The woman sees him---- he is sitting while glowering and does not see her--- and she finds herself smiling. She walks to stand behind him and places her hand on his shoulders. His shoulders stiffen and he turns around, sees her, stands up, and says her name.
She almost says her name for him but doesn’t say it. She hugs him---surprising him--- and his hands raise from his sides to hug her back. They stay close like that for a time, then she pulls away.
He says, “You look good.”
She smiles, “Thank you. C’mon, let’s go inside.”
He follows her inside as they climb up stairs and they sit down. She teases him about his contempt for the world and he says that whatever band that was outside, the fuck couldn’t play the bass and the mosquitoes were feasting on him. She says that this is why she’s always been careful about whom she allows him to meet. He answers that he’s never interested in the people around her anyway for most of them are idiots. She laughs that he did make it a point to meet them and tell her that and scared the shit out of her every time about what he could do.
He says, “I don’t like your hair.”
She says, “I like it.”
He orders his beer and she says, “Is it all right if I have a cappuccino first? I don’t drink as much nowadays and social drinking hits my liver.”
He pauses, “You’re back to coffee?”
She says, “It stopped making me jumpy. Took a year of all kinds of coffee to make that happen. But then again when I’m in the mood for a bender then I drink until I purge. Thank you for seeing me.”
He says, “Still makes me jumpy. Well, I did think about it for a time. I said, Here she is again.”
She laughs, “You surfaced first. You wouldn’t have if you weren’t ready to see me. And hey, I missed you.”
They begin: the reporting about the real without each other---- time, place, people, deaths, diseases. And then the Real---- a conversation on their critical studies of all the possibilities of the laws and aesthetics of reality, the mind, their souls. They laugh at the absurdity of created ontological others, especially this instant-generation of whiners and emo and sell-outs and all these techno-toys.
He says, “You know the Internet now?!”
She laughs, “Some and other things but still a fucking idiot when it comes to Excel.”
He groans, covering his laughing face, “What have you done to yourself!”
She laughs, “It’s called change. Perhaps T.S. Eliot got it right when he said that whenever you meet someone you know, you meet a stranger. How long is your hair now?”
He says, “Not that long.”
Later on he pulls it free from being tied and lets her see--- it is the same length, thicker, though she doesn’t touch it, and once he had hacked that beautiful hair, maddened by maddening, her silence--- as they talk about their not doing it but being it.
He says, “Still slipping in between everything?”
She says, “Sliding through the whole lot. You?”
He says, “Bypassing the whole system now to what would be its status in 10 years. I thought you’d wear a dress.”
She laughs, “I know. If it’s any comfort, I did go through that all-girly-what-will-I-wear-bullshit. And hey, I’m all dressed girly underneath the grunge.”
He smiles, “Now that’s more like you.”
She says, “I can control my rage nowadays, too.”
He laughs and offers his hand, “Hey! Cool.”
She laughs, shakes his hand, her hand asking a question and he answers, “I know, smoother now. Less driving.”
Less violence She says as she looks at him, “Next time I’ll wear a dress. I’ve forgotten how beautiful you are. Still doing drugs?”
He says, “Not anymore. Why do you think I gained so much weight?”
She teases, “Must be those donuts you have to eat. A good way of keeping you calm: Don’t kill anybody. Here, have a donut. Remind me to always bring donuts.” It used to be candy bars. Then there’s always me.
He quietly laughs, “You were responsible for a lot of drugs, you know. Like 365 straight days of drugs after you left. Then more days, more drugs. Except when I’m not in the country then I come back and it was drugs again. The stuff is getting expensive, too.”
She laughs, “Like everything else. You weren’t doing a lot during my time with you?”
He says, “Of course not. Barely. And I remember that I only really studied when I was at your house. By the way, a lot of people want to break your neck.”
She asks, “For breaking you.”
He says, “Yeah.”
She laughs, shakes her head You won’t allow that and orders her wine, “Of course I get blamed. All part of the deal, it seems. See, and one of my friends said that you would have been the most perfect for me because you get my brain.”
He laughs, “Who?”
She answers him, he tells her about his connection to the name, and she toasts his beer.
He says, “But then again I don’t tell them that it was I who fucked up. Took me a while to accept that because every time I thought of you, triggers drugs. I had to take you out of my system first.”
Double-edged sword She smiles, “Necessary absence. Rehab tactics. Accounting. It all takes time.”
They speak of time and they laugh about their faults, and he shakes his head, “…I even took a drug test.”
