Once there was a man called Chris Hemsworth.
Hugh. George. Matthew. Johnny. Ryan. Bradley. Channing. Pierce. Ben. Brad. He kept these names always at the forefront of his mind, naming each one at the pace of his breath and his feet. For as long as he could remember, he had been running.
The names feed the machine. So it was Good not to be named. He had lost the name long ago, along with the Vanity he once wore on his face.
“Sexiest. Man. Alive.” Adam had told him that night, when they reached the Faceless Wastes. “Those are the three words that will kill you. Those are the three words that will make you take another man’s life. Those are the three words you will never say again.”
“The Three Words,” the hooded figures behind him had moaned. “Bid farewell to the three words.”
What-was-Chris had not whimpered when What-was-Adam shaved his head tight like a drum, stretching out his scalp and dredging a short blade across it, nicking the skull. What-was-Chris flinched only a little when they held a candle long and low across his forearms until the fat below the skin whistled and popped, when they slashed his eyelids and ripped the lashes out by the roots, when they hacked at his lips til his teeth stretched out into a skullhead’s grin and smashed every joint from shoulder to knuckle.
When they reached for what made him a man and pulled.
“Do you submit?” No-Longer-Adam whispered intently at No-Longer-Chris, red-riddled eyeball boring into his own. “Do you consent? This is the only way to stay human.”
“To stay human,” the figures intoned.
“I do not ask anything of you that I have not done myself,” Once-Adam said. “Tell us yes, and we will finish it, and the danger will pass.”
“Take the face and lose the race,” the figures chanted. “Take the eyes and lose the prize. Pay the toll and keep your soul.”
Not-Chris no longer had anything to close his eyes with. They were helplessly, nakedly, forever open. He turned his face away. “Do what you do.”
No longer sexy.
No longer man.
No longer alive.
But safe.
David had thought he was safe. “I’m not even one of them,” he’d reassured Victoria a hundred times, when she rolled over in bed with eyes full of nameless anxieties. “It’s always an American. Always.”
Still her eyes remained open.
“If they were going to pick me,” he’d say in his softest, most reassuring voice, “they’d have done it when I was in my prime. I’m safe now. They can’t get me now, not on this side of forty.”
She’d wordlessly crawl into the space next to him, and he’d repeat, as much for his sake as for hers, “They can’t get me now. If they’d wanted me, they would have had me ages ago. They can’t get me now.”
After the unfinished Ceremony of Chris Hemsworth’s year, Victoria had become even more afraid, texting David anxiously and unceasingly on nights when he stayed out past sundown. Come home. Come home.
It had been a bad year for everyone. But David always came home.
It was in September that David came home and saw an issue of People staring up at him in the foyer. “What is it?”
Victoria shook her head.
“You know they didn’t have one at all, back in 1994? Completely skipped a year.”
“Open it. Page eight.”
The page was dedicated to Hollywood’s Sexiest (And Most Devoted!) Dads.
He was in it.
“Tell me we’re safe again, David,” Victoria screamed at him. “Tell me how safe you are from them. They christing love sexy dads. They eat dad shit for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and ask for thirds. Run a vacuum across a goddamn floor and they cream in their trousers for weeks. Tell me again how safe we are.”
Somewhere upstairs one of the boys had started crying.
David had started asking around. He even called Tom Hiddleston. “What’s this about, man?” Tom had said briskly after a moment or two of silence. “I went to Eton, David. Just because we’re both in America, I don’t have time to make nice with someone who wasn’t even born in a building designed by Christopher Wren –”
“You knew Chris,” David said suddenly.
Tom went cagily quiet.
“Before, I mean. You knew him. You did those films together.”
“What’s this about, David?”
“Did you ever hear from him? After?”
A pause. Then, carefully: “After what, David?”
“After the announcement. After the Sexiest M–”
“I’m hanging up now, David.”
“Tom, wait.”
“Don’t you ever call this fucking number again.”
That night, as he pointed his car up the driveway, he saw a trio of silhouettes blocking the path. It wasn’t Victorian or the boys. David suddenly knew – with a great weariness – that there would be a stone knife in his glove compartment, if he reached over and opened it. He did.
The tallest figure lowered her hood.
“Won’t you invite us in, David?” Angelina Jolie said. “You can bring the knife with you, if you like.”
David knew that what Angelina meant, but did not say, was if it makes you feel safer.
