A final touch of eyeliner, the final smear of lipstick. The jacket feels rough against my skin, heavy. It’s made of wool, isn’t it? My stomach turns. Allergic, I must be allergic. I look up. He’s waiting. The smell of smoke stings my nostrils and fills my lungs. I breathe in and out. I count one breath, two breaths, three breaths. I go to put a mask to my mouth but allow my hand to crumple it. No masks: that’s the rules. I hold my breath but let out. I’m suffocating on the fumes. I cough. The asphalt sinks beneath my weight. My heel gets stuck. I pull it out. My stomach turns. I hurry across the asphalt, running, slowing, running, into the building, quick, before you’re caught. You wouldn’t want to get caught would you? Who knows what might happen. Who knows what he’d do if he found out. Remember the rules.
I hurry up steps and count, one step, two steps, three steps; careful but not too careful. Maybe I should fall. Maybe he’ll push me. Maybe I’ll get lucky. I closed my eyes and open them. It is dark. I look out a window, a sharp square filled with sharp glass on the landing. A moon looks back. Its grin is twisted. I hurry up the stairs, quick, faster. Maybe he’ll come. Maybe he’ll catch me. Maybe he’ll push me. The penthouse: I am passing the penthouse. More stairs. The roof: this is the roof. It’s warm. The air feels too hot, too humid. I can’t breathe up here. The breeze is too quick, it blocks my way. I can’t breathe. It’s too warm, a hot breeze: a dead breeze. I want to die.
I glance over the roof, hanging there, and he comes and he holds me. He wrenches me back and kisses me. Eyes open, I notice the makeshift bed. The dark sheets big, like black sails, puffed out and manned by care. The pebbles beneath my feet make me totter. I wish he wouldn’t hold me so tight. Remember the rules. He pushes me back against the ledge. There is nothing behind my back but his arms. They keep me steady and in place but I can feel the gust of hot wind on my neck. I can feel my hair dance in the dead breeze though it is sticky with sweat. He pulls me closer, tighter. It’s too warm. I close my eyes. I’ll suffocate. My stomach flips. He wrenches the jacket open, pushing himself against me. My arms are shaking. He holds them still to cease these minute movements. My mind tries to will him to let go of me, will him to stop pulling so greedily at my clothing. He is stronger than me and I feel it. I look up into his eyes, too big to be really spiteful, really helpful. He can’t help. What does that mean? He’s stopped kissing me and is staring at me. Staring with those big dark eyes. I stare back with mine; they’re smaller, sharper, and bluer. He wins though because I blink.
I begin to shake again and my stomach performs a few cartwheels. He drags me to the bed, pulling, bruising, and pushing me down onto it. The pebbles stick through the sheets. No matter how carefully they have been prepared, no matter how dark and smooth they look, they are thin. They are misleading. He crawls on top of me, pulling the coat some more and then tossing it to the side. I am naked underneath that coat. And now I am naked underneath him. Why this need for nudity? Why this need for his hands on my body; his neck on my throat? Passion. I want to vomit. I feel it rising in my throat but I swallow it back down. I see the moon, in that twisted sliver of a smile. He kisses me pushing me down.
“Do it.” Teeth press hard into my neck, biting down, bruising, and sinking into the flesh. “Harder,” a mumble. I gasp. Harder down he bites. Blood tricks down my shoulder. He is undoing his pants. Nudity. “Harder,” a mumble. Blood gushes. My stomach explodes. My eyes flutter. My pulse races. The world goes dark.
Black. Ness. Dark. Ness. I am… not. I do not exist. Pleasant. No fear. The dark—it doesn’t scare me. I remember words from the past, old words, spoken long ago, “Nothing is fear.” No. “Fear is nothing.” No. “Nothing to fear.” No. “You have nothing to fear.” I have everything to fear! My mind suddenly goes blank. It switches off. I’m dying. Victoriously, I’m dying. It switches back on. Never mind.
I open my eyes. He is naked. I never realized. And his eyes are there, standing out from the darkness. His mouth is too small. His brow is too furrowed. He is too young to be worried. He begins to tremble. I steady him. “You fainted,” he says.
“Harder,” I mumble.
“No. Not again.” He slides off of me, retreats into the darkness becoming a mere shadow in the moons glow.
“Harder,” I insist though my voice cracks, though I cry. I wipe the tears away quickly with weakened arms. I can feel the bruises. I can feel my neck. I can feel the blood.
“No more. Why do you do this? Why do you make me do this? What if… You’re too young. You’re not even… And then what if…”
“It wouldn’t change things. I’m not afraid.”
“Yes, you are.”
“But I won’t be. If you… again.” I sit up sluggishly. My hair sticks to the side of my face. My body is alive with cold sweat. It is cooling in the hot breeze. It smells of toxins, of cigarette butts. “Harder,” I mumble, “harder. No fear. There will be none if you just continue. You have to face it.”
“But why? We don’t have to. You don’t have to. What if… Why? What are trying to conquer? Fear? There’s no need to be afraid.”
“You killed someone. You know what it’s like to feel like this. It’s my fault. It’s my fault and now I have to face it, to win against it. It won’t win. I won’t let it. It can’t win if I can just jump in that lake. If I can just allow it to swallow me.”
“If you can drown yourself? You know you can’t.”
I look up in at the moon allowing that sliver of smile reflect in my dull blue eyes. I open my mouth, smaller than his, “I can. I will die.”