She says, “You’re fucking crazy. What in Hell’ piss were you doing taking a drug test when you know that you’ll fail it? You didn’t even do the 12-hour-purging? You know, I did that for Brutus once, his medical exam for a job. Hell of a 12 hours but I laughed my ass off watching him puke and piss the whole time. When I tested him in the morning, he was clean. ”
He says, “Brutus has always been the only one who can make us stop when we’re pissed. When he says…”
She laughs, nodding, “…That he can do. He hated what happened, said that he didn’t know who was crazier and we would destroy everything, and didn’t know who between us he would be really mad at. Called me all kinds of names, too. Damn, that boy was generous in his judgments. By the way, thank you for handling his mess. I remember he asked me if you were still using the same number because he was texting you but you weren’t replying. I got it from Damien, forwarded it to him and then deleted it. Though I think I texted you about his needing you first. He said you’re really fucking brilliant. His birthday’s coming up, by the way.”
He says, “Ah, the one when he beat the fuck out of a guy? Only five or six outside the family know that number, including you.”
She says, “Yeah, that Tribunal crap. You use another number, right? That number you have is the private number. I’ll give you the public one later, just in case.”
He says as he looks at her phone, “That’s an old one.”
She laughs, “Yeah. I didn’t lose this one.”
He drawls, “However did you manage that. You always lose phones.”
She laughs and shows him one of the pictures in the phone, his.
He says, “I was supposed to wear that shirt. Couldn’t find it. The other time I was in this place in Antipolo and I knew I had been already there many times but I was remembering when I was there with you. ”
She says, “That happens to me, too, like when I read this Cavafy poem. When Brutus told me about his mess, that really pissed me off and I called him all kinds of stupid. But hey, that fucker he beat had it coming. If I found out sooner, I would have gotten to that bastard before Brutus did but I have been staying out of his business. You know how he sneaks his choices under me. He really just had enough, snapped. Wish it weren’t so messy. Ah, love.”
He shakes his head, “That boy… Only does a lot of drugs when he’s with me.”
She laughs again, “But he was the only one who would come back for me every time you guys would leave to fry your brains. You’d leave just after you guys made sure I ate lunch. But he’s all grown up now and at the rate he’s going, his brain is almost dead. Clean, he says the last time I talked to him, and gaining weight, too,” and she shakes her head about that and other things.
He says, “The test was for the license. I told the cops to go ahead and do whatever. The fuckers opted to settle. I said Now we’re talking. Everything was fucked anyway and I didn’t fucking care. Besides, I can always kill the fuckers.”
She laughs, “Like I always say,” but shakes her head, “Cops, motherwhore’s crocodiles. You’re still the living fuck-you and you tell me I’m bloodthirsty? You’re so fucked up.” You were never afraid of anything, except losing me.
He says, “So, marriage? I didn’t know that that was in your vocabulary.”
She smiles, “Oh it is. Like Unicorn.”
He laughs.
She says, “It’s the damn pressure and expectation. I even argued with Ma about it last December when I broke up with him. Told her to back off. Nobody really knew about the break-up.”
He says, “As always.”
She sighs, “Of course I didn’t let that out. The sheep turn into wolves when it comes to this meat being available.”
He says, “What is that now? The 23rd break-up or something?”
She laughs and slaps his arm, “Oh, shut up! You know how it is with relationships. I love him.”
He says, “I know.”
She says, “Here’s a chain of a fucker bet: some people, like some of my girls, will only marry when I marry. So I marry when you marry. Now it’s your call. Or you can see it as holding a pound of soul since to use flesh is cliché.”
He says, “Unicorn.”
She laughs, “You and I are a dying breed. You know, he and I talked about that, just recently.”
He asks, “What?”
She answers, “Issues with marriage. I said to him that my heart is mine, mine to give bits and pieces of it, even if I’m with him. This body is also mine and mine to give to whomever I choose, even if I’m with him. Especially after everything this body has been through. Not his, no one else’s, but mine. Mine to give and never ever be taken again without my consent. So what then is fidelity?”
He asks, “What did he say?”
She answers, “My choice.”
He says, “When was the last time we saw each other? My memory slips now and then.”
She answers, “It’s been three years since I first showed myself to you after disappearing. You said that just when you learned again how to breathe, I had come to take it away. Well, that was a short truce. Two or so years since we last saw each other, then dealt the end, and it’s been dead air since up until you surfaced.”
He smiles, “You counted.”
She remembers that the last time she saw him, she had said to him You should have killed yourself when you said you would.
