Slashed Sheets

We had been together for two years, an eternity when you’re young. She was thinking of nesting, I was thinking of spreading my wings and getting the hell out of that town. We were in a fight at the time. She was suffocating me with comfort, and I was gasping for something new, something unsettling.

My yells bounced off the walls of the break room. Almost loud enough to cause the already chipping puke green paint to sprinkle to the grimy concrete floor. Hanging up the phone on her I sparked a cigarette. That’s when the devil walked out in stilettos. “Sorry you and your girlfriend are having trouble.” The ravishing receptionist had a serpentine smile showing she was anything but sorry. “I don’t know why you put up with a girl like that. A guy like you needs someone fun and open.” She was in her late twenties. I was barely 18. She wasn’t quite a cougar, but she knew the jungle. “ I got a new piercing that might cheer you up.”

Taking a drag off my Marlboro I blew a smoke screen, “Oh yeah, where is it?” Her nails with a fresh French manicure nudged her gaudy belt.

“Somewhere south….somewhere hot.” The edges of her lips curled like demon’s horns. I knew what she was doing and I was having all of it.

“Somewhere private then, huh? Let me see it.” I crushed out my smoke as she took my other hand and led me out into the onyx night.

Between the cars she undid her belt. Lowering her designer pants like a red curtain at show time she showed me her lace. Her fingers dancing around her pelvis pumped up the show. For the feature she gingerly lowered her lust filled garment producing a sinful mockery of the ring for a piercing. Like predator to prey I was on her. “You sure you’re okay wit” I silenced her lips with mine. Like beasts we ravaged each other. Casting off our clothes and inhibitions, she took off my belt with her teeth. On the hood of her Camry we made love. No, I wouldn’t call it that. We made shame; an awkward dance of animalistic hunger.

After the hunt as we buttoned and buckled back into our human skin she said, “You could at least give me a kiss.” I pecked her on the lips like someone flicks ash into an ashtray. Without a word I walked to my car. As the engine turned over the exhaust wailed betrayal. I couldn’t tell you what songs played on the radio, but I do know that they couldn’t compete with the horrid symphony in my head.

Back at my house I sat with only gin and shame to warm me. I slashed the sheets to rid the demon host. The fiend haunted the halls of my mind echoing her siren song. I took a shower to wash off the scent. The soap couldn’t cleanse my insides, couldn’t wash away the black tar in my chest. I stepped out of the shower into my tattered room. She had decided to come over for an impromptu visit. Her eyes were burning a hole into my bedding. I knew she could see straight through me. As clever and intricate as I thought I was I knew she could read me like a Random House children’s book. “What’s wrong with you? You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”