NC-17

After a movie, a drink, and a cigarette, Master stands to turn off the lights in the living room and kitchen, slapping Slave on the ass as he walks by. He takes my hand and leads me into the bedroom. I set my glasses down on the night stand and Master steps into the bathroom for a moment. I take an extraordinarily long time to unbutton my shirt, wanting him to watch me undress, although I thought about letting him return to find me naked and handcuffed to the bed. Instead he comes back to find me just finishing peeling off my shirt, gazing up at him in just a red lace bra and a navy, high-waisted, a-line skirt with white polka dots. The outfit really is something straight out of an old pin-up photo, but my stature speaks of something much more demure, innocent, and even shy. The moment his eyes fix on me, he lets out an audible sigh, just one decibel away from becoming a quiet moan, and I smile to myself knowing I've pleased him. As he slowly strips off what remains of my clothes, he kisses me more softly than anyone ever has before, almost as if his lips don't even touch mine and what I'm really feeling is just the tingling of electrons rapidly bouncing back and forth between us, trillions of times faster than my racing heart can beat, although it's damn determined to try to keep up. I can feel the energy shift throughout the room as Slave steps in and silently makes her way to the bed. We turn to her, lie on either side of her, and the dynamic changes as she giggles and tells us both that we'll have to put up a fight to get her clothes off. We are happy to oblige.

The Hour is Upon Us.

I have a very important piece of advice to all the ladies (and some men, no shame) out there: Never tweeze your eyebrows one at a time, just in case you realize half way through that you are running excruciatingly late and yet you have one perfect eyebrow and one raggedy eyebrow. And you promised, promised, promised you wouldn't be late this time. Suddenly instead of having an hour to get ready, you have about forty-five minutes left. Wait, what? Half an hour? Where the hell did those fifteen minutes go? Did you black out? No time to think about it now, just get in that shower, girl. Do you really need to wash your hair today? You won't have time to dry it. Yup. You know you need to. Damn. Do you really need to shave your legs? Oh yeah. Unfortunately you can't make time for the one part of your body that you actually did want to shave today. Next time, girl. You wash your hair, you wash your face, you lather up and pumice away like a madwoman. You shave your legs and you slice open the back of your left knee. You could scream when the boiling hot water hits the wound but you don't have time to focus on the pain, instead the adrenaline rush pushes you forward and sends you over the edge, especially when you realize the water running down your body isn't the only thing making you wet.


You step out and dry off as fast as you can, smearing blood all over your white towel. No time to care. You run back into the bedroom and only then realize you haven't even begun to think about what you're going to wear. Your eyes fix on the black satin Vera Wang until you realize you wore that last time. Come to think of it, you wore black the last two times. No black. No black. Pick any stupid outfit, just no black. Any pair of pants or any skirt and any top or any dress, just no black. You fish through your closet and wonder why you have six different black skirts and three black dresses. You opt not to wear pants lest your knee bleeds through khaki or seersucker. Finally you grab the outfit you'd planned to wear on the Fourth of July before you decided to sleep through it instead. You zip up the skirt, you button the shirt, you tie off the belt, you slide on the sling backs, grab your purse and run out the door. No time for makeup and you'll have to let the wind dry your hair. You rifle through your purse as you make your way out: Credit card? Keys? Cell phone? Cigarettes? Check, check, check, check. Yes, you pulled it off. You're stepping into your car at the exact moment you'd intended. Damn, you left Roxanne (your GPS device that you've named for the sexy voice you have programmed into it) charging inside. You pause for a moment and run back in to grab it. You're likely to be an hour late without it, although you've already made the drive a few times before. As you roll down the driveway, Roxanne instructs you to make a right and tells you that you will arrive at your destination at 8:32. You speed up until the bottom right corner of the screen reads 8:29. You're safe to speed until you reach the county line. You light a cigarette and realize you only have three left. You speed up more until the bottom right corner of the screen reads 8:25, just as you make your way into a foreign county. A smaller, simpler county, with no way to make money besides traffic tickets. You ease up a little bit.

