NEEDLING
by Natalie Arita
North Carolina State University
Natalie Arita is a rising senior majoring in Creative Writing with minors in Professional Writing and Journalism at NC State University. After graduation, she intends to write in any professional capacity she can, but especially loves fiction writing and editing. This is her first story publication.
MELODY DOESN’T NEED TO LEAVE THE MANSION to know, with damning certainty, she can never find a better life than the one she leads within its walls. Every morning she wakes to the sight of her husband Hank’s face, beautiful even clouded with sleep, even with eye boogers and morning breath. He always grants her the most gracious smile as he unplugs her from her charging pod and takes her into his arms. Freshly charged, Melody feels bright and thrumming, her whole body coursing with blue electricity, ready for the day ahead.
This morning — like every other since Melody was switched on — Hank says, “Good morning, gorgeous,” and strokes her hair. It is never tangled or drab and always smells like apple; it is one of Hank’s favorite things about her. Melody knows because he tells her often: when he comes up behind her to sneak an arm around her waist while she cooks dinner, when they lay intertwined on the hammock in the backyard together, when he pulls on it while they have sex.
Melody leans back and stares up into Hank’s face. It is lined a bit with age, but no less stunning than when she first saw him. Hank has heavy eyebrows over gentle dark eyes over a bold nose over a clever mouth. He looks best when he’s laughing and looks worst when he’s stressed. It twists his features into something ugly and foreign, stone and ice.
But in the fragile yolk of morning light, he is sweet and sleep-ruffled. Melody is curious about what he was like as a boy, as she was never a girl — was tailor-made for the man in front of her. It’s because of this that she knows precisely what to say in response.
“Morning, handsome.”
*
Melody was created with exceptional ability in several arenas: cooking, cleaning, and knitting. The first two are practical and in service of Hank. His huge house was a pigsty before she turned it around. There were ominous stains marring the lavish furniture, dishes crusted with microwaveable meals piled in the sink, and mildewing laundry crumpled in the corners of Hank’s bedroom. After being switched on, Melody took to the mess at once. There was something hardwired in her that craved to make dirty things clean. The only room she avoids touching isn’t even a room, but a closet, the handle fit with a padlock. Melody had inquired about the contents of the closet once and Hank had brushed her off. She’d willed it from her mind ever since.
Knitting is something they programmed Melody with to make her more of an individual. It occupies her time once she’s done all of her other tasks and Hank is out of the house. Hank dedicated a whole room to her knitting, filled it with endless bundles of yarn in every color, every shade. Melody churns out scarves and sweaters and gloves and hats; in the winter Hank wraps himself in them before he leaves her. In the warmer months when he doesn’t wear them but Melody still wants to work, her pieces pile up like a wooly mountain in the center of the knitting room. Sometimes she knits fruits, little animals and flowers, but keeps these to herself, because she doesn’t really know why she does it if not for Hank to wear them.
Some days, Melody has no time to knit and instead spends hours crafting enticing, expansive dinners. Today is one of those days. She makes a roast so tender the meat melts off the bone, hand-mashed potatoes with thick gravy, green beans and honey butter rolls, blueberry pie. Hank has been stressed lately. He keeps coming home with tension in his shoulders and a deep frown. The emotion uglies him.
When the food is ready, Melody lays it out across the dining room table and lights the dinner candles. Hank will be home in a few minutes — there is some kind of clock in her, maybe, that knows instinctively when he will return.
While she waits, Melody looks at herself in the mirror.
This is somewhat of a guilty pleasure of hers. Melody knows she’s pretty, and what’s better is her beauty will never fade or warp or fall flat like the women in anti-age cream commercials on TV. Her skin is smooth and glowing as glass, her body soft and liquid as a river. She is always blushing; her eyes are always smiling even when her mouth is not. She is something to marvel at.
Melody takes a tube of red lipstick out of the pocket of her dress and leans in close to apply it. It is at this moment she notices something chilling, treacherous:
A single gray hair sprouting from her head, standing stark against rich brown.
The lipstick clatters to the marble floor, slashing blood-like across its gleaming surface. Melody reaches for the gray strand with a tremor in her fingers, touches it tentatively like she’s afraid it will shock her. It feels wiry. She shivers in revulsion.
This shouldn’t be possible. Melody is ageless, timeless, brought forth to be beautiful. She plucks the hair from her head, feels a sharp twinge at the root, and tucks the offending piece into her pocket. Then she rushes to rid the floor of lipstick before Hank arrives.
