The Body Marked
By Chris Deal
The black light gave the room a transcendental edge. A battering ram was buried deep in my chest, trying to break through my sternum as she held my hand tightly, guiding me down a hallway made of velvet to an open curtain in a hidden corner. Her smile was a razor and she moved in close, her body a fire there for my survival, her hair long and the color of a thunderstorm. With a blind hand she closed the entrance and we were alone in a dark cave. The music was loud, washing thickly over the world. She licked my earlobe and pushed me back into the deep chair.
‘You sure about this?’ she said as she ran her hands up the smoothness of her body, teasing of the ends of her dress.
The only acquiescence I could make was a nod.
Her hips swayed lazily to the beat under a thin, honey-shaded sundress. She leaned down, both hands holding her weight on the armrests, the chasm of her breasts hovering before me. A giggle floated out of bit lips and she moved close enough to touch, her back arched and the fabric straining against her body. My lifted hand wavered in the empty air like a blade and when it made contact with her shoulder, the skin flushed and that laughed turned to steam. She sighed and closed her eyes, leaning her head to kiss my fingers.
We’d met at a bar earlier in the night. I’d seen her there the week before, saw her glowing as she sipped a beer and moved her eyes over the room like a predator looking for a meal. Our eyes connected but I couldn’t maintain it, looked back to my own drink. Half empty. A form filled the empty bar stool to my right and the air tasted of sugar. When I turned, she smiled through a gate of hair, asked if she could buy me a drink. We talked gibberish until closing time and she gave me a ride home, told me where she worked. It took me three days to work up the courage to walk through those doors out front but she wasn’t working. She found me back at the bar and stuck her tongue out at me. I wanted to touch it, feel to feel her warmth. She put a hand on the back of my neck and grazed the soft skin back there. I shivered and she told me I was coming in tonight, that I couldn’t say no.
‘What if I do? Refuse?’
‘I’ll hurt you.’
My legs closed tightly as she put her left knee down by my thigh, then her right on the other side and my skin hummed as she ran her fingers through my hair and my hands stretched out on the armrests, a tremor running through to the tips. She softly touched her forehead to mine and I could feel her breath over my face. Her arms snaked around my shoulders and when she bit my bottom lip my hands moved to her hips, causing her to buck against me.
‘What would you do if I said that you scared me?’ I said as she pressed closer against me and buried her face in the crook of my neck
I felt her words through my skin, ‘I’d say you were smart.’
When I walked past the thick-necked doorman, into the dull light that smelled like alcohol and smoke, she was leaning against the bar, the sundress hugging her body as she chatted with the bartender, a drink in her hand. On the stage a woman was sliding the straps of a bra from her shoulders as men watched intently, When she saw me her face broke out into a silly grin. Before I could order a drink, she leaned in close and whispered that she wanted to dance for me.
‘I think I like you,’ she said as she moved against me.
‘You do?’
‘Do you like me?’
‘I think I do.’
She moved back, returning to her feet and looking down at me. ‘I want to show you something,’ she said in the quiet voice of a girl and I grew solemn, mouthing an ‘Okay.’ Turning, the dress caught the air and twirled around her. Her back to me, she reached for the bottom of the fabric and lifted it above her polka-dot panties, exposing her lower back, the canvas of her skin swirling with burnt tissue.
‘I kind of like my scars,’ she said but refusing to turn around. She dropped the dress to the ground and was exposed.
I moved up in the chair. My hands danced over her hips as I tenderly moved her towards me, pressing my lips against the softness, the warmth that was her.
‘I like them too.’
When she turned around, her face was bright and wet.
