The most surprising thing about Saturday night, to Leonard, was Juliette’s reaction to The Dracean Positions. Not horror, as his own had been, nor simple intrigue, like his brother, but excitement.
“Oh my god!” she squealed, turning the page to reveal another position. She pulled the book close to her face, a look of disbelief on her face, but always a broad grin. She laughed and put it down, but open, and stared at it intently as she twirled some spaghetti onto her fork. Everyone else was watching her as she read, but she was so engrossed that she didn’t seem to notice. “How old was your Grandpa?” she eventually asked.
“He was… what was he, seventy five?” said Tom, looking to his brother for confirmation.
“Something like that” replied Leonard, still watching Juliette. She laughed softly to herself, and went back to studying the book.
“Did he have any friends or anything there?” asked Stella, his sister in law. She and Tom had been married since they were teenagers, but Leonard had never really gotten to know her too well.
“I don’t really know, actually” Leonard told her. “I suppose he knew people from church, at least. It was the father who called, wasn’t it?” Tom nodded in agreement, his mouth full. “But I only passed through the village, I don’t think I even saw a single person.”
“Honestly,” said Tom, still chewing, “this place is so far out in the middle of nowhere it’s crazy. The drive is like…”
“Five hours,” Leonard added, “but some of that is because the roads are so old.”
“I think you were probably the first person to drive through in years!” joked Tom. He poured some more wine for himself and Stella, and topped up Leonard’s glass despite his protests. “Juliette?” The acrobat looked up, confused, to see Tom holding the bottle out to her, and pushed her glass towards him. It was clear that she was utterly captivated by the book, and hadn’t heard a word of the conversation. Tom laughed, pouring a full glass for her. “You’re more obsessed with that thing than Leonard!”
“It’s just so… weird!” she said, taking a sip of wine, and then smiling at Leonard. “How could you not be obsessed with it?”
“I’m not obsessed with it!” laughed Leonard, defensively.
“Well I am!” Juliette cried, flicking quickly through the pages. “It’s so creepy.”
“And what about your opinion as an astronaut? I mean acrobat” said Tom, chuckling to himself as he played up his drunkenness.
Juliette paused, her smile changing and she frowned and looked down at the table pensively, as if she hadn’t considered the positions in terms of her art form yet, only as a spectacle. After a second, she turned to a few of the positions in the book, and seemed to look at them from a different perspective entirely, suddenly becoming more serious and analytical. Occasionally she made a small movement as if testing poses in her head.
“Some of these are doable,” she finally said, “I think. I mean probably only for someone with a lot of acrobatics training. Even then, they’d be dangerous to try. Some of them you’d need to dislocate joints and stuff, or at least break something in the process. But yeah, two or three of these I think could be done okay.”
“Thanks for taking a look” said Leonard, with a smile. Juliette stared back at him.
“What that’s it?” Everyone sat in silence for a second, unsure of what to say. “You’re just going to ask me to look at it and that’s all? You don’t want me to try any?” Everyone was shocked. Tom laughed with delight at the prospect, while Stella was instantly disapproving, and Leonard sat speechless. That anyone would even consider, let alone suggest attempting the positions was unbelievable, and yet his obsession with the book made the notion absolutely enticing. The fear that someone could severely injure themselves, become trapped in some terrible tangle was monstrous, and yet he was at once electrified with the thought of seeing one of the positions made flesh.
“No way” said Stella, shaking her head. “You’re going to hurt yourself even trying those. You’re training for the Olympics, Juliette. How stupid would it be to ruin the whole thing trying to pull off some pointless move?”
“I’d be fine, I won’t try anything I wasn’t comfortable with, and obviously I’ll do it at the stadium, in the right environment.”
“Years, you’ve been training, why on earth would you throw that away?” Stella looked upset at the idea of her friend being so reckless. Tom stopped giggling and nodded seriously in agreement, though Leonard could see that a part of him was quietly excited about the idea.
“Stella, we have medical professionals at the stadium pretty much twenty four seven, even if something did happen I’d be fine.” Juliette ate some more spaghetti, as Stella shook her head angrily. It was clear that she cared much more deeply for Juliette’s well-being than Juliette herself. Leonard knew he should have dissuaded her also, but the part of him that wanted her to try — to see if the positions really could be done — kept him silent. She turned to speak directly to him. “Do you know where the stadium is?” Leonard shook his head. “Okay, I’ll give you the address. I have training from four until six tomorrow, but best not to come by until about seven. My coach wouldn’t want me doing this.”
