Video Games

                 trying something a little different this time...  


Personal diary of Margot Spoon. Entry dated 27th May 2012. Evidence Item Log #46331. Maryland State PD.


    27/5/12 Sunday

The one is about you. But aren’t they all? Well, they’re all about me really, but this one is also about you.

I wore those nice purple knickers that you say you like. Did you even notice? Actually, I should back track because that’s not the start of it. The start of it is that I don’t have a key. I don’t have a key, which is fine, I would flat out refuse a key anyways, but it would just mean that I can get in and out of your fucking house. Like when I leave my makeup bag in your bathroom but I’ve already closed the front door and then I’m locked out. Thanks. That’s what I would say to you. THANKS.

Today, as always, it was getting in that was the problem. This is how it went — I try calling you on my drive back but you don’t answer. Then, at your front door, I’m knocking without response. And then I’m knocking so loudly that your neighbour comes out to see what’s going on. And THEN, my husband calls and I know that if I don’t answer he’ll start to panic a little bit.

So there I was, on your front steps feeling your neighbour’s eyes penetrating my skirt, seeing my inappropriate purple underwear, wondering why I was talking to one man on the phone while I waited outside the door of another man’s house like a fucking five dollar whore.

But of course he was thinking nothing of the sort — your neighbour. Those were MY thoughts.

And THAT was the point that I had a tiny, quiet moment full of questions. It went like this — Is it the sex? Is it the danger, the risk? Is it just a habit I have created? Is it the comfort I feel after so long without any comfort? Is it my lack of self control? Is it you?

Is it YOU?

By the time I realise it’s none of those things and nor do I have any answers, you’re at the door, opening it, and I can see you’re wearing that ridiculous microphone headset.

‘Sorry baby,” you say as you let me in and I would believe the apology if you didn’t immediately  turn away and hurry back to the video game that I know is the reason you took so long to answer the fucking door. I want to leave right then and there, and so I pause in the hallway, my overnight bag in one hand, my phone in the other with my husband’s missed call. I watch you un-pause your video game on the couch, and to you, it’s as if you it’s as if the last fifteen seconds didn’t happen. And maybe they didn’t.

I think about walking back out the door but I’m tired and I’m frisky and I’m hungry. Plus, my husband thinks I’m staying at Kate’s tonight and she thinks I’m staying at home. I don’t want to go home, but if I actually show up at Kate’s it will be cuddling and then I’ll get her off and then she’ll lick me and all I’ll be wishing is that someone would actually fuck me. And hard. With a dick. I know that’s selfish. I’m no stranger to my own lack of appreciation for the things that I do have have in life.

To be fair though; my diary is about the ego. So let it be that this is my ego talking, in order of make me feel less culpable. And there it is — I already feel it less.

Anyway, I’m at your house and I don’t leave. I don’t go home. I don’t go to Kate’s. I undress and, in only my underwear, I come and sit next to you on the couch. For obvious reasons I am convinced that this will work, but you LITERALLY don’t look away from the television screen.

I sigh. My eyes ache. I want to take out my contacts, and let’s face it, maybe I’d like you more right now if you were blurry. I lean in and kiss your neck but the only response I get is a small humming sound. You still don’t look at me. You are transfixed on Halo. I know it’s called ‘Halo’ because you might have said it to me a million times. Maybe more. It was a couple of months ago when you first bought this video game and it’s your money to spend so I kept my mouth shut.

But now, here on your couch in my inappropriate knickers, I wish I had said something. I want to you tell you that you’re a halfwit and a fool. I want to scream it out loud and paint it on your god damned walls. I want to paint it on your face. I want to paint it in your blood.

You’re talking and for a moment I think it’s to me and so I go open my mouth to say something in response, but then you wave me away with a hand and I feel my anger and it’s almost tangible.

You’re talking into your headset and I think of all the times you have come on my back. In the interests of full disclosure via my ego, I will say that I always liked it, but that is beside the point. I think of all the times you’ve come on my chest. I think of all the times you’ve come on my face. And in my mouth.