He kept the knife in his hand as he followed them indoors. The candles were already lit, and four glasses of wine – one for each of them – sat waiting on the table. Everything was comfortably arranged, as if the house had been waiting for them.
“You have a lovely home, David,” Shakira said. “Truly exquisite.”
“Thank you,” David said, a little unsure.
“Some men are going to be in touch with you,” Angelina said to David, arching a perfect brow as she took a sip from her glass. “May, in fact, already have gotten in touch with you, or tried to.”
“Enemies of the Ceremony,” Shakira added.
The third figure removed her hood. “There are many who mock the old ways,” she said, “and many more who would openly resist it, if they dared. But every year, the Ceremony stands without opposition.”
“Until last year, Zooey Deschanel,” Shakira said. “Until Chris Hemsworth.” All three women clenched their goblets and let out a small hiss.
“Until Chris Hemsworth,” Zooey Deschanel said. “Until the Enemies came, and brought disruption with them.”
Angelina smiled, and all tension dissolved out of the room. “But, sisters,” she said lightly, “we have David now” – here she reached a gentle hand out to touch his – “and David brings order with him. Order, and the old way. David has the Knife.”
“The Knife,” Zooey Deschanel said and, “The Knife,” Shakira said.
“What’s it for?” David asked, and realized this was the wrong thing to say.
Angelina smiled. “It’s for finishing things.”
The candles had long since burned down before they finished talking. Angelina’s voice wrapped around David’s head like a scarf, like fog. “You see the merits of the Ceremony, don’t you David? Why we do what it is that we do?”
David shook his head blearily. “I have sons.”
“So have I sons,” Angelina said, and her voice was heavy with sorrow. How he pitied her. Such a strong woman, trying so hard to keep it together.
“So have I sons,” said Shakira, said Zooey Deschanel.
“Have I not lost my own husband, sexy as he was, to the Ceremony?” Angelina asked. “Have I not suffered too? But oh, David, before there is suffering, there is glory.”
“Glory,” said Shakira and Zooey.
David weighed out the feeling of the word in his mouth. “Glory.”
“When the Redhands come with their message, what will you do?” Angelina asked him, two high spots of color on her white-paper face.
“I will…” David wasn’t sure.
“Will you destroy your great gift? Rip the beauty from your face with your own hands? Skulk the unseelie paths at night with the shatterheart men? What life is that, for the World’s Sexiest Man? You should be given gifts. Women. Men. Given lands. Given promises. Hear horrible truths and beautiful lies. You should have the world itself before you give yourself back to it. This is the right order of things.”
Angelina’s voice was cool in his ear. “I give you a final gift, before your choosing. When the time comes, you’ll know what to do.”
Later, after he realized they were gone, David realized he was holding a silver mirror. And he was looking into it.
He was lost in his own eyes.
Hugh. George. Matthew. Johnny. Ryan. Bradley. Channing. Pierce. Ben. Brad. He kept these names always at the forefront of his mind, naming each one at the pace of his breath and his feet. For as long as he could remember, he had been running.
“Hugh,” not-Chris said as he stood over still-David in bed. “George. Matthew. Johnny. Ryan. Br–”
David, still-David, not sleeping, never-sleeping-David, shot up out of bed and held the knife to what remained of Chris’ throat.
“What we are about to do,” David said in a clear voice, “we do for beauty.”
“You don’t have to do this,” Chris said, still confident in his message. “There’s another way. Come with me. There are others. There–”
“There is only me,” David said. “There is only one alive.” He pulled the knife firmly but lightly, no dragging, across Chris’ neck, and split the veins inside into a flower pulsing blood onto the bed.
Chris fell to the floor, a permanent question etched upon his lips.
There was an order to it. Such a simple order. David pushed the body out of his way as he went to fetch the mirror. There was a Coronation to make ready for. There hadn’t been one in two years.
Which meant that this year was going to be extra special.
Pay the toll and keep your soul
(i’m sorry thinking of that scene is the only thing that kept me sane reading this. MALLORY)
MALLORYYYYYY
[shudders]
Well done, Mallory. Well done.
“It wasn’t Victorian” – best typo ever?
That was on purpose.
You better zig-a-zig-aaaaahhh for your penance.