“I wonder why” Stella grumbled.
The taxi dropped Leonard outside the stadium a few minutes after seven. He stood for a moment, looking up at the impressively tall outside wall, before walking around to the entrance. At the reception desk he gave Juliette’s name, and was told to walk down a long corridor to Hall F. When he got there, he opened the door gently to find Juliette laughing with a small number of other gymnasts. She spotted him across the room and waved him over. Leonard felt nervous introducing himself as he clutched his satchel to his side, afraid that somehow the book would be revealed. Juliette’s enthusiasm and interest in it was exciting — perhaps because it made him feel less alone in his obsession — but it felt necessary to keep it secret, for now at least. When the others left a couple of minutes later, Juliette’s face lit up and she grabbed Leonard’s arms eagerly.
“Come on, then!” she urged, tapping his bag with her fingertips. He opened it up and took out the book, which she immediately opened and began to rush through the pages. “Which one do you think we should try first?”
“First?” Leonard was taken aback. It hadn’t even occurred to him that they, or rather, she, would be attempting more than one of the positions, perhaps because he half-expected poor results. “I don’t know. Shouldn’t you pick?”
“Hmm, let me see.” Juliette took the book and studied several of the positions. It seemed that those at the beginning of the book were a better fit, as the latter positions involved manoeuvres that looked not only painful and difficult, but appeared to necessitate more than was possible without significant injury. “This one!”
Juliette was pointing to the second of the positions.
Positione II.
The subject kneels upon the ground, resting their feet upon their toes. They must then bend back until the top of the head is resting upon the ground, the face completely upside down. The forearms must be held together from elbow to wrist, with all ten digits touching the ground between the subject’s legs.
As gruelling and hazardous as this sounded, it was one of the easier seeming positions. Leonard gave a silent nod, and Juliette pulled a large mat over from the corner. She did some stretches beforehand, focusing intently as she methodically stretched and massaged her arms, back and legs, and then she started on the position.
First she knelt down, making sure she was comfortable on her knees and toes, and then slowly bent back, using her hands to lower herself down delicately. Her years of practice made this part look like an almost natural movement, and only when the crown of her head came to rest on the mat did she start to look at all uncomfortable. Juliette now carefully brought her elbows together, then her wrists, and reached her fingers down towards the floor. She winced, visibly struggling as she brushed the mat with a few fingertips.
“Are you okay?” he asked.
“Yeah. It’s tough” she said, as if she had underestimated things. Her face was turning red as her arms twisted and her fingers and thumbs groped downward.
“Do you want to stop?”
“No” she replied, exasperated. She took a deep breath, and then closed her eyes and exhaled steadily, before curving her back down towards the mat and pushing her hands as far as they could reach. She groaned as she pushed herself further, until all eight of her fingertips were pressed into the mat’s surface. Her entire body began to tremble, her thumbs extended and shaking until finally they made contact with the mat.
For a brief moment, there was a feeling of victory, and Leonard clenched his fist as he watched it happen — but then came the sound. At first, he wasn’t sure where it was coming from, and it took a second for him to understand that it was Juliette. It was more than a scream, it was a resounding, guttural howl that filled the whole hall. Her eyes were wide open along with her mouth, and she was locked in that position as she shrieked on and on piercingly. He knew he should do something, but Leonard found himself frozen by the sound, completely still and just staring at her in horror.
The doors burst open, and two women, presumably from a nearby hall, came running in. They rushed over to Juliette, and quickly picked her up, folding out her arms and legs and laying her down on her back. She did not stop screaming. One of the women ran back to the corridor to get help, whilst the other looked up at Leonard asking what had happened, though he could not speak. Seconds later, the second woman returned accompanied by two medics and the receptionist, as well as a few other startled athletes. They lifted her onto a stretcher, all the while her deafening screams echoing through the huge hall, and started to carry her away. Leonard slumped to the ground, half landing on the mat, and watched her wide eyes as she disappeared through the doors, her wailing muffled as they swung shut behind her.
Leonard sat in the empty hall until he could hear sirens, and the screaming became quieter still, and then the sirens faded away too. All he could think about, however, was the look in Juliette’s eyes. Not of pain, but of a pure and absolute terror unlike any expression he has seen before. When Juliette had finally made it into Positione II., her extreme reaction was not, he knew, the result of a pulled muscle or broken bone, but a kind of vision. He had seen it undeniably in her eyes, and heard it in the unhindered fear of her cries. In that final moment, Juliette had been witness to something unspeakably nightmarish, and terrifying beyond imagination.