I recompose myself and sidle up next to you. The gunfire from your Halo game is distracting. ‘How about we have a little nap?’ I suggest. You appear not to hear me. You talk again, and AGAIN, it’s not to me.

I’m vibrating. I feel it more as I stand up and look directly at you from the side. I’m cold in just my knickers and my eyes still itch — I’m at the point where I NEED to take out my contacts. ‘Baby?’ I ask, one last time.

If you register the words you fail to show it. You frantically thumb buttons and I see your eyes dart back and forth as they follow the graphics on the screen. I circle the couch until I am behind you and I feel as if I’m floating above us. I think to myself that perhaps even if I could break open the heavens, your attention wouldn’t be caught. Perhaps I could wake the dead and your attention wouldn’t be caught..

It’s easy to grab the thin cord of the game controller and quickly wrap it around your neck; the neck that I just kissed. There’s a long moment before you reach up to grab at my hands because apparently you thought this was something kinky. You were wrong.

I tighten the cord and feel you struggle against it. You’re strong and you pull forward and one of my hands slips but I have my knee up on the back of the couch. Leverage. That’s what I have. For once. LEVERAGE.

It takes longer than I imagined. You scratch at my hands with your fingernails and try to get out by sliding downwards, but you weren’t expecting this. No one would have expected this from me I suppose. I almost lose you a few times but I think of your come on my face and somehow it gets easier to keep the cord pulled tight and fast around your neck.

Your last breath is silent. I almost don’t even notice it. Ironic, really. Isn’t it? I let go and push you a little. You slump forwards. Your video game controller falls to the floor. I think it might crack open. Your game — Halo — continues on the television. On the screen things explode, vividly coloured aliens attack your virtual character, and I bite my lip.

It happened again. My husband is going to be so mad.

Christmas Eve



I died in the light of the morning. 
You died the next day.


Maya had bought the sweater with money from the last truck driver. It wasn’t for the warmth, though essentially that was good for keeping up appearances, but for the dirty great reindeer stitched to the front with the googly eyes and glittering antlers and stitched sequin nose.


She had always loved Christmas and even though last year hadn’t been ideal, Maya was determined to resurrect her longstanding habit of festive happiness. Or whatever.


She supposed she looked ridiculous in the sweater, but still, she'd bought a small, unsweetened coffee and set up camp at a grimy table in the corner. The girl behind the counter had been giving her the eye ever since. Jesus, Maya thought to herself, what was she gonna buy, a cow burger? Even that probably wouldn’t have satisfied the stupid slut who was still glaring Maya down like she was about to steal the cash register or just plain solicit right there in the diner.


After a while the girl behind the counter was distracted with one thing or another and Maya found herself free to get back to the hunt. More than a dozen truck drivers were milling around in the warm interior of the diner but one in particular had caught her eye. He was tall, lean, barely older than her, she guessed, and though clearly minding his own business over a cup of steaming soup, Maya could feel him buzzing with human need — he had already noticed her — she could hear the blood pumping through his veins.


Dark curly hair, rough fingers...her mind ran over their course surface and there was an echoing sound that boomed around her...a scraping so loud...


An unbuttoned flannel over a dirty grey shirt, hat on, its brim straight as an arrow but just as dirty as the shirt. A beard that sprouted in a thick carpet on his face. Maybe four days worth.


Maya could smell him on the air between them. Her hands were starting to shake from hunger.


***


She was tiny. And pretty.


He had seen her across the diner as soon as he came through the doors into the warmth. Out of the cold.


He had seen her, looked away immediately, and then found that he had memorised her in less than that moment. Jayden sighed. He was getting tired of failing to surprise himself.


Don’t think with your little brain, brother. That’s what Jimmy had always told him. Troy burned for Helen. Jimmy was probably the only voice of reason he’d ever hear.