You pull into a little country gas station where a couple of young punks are working and nearly thrilled by your presence, with your exposed tattoos and vintage pin-upesque outfit. It's not every day they get to see the likes of you in this town. One of them makes nervous small talk while your credit card processes and the other one is quick to say, "Bye, beautiful. Have a good day," as you turn to leave. You turn back and give the kids a wink, maybe gazing slightly too long at the shy one. You walk back to your car wondering if you should have encouraged them, realizing they're both bound to be heart breakers once they get a little older, if they're not already. You check on Roxanne and she reassures you that will be parking your car 8:29. Sure enough, you are knocking on the door precisely at 8:30, silently congratulating yourself. You're soon greeted by Slave who informs you that Master is taking a shower and you can't help but laugh to yourself.

The Confusion Sets In

Too many words are whirling around my head for me to grab onto one. The words I want to say, the words blaring, raping me, from the nearby television. The words from my mother. I try to listen. I try to listen as I try to write and I try to reassure my mother as my trigger finger shakes on the keyboard and spawns yet another typo. My head's trying to process the events of the day as my mom tries to process last night's dream as the television tries to process my brain into a gelatinous blob of insatiable consumer appetite. I dance back and forth between images of kissing my lover goodbye, Michael's Carpet World on 401 Old Country Rd, an apparition of my brother with twelve fingers, my hands slamming on my steering wheel, my mom flying over a city while trying to hold onto the baby version of myself, a scrolling marquee with a severe thunderstorm warning in the next county. Peeling out of his driveway, tears streaming down my face as I desperately maneuver my way to the interstate, a blender and a dicer, bad guys with big guns, his face, the way his eyes didn't quite meet mine. Mesothelioma, Bacardi, a two-headed dog, his bed, that song, Viagra, Hershey's, ITT Tech, lasers shooting, his hair, Oxyclean, his smell, Martha Stewart, his nails, Toyota, his teeth, Subway, his sweat. It's just all too much.


Still I know I should be getting myself and the house cleaned up. The dishes and my laundry are screaming at me in competition with the tv. The clutter on the table behind me is poking my shoulder, aching for my attention. The trip to Target yet to be made. The trip to the grocery store yet to be made. The looming deadline of friends coming over for the basketball game. I need to tweeze my eyebrows. I want to dye my hair. I'm well past due for a wax. Nothing about me is good enough.

Suddenly it's quiet. My mom, she's still lying on the couch, the television is muted, and she pauses in conversation, reflecting. The blood pouring from my ears subsides and I find myself thinking, He treated me better when he was cheating on his girlfriend.

This is My Promise.

I still haven't forgiven you, and that scares me. Even more so, it should really scare you, too. I promise the day will come when you look over your shoulder for the rest of your life. I promise the day will come when you are afraid to take a shower for weeks. I absolutely promise you the day will come when your scars heal in the shape of my name.

You will have nightmares. You will be the shell of a person that I am. You will never forget me.

Angel

Yesterday my back hurt and I got sent home from Teh Job for wearing shoes that showed one millimeter of my little toe. But then I saw her and none of that mattered. Today I broke my glasses and got food poisoning. But then she called and none of that mattered.

A few nights ago, I prayed to God that I would somehow become a good person. And she makes me feel like I could be. She put her hand in mine and I knew, this just might be real.

La Douleur Exquise, La Bartender

"The Exquisite Pain"

Masochism comes in many forms, many styles. Some people like a little spanking or other bed-tough-stuff. Some people enjoy the pain of tattoos and piercings, not only the beautiful results. Many of us enjoy the delicious heartache of falling in love with someone that is just entirely wrong for us. I have enjoyed (as well as hated) an on again, off again "complicationship" with Bartender for nearly ten beautiful, tedious months now. What we share is nothing you could call a relationship in the conventional sense of the word. You could barely call us friends at the best of times. What we have is most realistically described as an alcohol-induced haze of sex, laughter, and split personalities. Once in a while I will refer to him as my boyfriend (although God forbid I should ever say it in front of him), just to over-simplify the idea that he's the one I want and I'm not particularly looking for anyone else. Other times I refer to him as Dr. Jeckyl and Mr. Jackass. Each time I scroll through my phonebook to find his name is a game of Russian Roulette; there's no way of knowing if he's going to say he wants to marry me, fuck me, or forget I exist. Still, I love him. He has no idea, of course.

