Bodyguard: Cry Wolf

~Cry Wolf~

Do you think…it's possible to grieve for someone…who isn't dead…?

"What are you waiting for? You look disgusting. Go clean yourself up."

Howard's fingers on me, in me. In her. No, not Howard's. Not that rusty haired little boy with a chipped front tooth and freckles and Scooby-Doo pajamas. Not him. But then…what? Whose?

Why?

"Did you not hear what I just said?! Go. And. Clean. Yourself. Up."

There is a deep, throbbing ache that burns dully in every fibre of my body. It's like a second pulse, but instead of blood, it pumps poison, lies, secrets, betrayals, sweet leaden mercury pulsating in my veins.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?!"

Hands grab my upper arms and squeeze, hard. Hands that used to be small, with stubby fingers and sweaty palms, always sticky with something. They're sticky now, but not with lolly-juice, or chocolate. They smear blood and spit and urine across my skin. They're battle worn and broad, with calluses that shadow the grip of a gun, the grip of a man. There are no white flecks on his nails from pouring too much milk on his Cheerios. Their tips are rounded and smooth, not bitten down to the quick.

If something doesn't look the same, does that mean it isn't anymore?

"Are you really this pathetic? She was NOTHING." Someone puffs a breath of hot, wet air in my face "Just a slick little cunt to fill."

"Stop it…" I hear my own voice spiralling weakly from somewhere high, high above me.

"You know, she squealed like a pig when I was inside her." His mouth peels open like an oyster shell, his lips the soft pink of the interior, his teeth sharp, cruel little pearls "But she came rainbows all over YOU." He throws his head back and laughs, his tongue curled lovingly around the bloodlust tumbling out of his mouth "Maybe I loosened her up for you!"

"Stop it, H-" I choke myself off. Don't speak the Lord's name in vain. Don't say it. If you say it, that makes it real.

"Or what?" he murmurs, delicately, his hands sliding up, across my collarbone, then curling suggestively around my neck. Identical burgundy smears mar their path, like war paint.

Detachedly, I curl my hands into fists. There are shards of something hard and sharp embedded in my palms. I prise the left open. Glass. No, diamonds. Tiny ones. They sparkle smugly, my blood oozing around them, slowly forming a crimson velvet pillow into which they sink with a sigh.

They're hers.

Once they sat nestled in the curve of her chest, kissing warm rosy skin, paraded proudly on a mesh of pure silver wires. Priceless jewels. Not anymore, though. I scattered them like stars when I used the necklace to prise her neck clean open. Silver's very strong, you know. It sliced through that soft neck like a carving knife through turkey. Cut almost down to the vertebrae. The diamonds had scattered all over the floor. I can remember staring at some that were laying in a pool of gasoline, while her jugular guttered all over my hands, and thinking, with the small crudely-cut shapes and the oily shift of hues from purple to orange to brown to yellow…

"A kaleidoscope…"

"Hm?" Howa- HE- pauses in his ministrations at the tendons of my neck. He'd been tracing them. They tingle. My hair's no longer tied up.

"Her neck…" I feel my lips form the words, though I don't remember ordering them there "it looked…like a kaleidoscope…"

"Oh really?" He chuckles coldly, his fingers curling into vices "I wonder what yours would look like?"

Stories, stories, fairytales. This is my own special Hell, my own Grimm's fable. He's like a wolf in sheep's clothing. The Big Bad Wolf. But once he was Peter, and the Wolf was someone else's nightmare. The boy who cried wolf, where is he now? Wait, that's Aesop…isn't it? And she, she's…Little Red Riding Hood, who nearly got eaten, except she did…my, what lovely teeth you have…and no huntsman came to cut her free. Or was that me…? I cut her. Just not free. Just cut. No, sliced. Sliced and diced. No, that's not right either. Maybe-

"Gi-il…" the violation is a sing-song rumble deep in his chest "still with me, sweetheart…?" the word is a mockery of endearment, and smarts like a slap across the face. I flinch violently.

"Yes, I'm still with you." It comes out steady. But blank. Monotone. Emotionless. Like a wall has slammed up between my heart and my head.

"Goood." He cooes, patting my cheek patronisingly, like I'm some kind of infant "Now, these-" his hands disappear, then close around my wrists, tugging them up to hang limply in his grip "Won't do at all."

They're scratched raw. Crescent indentations over blemished bruising, deep enough to draw blood. Chips and scrapes of bright-red nail varnish add an acidic sting to the dull throb of the wounds.

"They must not scar. Do you understand?"

I cannot be left marked by anyone else but him. "Yes."

"Come here." He tuts idly, grabs my chin and turns his attention to peering intently at my face, and a small, sane pocket of my brain protests weakly that this is WRONG, that HE'S all wrong. He shouldn't be acting like this, it's not what he's like, not really…"Honestly, you can be so clumsy. Is this all hers?"