I thought we were free
SO HAVE I SONS
“I went to Eton, David. Just because we’re both in America, I don’t have time to make nice with someone who wasn’t even born in a building designed by Christopher Wren –”
Mallory’s Tom Hiddleston opinions will never, ever get old.
I want to see more of Mallory’s Tom Hiddleston. I don’t even have a context in mind, it could be just, I don’t know, talking to other Avengers cast members at brunch or him going to In and Out to pick up a double double.
OMG IT’S HERE IT’S HEREE
Order has been restored. Praise be.
This is exactly what I needed with my morning coffee (by which I mean What-Was-Adam and What-Was-Chris, and “So have I sons.”)
There’s this funny little podcast I think Mallory would just LOVE. I’m sure no one else has menti……….
*gets killed by david beckham*
mallory why do you hate tom hiddleston so much he’s such a puppy
“Jesus Christ, Mallory” needs to be a proper tag and this needs to be the latest entry therein.
+1
YES.
OMG. This was amazing. I think my favourite thing though, was how Mallory wrote Victoria.
They christing love sexy dads. They eat dad shit for breakfast, lunch, and dinner, and ask for thirds.
That is DEFINITELY, 100% FOR SURE, how she speaks.
Sexiest.
Man.
Alive.
The cost is high, the rewards great.
But the cost is so high.
Mallory’s misinformed and unsurprisingly malevolent Tom Hiddleston opinions never cease to amuse.
Someday, Mallory, you too will submit to his unrelenting British charms!
Hurrah! I have been waiting for this not very patiently at all.
I wonder if Christopher Kimball will be next year’s sexiest man alive.
Sexiest “Man.” “Alive.”
mother of god mallory
YES.
yes yes yes yes yes!
omg, the tags.
MALLORY MIDDLE NAME ORTBERG.
I just read this aloud to my boyfriend and he is now in a catatonic stupor.
There can be only one alive.
this series always reminds me how much I love Waking the Moon (which, if you aren’t familiar, is this in every particular, but at novel-length, and as good as such a book could possibly be when not written by Mallory)
this also brings me such compassion and enlightenment towards Benedict Cumberbatch. everything he’s done and said, it wasn’t what we thought, it was only to avoid this. can a man excise his sexiness using only the scalpel of his mind? that’s the question. a lot of Christian Bale’s historic choices look different in this light as well. fear makes a man do many things.
One of my high school teachers gave me that book for Christmas.
It may be time for a re-read for me to get a better perspective on what a WEIRD GIFT that was.
well damn now I’ll lose the afternoon to contemplating the various tolls that might have been paid by A-listers to stay safe. Starting with Scientology: is it actually an enormous con game*/shield?
*edited to specify a DIFFERENT type of con game
This also makes me think that we need to be more careful and circumspect when we talk about the likes of Idris Elba and Chiwetel Ejiofor, less we draw Their Attention.
Shhh.
By Elisabeth Hand? (Just checking because there are a couple books with similar titles).
I’ll just be over here, marinating in the sublime. *sighs contentedly, almost-purrs*
Seriously, this is what gods feel like when the offerings are good.
Yeeessssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssssss
At last at last at last.
*sips goblet of wine*
…
What? Of course I keep a goblet of wine in my office. Doesn’t everyone?
Would that I had an office, ‘twould be resplendent with goblets of a finery even the grandest of fire drakes would covet in its cold, scaly heart.
Where can I apply to be a sinister robed figure? I feel my true calling is persuade beautiful men to burn their beauty to keep us warm.
I had not encountered this series before and it is glorious. have you read Unknown Armies or the novel that inspired it, Tim Powers’ Last Call, Mallory? I get the specific sacrificial king notes in here but the idea of an assumption of a mythic role and/or mutilation to prevent a rival claimant taking that role is central in there, I highly recommend both
Mallory. Never change, you perfect, evil genius.
This feels like the right place to admit how weirdly invested I am in Posh and Becks relationship. Like, I don’t particularly care about either of them individually, but if they broke up I would be heartbroken. Is it the length of their relationship? Is it their cute kids? Is it their Britishness? I don’t know, I just know I want them to be together forever.
Not unlike the day I heard that Kim and Thurston were splitting up and I wailed.
I like thinking about Mallory just at her desk, debating about whether this celebrity is the type to murder the last one or try to get out of it.