This became all the more twisted last Saturday night when it occurred to me that I'm not sure if he even remembers my real name. The previous week, we were out drinking (per usual) when he jokingly introduced me to a couple of friends as "Ol' What's-her-name". Not even giving him a chance to redeem himself, I laughed, gave him a little back-handed comment, and introduced myself properly. This past Saturday, I temporarily lost my phone somewhere in his house, and while he was outside smoking a cigarette, I borrowed his cell phone to call mine. My number wasn't saved in it. It suddenly dawned on me that I don't remember the last time I heard him say my name. He has a variety of pet names for me, something you'd expect from a playboy that doesn't want to get his conquests mixed up. But is it really possible, that after all this time and all these nights spent together, that he doesn't remember my name? He obviously has my phone number memorized, but could he not know my name? Really? As sick and surreal as our past may be, this still seems far-fetched even for us. Still, the evidence was mounting as I rolled over in his bed and waited for him to come back inside.

When he came back in and fell fast asleep, I looked around his bedroom in a new light (or rather, in what little light there was). I looked at his old school tattoos moving to the rhythm of his breathing, at the kitschy leopard print sheets on his bed, at his beautiful, beloved stand-up bass resting in the corner, and finally at the straw cowboy hat sitting on his dresser. We'd bought it together at a gas station, half-jokingly at first before I begged him to wear it at his next show. That was on one of our best nights together, and I mean when they're good, they're so good. The next night I'd spent with him after that was one of our worst nights, and on my way out the door, I saw the hat and briefly considered setting it on fire. I'm not generally all that crazy; he just really brings it out in me sometimes.

In the dim light, I realized that silly hat was everything we were. Cheap, tacky, and cliche; yet playful, fun, and almost kind of beautiful in an ironic sort of way. I thought to myself, Is this really the kind of relationship I want? A gas station cowboy hat? I looked back at him in the moonlight, my rockabilly god, my exquisite pain, and fell into a peaceful sleep.

Final summation: None.

An Introduction: Cast of Characters

Evie Cage: Evie Cage is an alter-ego I originally created as a fake name to offer to sketchy people when I go out to sketchy places. The name "Evie" is a tribute to my grandmother, Evelyn, and the name "Cage" is a small nod to Marvel Comic's Hero for Hire, Luke Cage. Evie Cage is best summarized as my own personal Tyler Durden, albeit a less maniacal version. Evie Cage is a culmination of all my personality traits, good and bad, that rarely have light shone on them. Evie Cage is a bisexual, recovering sex addict, with a penchant for glamour and a desire to make the world more artistic and beautiful, among many other things.

M.J. Corbin: M.J. Corbin is my sistah from another mistah. We certainly have our ups and downs and although we live in two seperate universes, we always come back to each other.

Teh Job: I work in a position which I lovingly refer to as "Accounting for Dummies" at a major national home improvement retailer. I handle the store's cash, research discrepancies, and file a bunch of paperwork. At the end of the day, I often have an hour or two free to help out in other departments. It is not terribly uncommon to find me running a cash register, as much as I try to avoid it. This allows for a significant amount of discomfort in my work day as I often find our customers judgemental and degrading upon seeing a woman working in a home improvement store.

Teh Gays: I work very closely with a local non-profit group that is most widely known for holding my city's first gay pride march. Please allow me to make this painfully clear: I use the name "Teh Gays" in a very loving, tongue-in-cheek reference to the organization that I work with. Not wanting to misrepresent the organization, I decline to give their real name and will not discuss in-depth anything involving their work or their presence in the community. However, an extremely large portion of my life is dedicated to this organization, the topic will undoubtedly present itself from time to time.

Teh Bartender: It's complicated. Sometimes. Let's just leave it at that for now.

This is my world. You are all welcome and encouraged to join me in it as specators and respectful acquaintances. I make no apologies for my work and my writing as I value frank and honest discussion in the proper forum. This is my forum and I make the rules. Consider this all a work of fiction, if it helps you sleep at night.