Jayden had told his Mama that he would be good out here — where it was cold and isolated and the women were ‘strange’ and always ‘wanting to tempt him' -- and he was going to hold himself to that promise. The women that he’d encountered hadn’t really been like that, so he could never understand what his Mama was so afraid of. They were just women. Some were truck drivers, some were prostitutes, some were housewives who served him hot soup in cups at diners along the interstate.


This women, well, she was more girl than woman... She was tiny. And pretty.


***


Time passed for this man. Tall Beard. More boy than man, Maya thought to herself.


She watched him lift the cup of soup to his lips and time passed for him and his beard grew and she swore she could hear it growing. Time passed for this boy but it didn’t really seem to pass for Maya anymore. Sure, it had been a year, but she only knew that because Christmas was here again. She wondered if that made her like everyone else, with her hair and fingernails that continued to grow and her lack of surprise when night turned into day, over and over again.


She felt like the same Maya. She felt unchanged, as if her self was persistent and the world moved and grew around her in its own way. Perhaps it would have been different if Baby was still alive.


The only thing that was different was the fact that she wasn’t a little girl anymore. It wasn’t a blatant change that the people in the diner wouldn notice — the girl behind the counter, the tall boy with the beard — but it was definitely a change.


The bruises on her elbows and knees, and the dark circles under her eyes, these were more visible when she was hungry, and tonight she counted four days since she had last eaten. She needed more money. And she needed to eat.


The sweater had been frivolous, Maya could admit that to herself, but the improvement it had made on her mood was more than worth it in her opinion. The coffee tonight had been a dollar which left an even eleven dollars tucked into the back of her winter leggings.


Maya sipped her coffee and tried not to be envious of his plump, pumping arteries. Tall Beard. She could feel the heat of his blood coming off him in waves. The heat seemed to mimic her own want; her terrible, unforgivable need.


No big deal — just two consenting adults who needed what the other had.

Sure, Maya wanted it to be true, but she knew there was no way Tall Beard would consent to what she needed tonight. She was going to have to take it from him.


***


Jayden was tired but his heart seemed to be working harder than his body could manage, and a lot of his blood was funneling straight down to his...


Well. If he was being honest, that had probably started happening as soon as he’d seen her, really. Big dark eyes, with bags above her cheeks that were screaming lack of sleep, dirty bangs across her face, swimming inside a too- big Christmas sweater. There was something about her — like a car crash that you just ached to look at — this girl, with her big eyes; she was a magnet.


The soup was definitely not enough. Jayden bought an egg salad sandwich from behind the spit-guard for $4.50 (it was probably old and dry, but whatever) and wished he was anywhere but this truck stop diner in the middle of butt-fuck nowhere. In less than a day he’d be gone from this place, just like he was gone from every other place, but still.


He was already rock hard in his pants underneath the table when he looked up to see her face, not a foot from his own, as he finished opening the sandwich packaging. How had she come over without him noticing?


“Hi.” She smiled at him, but God, she looked pale enough and weak enough that she might just pass out.


Jayden smiled in reply. "Hi yourself." He motioned for her to sit down opposite him in the booth, which she did. She did not, however, accept the half of his egg sandwich that he offered her.


***


When you have no heart, it’s as if that heart belongs to everyone. And so, Maya’s heart was every man’s heart. But that was really only because men were easier.

There were women out here, in the cold, but it was as if most of them had no intention of exploring their wants or giving in to their urges. Men on the other hand were dripping with need and all Maya had to do was be there.


Just like Carl’s friend had told her.


It had been a night after the boys were all too drunk to remember that she was, in fact, a girl. An average kid, average height, average face, but there had been a glint in his eyes that made her think he was smarter than he let on and perhaps the alcohol only really opened his mouth and let out the words that had already been inside his mind.


“I’ve tested it out,” he had said.


Maya hadn’t understood.


“I’ve tried it, and it worked,” he continued. “Not like, stalker style, but just...you know, texting her on a Friday afternoon, or mid-morning Monday. Times when you know she needs attention. Just be there. Be there.”