She smiles, “I always count when it comes to you. No matter how busy you were, you would always make it a point to come for me. Not more than six months. Except these past four or three years. You count… The whole point was to have my heart returned to me and broken at that. Only way to feel it was returned. Well, what do you know, a broken heart could physically be felt. ”
He quietly says, “And it hurts in places in your body that you didn’t even know existed.”
She looks at him That’s for me then smiles, “Man, I missed this kind of conversation.”
He says, “Well, well, whoever did finally break your heart even know that it was breaking stone and ice?”
She laughs, “Grief for a dinosaur that triggered all kinds of breaks. I think I even fell in love somewhere along the way.”
He says, “Ah. One of mine told me that authority comes from wisdom and that takes aging. The same one who told me to not do it but be it. That fucker.”
She nods and laughs, “Fucked. They’re all going extinct. One of my living ones asked me Where in God’s name have you been all this time when I surfaced. I answered with Making myself ripe.”
He asks, “You fell in love?”
She shrugs, Reparation, “It’s quaint.”
He says, “I forgot that it was a game so all the rules got thrown out. I know I’m fucking evil but you’re more evil and you raised the whole Hell to another level. The ultimate high.”
She laughs, Nobody has played it the way we played it with the future as the fucker bet, “That’s called being in love.”
He says, “You actually fell in love? Bullshit.”
She smiles, “Precisely.”
He says, “When I’m in one of those meetings and everyone’s drinking coffee and the assistant serves my tea: that’s quaint.”
She teases, “I hope you don’t put milk in it because that just makes you a fucking Philistine.”
He says, “I don’t. Except if it were the British, then it’s with that and scones. Normative normal. Look at this country. Then there’s Obama.”
She says, “Quirky. And here I thought Abe Lincoln was the first Black President.”
He says, “Up until the fuck got himself assassinated.”
She laughs, “Still collecting teas?”
He answers, “Drank the whole lot.”
Purging in She says, “Ah. Pebbles?”
He answers, “Not after you.”
You gave them all to me She shrugs, “You can always collect other things. I had to take care of some business first before I see you.”
He says, “Ice Princess.”
She says, “Am I? Softer nowadays, they say.”
He shakes his head, “Old Belial still in love with you?”
She laughs, “How the hell did you know about him anyway?”
He says, “Lawyered!”
She says, “Really.”
He shrugs, “Brutus and I did some business with him.”
She says, “After I left, of course.”
He nods.
Fucking Triumvirate She shakes her head, laughing, “When I said that we’re considering living-in, he actually sat him down and said to him You began it right with her. Do right by her. Don’t you dare consider just living-in with her. You marry her when she’s ready.”
He says, “See?”
She shakes her head again, “Not in love, it’s love, man. He thought I was unhappy that’s why I did what I had done years ago but he finally understood that I needed to go through all that because it was part of my metamorphosis and so he let go. Took him three years. Only way I would come back. But then again love is castration according to our Incubus.”
He says, “It’s fucking more than castration with you.”
She laughs, shaking her head, “In that game, when someone stops being in love with me which is really just wanting to fuck me, then he just might get lucky and he can have this body as his playground.”
He says, “I see… You’ve morphed into a different kind of predator into a different type of prey. Soft my ass.”
She smiles, “But I’m not playing. I felt it last night. This---” she points to that space, that hollowness near the last rib, “---nothing. It’s back, altered, but how it should be. They say the agony in being in love is not being able to be with the person you love. I think it’s when you see that you are no longer in love with the person but then again I feel no agony.”
He says, shaking his head, “Still the fucking Ice Princess. Even before, it never mattered to me whom you loved or actually fucked after me because in my head you’re mine. None of them will come close.”
She shrugs, “Catch 22. Am I still going to do the whole I’m-sorry business?”
He shakes his heads.
She quietly says, “I’m sorry. I know my time messed with a lot of things in you.”
He shrugs, “All or nothing with you.”
And so the truce goes with answering the unasked and asking the unanswered. She asks where he’s been and what he’s done to have been thought of by the outside as failure at certain things. They laugh about that---at what are seen as failures--- because he says he goes where the wind takes him, like her. And he answers that he’s been in exile for a time.
He says, “…He got shot. So business first before the other bullshit that they expect me to deal with.”
Our language She laughs, “I haven’t heard that blood language in a long time! Only you would speak of killing as business.”
He says, “Unlike you, I don’t kill in anger. It’s duty, you piece of shit. Exile again and they’re all just relieved that it’s just one and I didn’t fucking kill the whole family. And they should be scared of you because your killing is of another kind. The dull knife type. Exile was good for that too.”
