Part One of a short story I am working on. PGing this chapter just in case. OMG its a female body part...
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Shift, Part One
Warning: Smoking Kills
She takes another drag from her cigarette and blows a steady stream of smoke into the waiting air. Wrapping the sheet tighter around her sticky, sweaty body she burrows farther into the chair she occupies. Seeing the light go off in the bathroom, she sticks another cigarette between her lips, and lights it. He comes out, barefoot and half-dressed: pressed, white shirt unbuttoned, untucked and hair slicked back from the shower. He quickly reachered for the offered cigarrette, admiring the way her steady fingers hold it. He sets himself down and slips on his socks and shoes, and goes for his tie, but his fingers get tangled attempting to knot it. Putting out her own burning cigarette, she reaches over the smal table between them and expertly takes the tie in hand. The cotton sliver of a sheet, encompasing her body, slips down, revealing naked skin, and a naked breast which pressed against the table, removes his concentration.
"See," she says patting the knot of the finished tie, "That wasn't so hard."
He doesn't say anything, so she fills the gap.
"You know we still have another fifteen minutes before the first bell." She sounds slightly hopeful.
But he gives her a knowing look. The last time she suggested that, he had wandered into his class late, his tudents already in a ruckos, other staff members searching for him. He couldn't afford to be late again.
She reaches out a slender hand, and lays it on his upper arm. She can feel the muscles and flesh and sinew constrict underneath her touch. She smells the pine, forest tang of his soap, wafting off his still damp skin. She dares to look at him, her grey-blue eyes pleading - 'Stay'.
But he doesn't and lets her hand fall limp in the absense.
She watches him go, adjusts the sheet, and curls into a little ball. When he steps out of the door in silence, she pretends not to notice him fiddle with his wedding ring.
*
"You know," her friend Karla says lightly, "Smoking Kills. Says so on the box."
Meredith doesn't answer just puffs another stream of smoke in her direction.
"Ugg, I hate that." Karla makes a grotesque face at her.
She just smiles wickedly before returned to her book, Ariel by Sylvia Plath.
"Hey look, there goes Professor Hindley. Why did you drop his class anyways, I thought you liked Modern Art?"
Meredith keeps her eyes glued to her book, flicking her cigarette into the ashtray, afraid that if she looked up it would give everything away. Her hands shake slightly and she busies them with another cigarette.
"Conflict in my schedule."
"Oh pity. He's got a nice ass."
Meredith is inclined to agree, but doesn't voice her opinion. Feeling clamy, the heavy weight of closterphobia pressing on her limbs, she gathers her things.
"I have to go and find Brain he's got my history notes."
Karla just nods, "Have fun."
Promptly Meredith makes her way across the Freshman Quad to the Humanities Wing. Her feet carry her swiftly to Room III on the first floor, but a wave of aprehension hits as she reaches for the door. Fighting that feeling, she clasps the cold nob and slowly opens it.
He is sitting in his side office hunched over a giant stack iof neon colored folders. The shaggy ends of his hair brushing against them. She thinks it funny, how quiet and reserved he is normally, when she knows what makes him moan and scream and beg.
At the front of the classroom is a guitar. Softly she places down her thingies and creeps towards the instrument, carefully not to make any noice to disturb him. Hoisting herself on to the table, he grabs the guitar.
She sleeps in the springtime
in hollows of old,
where the blood amnesia
of her concious can't take hold.(1)
Finishing the last with a strum, she peers up to find him not a foot away, scrutinizing her.
Her eyes full of laughter, she speaks, "Now that I've got your attention Sir, time for my next trick."
She is off the table and in his arms after mere seconds. The guitar, the song, his papers, their worries forgotten as teeth and tounges clash.
When he pull away from a deep kiss, he mummurs against her skin. "Mer- not here."
She jerks back, burned by the comment.
"Why not?"
He looks exasperated, "Because - hey, we talked about this before, because this is not a neutral territory - you know that - if any one were to see us." His hands squirm and slide his ring back and forth along his finger.
She lays a okan against the side of his face.
"Aw, you're no fun."
"Apparently not. If you count this as fun well, then I'm -what doesn your generation call it-?"
"Being a bastard." Her tone is cutting but there is a slight smirk on her face.
"No, I was thinking more along the lines of loser."
"Well that too, and you're not that old." She says softly, knowing that to her he should be.
He tilts his face to peck her on the forehead before drifting back to his work.
*
It has been one week since and Meredith finds herself beside a bathtub full of hot water. It looks so enticing that she lovers herself in, clothes and all. The warmth surrounds her and she welcomes the embrace.
She has submerged herself fully now holdng her breath, eyes open, but sight blurred horribly. Her lips are pressed in a thin line and the pressure is starting in her chest, stinging like a thorn prick at first, then heavy, more of a pleasant ache. As the seconds tick her vision deteriorates and all she can see is this beautiful, bright, welcoming light. Right before the ache n her chest swallows her whole, the light is wreched away and something is ripping her from her aquatic sanctuary.
Slowly with each breath easier, her vision and hearing return. Then warm, strong hands are tugging wet clothing from her body, she shivers violently from the blast of cold.
Silence ensures as she is dried and like a babe wrapped in a warm towel and tucked into bed. It is a long time fore either speaks, Meredith is content with just feeling his fingertips on her scalop laying with her wet hair.
He is the one to break the silence.
"Was it because of me?" The guilty tone in his voice is new and unsettling.
"No."
"Then why?"
She breaks through the sodden haze and understands what he is really asking.
"That's not what I meant - I wasn't trying to kill myself at all."
He grabs her hand and glares at her, "Then what was it, because if it wasn't that..."
She is tired physically and mentally. "Oh for Christ sakes - say it, suicide, attempted suicide - and no."
After some time she pronouces softly, "Have you ever wondered what it's like to hold your breath under long enough, that you start to see stars? Have you ever wonder how long you can keep not breathing till your lungs are screaming for fresh air? Have you ever wanted to feel that. Your heart racing, the high from not enough oxygen. Well I enjoy that feeling, that is my drug of choice. The calm induced in the brain during and afterwards is like being touched by the diven. Its a beautiful dream full beneath the surface, full of angel light and faerie dust."
He frowns, "Just don't try that again."
She mummurs noncomittally, far more interesting in the junction of skin where the neck meets the shoulders. Laying fluttery kisses along his sternum, she raps herself around him, but he starts to forcefully push away.
"What?" She says hazily, she is confused he's never actively refused her before.
He takes her hands in his and lays them on the bed.
"That's not why I came."
She cocks her head to the side and purses her lips, "Then why-?"
Before she can finish, his fingers bar her lips.
"You were missing a lot of class, your fellow classmates were worried."
And she thinks - but none of them came.
He starts to rises and franctically she grabs at him, managing to hook his elbow.
"Stay." The word is barely more than a whisper, a ghost of a pre-thought.
He shakes his head sollemly, "You know I can't."
He easily extricated himself, and before he leaves he kisses the top of her head.
"Get some rest."
She dips her head in a half nod and stares at her blank wall as if in a trance.
Only then, when he shuts the door behind him, does she curl up around herself and cry.
I've sunk so far
in this crazy dream,
I can't see the sun
if you know what I mean,
and the only words
from you are piercing cold,
the sounds of goodbyes
are growing old.(2)
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(1) and (2) are from songs I wrote for my band. (1) is Forestgale Night and (2) is Dreaming II.
All comments are appreciated.
Betty
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