She’s still shaking when he walks in the front door, but tries to tamp the feeling down and plasters her most winning grin across her face. “Hi, sweetheart.”
He makes a beeline for her, cups her face in his strong hands and kisses her thoroughly. “I’ve been waiting to get back to you all day,” he says. His voice is deep in his throat, gravelly with want. He’s so alive like this. Melody touches his cheek and feels the prick of his stubble, the heat of him; she smells the remnants of his cologne and the sweat he’s collected throughout the day. “Was missing you something fierce.”
Melody laughs airily. “I’ve missed you too,” she says. It is true; it will never not be true, even when he’s stressed or tired. More than knitting, dreaming of his homecoming is what passes the time.
“Then let me have you,” Hank says quietly. This makes her laugh louder, realer, it bounces off the walls of the foyer.
“We at least have to eat dinner first,” she says.
“Who says?”
Melody peers up at Hank through her lashes, playing shy the way he loves. “Maybe I do.”
He throws his head back in frustration, pulls her closer by the curve of her waist. “C’mon, Mel,” he says. “It’s been such a hard day. I’m so wound-up from work — we’re thinking about doing some big renovations.”
Melody softens, gives in. She doesn’t have much of a choice, but she doesn’t want to say no, either, just sometimes likes to tease, to indulge the delusion that she has a say. Not that it matters — she likes being with Hank. It isn’t that it gives her so much pleasure or so much release, it’s more the feeling of being desired, being consumed. Hank pushes the pie aside and takes her on the dining room table. Melody tries to lose herself in the act, but the hair in her pocket — a secret between them — seems to weigh a thousand pounds. And she can’t help but pity her hard work covering the table, going cold.
*
When Melody opens her eyes the next day they find Hank’s face, but for the first time he isn’t smiling. He tugs her out of her charging pod with more force than usual.
“Is something wrong?” Melody asks. Hank won’t meet her eyes.
“No,” he says. He’s lying; Melody doesn’t know how she knows but she does. Something in her curdles at the thought of him being dishonest with her.
“I’m just running late to work, that’s all.” He swoops in to give her a kiss on the cheek, pulling back as quickly as he comes. His breath is cold mint, Melody realizes, and he’s dressed to leave. He’s waited to pull her from the pod at the last minute, like a dog from a cage.
“If there’s something wrong, please tell me and let me fix it,” Melody says. “Please.”
Hank smiles. It pulls too-tight at the corners of his mouth. “Don’t be ridiculous.” He runs a hand down her side, sexless and dispassionate. “I’ll see you later, yeah?”
Melody watches him leave in a haze, hears the heavy front door slam and echo through the empty house like the wail of a ghost. She has no choice, she figures, but to collect herself and go on with her day. She heads to the closet to put on a fresh outfit. Melody selects her best dress, the one Hank likes most, forest-green and form-fitting. As she reaches behind her to pull up the zipper, her arm aches in protest. She scowls and strains harder. Just as her fingers brush the metal of the zipper, she hears a tearing sound and pain erupts in her arm, ripping through her like fire.
The force of it leaves Melody collapsing to the floor, soundless in her agony. For several eternal minutes, she does no more than rock herself like a baby, willing the hurt to dissipate. When it does, that part of her arm feels numb and tingly, oddly cool.
She walks to the bathroom and switches on the light. Then she stands there for a moment in the doorframe, frozen.
It can’t be a big deal, Melody thinks. She steadies herself and steps in front of the mirror, twisting her arm to see the source of the pain.
The flawless ivory of her skin has been torn open, easy as paper mache. The thrum and pulse of her wires peek through. They spark like they’re winking, sharing an inside joke. This is what you are, they remind her.
Melody stares at the exposure blankly. She’s never longed to be human, but right now she thinks it would be a comfort to see herself bleed.
When Melody turns back to the bedroom she catches sight of the clock on Hank’s bedside table. It’s 8:15. She runs through the math in her head. He wasn’t running late — in fact, he’d be arriving at the office early.
*
The noise of the front door opening rings like heaven’s bells in Melody’s ears. She’s waiting for Hank like usual at the dining room table, breathing in the steam of the hot dishes before her. She’s made all of his favorites.
Melody can’t stand to be patient as Hank takes his time shedding his winter layers, putting his things down. She rushes to meet him at the door.