Barbs and endearments from that viper’s tongue She shakes her head again, “Well you murdering psycho, we all do our own kind of loving, killings and duties. Remind me again, where did you get that scar? I never really asked you.”
He touches another scar, it seems, just below his chest--- then remembering which scar she stroked just once with her fingers and tongue, “Ah, that. Something had to be taken out and the excuse was the appendix for the records. How about you?”
She laughs, “I thought as much. Funny scar for an appendectomy. Too many damn things unsaid. We were both prickly time-bombs. All my scars are legal and no new scars, except for tattoos. There.”
He laughs, “A tramp-stamp!”
She laughs, “That’s the first time I heard that term. I love it! But fuck you. Are we calling me a tramp now? You know I don’t fuck around.”
He laughs, “I know you just don’t go down on anyone. Lucky bastards should be so fucking grateful. Did any of the fuckers experience---?”
She laughs, “---the fancy fucks?” and she shakes her head.
He says, “Whoever the fuckers were didn’t even know how fucking special it is to get inside you.”
She laughs, “One cannot appreciate the beauty of what one doesn’t understand.”
He laughs.
She answers his unasked question. He smiles again. They agree that they do things their way in whatever they do even if the world’s rules wants it another way. It would have been easier for them if the rules applied to them but these never did. Once more altering the status quo with quid pro quo about post factoids.
He says, “She fucking hated you.”
She laughs, “The last time I talked to her, accidentally, she asked if I were married already. I said no. She said that I should marry him already because he’s been waiting a long time and the subtext was the world’s men will be saved from you. Hell, I’ve been operating on dulled-mode these past years and the fuckers just keep on coming. And every time I decline and I hold back so that I don’t kill or break any of them. And one or so are actually asking to be broken as if it were something kinky. Jesus Christ. ”
He laughs again.
She says, “I never liked your ex but she did love you. You just weren’t ready for what she wanted. And she knew that I could take you if I wanted to. But then again, it was about who would leave who first.”
He shakes his head, “What the Hell happened that night? Who was that girl with Brutus then? Last time I saw her, she said it was one of the many parties you would throw and she said I kept on screaming Freedom. What the fuck.”
She answers him and laughs, “…Brutus sneaked her and the next thing I knew she was his girlfriend. And yeah, you were. Oh my pretty drugs. I got your ex drunk and fast on blowjobs. She said she was a drinker and I asked what poison she wanted. Tough vibe. You know how much I drink. Pointed her out to the waiter and told him to keep it flowing. Taken out of the party in an hour. Hey, it was my party.”
He shakes his head, “You were playing billiards… So that’s why. We had to take her home---”
She shrugs, “---You and one of your boys had to take her home. You left your wallet so that you have an excuse to come back, you said. You didn’t want to leave. One of my jealous fits. You know why I make it a point to not be jealous.”
He asks, “Still play billiards?”
She answers, “Now and then. Only to read who’s playing. After that, I don’t play anymore.”
He laughs, “It was that night that I popped some of your drugs. I and people like me have to do the whole dealing in secret and you just get and take your drugs in broad daylight!”
She laughs, “Hey, hey, hey, mine were legal. Gotta love shrinkers. I wanted to see what would happen that night. And nothing compared to your cold jealous rages. You and Brutus kept on calling my stuff chicken shit and what did my chicken shit to do you two that night?”
He says, “Blackout. He took one and I popped two: white pill and blue pill. Both round. Can’t remembering anything after. PCP shit.”
She laughs, “I told you that on saturated systems, they’re guerilla fuckers. I’ve had practice so the guerillas couldn’t fuck me. You didn’t listen. When I took you home, you were cursing me while puking and then screaming and it was certainly not Freedom and your girlfriend probably woke up and heard it. She threatened me the morning after with something like You crossed the line. I was clean. You slipped. I told you to keep it clean. Poor girl. But that slut who hacked Brutus’ heart with her mess is one of my waiting games. Did you know that he actually asked me to teach him how to play the game after her? She really fucked him up. ”
He says, “Do people even know what kind of a killer you are?”
She laughs, “Damien would always tease me whenever I get pissed off that I should release the evil. Then he fucking laughs at people and says they should be grateful that I’ve gone soft. But hey, I like being soft nowadays. Then again, push me enough and that can easily be remedied.”
He quietly laughs, “And here I was really hoping you wouldn’t end up friends and of course it happened. And I think you see him more than I do nowadays.”
