporting a sheer voile as her wedding gown. I half-expected her to shapeshift into a curtain herself; one minute, she’d be standing there beside me, and the next, merrily swaying in the window.
Okay, so fast forward to a literal warehouse of boxes popping up on our front porch, as if we’d just become major investors in Walmart and now were stuck housing a percentage of their merchandise to prove our loyalty beyond financial measures. Don’t mention this to her, but it felt as though we’d become hoarders overnight; cardboard and curtains sprawled all over my once-pristine, modest residence.
You should’ve seen her when that first box arrived though. Her eyes were downright glowing, but it didn’t stop there; you could see the jittery anticipation extend over her inflated cheeks and bottom-bit lip. She gutted that first box like some fresh-caught bass, turned her attention to me, and insisted we christen the curtains she clenched, slimy guts dripping out between her knuckles. Yes, it’s precisely what you’re imagining, and yes, there was a peculiar and unsettling urgency to it, but I wasn’t about to protest. Besides, she was still clutching the box cutter; my cardboard skin might’ve been next. She spread the daisy-ridden black panel out onto the hardwood in front of our parlor’s gaping three-pane window, disrobed, and beckoned me over.
I hate to admit it now, but the first thing I noticed then was how cute she looked wrapped up like a steamy, fleshy burrito. And to be quite frank with you, I was hungry. So, go ahead and sue me if you’re going to, but I slept with my wife right there for all the world to see. And we weren’t concerned with hiding what was happening. Quite the opposite. Our circus-level efforts were on proud display.
Night after night, we kept going at it, repeating the process at every other window in the house. Same exact order, she’d slice open a box and sprawl across the floor, waiting for me to follow her into the folds of our newly wedded passion.
Sure, it was weird as hell, there was no denying that, but something about it got me going. Yes, there was nudity, yes, sure, cleavage, that’s always a contributing factor, but there was something about this eerie-yet-alluring act of her formally marrying us to our domestic décor that roused me into a frenzy. And hey, it’s not my fault she went with silk and handpicked every bold color that accentuated her exposed skin. She had a real knack for it, let me tell you. Almost like she’d been born to seduce.
Anyway, who says fabric can’t be erotic? It succeeds when it’s on the body so why not off? She was opening me up to this new world, which sure as hell made me appreciate the rooms in our home that much more…here’s where we…and over there’s where we…
Use your imagination, you creep. I’m not spilling the in-between-the-sheets deets of our sex life. Some sense of privacy, for my sanity and your own, must be maintained.
But let’s just say, the curtains quickly morphed into these beautiful manifestations of our love; they even started to look infused with it, as though someone had sewn our passion on and now we got to admire our disembodied desire. Our bodies, too, began to feel embroidered, and we came to recognize each meticulous, sensual stitch in each other’s skin.
*
But surprise, surprise, the bliss didn’t last. It never does.
The very second the last window was covered and christened, our marathon of lovemaking ceased. But the memories we’d forged were still there and still very much present; I wasted countless hours watching them drift around in the light breeze from the cracked windows, taunting me as reminders of happier days.
Even worse, when I tried to reminisce with her, she acted as if none of it ever happened, as if we hadn’t spent hours upon hours wrapped up together in those curtains like tousled sheets. I pleaded and pleaded with her. Couldn’t we reupholster every piece of furniture in the house too? There has to be some other project you’re willing to pursue. I craved her, craved her interior design expertise, needed her to continue injecting color and life into me, this renovated bachelor.
The changes weren’t restricted to her new lack of arousal though. As soon as we were done with what she set out to do, the house knew, too. I started hearing all these disembodied knocks on the walls. Thick thuds left by enraged fists.
As if the curtains remembered.
She insisted I was losing it. We’ve never made love on the floor, that’s ridiculous.
She was so emphatically insistent that I started questioning the durability of my own sanity. I was certain that’s how our marriage had begun. A thousand percent certain, but this new phase was so drastically different that I could no longer claim to know much of anything.
And the knocks grew worse. Louder.
Closer.
They started to keep me up at night, and I got the sense that they siphoned enjoyment from my sleep deprivation, whatever they were. It started playful but soon developed a malignant twist. The second I grew sleepy enough to conk out, there it was. A loud knock on the headboard, directly above my forehead. Followed by one on the slab at my feet.
The knocks would continue, climbing up to the ceiling, knocking every second or so but with no reliable regularity—like a broken metronome.
