Summary: by Kij Johnson Read by Heather Bowman Tomlinson Links for this episode: Discuss on our forums. For a list of all Escape Pod stories, authors and narrators, visit our sortable Wikipedia page About the Author… from the author’s website… She taught writing and science fiction writing at Louisiana State University and at the University of Kansas, and she has lectured on creativity and writing at bookstores and businesses across the country. From 1994 – 2003, she assisted at James Gunn’s Science Fiction Writer’s Workshop, hosted by the Center for the Study of Science Fiction at the University of Kansas. Since 2004, Kij teaches the Center’s intensive Science Fiction & Fantasy Novel Writing Workshop. From 1999 – 2004, she taught a series of writing classes at the GenCon Game Fair. She taught at the 2011 Clarion Science Fiction & Fantasy Writers’ Workshop. As of 2012, Kij is Assistant Professor of Fiction Writing by the University of Kansas English Department. About the Narrator… “I’m a horticulturist by trade, current stay at home mom for two children, team mom for the local Goalball team, and advocate for Blind/Visually Impaired causes and adoption causes. I love D20 gaming, reading, camping and canoeing, card playing, and music.” This is her second time narrating for Escape Pod. Mantis Wives by Kij Johnson “As for the insects, their lives are sustained only by intricate processes of fantastic horror.” —John Wyndham. Eventually, the mantis women discovered that killing their husbands was not inseparable from the getting of young. Before this, a wife devoured her lover piece by piece during the act of coition: the head (and its shining eyes going dim as she ate); the long green prothorax; the forelegs crisp as straws; the bitter wings. She left for last the metathorax and its pumping legs, the abdomen, and finally the phallus. Mantis women needed nutrients for their pregnancies; their lovers offered this as well as their seed. It was believed that mantis men would resist their deaths if permitted to choose the manner of their mating; but the women learned to turn elsewhere for nutrients after draining their husbands’ members, and yet the men lingered. And so their ladies continued to kill them, but slowly, in the fashioning of difficult arts. What else could there be between them? The Bitter Edge: A wife may cut through her husband’s exoskeletal plates, each layer a different pattern, so that to look at a man is to see shining, hard brocade. At the deepest level are visible pieces of his core, the hint of internal parts bleeding out. He may suggest shapes. The Eccentric Curve of His Thoughts: A wife may drill the tiniest hole into her lover’s head and insert a fine hair. She presses carefully, striving for specific results: a seizure, a novel pheromone burst, a dance that ends in self-castration. If she replaces the hair with a wasp’s narrow syringing stinger, she may blow air bubbles into his head and then he will react unpredictably. There is otherwise little he may do that will surprise her, or himself. What is the art of the men, that they remain to die at the hands of their wives? What is the art of the wives, that they kill? The Strength of Weight: Removing his wings, she leads him into the paths of ants. Unready Jewels: A mantis wife may walk with her husband across the trunks of pines, until they come to a trail of sap and ascend to an insect-clustered wound. Staying to the side, she presses him down until his legs stick fast. He may grow restless as the sap sheathes his body and wings. His eyes may not dim for some time. Smaller insects may cluster upon his honeyed body like ornaments. A mantis woman does not know why the men crave death, but she does not ask. Does she fear resistance? Does she hope for it? She has forgotten the ancient reasons for her acts, but in any case[...]
