Sol Madderom
There’s a heaviness to my steps as I roam the clouded halls of the venue her heavy-lidded glances led me to. I rub my sweaty palms on dimly lit carpeted walls and on the shoulders of those whose hair imitates her own. Usually, I’d melt into a darkened corner but the smell of her neck and shoulders have unleashed something hungry in me.
The increasing tension in my chest and wrists betray the coyness I yearn to emit. A glimmer of that twist around jewelry entangled in her locks would calm me. So I don’t bother to wait until I’ve turned completely to let my grin fall when met with noses and lips empty of the metal she fills hers with. Shaky fingers tug at the collar of a shirt I didn’t think I’d be showcased in.
Reality creeps through as eyes deepen their glare and slices of white slash across their faces. My knees take me to an even darker hall in which bodies fuse with walls and wails aren’t the ad-libs of songs. The hot friction between my back and the wall as I sink to the sticky floor gives me a sense of normalcy as the thought of never feeling her ringed fingers intertwined with my own bare ones infests my mind. My goose-bumped arms wrap around my stomach as reason returns to me.
My heart beats in that familiar pattern in places like these. My neck stiffens at the likelihood that those wandering hands were a drunken mistake and not an invitation. That her arching back and closeness were an exaggeration of my mind only. It was the touch of another human being that brought out this savagery, not the perverseness deep in me but her jasmine scent that cruelly lingers still.
“Sniffing about like a dog looking for its leash, hmm?” My neck snaps unnaturally to the figure whose shadows led me so astray.
My arms fall to my lap where my legs lay between the other. Her hands remain tucked behind her back, allowing for her large hips and poking stomach to be viewed in all its glory. My eyes shamefully linger, wondering whether it’ll be the last they’ll fall upon such a sight. It’s the sickness rising in my throat that takes me from it.
I press my palms to my eyes.
“I’m sorry. This isn’t like me.” It’s all I can stomach to say as her heels click when she closens. The shadowy figures let out mad chuckles between their breaths, as if confirming what I fear.
Her silhouette shortens.
“Oh yeah, you’re burning up.” She lays a soft hand on my forehead. Her cool breath sets on my reddening nose.
“A-Am I?” Her hands retreat to her bending thighs.
“Are you on your period? Did you take something?” I shake my head, entranced by the rich brown that encases the woman.
Let me rot in my piss and shit if I dream.
Her throat lets out a gurgling laugh.
“Didn’t think so.” She rises. My eyes tightly close at the swiftness of the action. They threaten to tear at the briny air she leaves.
“Are- Are you leaving?” My limbs creek with lack of use as I rise. She faces the trembling profiles that melt into the scenery.
“I’m thinking of going for a swim.” Her skin shines a scaly blue.
“It’s the middle of the night, nothing’s open…” My wrist vibrates with missed calls. Some from my architectural design professor. A few from my presentation partner. But most are from David. The boy who makes my mother smile, and father proud. The boy who roams unfamiliar streets yelling my name with unabashed urgency. The boy who’d given me all of himself in hopes for something of my own.
She turns.
“I know a place.” She sings and her eyes bulge with excitement. Cherry stained lips stretch cheek-to-cheek. Revealing the rows of white that reflect the air around her, pursing with appetite.
“Wanna come?” She asks and his name buzzes bright green on my wrist.
My head throbs with the dormant sensation that awoke since she first appeared before me. My veins pulse with something ancestral in them. My mouth waters at its release.