It was maddening. Some were soft and enticing, the next thunderous and threatening.
I told my wife the house was unhappy with us, displeased with her sudden disinterest and the resulting lack of fornication. I mean, as you know, I was too, but the house was more adept at verbalizing its needs. It didn’t wait around for a well-timed opportunity to vocalize its concerns, didn’t waste energy trying to placate her sour moods. It wailed like a toddler with a perpetual tantrum, and I was the lone parent left to tend to the sobs, the screams, and all the pounding, pounding, pounding.
My wife went about her life as if nothing had changed, everything was normal, went on as if her sex drive had been permanently sated, almost as if she’d never possessed one to begin with.
Meanwhile, the house proceeded to grow worse…and worse…
What started as knocks, soon departed the auditory realm and grew physical.
Those damn curtains started to mess with me. Whenever my wife wasn’t looking or I found myself alone in a room, they’d slither around my wrist, grab at my hair, brush the nape of my neck—each and every place neglected since the fabrics were first hung. It was as though our love itself had been exorcised and now hung there in the window, on display for the benefit of the neighborhood but never again for us ourselves. Maybe that’d been the crux of her intention all along—staging appearances.
And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit to some arousal, but it was a biological response, plain and simple; I couldn’t help it, couldn’t control it. All those now-distant memories had me stopping and staring at the drapes any time I entered a room. Hell, I could still see my wife’s naked frame cozily swirled in their folds, can you blame me for half-expecting her to pop out from behind?
The imagination and the subconscious get unruly. Unmet needs, as I’ve said.
So yes, the curtains were nice for a time, but not for any of the reasons we anticipated. She was right, they improved the aesthetic of the place, but don’t you dare tell her I said that.
I was deprived. Deprived of attention, touch, affection, you name it, I craved it. So please, I’m begging you, don’t judge me too hard for what happened next.
*
It was months later, when our dry spell had ceased to be a spell and had expanded into a massive, barren desert—wrinkled sand every which way you look with no end in sight. I loved my wife with such ferocity, but bodies have basic needs and when those needs go not just unmet but to the point of complete neglect, well…
I walked into the living room one night and spotted her diaphanous, lace-clad figure standing there looking out into the backyard. I approached and went to lean in, but as I did, the mirage of her dissolved into the maroon drapes we’d hung together so long ago. But I still felt her presence, somehow, still felt her there with me, as she’d been back then.
There was a firm knock on the wall; it made a hollow echo.
It happened again and again, until the repetition grew insistent. Demanding. Forceful.
Next thing I know, the bloody fabric’s got me, anaconda-coiled around my waist. Slams me up against the wall, cracking the plaster, cracking my skull. But I let it happen. That same desire, all those urges I’d been swallowing for months was there, blooming. I felt it in the room, same as anything, and it matched the sentiments I carried—but with an aggression I’d ignored up until now.
It made me realize, I was mad. All this time, I’d been resenting my wife, whom I still considered brand new, wishing she was under warranty, or that I was under literally any other circumstance at the moment.
All that angst got the better of me and I yanked the drapes off, let the rod clatter upon the floor. I wanted my window view back. I wanted my wife back, my contentment, my satisfaction. All of it.
But they fought back. Knocked me against the wall again and again until they’d had their way, and I’d be lying if I said there wasn’t a part of me that found substantial relief from the whole thing.
I felt exorcised. It didn’t matter that my nose was smashed, didn’t matter that there was blood trailing down my chin and neck and onto what had until now been a stain-free shirt. Whatever drops were atop the drapes, you couldn’t see them; the color match was out of this world, as if she’d foreseen this too.
I passed in and out of consciousness to that same tiresome repetition of fists hammering, pounding, slamming, nailing me into the ground, pummeling my existence out of me and into the floorboards for all I knew, but I was so starved for physical attention that the only thing I could think in my mind was, thank you, thank you, thank you, and I looked up out the window admiring the snow falling, flakes glittering against the warm glow stemming from the porch light, and I lay there, overwhelmed by a wave of gratitude of all things, and the release of everything in my spirit that had been so unbelievably pent up, jammed, and congested. Despite the brutality of my reality, there was a downright spiritual stillness to the moment, an undeniable warmth in that instant of peace, and my adrenaline, lucky me, was still high enough to block out all the pain, shame, and heartbreak that’d inevitably follow, crashing into me as though the entire structure of the house had collapsed and buried me beneath.