Maya had only been half-listening at the time, with her mind on other things (though, she didn’t know then that she was pregnant), but now, these days, she found that it worked. And it worked pretty fucking well.


Just be there.


***


Perhaps it was just because it had been so long since he had been close to someone; touched someone, or felt something other than his own isolation.


Jayden found himself picturing her naked, this girl across from him at the table, looking up at him with big, wet eyes. He wondered what her nipples looked like; if she was shaved; what her skin would feel like underneath his fingers.


He took a long, calm breath and sipped his soup. It must have been Christmas Eve messing with him — making him think of home; making him wish he had a home of his own — a wife, child, dog. A lawn that needed mowing, a garden full of bright colourful flowers, a home cooked meal on the table every night, bacon and eggs in the morning.


All the things that he would never have.


No, he thought. Stop it. All he had to do was rest up, make it through this night, fucking Christmas Eve, and get his load upstate, on time, without incident. Then he’d be done. Home free, as other people said. Ready to chug on to the next job.


***


Maya found it oddly comforting that his truck cab felt more like a home than any other she’d been in. Normally they were littered with greasy crisp packets, empty soda cans, sticky used condoms, crumbs, and shards of broken glass.


But this was different. There was a sturdy blind that pulled down and covered the inside of the windshield blocking out most of the sunlight that had already started to finger it’s way through onto their legs.


The way she was now, Maya could feel everything, but when she touched her fingers to Tall Beard's chin and the sides of his face she was taken aback to find that it was total overload.


His thoughts came flooding in and there was no gate. The kid was an open book of feelings.
Mostly there were images of a small family home. Blurry, angry memories of a father. Tall Beard himself, picking coloured flowers against a brightening morning. There was a girl as well. Soft and curved and smiling, as if she herself, was the actual sun inside his memory. Big, pearly-white teeth; cherry red lips; bright blue eyes that sparkled. A girl — slipping away, fading away; moving her lips, but Maya heard no words.


She knew Tall Beard had lost himself to this girl. Maya knew that Tall Beard's heart had been rendered as useless as her own. She felt sorry for him. She had seen heartbreak before, she had felt it, but this was different somehow.


This was closer and louder.


***


Carl had scrambled on top of her in the motel bed, and, thinking he was on a bender, Maya had given up fighting him. It hurt less if she relaxed.


And then, just as she did, she had felt his teeth. By that point they were sharp and elongated. They opened up her neck and in response, her chest rose in an unintended arc towards him, pulling her upper body away but simultaneously giving him more space to straddle her and get at the hot blood that was running down her neck and into her hair on the sheets underneath her.


Carl. She had pawed at him but he was different. He was strong. Too strong for an addict. Too strong for the pathetic excuse for a human that she knew him to be. His skin was cold against her own and it was as if he was fevered, or pumped full of adrenaline, or something else...


He hadn’t fully drained her that night and then, eventually, she had turned. In the midst of her mindless convulsions Carl had dragged himself out behind the motel and died.


And then it was just Maya and Baby then. Maya. And Baby.

***


Jayden was nervous. His little brain was telling him what he wanted, but at the same time it was hard to think that this tiny pretty girl was anything other than dangerous.


She straddled him with the ease and grace of the experienced, and licked from his collar bone to the edge of his jaw. He was hard — a coiled spring — and he had the strong urge to toss her into the back, get on top, and hold her down while he had his way.


That was wrong though. Merely an urge. Not the way you act around other people. Jayden knew how to act appropriately and that was exactly what he intended to do.
As he let her move on top he noticed that she was lighter than he had anticipated.
She kissed his neck. She kissed his beard. She kissed his lips and then the lids of his eyes. Her pants were off (he hadn’t noticed her taking them off) and she pulled her knickers aside. Jayden could feel with his fingers how wet she was and it only made him realise that he was much closer to an edge he hadn’t noticed before. He wanted to buck up into her. He wanted to push her down and use her. He stopped himself.
This tiny, pretty girl slid herself onto him just as her razor sharp teeth pierced the warm skin of his neck.