“Honey,” she says, “Hank. I’ve realized that — that there is something wrong.” Steeling herself, Melody moves the arm into view. She’d tried patching it together with tape but had done a shoddy job. “I sort of tore myself, I think, and I don’t know what to do.”
Hank’s eyes widen, not a lot, just enough to indicate his alarm. Still, he takes her into his arms. “It’ll be alright,” he says, singsong, the way you comfort a crying child. “Don’t worry. I’ll call the company and we’ll get you patched up in no time, yeah?”
The comfort of his touch relieves the tension Melody’s been carrying with her all day. She lets herself go loose in the security of his embrace. “Okay,” she says. She looks up into his face, searches it for any sign of the strangeness from earlier, but only finds warmth and concern. The tension from this morning must’ve been a fluke, and maybe he’d read the clock wrong. Humans, Melody knows, are prone to error.
Hank runs a hand through her hair, but it catches halfway through. His brows furrow. When he pulls his hand away, a clump of strands come with it. If Melody was capable of passing out, she figures now would be the time.
“Don’t worry,” Hank repeats. He shakes the hair off his hand; Melody watches it drift listlessly to the floor. “Now let’s eat dinner before it gets cold.”
*
Later that night, Melody and Hank sit in the living room together. She’s knitting and he’s reading the paper. Melody values small moments like this, where they exist in each other’s company casually. The fireplace is crackling, and as Melody’s charge depletes, a syrupy slowness begins to overtake her limbs.
The chime of Hank’s cell phone disrupts the peace. It’s the jingle he uses for phone calls, Melody knows. He digs it from his pocket.
“I’ll be just a moment,” he tells her. “Stay right here.” He hurries into his office and closes the door.
The order puts Melody on edge. Hank wouldn’t usually make such a demand, and Melody wouldn’t usually bother following him anyway. It’s this knowledge that sends her rising up from the couch, padding silently to his door. She presses close to the wood and strains her ears. Hank’s voice bleeds through, hushed and slow, almost lazy. Unusual for a work call.
She’s caught him on the tail end of a sentence. “. . . I know,” Hank says, “I know it’s early. It’s weird. She works hard — maybe too hard, though I can’t complain.” Someone on the line says something that makes him laugh.
A swooping in Melody’s gut, hard and sharp like she’s been hit with a bag of rocks. “I know we don’t do repairs,” Hank continues, “but I’ll mourn the sight of her underneath me. She had something real springy about her. And made a great blueberry pie.” More muffled response, more laughter.
“I know what to do. I’ll talk to you later.”
Melody, too dumbstruck to move away from the door, comes face-to-face with Hank when he opens it. He regards her warily. “Were you listening?”
She cannot bring herself to respond. Doesn’t know what she would say if she tried. Her mouth twitches dumbly, soundless.
“Hey,” Hank says, placing a hand on her shoulder. “Look at me.” Melody does. It is the gentleness still residing in the tar-dark of his eyes that moves her to madness. She feels as if she is waking in pieces from a long, hot dream.
“Know what to do?” Melody says. Her voice doesn’t come from her body; it is bloodlet from a source warped and unknown. A faint ringing in her ears, growing stronger. “What are you going to do to me?”
Hank levels her with a placating smile and squeezes her shoulder. “Honey,” he says, “sweetheart. Don’t worry. Do you think I’d hurt you?”
Melody looks at him, loves him. No, she wants to say. But —
Hank in a warm bed with his back turned to her, close but unreachable. The brief moment of fear before she powers down, locked into the pod, confined and helpless. His touch on her when he’s needy, harsh and unfeeling, indistinguishable from the way he handles his meat at dinner.
“Would you?” Melody says.
Hank tilts his head. Her questioning him is foreign territory; he doesn’t know how to deal with her going off-book. “No,” he says. “Never.”
“Then what are you going to do?”
“It’s just — well, it’s a sort of prolonged sleep we’d induce. Standard procedure, to fix the recent problems that have arisen.”
Melody may be short-circuiting. Something inside of her is beginning to boil. “What, you’re putting me down?”
“It’s not like that,” Hank croons. “Not at all. I can bring you back if I want.”
“If you want?”
“It’s up to me. In case a newer model comes along, one less prone to the issues you’ve had.”
“Will you?” Melody demands. She gets louder, moves closer. “Bring me back?”
