Ask Me No Questions...

His touch was like fire, but it burnt with an ugly pain that didn’t match with the childish ideas of love and intimacy which I had long ago given up as impossibility. He was rough – he hurt. Every movement was painful. I’d known it wouldn’t be pleasant. I knew his reputation, his deliberate aggression; to him, the term ‘considerate lover’ could never apply.



His skin was slick on mine, greasy with sweat, and the smell of different women’s perfumes and his own stale cologne was infused into every fibre of his body. I felt sick as he used me, and the self-loathing was intense as he left me naked and gasping in amongst the ruined bedclothes. He left no money – he would pay the Warden on his way out – nor any sign that he had been there other than the sweat on my skin, the rank smell in my hair, and the dull ache deep within me.


Stifling my sobs, I reached for the scissors, held them to my wrist.


The metal was cold…

*

…”Cali, you listening?”

I pulled myself out of my unpleasant reverie, and forced a smile over my tortured expression – an expression that mirrored the intensity of my innermost thoughts and memories.

“What?”

Lily was watching me with a look of mild exasperation and extreme impatience as she waited for my answer, the one I was ill-disposed to give.

“Answer the question, Cali! I need your help on this one.”

I retreated momentarily into the inner sanctum of my mind, and thought as I studied her utterly un-expecting and blissfully naïve face. Finally, I gave my response, just as the bell rang for seventh period.

“Yes, Lily. My first time was very special, and just how I wanted it.”

…Oh, didn’t I tell you? Being a hooker at sixteen gives you the ability to lie through your teeth.

Reflections From the Other Side

The waitress smiled at me as she poured my coffee, but her mind was somewhere far away from the greasy spoon we both found ourselves sweating in. She was stunning, despite the grey shadows that scarred her face beneath the eyes – I pitied her, regretted with an intense empathy the path her life had taken. She should have been a model, not wasting her life in this retro dump. Her hair was pinned back loosely so that strands of it had come free and was curling round to frame her face –


- I threaded my fingers through her hair and tugged, making her scream –

- And her eyes were bright and intense with the fresh enthusiasm and casual intelligence that her youth and a good education had leant her. She put the coffee cup down on a saucer in front of me with the practiced ease of someone confined to such a job ten hours of the day, six days a week. Her hands, lineless and smooth, looked soft and warm; her fingertips glowed pink from the heat of the beverages she served all hours of the day. She reminded me of other girls I had become acquainted with that week. I reached out –

- One hand around her throat, I threw her against the wall, heard her body hit the cold bricks with a sickening crunch –

- Towards her and held out a tip; her eyes widened in surprise as she saw the note I offered, and she smiled in gratitude. Thanking me, she moved away, pocketing the twenty as she went to see to another customer across the bar. I watched her hips sway as she walked – seedy, I reflected; she could only have been nineteen. But like all men, I couldn’t help but notice her slim figure and tiny waist, or the way she filled her tight blouse –

- I dragged her down to the ground with me, and pressed myself against her; her soft hands were streaked with blood now, though as she scratched pointlessly at my face, and I bit down on her sweet-scented shoulder in desperation, I couldn’t tell whether it was hers or mine –

- I looked away, embarrassed by my public display of weakness. Such things had a suitable time, and a private place. I drained the coffee cup, and stood up to leave, but no sooner had I gone three steps towards the door than she caught my arm; she held out my wallet to me, the one I had carelessly left on the counter where I’d been sitting moments before. Her lips curved upwards in an amused half-smile as she spoke, but I took the wallet without hearing what she said. All I could think of was the heat of her hand on my skin –

- She was screaming louder now, but there was nobody here to hear her; she was so, so warm. Why wouldn’t she stop struggling? It would be over in a minute…such intimate moments were so very fleeting –

-“Have a nice evening, sir,” she smiled, that youthful warmth even infecting her tone.

I craved that warmth, her heat. I was so very cold inside.

Tiny

I remembered his tiny feet so clearly. It might sound odd, but I'd marvelled at them even as I'd held him still and close against my chest. He was such a tiny creature...it made sense that he should have tiny features to match. His eyes stayed closed, not tightly, but gently, resting, and I'd fitted his curled fists around my comparitively huge fingers. The tiny fingernails were soft and dull, and tipped his fingers like jewels on a tiara; he was my jewel. My diamond. The smell... I'd held babies before of course, always enjoyed the powdered scent that clung naturally to their pale skin, but his was unique; his was special. That day, I'd clung onto him with a mixture of desperation and tenderness, the cocoa fluff masquerading as hair on the top of his head brushing against my chin and my nose. His tummy had a bulbous aspect to it, and snuggled up under the folds of my hospital gown, he'd looked cosy, well-fed, contented...at peace.

He'd been so small.


And his coffin was so tiny...