take it all away
It took me a couple of days till the cuts healed enough I wasn’t worried about, y’know, bursting. A polo neck and long sleeves isn’t too suspicious in cold weather. I began wondering: am I a battered spouse?
The thought makes me chuckle. What we have is objectively so goddamn unusual we don’t fit into any boxes.
Anyway. A black polo neck in a post-Halloween goth rave is a weird-girl attractant because I look so obviously like I’m hiding something. After you slipped away from me to pursue a cute candy-pink-haired girl who looked like she didn’t know how she’d got there (I swear, when you spotted weak and isolated prey I actually saw wolf ears perk up on your head) a cabal of three girls accosted me.
I used to be shy around girls but I’m doomed by the best one now so I’m right at home bantering back. The ringleader had honey-coloured hair shot through with black are wore actual small Scarecrow fangs behind burgundy lips. Almost the exact shade of yours. I already didn’t like her much. That’s your colour.
While I was chatting shit with one of the three she grabbed and rolled down my polo neck. You normally lick and heal your bite, but two nights ago you were so wild you barely remembered to stop the bleeding at all. So before I could pull away, Burgundy saw two puncture marks set in a bruise radiating fascinating colours. As I backed away from her, replacing my polo, she stood staring abstractly at the space I had been standing.
“Not cool,” I said.
“That’s… you really got bit, didn’t you? That’s dangerous.” She grinned, her teeth almost perfect. I forgot how good that brand is. “You wanna bite on the other side?”
She didn’t know you were behind her. It didn’t matter that I was in no real danger. When you curled your left hand tight around her left shoulder you weren’t defending me but marking your territory.
“Both sides are mine.”
“Hey, what the fuck?” Burgundy tries to pull out of your grip but you don’t quite let her go, so she spins in place to face you. “Let me go!”
You stare into her eyes. I watch the alien pigmentation of your irises warp and dance like the subtlest and most mesmerising lava lamp. Her back to me, she remained silent so long her friends got concerned. “Neamh, you okay?” asked one.
You spoke before she could answer, quietly and with a driving rhythm. “Neamh, your fangs don’t fit quite right. They sometimes do but they don’t today. It’s reminding you how much you used to want someone to bite you. Making you think, maybe you don’t like the taste of blood. They’re not your fangs.”
I watch the fabric of her black and green minidress strain as she mutely tries to pull away, but your fingers tighten their grip. You continue to speak, quieter, so I can only hear snatches of phrases. “… sweeter to go under … terrified of losing control … they will forget you … but you won’t get to keep it, it’ll turn cold …”
One of the friends bravely strides forward and pulls at your hand on Neamh’s shoulder. She may as well try to pull the floorboards up while she stands on them.
You’re nearly done, though. You step forward, close enough to kiss Neamh. Into her ear you murmur, “Tonight is the last night it could mean something,” and place a slow, meaningful kiss on her cheek. I see a thrill of something pass through her like an electric shock. Then you back away and give me a bright smile. “Drink?”
The brave friend ushers the shellshocked Neamh away. She and the other friend watch you with wary glances. Neamh, shoulders slumped, doesn’t look back.
“What did you… say to her?” I ask as we filter across the dance floor to the bar.
“Her deepest fears,” you say brightly, putting up a hand to catch the nearest barman’s eye. “Something to stew over.”
We spend an hour laughing and dancing. The DJ has a fondness for Rammstein and we shout lyrics at one another. “Du! Du hast! Du haßt mich!” From time to time I catch sight of the cabal, but you don’t seem to notice them. Neamh looks in a bad way, increasingly pale and distracted, while the others try to encourage her to forget her strange encounter and have a good time. By the looks of it they’re not having much luck.
One time I make eye contact with the brave friend as she scans the crowd. The other friend is also searching. Neamh is nowhere to be seen.
You take my wrist and lead me off the dance floor. Together, we slip outside.
There’s a bar outside that’s closed, though if you push through a rope barrier you can get to a deserted terrace overlooking an unlit park. We find Neamh pacing there, hugging herself and talking to no one.
You approach her and she looks up sightlessly, still talking. Her fangs are gone and her mascara has run horribly, though her tears have long since dried.
Her vacantness puts me in mind of victims of mercury poisoning, whose neurons sustain such damage that they shut down and become incoherent. She seems not to recognise where she is.
She mumbles: “… but I’m not good enough not good enough never anyone to listen …”
“You only spoke to her, Raven!” At the sound of my voice the husk of Neamh spins around but looks right through me. It’s a bone-chilling experience.
“The kiss made her pay attention.” You walk around her as she cringes, more from some internal struggle or argument than because she is scared of you, or even recognises you. “She has been reliving her worst moments since. Her worst thoughts, her worst feelings. Poor thing.” You raise your voice to address Neamh. “You just want it to end. Don’t you?”
She looks up at you now, and a glimmer of recognition brings with it a bark of a sob. “I can’t. I can’t stop it. I can’t—”
“—shhh, it’s okay. I’m here to take it all away.”
She doesn’t obviously react but remains where she is as you come to her. Your hand finds its place on her shoulder and she doesn’t resist, only murmurs, “… he hates me, he went away and he hates me …”
“Shhh, pet. Let me in. Just relax and let me in…”
The hairs on the back of my neck stand up as I watch a familiar crimson-red flame kindle upon your left hand on her shoulder. She shudders like she is palsied but holds still.
“Theeeere’s a good girl. Like that. Hold still.”
Your touch traces across her chest to her other shoulder, and where it passes red flames bloom from the skin. You complete the benediction of the cross, drawing a line from navel to her third eye. The flames grow and do not consume her flesh but she goes iron rigid and her eyes roll back in her head.
“Not long now, pet.”
You gesture me closer. I come, so queasy with horror that I must purposefully make my legs take the steps, left then right.
Neamh shakes like she’s fitting. The red flames burn her out all through her body.
“Ready? Come, then.”
You hover your lips over hers, burgundy to burgundy. Her head falls back and creamy white smoke pours from her mouth. You inhale or suck—I can’t tell and wisps of immateriality curl around your face thick enough to almost hide the smile on your lips. But the substance you draw from her pours out and out, more than if you’d burned her body. You suck her down. This time, I think, it was a kindness.
Her body sways and I’m there to catch it. You allow smoke as thick and white as cigar smoke to trace over your lips, insubstantial but still giving the impression of fingers grasping your lips. Then a final inhale or swallow and there is only darkness within your mouth.
“Mmph, that’ll teach her to grab what’s not hers…” You thump your chest like you’re resolving a hiccup. Then you click your fingers. A flame, orange and steady as a candle in a bank vault springs up, conjured by your craft. “No point wasting her body as well. Cut her out of her clothes and I guess I won’t need takeaway after all.”
“You still will, though,” I say without thinking as I set to my work. I realise what you’ve said and look at that candle flame. “No point wasting her body…”
“I don’t expect her to remember the lesson long.” You grin wickedly.
I take a while to say anything, struck dumb with the unfairness. You watch the emotion find its answer in my worship of you: why has she done this? Because she willed it. “I’m going to get you two giant pizzas and force-feed you them…”
“Promise?”
I strip the woman who had the temerity to be interested in your handiwork on me and whose soul is now disintegrating under the effort of sustaining your punitive flame. You consume her and take great delight as her body races her spirit to break down inside you.. Impossibly fat and giggling drunk, we take you to a late-night takeaway and taxi home. On the way to the taxi you light three strangers’ cigarettes with your “cool party trick”.
The flame goes out before we need to climb into the Uber. You let out a blood-thick belch for good measure and cling possessively onto my arm.