Jayden clawed at her shirt trying to detach her from his neck but her hands were suddenly so strong that she had him pinned and he could feel nothing but the warm red blood that slicked out from his carotid.


***


Penetration.


Maya knew it had never been her word, but it was hers in that moment. She had penetrated him.


Her fangs had punctured his soft skin and it was as satisfying as anything she had ever felt. Even more than the first time. She sucked hard, desperate to get her fill, desperate not to waste a single drop. Tall Beard's blood flooded her system; overwhelmed her; set her cool, pale body afire.


The morning Carl had turned her, Maya had been in pain. It was Christmas Eve. Carl died out behind the motel but she woke the next day to a fresh hell that she didn't want any part of. And then she had become hungry. So hungry. Too hungry.
 
She had grown weak.


She had failed.


Failed Baby.


Baby had been her first meal. Tall Beard wouldn’t be her last.

Self Preservation: Volume II -- The Last Girl

Self Preservation: Volume II — The Last Girl

She’d screamed herself hoarse against the tree hours ago, and as the woman in the spotted yellow dress knelt beside her and whispered in her ear, Max wanted to say something, anything, but no words came out. She only heard her own wild heartbeat in her ears and that single line…
Best run now.
Max looked up and saw the man watching them from the porch, then she turned and ran into the thicket of trees and darkness behind the house.

***

More than twelve hours ago, Max had been waking up (sans clothes) in some guy’s bed. Though he was more of a boy than anything else. His housemate had joined in, and Max hadn’t exactly said no, despite her better judgement. Jesus, it had only been Tuesday night and the guy, the boy, had only barely hit on her as she poured him a pitcher of beer and handed over his change. A proposition here, a wink there, and it had turned out to be just one more time that she couldn’t help herself. Sure it had been fun — fun, scary, irresponsible, shameful — all of the above. How many times can you really wash it all away? How many times can you really wish it all away?
Max had dressed quickly and quietly, running her eyes one last time over the housemate and his impressive collection of tattoos before she slipped out the door and tried to remember where she was. Her phone was dead so she couldn’t check, but they hadn’t walked far from the bar last night, so she figured she must have still been downtown. Sure enough, a few minutes later she recognised some streets and the smell of fresh beans drew her to a tiny coffee shop brimming with early-morning cyclists on the corner of a quiet side street.
She ordered a tall latte and a bagel, but felt hot embarrassment when she realised she didn’t have enough money. The barista looked sympathetic as she cancelled the bagel and took a spare table amongst the lycra-clad hoards to wait for her coffee.
For a while Max drifted in a hazy daydream of the previous night. She was well aware of her weaknesses, of her shitty life decisions, of her D-rate job, and how much she liked her filthy existence. She was well aware of how awful all of that made her feel.
A soft voice eventually snapped her alert again.
“Is this seat free?”
Max looked up at a slim, dark haired woman in a beautifully tailored, deep purple pants suit. The slacks were long, almost completely covering her heels, and the jacket buttoned low on her chest, revealing just the right amount of skin. Max didn’t realise she hadn’t responded.
“Are you okay dear?” the woman asked, a worried look in her perfectly black-lined eyes.
Max fumbled for words, “Sorry. I’m…sorry, I just had a bit of a long night.”
The woman sat down and smiled, “Not to be rude, but I noticed your predicament at the register…I hope you don’t mind.” She slid a bagel wrapped in cling film across the table.
Max felt herself blush again, “Oh. Hm, thank you. That’s incredibly kind.”
“Don’t worry, it’s completely selfish,” the woman smiled broadly and rolled her eyes like a child, “every good deed is repaid in kind.”
The barista arrived with Max’s tall latte and a long black for the woman in purple. Once he left, Miss Purple put out a hand, “I’m Charlotte by the way.”
“Max. Thanks for the bagel.”
“You’re very welcome. Should we stay a while? Maybe wait until these overachievers have departed?” Miss Purple — Charlotte — gestured around at the cyclists.
Max could not stop her smile, “Sounds good.”

