You fuck, and you fuck, and you fuck.
In this, there is no pleasure for me. For the first time that I can remember, you do not spare a single moment of attention for me. You only drive with single-minded madness into me again and again and again, hips slapping loudly against the taut roundness of my backside. I hear that, and only that. The slap-slap-slap of your body meeting mine. I glance out the window, and across the street I can almost see a face in a window, watching me.
You come, and I feel the hot rush of your seed filling me, dripping out of me.
You have claimed me, but there is a secret only I know: Your mark does not adhere to my skin, your claim does not sear into my soul.
In the last few minutes, I felt the earth shift, felt the shackles of your sorcery fall away.
You step away, and I spin in place, rest my bottom and shoulders against the glass, stare at you.
Something within me aches.
There are no words to speak.
I turn away from you, return my gaze to the world beyond the glass. After a time the silence grows profound, becomes empty, and I know you’ve walked away.
My cigar, at some point set in an ashtray, still smolders. I place it between my teeth, pour a measure of scotch, blow thick plumes of smoke into the rays of sunlight, and swallow burning mouthfuls of scotch in an attempt to drown the screams of self-loathing welling up within me.
I smoke, and I drink, and I listen to you shower.
I remain naked, because clothes cannot cover my shame.
You emerge dressed, hair wet and clean and slicked back, dressed in a tan suit with a pale blue shirt, no tie, baring that sliver of skin. You stare at me, a frown pinching your face, razoring a line into the bridge of your nose.
I want to yell at you. Tell you how much I hate you. Tell you how empty I feel. Tell you that everything is different now, everything is changed. I am changed. If I am addict and you are a drug, the high has soured.
I say nothing, however, because there are no words that can express the weltering chaos within me.
Neither of us speaks, and after a moment, you leave. The elevator doors close together, narrowing my view of you until there is nothing left but the doors.
And I am alone once more.
I give in to the screams, and my voice echoes off the glass in raw, ragged, jagged fragments. I scream until my voice gives out, and then I weep.
I allowed you to use me again. I feel the cancer of it like a film of grease on my soul.
No more.
Never again.
I cease weeping, and I shower you off me.
I step into a long, loose dress, wrap myself in a blanket. While away the hours with a book, bored and alone and drowning in self-loathing and disgust. Eventually, the day fades, and I fall asleep on a couch, because I do not want to be in your bed, even to sleep.
ELEVEN
Rain slices like knives forged from ice. I shiver, but not from cold; I bleed. I taste blood in my mouth, feel it spill warm and wet from my head and my hip, dribble down my cheek and drip off my chin. Darkness. All is dark. A pale rectangle of light from a window illuminates a portion of sidewalk and some of the street, the curb between them.
I hear sirens. They sound like the warbles of prehistoric birds, echoing off cliff faces.
I want only to be warm.
I want to not hurt.
My stomach shudders, and I hear a sound. A sob. A scream.
My throat aches, and I realize the sobs and screams emit from me.
I am alone.
I cannot lift my head.
I can stare sideways at the pale scrap of light and wish I could reach it, crawl to it, lie in its warmth. Anything must be warmer than here, where the rain batters me and the cold cracks open my bones, freezes my marrow.
Why am I here? I don’t remember.
I have an idea of horror, dreamed remnants of terror. Smashing glass, twisting metal. Razors splitting open my skull. Hammers bashing my body. Weightlessness. Darkness.
Blood.
So much blood.
A face appears. An angel?
No, too dark, the eyes like glinting shards of night betray too many devoured dreams, speak of nightmares feasted upon.
An incubus.
I fancy I can see his wings spread to either side of his wet, muscular body, thick coiled whipping things like feathered serpents. I blink, and he is only a man.
I blink, and I know his face.
I scream, or perhaps I only try to. He is lifting me, and I see blood on his hand as he brushes my hair away from my eyes.
The world tilts and darkens, and a hole attempts to swallow me from inside out, and then I see the flames. I want to be in those flames, where it is warm. I want to be in those flames. I want to be with those in the flames.
I strain, and iron bands hold me back. I reach for the flames. I peer into them, and I can see a hand, blackening. A shirtsleeve crisping, curling. Perhaps I imagine it all. Perhaps I imagine the flames.
I don’t know. I know I am cold.
So cold.
I know pain is all.