Friday, February 17, 2006

Miss Guided

I bite down on my hand to quell the shrieks congregating in my throat, like teenage girls out shopping on a Saturday afternoon. Bile burns, cough hacks. Tears tumble out, my only drink for hours now. How much longer?

I bite down hard on my hand to stop the shakes that flash through my body. I can see the camera, mounted on the wall. It's recording me, this event. Will I live to watch it back?

Hands clasp my shoulders, nails digging. Flesh, the slapping of his movements. I concentrate on the swirls in the carpet. I put together the details of my surroundings: the red and ochre cloth of the makeshift curtains; the peach colour of the wood inlay on the wardrobe; the flecks of green dotted through the bedspread - the one I chose from that department store in town.

I bite down hard on my hand. I feel the scarf wrap around my neck. It tickles as it spreads, like tendrils of a plant. Tight in an instant, breath imprisoned in my lungs. I concentrate on the swirls in the carpet. Flesh slaps, bile burns. Cough hacks.

I bite down hard on my hand and suddenly it's over. I break down, weeping. My tears mixing with the blood snaking down my arm. My teeth are red. My look, horror. And then the cloth, warm water trickles to the small of my back, showering over my quivering hips and the crevice between my cheeks. Soothing. A hand runs over me, gently washing away the brutality of earlier.

I turn, kiss the lips of Oliver, murmur words of love.

I hold out my hand, bandages securing my blood beneath my skin. I kiss the lips of Oliver, let him wash me, clean me.

We've been together four years, for years. Years, we've been together. So long it seems like for ever. I love him.

Oliver stops the video. Speaks: something for the archives.

I kiss the lips of Oliver. I love him.

He says he loves me.

5 comments:

purplesime said...

And just to prove that I haven't gone completely slushy, here's something a bit more stomach-churning.

I don't know where these ideas come from.

purplesimon out...

Tamarai said...

oh dear.... this was quite disturbing for me, actually.

Are you mucking about with your photo? It's changed twice today.

purplesime said...

Always playing about with my photo.

I'm about to post something slightly less disturbing. I don't want people to think I'm a complete nutter, especially as I'm only showing my *evil* eyes!

LOL. Or should that be COL?
(cackle out loud)

purplesimon out...

Kat said...

very disturbing. I've never used the phrase "complete nutter" but it does seem to fit the moment.

purplesime said...

Kat: yes, complete nutter has been used to describe me. I just seem to have an imagination that produces this dark land, a land I believe a great many 'ordinary' people inhabit.

What goes on behind closed doors or in the darkest recesses of the mind intrigue me.

Rayna: Yep, if you've trawled through the stories on this blog you'll know this could be considered fairly normal for me! Nutter, yes, not yet complete. Thankfully, I've no desire to live out my ideas.

Image issues? Don't we all? But, in this case, I like that you get to see a different side to me fairly regularly - it's this or you'll begin to get HNT-type posts and no one wants that, believe me!

Finally, this kind of stuff only comes into my head when I write. I use this blog as an exercise space for my writing. Much of what ends up here isn't much past a first draft and often never gets used beyond that. I tend to borrow phrases that I like and weave them into new stories which I then send out to magazines. That way I can add to my rejection slip collection!

purplesimon out...