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Frankie listened to
distant sirens squealing their discordant melody. The cops
took a lifetime to get to the scene of his crime. He’d
called them because Jenny had died. She’d bled to death on
his bed.
He’d met her through a
mutual friend at a house party and they connected
immediately. They shared the same taste in music, film and
literature. They spent the entire night discussing the works
of Marilyn Manson, Tim Burton and Sylvia Plath. They got
lost in conversation, oblivious to all those getting drunk
around them. When he brought her back to his house, in the
early hours of the morning, they were both stone-cold sober.
Jenny pursed her lips
and nodded as she appraised the crinkled posters adorning
the 1970’s wallpaper in his bedroom. They didn’t make love,
but instead continued their discussion on top of his unmade
bed, over cups of store-brand instant coffee.
Eventually, Jenny edged
closer to Frankie and asked him if she could have a nap
before she went home. Frankie’s own eyelids were falling
together and he was more than happy to lie with her. They
drifted off in each other’s arms, more comfortable than
Frankie ever remembered being. He woke up when he felt
Jenny’s breath on his face.
“It’s nearly night time
again.” Jenny’s voice; soft and sensual. A whisper of
wickedness.
Frankie felt a stirring
between his legs as he took in her scent and felt the warmth
of her apple-sized breasts, hovering just an inch above his
chest.
“I have a bottle of
vodka in the wardrobe.” He flicked his head towards the
rickety, faux-mahogany monstrosity looming in the corner.
“You want some?”
She shook her head and
smiled. “I want you to kiss me.”
“You know, that was the
next thing I was going to offer you.”
Their lips melted
together.
Frankie grabbed for
Jenny’s wrist as she slipped her hand up his sweater, but it
was too late. He held his breath as she ran her soft fingers
under the bumpy terrain of his stomach. She pulled his top
off and he froze.
“You’re a cutter too,”
she said.
Too?
She unbuttoned her shirt
and let it fall off her shoulders. They stared at each
other’s naked upper halves. Both were tattooed with thin
white scars and unhealed gashes.
For years Frankie had
taken a perverse pleasure from cutting his own flesh. It
started out as a teenage expression of frustration. A dead
father and an alcoholic mother combined with pubescent
aggression left Frankie burning hot with rage. He was too
small to take it out on other kids so he attacked himself.
At the age of twenty-five, he still used it to release pent
up tension. He could imagine anxiety and stress oozing out
as the blood bubbled on his skin. Now he’d found a soul
mate.
“Show me,” Jenny said.
“Show you what?”
“Let me see you cut
yourself.”
“I’ll show you mine if
you show me yours.”
Jenny agreed and Frankie
went to his ancient wardrobe. He took an old cardboard
shoebox from a shelf and sat it on the bed. Jenny gasped as
he pulled off the lid. Inside, an assortment of razorblades,
Stanley blades and kitchen knives glinted with promise.
Frankie selected a razorblade with a little piece of
cardboard taped around one of the edges to improve grip. He
looked at Jenny and smiled. She licked her lips.
Frankie slowly slid the
blade across the flesh just above his nipple. The shallow
cut smiled at him and gave him what he asked for. Pain.
Blood. Release.
Jenny reached out and
gently took the blade from Frankie’s hand. She placed her
cut on her upper left arm sucking air through her teeth.
Pleasure and pain. Her blood ran more freely than Frankie’s.
She’d gone a little deeper. Frankie enjoyed watching her
bleed. His blade had created the perfect two inch cut. His
blade, her flesh. Beautiful.
“I want to go again.”
Frankie said.
“Wait. Let’s get naked
first.”
Jenny pushed Frankie
onto the bed, stood up and placed a foot on either side of
his hips. She hummed a slow tune and swayed as she peeled
off the rest of her clothes. Frankie watched silently as the
self-inflicted roadmap of scars mirroring his own revealed
itself. She took Frankie’s hands and helped him to his feet.
She pressed her unclothed body against his and they got lost
in a deep soul kiss. When she felt his hardness against her
hip she dropped to her knees and removed his trousers and
underwear. Naked and mystified, they stood together and
swayed to the tune that Jenny continued to hum.
“Can I cut you this
time?” Jenny asked.
Frankie put his hands on
her shoulders and pushed her gently back. She smiled at him,
her eyes wide and round. Frankie felt at ease standing naked
before her. During the day he wore long-sleeved t-shirts to
hide his scars like a junkie hiding his tracks. To let the
air at his skin was so refreshing. He couldn’t say no to the
girl who’d instigated this liberation. He nodded.
***
“Drip it on me,” Jenny
said.
“What?”
“You heard me. I want to
feel your blood on my skin.”