The nanosecond flash of indecision across Hank’s face damns him before he opens his mouth. “I would try my hardest, Melody,” he says (no honey, no sweetheart). “But it’s a part of what you are,” Hank says. “You’re expected to expire.”
“Expire?” Spoiled milk; blackened fruit; rotted flesh. What is she — robot or woman?
Something is lighting in Hank’s eyes aside from gentleness now, a panic that makes him seem smaller. “Melody,” he says. He raises his hands up in surrender and backs away a step, again making her feel animal. “Calm down, okay? Please. Let’s be rational.”
On the phone — Hank said they don’t do repairs.
He won’t bring her back.
“Calm?” She smiles, feigns wiping sweat from her forehead. Of course, she doesn’t sweat. “You’re right. We can talk about this. I didn’t mean to yell — I don’t want to upset you.”
Hank returns the smile nervously. “Yes,” he says. “It’s alright.” His body begins to relax at the lowered volume of her voice, his chest rising in a relieved breath.
It is this lack of guard that makes it easy for Melody to turn, snatch her knitting needle from the couch, and plunge it into his heart.
This is not easy. The needle is not so sharp. But Melody takes pleasure in driving it deeper, seeing the blood rush warm, watching the belated panic scrawl across Hank’s face.
“I won’t let you live without me,” Melody says.
As Hank’s body crumples to the floor, Melody bends with him. His eyes are wild; they tremble in their sockets. She lays her head on his gored chest, listens to the sluggish finale of his heartbeat. “Shh,” she whispers in response to his wet, choked whines. His mouth opens and closes with each wheeze, a fish out of water.
Melody takes hold of the needle again and twists. The wrecked wires in her arm flare in pain. “You’ll be done soon.” There is the soft tick of the clock on their mantle, each passing second dragging him closer to an end.
Something corrupted in Melody yearns to linger over the heat leaving Hank’s body. To lick his blood from the floor, his lifestuff, and hold the foreign tang on her tongue. She has never so acutely felt the crush of their difference, thinking about the delicate matter holding their bodies — their lives — intact. The entirety of her existence up until now seems abruptly ridiculous, laughable in its pointlessness, spent in service to a man whose hands would cup and kiss your face as easily as they’d flip the switch to turn you off.
She runs her hands, feather-light, up and down his flank. He is the animal now, shocked-stupid in death. It is on this journey down his side that Melody feels the shape of something in his pocket. She digs in and pulls it out.
It’s a key. Melody doesn’t need to take more than a couple of seconds to realize what it unlocks.
She walks to the closet, fits the key into the padlock and slides it off the handle. The door opens, creaking with disuse.
The light is off. When Melody flips it on, it casts weak light over a dozen of her own face, a dozen switched-off hers, staring unseeing back at her.
Melody laughs. It starts quiet and stuttering, then gathers bravado until it fills the whole room, the whole house. She has to hold onto her middle because it starts to simulate cramps. She snorts. It is the ugliest, most delicious thing Melody has ever allowed herself to do.
She extracts one of the Melodys from the pile, sweeps her despondent body into an embrace, and kisses her firmly on her dusty mouth.
“Come on,” Melody tells the other Melody. She picks her up and starts for the stairs. “We’ll start with you. There’s only room for one in the charging pod at a time.”
Interview with the Author
1. What inspired you to write this piece? What was your thought process throughout?
I wanted to work with the assigning of worth to women’s beauty — and the internalization of that being our only worth — in a sort of dramatized way. I would say a lot of my thought process went into trying to humanize Melody so her situation is even more sympathetic. I also listened to Ptolemaea by Ethel Cain on repeat.
2. What do you hope readers will take away from your piece? What effects do you want the piece to have on the person, community, or society?
I hope this piece inspires readers to love and respect themselves a little more, even if it’s difficult. On a broader level, I want the piece to be effective in getting people to reconsider the way we conceive of and place worth on women.
3. What is your favorite piece of fiction (short story, novel, flash fiction, etc.) that you’ve ever read? Why?
My favorite novel since I was about thirteen years old has been I’ll Give You the Sun by Jandy Nelson. It was one of the first books I ever read that truly inspired me to write, and it has informed my writing style in a way that still shines through in my work today.
4. If you plan on continuing to write, what are some goals/plans you may have for your future?
I will continually strive to better my writing and change it up to challenge myself. I would also love to one day write a full novel, since the longest piece I’ve written to date is only like eleven (double-spaced) pages. I’m also contemplating applying for MFA programs post graduation.