The day was hot, and I was wearing a thin t-shirt that hugged my frail body when I left the house. I dropped by my dealer.
"I just sold you an assload of coke. What did you do with it?"
"My brother flushed it, dude." I said, handing over a pile of twenties. I hadn't given a second thought to the amount I had spent on cocaine in the past month. And regardless of his seeming concern, I could tell that my spending pleased him. He had a new watch.
"Well, you're lucky. This is the last of my shit for a good week or so."
"This should be sufficient until then. I'll give you a call, I guess, when I'm coming by again."
He nodded, and I excused myself to use his restroom. I knew better than to walk around with cocaine in my pocket. I put the baggie of it down the front of my boxer-briefs. I resisted the temptation to just do a line right there. No, I had to wait. I had big plans for tonight.
I went to visit her at the store, which was, as usual, devoid of customers.
She didn't notice me enter at first, absorbed in stocking some shelves near the back. I came up behind her and I wrapped my arms around her.
"Oh, Taylor... you scared me!" She said, then kissed me. "What's up?"
"Come over tonight." I said, "I've got plans."
"Oooh... What kind of plans?"
"The kind that require you to dress up pretty just so I can undress you later."
She giggled, and blushed a little. "Well, what do you want me to wear? A dress, or just a teddy?"
I grinned. "Though the latter would be sexy, just a dress is okay."
"What are we doing?"
I shrugged. "I'll never tell."
She made a face to indicate frustration, but I just laughed at her. "You're so cute!"
"Cute?! Where do you get off..."
I cut her off with a kiss. "Just smile and say yes."
She refused, biting her cheeks to prevent a smile. Above us, the oldies station was playing The Turtles. I began to sing along, softly, already distracted from any real intentions I may have had. "I can't see me loving nobody but you, for all my life..."
She grinned, and I began to sway a little, side to side, "When you're with me, baby, skies'll be blue, for all my life." I pushed her to dance with me, and she started singing along, too. I was positively giddy. Clearly, the result of too much time apart.
"So happy together..."
With one hand on her hip, and one hand interlocked with hers, we turned in circles, laughing and singing. I pulled away and she twirled under my arm, accidentally kicking the shelf behind her and knocking over several boxes of tissues. We both collapsed into giggles at our own unskilled dancing, and began to pick up the boxes. She wiped laughing tears from her eyes. I grabbed both of her wrists, opening up her face, and I kissed her intensely. I could still feel the residuals of the noise and laughter looming above us as we kissed in silent peace. The sound of bells and footsteps caused us to break apart. An actual customer had entered the store. Annissa squeezed my hand.
"What time should I come by tonight?" She said.
"Seven. And don't eat before you come."
"A real date?" She grinned. We had discussed this before, how we had never been on a real date.
"Yeah." I said. "Our first date."
She grinned, and I watched her hips as she sauntered up to the counter at front. I disappeared through the back door.
The coke stayed in my jacket pocket. I pulled my belt tighter than usual. I covered that up by casually keeping my shirt untucked. My Mom saw me and said, "You look nice. Where are you going?"
"Taking Annissa to Carluzzi's." I said, spouting the name of a fine Italian restaurant in town.
"That should be nice." Her face turned to a gentle, sad smile. I wanted to talk to her, but then the doorbell rang. "Here," She said, handing me some of the flowers she had handpicked from the garden and set up on the dinner table in a vase. "Have fun. Will you be home tonight?" She didn't really care, but she asked out of courtesy. She knew that I probably wouldn't be, and even if I was, I would be home later than she would be awake. Nobody had asked me if I would be home for months. Nobody seemed to really notice.
"I... don't think so." I said, blushing a little at the obvious implications.
"Be safe." She kissed me on the cheek. I hugged her gently. I missed my mother.
Annissa was so beautiful. I gave her the flowers. We left in my car.
I ordered a bottle of wine for the two of us. She said she had never eaten at a place like this before, and she didn't know what to order. I gave suggestions. We drank our wine. Another bottle, and another, until we were substantially drunk. I ate for what felt like the first time in months.
