"Thank you." She sniffs.
With the cab on the way, I end up searching for Rachel's clothes—half of them are still balled up under my comforter, where they came off. Her jeans are dark, which is lucky, but she has to stuff her panties with tissue paper so she doesn't leak everywhere. Problem with cutting inside her is that my band aids aren't exactly going to stick. I need to drink less liquor and make better plans.
The cab honks outside. Rachel, who is sweating on the bed and contorted sideways, looks up wearily into the faint glow of headlights.
"I'll help you down the stairs," I say like a gentleman, offering my arm. "You'll be fine in the morning, Rach. I promise."
It takes her another moment to get to her feet, and she winces with each step. "Hey. Um—is my book here? Can you get it?"
I force a smile. "Hang on, babe."
A book. She's apparently in great pain, but she wants her fucking book. I waste more precious seconds searching until I spot her beaten-up copy of American Psycho near the bed, on the floor. Its yellow spine is now anointed with a viscous spatter of blood.
"Thanks." She tucks it into her bag, rubbing her fingernail through the drying blood and scraping off the evidence.
Such disregard for something so beautiful. It angers me. Makes my fists feel heavy.
Rachel hobbles down the stairs like an old woman, and I walk beside her, restraining my flared temper with white knuckles and a bitten tongue. Even in the light of the hall, it's plain to see she's already bleeding through the tissue and her jeans. Shit. Her goodbye kiss isn't as passionate as usual; I don't get nearly enough of her tongue.
"Will you call me in the morning?" she whispers.
Ah. So she's not lost completely. "Always. Text me when you get home, okay?"
She attempts a smile, though it's thin and washed out. Wobbly. "I love you, baby."
"Love you too," I mumble into her hair, tucking a twenty into her back pocket. "Now go get some rest."
I watch Rachel hobble into the cab to pinch her legs together and read her book. I don't know why she bothers—I read three chapters and it was all a heap of narcissistic bullshit.
You know those books about delusional psychos, the screwed up dudes who make you laugh because the joke's really on them? I look at Rachel, who comes back to me each time so bloodied and broken...and I kinda think the joke's on girls like her.
#11
Peace (noun): the snatched second of weightlessness before you land a punch
The knot in my tie got pulled so tight that I have to cut Leo free. It was worth it. If ever I have to choose my preferred method of ruining a Gucci silk tie, I'll pick rubbing her wrists purple every time.
Afterward, she lies splayed on the bed with her * angled toward the lamp light, and I tend to her scalpel wound with the medikit I brought.
"Is it bad?" she asks quietly.
"Deep breath...this'll sting." I'm still talking when I push the antiseptic wipe across her cut; the tendons at the top of her thighs tighten and her belly ripples, but she manages to stay quiet. Scrubbed and sterilized, her skin is pink and angry, but it looks like it'll heal clean. "It probably feels bigger than it is."
"And how big is it?"
I hold my finger and thumb up, maybe an inch and a half apart.
She sighs. "Oh."
"You sound kinda disappointed."
Leo's laugh cedes into a whimper. "I don't know what I am."
I shake my bag, and out tumble boxes of butterfly stitches and dressings, their contents spilling across the sheets with a faint rustle. Then I peel the edge off a new wheel of white tape. "Stockings are probably out for a couple days."
"First world problems."
I grin up past her bare belly and flushed breasts. "Poor baby."
"Yeah, Aeron. Where's my sympathy?" She gropes around, pats my head. Segues into stroking my sweat-damp hair. "Although I quite like this playing doctors and nurses thing."
I lean forward and drag the tip of my tongue over her exposed clit, ushering a sweet little moan from her lips. "There's your sympathy." Then I can't stop myself, I keep going, dipping in over the rise of her vulva and then out along her smooth, tanned thigh. "God, there's a lot to feel sorry for."
"I like your pity," she breathes.
Perhaps because it feels like worship. Of all the places I could find religion, let's be honest—it was always going to be in a *. I just never guessed it would be hers. Is that what all this has been about, this seduction? Leaving offerings at her altar, putting my face in the hymn book and conjuring the right prayers...?