Frankie looked in the
shoebox. After a week of cutting each other during heavy
petting, the box now sat permanently on his flat-pack
bedside cabinet. He didn’t even replace the lid anymore. He
went for his modified razorblade.
“You’ll need a knife,
Frankie. The cut needs to be deeper or we’ll be waiting all
day for it to fall off your skin.”
He selected a large
kitchen knife. His mum used to cut steak fillets for stew
with it.
“Perfect. I want you
inside me when you flow.”
Jenny lay back on the
blood-stained sheet providing inadequate protection for the
mattress underneath. There were no semen stains. This was
the first time they would make love. Frankie opened the
drawer of his bedside cabinet, knocking empty Chinese
takeaway cartons to the floor, and grabbed a condom. He had
the corner of the little square packet between his teeth
when Jenny laughed. It sounded like a good-natured laugh. No
meanness in it.
“What’s funny?”
“Think about it,
Frankie. We’ve been sharing a blade for a week. You’ve got
everything I’ve got to give you and vice versa.”
“Except a baby.”
“I’m on the pill. Come
on, I want to feel you inside me. Not a rubber.”
He made the cut. Deep.
Across his chest so it would rain on her breasts. The thrill
of watching his blood fall on her skin, hearing her moan,
feeling her writhe underneath in drying, crimson stickiness,
smelling his own blood and tasting the smooth, smooth skin
of her neck… divine. She was his sacrificial altar, his
priestess and his goddess.
***
“We’re running out of
unmarked skin,” Frankie said.
Jenny laughed.
“Will you still love me,
Jenny? When I’m one big scar?”
“Only if you have a
knife sharp enough to cut through scar tissue.”
Jenny held the kitchen
knife. She looked at the blade, lost in thought. Then her
eyes grew even wider. She ran her free hand through her
black hair. Blood from a fresh wound on her inner arm
streaked her forehead and found its way into the parting in
her hair. It looked like war paint.
“You ever had a toejob?”
she asked.
“No.”
“Give me your foot.”
Before putting his toe
in her mouth, she cut through the tough skin on his sole.
The next day, walking
reminded him of what he was missing. The pain of the wound
filled with sock-fluff was foreplay. Cutting and Jenny.
Cutting Jenny. The images flickered and evolved in his mind
the whole day.
***
“I want to ask you
something, Jenny.”
“Fire away babe, I’m all
ears.”
“You know I love you,
and I know you love me. Since we’ve met, I’ve thought about
nothing else but being with you forever.”
“You want to get married
or something?” she asked.
“Kind of,” he said, “But
a different kind of marriage. I want our souls to marry, not
our hearts. I think I know how we can do it, but first you
have to tell me something. How far would you go for me?”
“I’d do anything for
you.” She said it without hesitation.
“We’ll make love
tonight. For the last time on this plain of existence.”
Jenny studied him.
Waited for him to continue. Frankie took a cutthroat razor
from under the stained, blood-flaked mattress and unfolded
it. The low wattage light, from his bedside lamp, danced
along the blade and bounced off the lacquered ivory handle.
He heard Jenny groan a little as she looked at it. He could
tell she was on the same page as him.
“I want to run this
blade along your throat when you hit the peak of your final
orgasm. As you bleed to death I’ll hand you the razor, and
you’ll cut mine.” He paused and took her hand. “Do you think
you’re up to it? Will you be able to cut me, as you bleed
for the last time?”
“I love you. I’ll find
the strength to take you with me, Frankie.”
But she didn’t.
In the final moments of
her life, Jenny dropped the razor. As Frankie reached for
it, slick with blood, it slipped through his fingers and
onto the floor.
“Wait for me, Jenny.” He
whispered the promise to her, as her whole body shuddered.
He scrambled frantically
on the floor. He found the razor. He grabbed at it in a
panic. His hand slipped onto the blade and his fingers were
cut to the bone. He cursed under his breath, surprised by a
pain he hadn’t inflicted on purpose. By the time Frankie got
back onto the bed, Jenny lay dead.
Frankie held the razor
to his own throat, and took a deep breath. He counted to
three and braced himself. He couldn’t make his arm move.
Three times he tried to do it, but he couldn’t. His courage
evaporated. He cried out loud and threw the razor against
the wall. The blade snapped on impact and fell to the floor.
Frankie spoke to Jenny’s corpse for an hour, pleading for
forgiveness. I should have died too, Jenny. I was meant to
bleed with you. Then he lifted his phone and called the
police.
He hummed the tune that
Jenny had hummed to him the first time they cut each other,
and sat with Jenny until the police arrived. He hummed it
all the way to his cell. |