Is what all hers?

Oh…

His fingertips grate across my forehead, burning, burning as they go, and tease back the curtain of hair that's fallen across my face. He runs his fingers down through it and secures it behind my ear, but it's slow and jerky progress. The strands are greasy with sweat and matted with blood. I haven't taken a breath in about a minute. My chest feels like stone, pressure building insistently in my temple.

"Breeeeeathe." He murmurs. I blink, and my eyelashes catch on his chin. He's got his nose in my hair and he's…smelling…me. He's taller than me now. I'd forgotten. I idly ponder the rasp of a stubble peppering a chin not quite fully grown into adult sharpness, and don't think about the growing hardness pressed insistently in the bowl of my pelvis.

"I told you to breathe, you dumb fucker." Then, he begins to methodically lick her blood from my face. I keep my gaze fixed on the rhythmic pulsation of his jugular, and count the beats.

Ba-dum. One. Ba-dum. Two. Bad-dum. Three. Ba-dum. Four…

"See? All clean."

Somewhere between five and sixty seven, my eyes had drifted closed. My cheeks sting as the cold air teases at the saliva still drying on my skin, eliciting goose-bumps. A shiver scuttles up and down my spine.

I'll never be clean again.

"You're mine. Say it."

I don't hesitate.

"I'm yours."

"Get out of my sight."

Playtime's over. My bare feet carry me dutifully to the bathroom.

There's a painted whore cupped in my palms. Diamonds and a smeary paste of tears and mascara and peach-lipstick, from where I tried clumsily to comfort her even as…even as.... there's cum on my pants, half dry. Whose, I don't know. It cracks and flakes off in pieces, like the shards of a shattered mirror…wait…what…what am I saying? I'm thinking in poetry and I can't stop it. Shakespeare knew a thing or two about insanity. Out, out, damn spot…the hands of Lady Macbeth, like mine, no matter how hard I scrub with antiseptic until the skin is shiny-pink and raw like a prawn, stay dirty.

"Shit, you're a mess, you sad old asshole."

My head snaps up. There's a punk in the bathroom mirror, and he's wearing my face, but it's smoother and younger and cleaner and his hair only reaches his chin.

"Shut the fuck up." I say automatically, but he only cocks an eyebrow and gives me a scathing, withering look.

"This is all your fault, you know. All ya had to do was protect some stupid, jumped-up, snot nosed little brat, and could you do it? No."

"That's not true. I…protected him…"

"Oh, hell yeah, bang up job on that. But did you protect the world FROM him?" his eyes narrow to slits "Or from himself?"

My knuckles shatter the glass like it's as fragile as rice-paper.

"Why am I even talking to you." I murmur, but he echoes right on back, unperturbed "Beats the hell outta me, ya crazy old fart." I was such a DICK when I was younger. Shit, shit, shit, I'm going insane. Nuts. Bonkers, barmy. Snap the fuck out of it. Wake up. Yeah, it's just some screwed up, twisted dream. WAKE UP!

I peel my filthy clothes off and scald myself under the showerhead, set on full blast, water boiling, but it makes no difference. I still itch to peel my skin off too, but even that seems inadequate. The taint of what I've done, what he's done, colours me to my bones.

Her scratches on my wrists won't go away, so I carve over them, drawing criss-crossed train-tracks, choo choo… danger: high voltage. Do not cross. Keep off the tracks. No, not train tracks, snakes and ladders. Yeah. I used to let that kid win at that game.

Steam fills the room and I'm soon choking on it, hacking uncontrollably, my stomach rolling and bile rising in my throat. I slump down in the tub and dry heave at the wall. There's nothing left down there. It's in a puddle next to her near-decapitated head, somewhere far, far away, yet not nearly far enough. Eventually, I fumble for a towel and collapse over the side of the tub onto the floor, then crawl over the sink, and wrench myself upright with trembling forearms. Black spots dance in the corners of my vision. Not long now. You can do it. Come on.

I open the cabinet above the sink.

A razor. A pair of scissors. Bleach. A rainbowed array of various pills with warning stickers, blue and white and yellow, like candy in a candy shop. All arranged in a neat, inviting row on the bottom shelf. It's a test, an invitation, laid out by him, the last hurdle. Like forbidden fruit in the garden of Eden. I swallow two sleeping pills, the recommended doze, and fall heavily to the floor. I barely feel it.

The smooth porcelain tiles are offensively white and clean and cool against my scalded skin. My slowing heartbeat thrums out a tainted lullaby as my muscles spasm uncontrollably, shivering, shuddering. My bones rattle inside my meat suit…am I shaking myself apart…? I think I'm cold. But I'm not sure. I can't tell.

The world tilts on its axis; the ground falls out from beneath my feet. I gently rock the remains of my innocence to sleep, and grieve for the nameless, faceless child that haunts my dreams.

~Fin~