Addison had large twisting antlers growing out of his forehead.
Because of their weight, his mother used to tell him, he had to pay special attention to his posture. “Sit up!” she’d yell, “or you’ll get a hunchback.” He sometimes had trouble fitting through doorways. But besides a few careless incidents on the playground at school and the occasional teasing, which is typical of children, his antlers were never that much of a problem.
As a teenager, though, Addison became self-conscious. He often felt that his awkward deformity had made him insensible and stupid. He wrote a poem once about getting lost in the woods. In the second stanza a careless hunter mistakes him for a deer and shoots him. Someone reading the poem who didn’t know Addison might think that he was trying to illustrate some kind of failure to overcome the “beast-like” nature of man, or transcend profane existence. This upset Addison greatly.
It wasn’t until Lily, the girl with almond-colored eyes and an abrasive demeanor, who liked to hold his antlers tightly while they made out, did Addison feel comfortable again in the architecture of his body. She was a bombshell. Difficult but lucid, she often claimed that she would be able to escape any attempt on her life.
Sometimes Lily would accuse him of being cold and uncommunicative and Addison was in the habit of hiding his face in his pillow and covering his antlers with the bedsheets. She lay down on the bed and pressed her body close to his. She kissed the back of his neck to console him. She rubbed her cheek against his antlers.
“They’re soft,” she said.
She was difficult and he was distant and so this was how most of their arguments went. They always made up after they fought. They had sex and giggled when Addison’s antlers scratched against the wall.
As a teenager, though, Addison became self-conscious. He often felt that his awkward deformity had made him insensible and stupid. He wrote a poem once about getting lost in the woods. In the second stanza a careless hunter mistakes him for a deer and shoots him. Someone reading the poem who didn’t know Addison might think that he was trying to illustrate some kind of failure to overcome the “beast-like” nature of man, or transcend profane existence. This upset Addison greatly.
It wasn’t until Lily, the girl with almond-colored eyes and an abrasive demeanor, who liked to hold his antlers tightly while they made out, did Addison feel comfortable again in the architecture of his body. She was a bombshell. Difficult but lucid, she often claimed that she would be able to escape any attempt on her life.
Sometimes Lily would accuse him of being cold and uncommunicative and Addison was in the habit of hiding his face in his pillow and covering his antlers with the bedsheets. She lay down on the bed and pressed her body close to his. She kissed the back of his neck to console him. She rubbed her cheek against his antlers.
“They’re soft,” she said.
She was difficult and he was distant and so this was how most of their arguments went. They always made up after they fought. They had sex and giggled when Addison’s antlers scratched against the wall.