Dave's Anatatomy: My History As a Writer, #47: "Polarity"

The idea for the story "Polarity" came from an internet interview I read that talked about Satanism and described a satanic worship ceremony. The celebrants stand naked ("clothed with the wind") and, according to the informant, two women flank the altar; one must be a virgin, she said, and the other must be a prostitute. I suppose the women who participate in such activity do so willingly and are part of a coven of worshipers. But what if they did not do so willingly? I don't mean they were abducted and forced to participate. But what if, by a combination of circumstances, the women who represented this "polarity" of virgin/prostitute were not believers and participated in the ceremony for some other reason? When you get a virgin and a prostitute in close proximity, a story is inevitable!

Staci

Enter the characters:  Millie is a prostitute She and her sister, Staci, operate a small brothel. Staci is pretty and does high-class customers. Her older sister, Millie, who is a little plainer, does the blue-collar customers. Staci's good looks, status as a high-class call girl, and business savvy make her a natural leader and a natural bully who intimidates her sister and has convinced her she could do nothing else in life but be a working girl.

Millie

Millie also does "house calls." She is hired to participate in a ceremony by a man named Blake Philips. She is wary but agrees. He tells her all she has to do is strip and stand through the ceremony. She puzzles over this but agrees. It's not often that she gets paid her usual fee of $400.00 just for standing naked. He takes her into a darkened room with some kind of altar in it. Across from her stands a young girl, also bare. The ceremony is some sort of occult rite. Blake conducts it, speaking odd languages, lighting black candles, and reciting what Millie thinks are Latin prayers. The room fills with malevolent energy. She is frightened by the sensations she feels, but then the ceremony ends. She assumes he will want her to do more, but he says she did a good job, pays her, and says she is free to go. The young girl has said nothing the whole time and doesn't speak to Millie as she departs.

She returns to tell Staci about it. After she has serviced all her customers, she goes to a diner, where she sees the girl, named Carrie. Carrie tells her what is going on. Blake, her father, is a sorcerer and curses people with satanic curses for a price. She and Millie are protection from the demons he summons up. They create some kind of magical barrier that keeps him safe. Carrie is his daughter. He forces her to do what she does and to maintain virginity by threatening to curse her mother and brother. But Carrie has a plan and wonders if Millie will go along.

The plan is to reverse polarity. Carrie tells Millie: “If I could lose my virginity and you could stop being a working girl, that would . . . like reverse the polarity. It would be sort of like he was positive and not negative. He would not be protected. The demons would drag him down to hell.”

 Something about what Carrie has said makes Millie break down and cry. Staci has convinced her she could never be anything else but a prostitute. She is not sure she could succeed with a regular job. Carrie assures her this is not true. She tells her she is smart and she could tell, by the looks she gave her during the ceremony, that she is kind and good. Millie rallies and says she will go along with Carrie's plan.

Carrie's part is easy. All she needs to do is get laid, and she does. It's trickier for Millie. After much thought, she tells Staci she is quitting the family business. After that, she goes to a local church and tells the pastor about her vocation and how she wants to stop. They pray together. She goes to the scheduled ceremony. Sure enough, the women have reversed polarity and Blake no longer has protection. He rages at Millie when he finds out and spits on her; his spittle burns like acid. But the demons are upon him. He is disabled. Later he dies from what doctors call "a massive epileptic seizure" that breaks his bones and triggers internal bleeding.

And things work out. Carrie marries her boyfriend and rejoins her family, who are now safe from Blake's curses. Millie gets a job and patches things up with Staci, who is able to find two girls to work for her as Millie's replacements. Though she says she "doesn't buy the born-again talk," Millie continues going to church. A customer she liked, for whom she used to do visits, wants to marry her. She is thinking about going to school.

Media depiction of "Call Girl"

Besides the Satanism angle, the story deals with prostitution. I see the "happy hooker" stock character quite often. The woman is a whore and loves it—like the scene in the old movie Georgie Girl where British actor James Mason asks a girl in a whorehouse, "What's a nice girl like you doing in a place like this?" She replies, "I don't know—just lucky, I guess." Funny, but untrue. Most women who become prostitutes are victims of abuse. The calling they follow is a glaring example of the exploitation of women; and, today, thousands of young women from poor homes are forced into prostitution. There is nothing funny, charming, or sexy about it, despite what Hollywood would have you think.

A little of that is evident in the story, I hope. I don’t try to get preachy when writing, but I think this story has at least a subplot that includes a "message." I'm not sure if I succeeded or not, but at least I tried.

The story appeared in an anthology, Dark Things II. I believe Pill Hill Press has closed, but the book is still available through Amazon.

For a good read in the gloomy transitional month of March, read Le Cafe de la Mort. Coffee to die for, served up by the Angel of Death. 

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