She laughs, “Now and then. You made sure that we wouldn’t be friends for years which was good because we would have fucked each other up more, too. But Damien looked for me. After he read me and heard so much about me. Your doing and what did you expect?”
He asks, “Fucked him? You did say you wanted to last time we saw each other. Wouldn’t matter anyway.”
She laughs, “Geez, you really think I would? And hey, I didn’t look for him, he introduced himself to me. Besides, we’re not each other’s types and you and I know what he’s into. He walked into landmines, too. Burned him after his last fuck-up and after that we’re really friends. He’s good for me.”
He says, “I was burying you.”
She asks, “Am I buried now?”
He shrugs.
She shrugs, “I’m a virus, you once said. Maybe it’s a karmic lock.” I made it all even in the past years so that it comes to this. All of it to equal yours. Then she asks, “You love her now? How long now? Three years?”
He says, “I’ve mellowed down…Thought about settling down…Yeah.”
She nods, “It’s good that she no longer just occupies your heart. That’s what you said when I asked if you loved her years ago.”
He says, “I fucked up… I should have not asked you to leave him. I should have not asked you to marry me. I should have not asked you to go away with me.”
She has forgotten that, It was not the time, says, “You were in love. It happened. It’s done.”
He smiles, “You’re still blind.”
She looks at him And always never fuck with the sacred, says, “You know why I was screaming at you two years ago?”
He says, “I could never figure that out. Was it because I broke my silence to Damien?”
She shakes her head, “That was expected so it was not even that. You fucked her.”
He sputters, “What?! Her?! I fucking hate her! So not fucking true! Did you even ask her?!”
She says, “I could never understand why you hated each other so much. Both of you didn’t want me to have anything to do with any of you. Thought that maybe it was that. Probable. You know, he never resented you or any of you. What he didn’t like was that you lied to me.”
He says, “I didn’t fuck her.”
She says, “Look at me when you say that.”
He looks at her, “I never fucked her.”
She says, “True.”
He tells her more, “…I may have been many things but I never lied to you.”
She shrugs, “I chose to believe what I knew were lies just so I won’t break or break anything or anyone again. Perhaps so that I could deal with the whole thing. I should have asked you instead of screamed at you. But then again, that was after I told you what I told you. You know how it is with grieving and I was reactive and you dealt reactive. Done. And no, I didn’t ask her, couldn’t ask her, and no point. She and I had issues at that time and she did what she knew would hurt me. I did tell her the only thing that would and she went and did it. Rode it and done. Even you never understood how much I love her. If it weren’t for her, none of you could have come close. Anyway, all part of the drug business. A long time ago. It’s done and it did what it did.” I felt my heat stop beating and I froze it just so it won’t break.
He sighs, “I figured. But…fuck…now that whole thing is tainted by that…Of all the things… Shit.”
He doesn’t ask who told her and she doesn’t tell.
She says, “Deal. All part of the betrayal business. We all paid for it. A lot of things were happening at that time, violent changes, as it always is with people like us. Hey, post facto and in time it didn’t even matter. All part of the holy fucking shit. It’s done. Besides, it gave us the needed time to get to this.”
He says, his hands curling, shaking, “It was so good inside but to the outside it was so bad and it was tearing us up. It had to end. Not just the way I had it in my head with my screaming No at you in the altar on your wedding that was already being discussed. Or something like it that would wake you up from what you thought you wanted.”
She laughs, “What you thought---” and she shakes her head, “---Romanticized bullshit. Always keep it real. It ended in ripping anger. Only way for us, it seemed. Fuck the outside. May I remind you that I left because you got me so convinced that you really were going to kill yourself. So what was the point in staying? To watch you die? It was killing me and you were too caught up in your head that you didn’t see… I told you these three years ago. Have you forgotten everything?”
He says, “You really think I’ve forgotten everything?”
She says, “Quid pro quo.”
He says, “You’re not asking. Not with that tone.”
She says, “You’re not answering. How do you feel now?”
He says, “Answer me first.”
She says, “I’m asking.”
He answers, “I would carry you when you were too drunk. I would wait every night until I feel you slipping into bed beside me from wherever you came from. You sang to me, once, to sleep. A song with something like sleeping with you. Not much for your singing but I know you never sang for anyone but me---”
The fucking pain She laughs, remembering what she has almost forgotten, “---Hey, I’ve gotten better at singing nowadays. And you would tell me about how fucking heavy I was. Those stairs were killers.”