I took her to my childhood home, which was now headquarters for band and fan club related business. It was small in comparison to my current home, and she marveled that the nine of us lived together in the place. I brought her to the room my brothers and I once shared, and she amused herself by looking at photos on the shelves and exploring the drawers of our old kid things. We talked softly for a while, drunk and sleepy from the wine, but as soon as I started cutting lines, things heated up. For the first time we were alone. Really alone. Not in a park, or my car, or my house constantly in motion. Finally, there was stillness. And it was our call, our decision to break the stillness.
After the quiet shuffling of sheets and the soft buzzing of zippers, the tearing of fabric and the sound your nose makes when you take a long deep breath created a cacophony. We didn't have to muffle our voices with pillows, or stifle our desire to go hard. The sounds she made were like whimpers between our kisses. And then she bit down on my lip as the sheets beneath us grew damp with sweat and fluid. I was bleeding, but it felt good.
We lit cigarettes and stared at the ceiling. I leaned over and reached in my jacket pocket.
"I want you to do something for me." I said.
"What's that?"
I pulled out my good lighter and a razorblade. I held out my forearm and pointed to the spot just before the bend of my elbow. "So I never forget. So no matter where I go in the world, and no matter how long it has been... I'll always have you with me." I held the blade over the lighter until the hotness burned my fingers. I held her hand over mine as I pressed the blade against my skin. I instructed her not to let me move until the blade went cold. We did it again and again, going over each mark three times until the three letters of her nickname were spelled out in burns across the inside of my forearm. The skin glowed red and raw. It felt good.
"Me too." She said, thrusting her arm out in front of me. She didn't wince. Not once.
I was turned on, feeling the heat of her name emanating off of my body. We did another line, and tumbled a second, third, time. Sometime during the night, she had left (in a robe) to my car to get a book of CDs that seemed to be a cumulative collection of anything and everything we had listened to together for the past few months. She put Bjork in the player as we talked. She sang "Hyper Ballad" to me, dancing around the room with ribbons and lace she found in my mother's old boxes. I found a piece of silk my mother had been saving for a dress she never made, and I wrapped her up in it. Another line, and she chased me outside naked, locking me out, but only until she stopped laughing about it. We were completely reckless, living as if we had not a worry in the world. Things in the house were strewn everywhere, and our clothes had been long forgotten about, as we screamed and laughed, and sang and strummed guitars. When the sun started to rise, we were making love again.
"I never want to forget this night." She said.
"You won't... I don't think it's possible for either of us to forget this night."
"I love you so much that it kills me."
"I never want this to end."
Finally, at about 10AM, we began to relax. I lit a bowl, and we lay side by side, just silent as the stereo blared on. After David Bowie, Bjork was back. Heady and dark, it was, at that moment, the perfect sound. I wrapped my arm around her and closed my eyes, feeling the bass gently massage my bones. Was I falling asleep?
I felt so comfortable and so perfect that even the crash didn't seem that bad. It was our last perfect calm before a very big storm. The day marked two weeks before my flight, and so the countdown began. I took every ounce of myself and I put it into her before I had to retract it all, and start up real life again back in the city of heathens. I wanted to be a part of her completely. To be the sweat the pours from her skin. Already. I felt as if her eyes could read directly into my thoughts. I wanted more of what made her so powerful, but at that moment, I was content with what I had gotten. Parting, I knew would be a blow to my strength. I tried not to think about it, and took to memorizing her instead.
"You make me feel so safe." She whispered. I watched as each breath caused her stomach to expand just slightly.
"Stay with me forever." Though we both knew it could not be, neither side objected or moved.
Barely audible, a breath against my neck. "I love you." And rest.
All that no one sees you see, what's inside of me.
Every nerve that hurts you heal, deep inside of me.
You don't have to speak, I feel.
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Lyrics (C) Bjork, "Joga" and The Turtles, "Happy Together"