***

In the darkness she couldn’t see the fallen tree branches and broken logs that scratched her legs and tripped her up. Max ran without thinking, without a plan, without food in her belly except for the bagel — she just ran, for once.
Max didn’t run. She didn’t run for the train. She didn’t run for a cab. She didn’t run in high school for the track team. She didn’t run for the fire bell. She didn’t run for flight SF57 when it left her behind in Canada on a Sunday morning. Max didn’t run. But with her wrists trailing rope behind her, and her borrowed shoes soaking up wet mud between the trees, Max ran.
She ran until she couldn’t anymore and then she crouched and pressed her back up against a large tree, shielding herself from the light of the house. Her back and the inside of her arms were scratched up to shit from being tied to the tree, and the skin on her wrists was red-raw from the rope. Max tried to breath, tried to calm down, tried to listen for what was going on….
What was going on?
A rustle off to her left made her start. Max got on her haunches, ready to run again, but there was only quiet again. She waited; a loaded spring. There was a crack behind her, maybe to the left again, and then, another rustle to her right, but further away behind her. It was, perhaps, the moment she had been waiting for…
“My sweet girl, did you think you could hide from me?”
His voice echoed out clearly between the trees, and Max felt her blood turn cold in her veins.
“My sweet girl. You are my gift, and I love always love my gifts. Be a good girl and come back to where I can unwrap you.”
Max pushed off from the ground and sprinted through the darkness in a direction she hoped was away from the voice and away from the man it was coming from.

***

When the cyclists had dispersed, a lovely, quiet tent seemed to settle down on the coffee shop, and Charlotte crossed one leg over the other. “Max. God, I’m so glad for company today. Please don’t take me at face value — I come from no money. I married into money.”
Max looked down into her coffee, from which she’d removed the plastic lid, and gave a small smile. She felt an uncomfortable envy.
“Honestly,” Charlotte implored, “I’m a hood rat. My mother had twelve other children. None of us know who our father is.”
Max looked up, “You’re trying to relate to me? — You married a CEO of whatever, and you think you understand what my life is like?”, she said, feeling herself becoming angry and regretful and depressed.
“No, sweet girl, I am merely trying to graciously offer a hand to a girl who is seeing days that I have already seen myself. No condescension, no eye for eye, no payback. I was down there for a long time. I don’t want you to be.”
Max felt a truth being pulled from her; thin, and slippery, and draining. 

***

“My sweet girl, where are you hiding?”
Max felt herself shivering against the cold earth and somehow wished she was back at that boy’s house, with his gorgeous housemate, and her poor life choices.
He was closer now, “Oh sweet girl…you know I’ll find you.”

***

Charlotte sipped her long black, “It’s funny, but you really do look like me, you know.”
Max silently agreed. Their long dark hair, their thin fingers, their big eyes. The likeness wasn’t exact but it was noticeable and clearly something that had intrigued Charlotte.
“Max, when I said I wanted to offer a hand, I had something more than the bagel in mind I’m afraid. Would you like to hear my proposal?”
“What kind of proposal?” Max asked, confused.
“Mm, I’m afraid it may seem a little…unsavoury, to be honest.”
Max shrugged a yes and sipped her coffee while Charlotte explained.
“You see, my husband — I love him very much, but we’ve been married for an awfully long time. We’ve not grown tired of each other but we have become a little bored. Sometimes he prefers something different, but still kind of the same. Do you understand what I’m implying?”
Max did, and though she wasn’t offended, she was still confused, “There are women who provide that kind of service, I’m sure you’re aware?”
Charlotte sat quite straight in her seat and kept her voice low, discreet. “Oh, sweet girl. I am, of course. But my husband doesn’t like a professional touch, and it’s not often I can find a girl so…similar to myself.”
Max considered a moment, trying to ignore the itch she felt — that same itch that had nagged at her last night.
“I can pay. One thousand now, one thousand afterwards. Cash.” Charlotte caught Max’s eye and they were locked for what felt like a long time.
Looking back, Max could say for sure that it wasn’t the money that had convinced her.