He says, “You weren’t heavy---” and as he says all the other remembered things that she has forgotten, she becomes quiet, feeling his heart.
Then quietly she says, “You said that he would have looked like his asshole of a father.”
He looks at her, waiting for her rage, expecting her to stand up and walk away, afraid to ask her questions about the unanswered.
She smiles, You said the right thing to say, “I named him.”
He exhales, “You didn’t tell me that.”
She gives him the name and he nods, “That’s a good name.”
She smiles, “I thought so, too. Have you been keeping tabs on me these past years?”
He says, “Not really.”
She laughs, “Right. But you let things slide. But then a lot of shit that went down wouldn’t have happened. And they had to happen. All part of making the holy-me-unholy whole business. Break the whole game. New ones.”
He laughs, “You ruthless bitch.”
She laughs, “You know me so well. And you had to settle for a long time for even just stealing my lighters because you couldn’t touch me. ”
He says, “It was such an achievement already that I could light a cigarette for you and you would actually take it from my mouth to smoke it.”
She says, “It was and still is. A kiss. It was four years in the making… They said that even in the beginning you already felt something for me…You kept on surfacing…We were all younger then…They would tease me about it and I would just shake my head, never believing them. It is always the little things that matter.”
He says, “…It never was and never is about fucking.”
She laughs, shaking her head, “And even that had to take a lot of time. Good God, the shit I put you through… Thank you for the patience.”
He shakes his head, “And can you be touched nowadays?”
She laughs, “I was at this wedding reception around three years ago. People were throwing each other into the pool, clothed and all. There was this one girl who tried to push me. From behind. Felt that touch and before anyone knew it, I had flung her into the pool. Hard. And she was this thin and small girl. Thank god it was a pool and I adjusted enough so that I didn’t flip her. Now, my girlfriend who was also there, when she saw that the girl was sneaking behind me, she almost screamed No! No! No! Don’t touch her! Shit, too late. I was apologizing the whole time. I really fucking felt bad about that.”
He laughs.
She shakes her head, “That still takes trust and a lot of giving so that I will take. But, yeah, if you like hot ice. I can kiss cheeks and hug now and do all kinds of things, too. I can even say I love you. But the closest I allow the world to touch who I am nowadays is a shortening of my name.”
He says, “Can’t have the whole you burning the whole fucking world.”
She laughs, “And you’re a goddamn urban legend in it.”
He says, “Deal. So, how does this feel now for you?”
She takes his right inner wrist, traces the starkest vein with the sharp nail of her forefinger, sinking it the whole way, says, “That’s how you feel inside me.”
He quietly says, “Look…” and shows her the wrist she touched.
She is startled to see a raked red bas relief that became a deep channel--- marking his life vein.
She says, “I’m sorry…” and takes out her cream, sits beside him, and applies it on the glaring vein.
He stays still.
She looks at the mark while soothing the cream on it and sees how much, “You loved me.”
He quietly laughs, “And you think I still don’t? That cream won’t make it disappear.”
Let go She says, “Don’t worry, that mark will disappear when you wake up tomorrow. But tomorrow it will be felt somewhere else. Here---” and she points to that hollowness, that space near the last rib. Then she goes back to her chair.
He touches the line with his fingertip, strokes it, inhales it, and says, “It won’t.”
She says, “Deal.”
He exclaims, “Hell, give me that fucking cigarette.”
She laughs, holds out the last cigarette on the table, and he lights it.
He inhales, exhales.
She takes the cigarette from him and inhales, exhales, “Why do you think I call you that name? I submitted to you. Nobody was just allowed to see how much. Especially you.”
He takes it back, inhales, exhales.
She takes it back, inhales, exhales.
He drawls, taking the cigarette, “You’ve got to change your tempting tactics. That letting me fuck you for two or so hours without my coming, among other things. Those really fucked me up but not gonna work again.”
She laughs, later says, “I loved you,” for it seems she can’t remember if she told him that, remembers that she never allowed herself to tell him that, even if she felt it the whole time.
He says later, “When I said tramp-stamp, I didn’t mean you were a tramp. I think that much is clear. You do look good in your hair. Forget about the dress. You look good in anything. Even in nothing.”
She laughs, shaking her head, “Now here we are.”
He nods, “Now here we are.”
They walk down the stairs together--- this time she allows him to hold her hand, his palm is open the whole time, just carrying her hand, the first time they walk holding hands--- laughing. She can’t remember who inhaled the last breath and who exhaled to stub that last cigarette.
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