I do have some questions: Why would they send Chris to convince David? Since he was the previous Man, I mean…at least make him have to hunt for his prey. If they, as a group were truly committed (and OH MAN it sounds like THEY WERE) to avoiding the senseless death, wouldn’t it make sense to send someone who at least it wouldn’t directly benefit David to kill (assuming that there is some benefit to acquiring the mantel of Sexiest Man Alive). Unless killing ANY previous SMA would be good enough – but all of them, except for Chris, I guess, have served their year and thus, at least in theory, murdered the one before, so I don’t know if it would count, since they are all “officially”, if perhaps not completely, dead. Or maybe Chris is the only one with enough to lose to be willing to do it; the others have all escaped their fate and aren’t willing to risk anything when it’s Chris’s neck on the line anyways? What do we think?
Also, why Angelina, Zooey and Shakira? Did Zooey and Shakira also lose men to the Title?
I like to imagine that Shakira sang all of her contributions to the conversation. Could you imagine?
Angelina (intones engimatically): The Knife.
Zooey (quietly and mysteriously): The Knife.
Shakira (full-throated): The Knifeeee!
Shakira needs to watch her back though, because Piqué can also be sexy AF. Or maybe he just shines with her reflected light. Like a soccer playing version of the moon. Still, it’s early days yet, maybe someday it will be his turn with The Knife.
I am hearing this exactly the way Marilyn Horne sang “The Niiiine!” in the Card Song in Carmen Jones.
I’m thinking it’s more a movement than individuals struggling to survive. Someone takes the risk to save you, so in turn you’re expected to do the same until you’ve saved another.
MALLORY
MALLORY WHAT
IT’S PERFECT AND I CAN’T
This is perfect. I am reminded of Margaret Atwood and that is good.
I need a T.S. Eliot-length long-form poem about The Shatterheart Men. Neeeeeed.
(dying for next year, will it explain HOW people can win a second time? Especially if they have taken the option to be alive? Oh man, I need more of this mythology. Just swap the names out and sell it as a book series. It worked for Twilight fanfiction…)
also am I terrible for liking this version of Tom better? He just seems more honest.
yesssss the return of Sexiest Meatwraiths “Alive”, yesss
“Rum thing. All that stuff of Frazer’s about the Dying God. Rum thing. It almost looks as if it had really happened once.”
— C.S. Lewis, quoting an acquaintance on the ascension of Oxford’s Sexiest Man Alive, circa 1925.
readers of the Toast are probably aware that Oxford dons were once forbidden to marry, as it was thought by many facile philosophers of the day that the sexiness of man is created in the eye of woman. this heroic effort to keep them secret, keep them safe, failed for the most obvious of reasons but nostalgia for those innocent days still grips the best of us from time to time
MALLORY, GOD IN HEAVEN
My sweet Hemsworth. My poor heart. MALLORY.
I suddenly realised that I somehow knew in my heart all along that Tom Hiddleston, Angelina Jolie and Zooey Deschanel serve the forces of evil.
“Glory,” said Shakira and Zooey
Heh.
XD
Tom Hiddleston isn’t evil here; he’s the guy who tries to warn the newbie off. Like that creepy dead guy at the beginning of Pet Sematary.
#Tabloids Made (Even More) Horrific?
I seriously would be there for every dark and seelie ritual Mallory unearths from People, US Weekly, and E! News.
SO GOOD.
Run a vacuum across a goddamn floor and they cream in their trousers for weeks.
!!!!!!!! IT’S TRUE.
yesssssssssssss
i saw a bus shelter ad for the sexiest man alive last week and thought, ah yes, it’s that time of year again, and anticipated this article.
“i saw a bus shelter ad for the sexiest man alive last week and thought, ah yes, it’s that time of year again”
It totally has that The Lottery-esque feel about it now, right?
#MalloryHeavensbeeOrtberg
I’m pretty sure this is my new religion, I frankly probably worship beauty already, before there is suffering, there is GLORY
NOPE.
Did not know morbols actually existed.
Good God, Mallory
The best Jorge Luis Borges story.
The best Jorge Luis Borges story.
Oh, this must be why Ryan Gosling has been taking a break from acting for the past while. Trying to run out the clock on his sexiest years.
Oh, this must be why Ryan Gosling has been taking a break from acting for the past while. Trying to run out the clock on his sexiest years.
*locks doors and windows*
All hail, Mallory. All hail the blessed prose.