***

Sweet girl. They’d both said it too many times.
Max felt adrenaline coursing through her as she rounded another huge tree trunk, wishing she wasn’t wearing the light blue dress that Charlotte had given her to change into. At least she had flat shoes — a very thin silver lining. What a massive mistake this had been. Just because she couldn’t help herself. Just because she was an awful whore, and not even a real one. Just because she could never say no even when she knew it was wrong.
She stopped, listened, heard leaves crunching behind her and ran in the opposite direction.
Right into a fence.
An electrified fence.
The skin of her arm and knee made contact with the wires, and the shock and the surprise sent her hurtling backwards a few feet. She fell in a heap on the damp ground. Max was still a moment, sinking down, her arm tingling.
His voice lanced through the ringing in her ears.
“They never expect the fence. Not even when they see it. But don’t worry sweet girl, you did very well to get this far.. You should be proud.”
Max was spinning, trying to sit up — the world seemed to be turning without her. She looked up at his face that was lit only by the moon. He was handsome, very handsome, and smiling in a way that made the whole situation seem impossible. He cocked his head and considered her.
“She did well this time. You’re very close the real thing. Even the dress fits perfectly.” As he said it his eyes went wide and the upper half of his body jerked forward slightly. There was a rustling from behind him and Charlotte, who was now dressed in a slim black suit similar to the purple one from the morning, slid around into view.
As Max watched, Charlotte buried the long, thin, blood-soaked knife in her husband’s stomach as she held her other hand against his face. Tears ran down her cheeks. She withdrew it and buried it again, and then again, and then again. More blood slipped from his lips and he didn’t manage to say anything at all as it ran down his chin and onto his shirt.
He was bigger than her, and the willowy woman had trouble getting him onto the ground with any kind of decorum.
“I’m sorry I ever brought you here,” Charlotte said as she crouched next to her husband in the damp. “I’m glad you were the last girl. Please forgive me. Your money and your shoes are on the bench in the kitchen. I’d appreciate it if you could forgive me and wipe this evening from your memory.”
Max stood, shaky and unsure — I’m glad you were the last girl. With one last look at the suit-clad Charlotte, cradling her husband’s head in her lap, still holding the knife in one hand, Max stumbled back through the darkness towards the house.
The door was open and she found her things on the bench, just as Charlotte had said. She peeled off the mud soaked flats and slipped on her converse, pocketing the wedge of cash. It looked like more than two thousand. With unsteady hands she picked up her bag and checked the contents — phone (now charged to 100%), keys, wallet, tampons. Her clothes were nowhere to be seen.
Still in Charlotte’s pale blue dress, Max left through the front door of the property and walked quickly to the end of the gravel drive. Dim lights on the front of the house flickered behind her, but she didn’t look back as she called a cab. She was headed home, but that wasn’t her final destination. She had already decided where she should go from here.

***

To be continued...

King of Pigs

This is a man’s world, as it goes
And yet out here you think you command;
Hold all the aces;
Take all the shots.
How foolish you are, my dear

Letting your hair fall down against your shoulders
Letting it toss around in the wind
You think
They adore you

But would their smiles be quite the same
Should you let them
Through your front door
Or would they simply turn on you

In the same second, if another
As beautiful and rakish were to appear
Wouldn’t they just dance in the mud
For her
Perhaps with even more fever

Wouldn't they love her as much
Best not to know
For it is bliss, isn’t it — ignorance

Pretty young thing that you are
The truth is so sharp and your skin
Much too soft and warm
Butter beneath their teeth

They’d rip you open; forget
Your smile
And set your successor upon a
Throne of your bones