Duct Tape and Razorblades
“…the worst weekend of your life, at the mercy of duct tape and razorblades…” – Kurt Cobain
~
“Hold your breath and count to ten…then fall apart and start again” ¬– Placebo
~~~
He looked in the mirror, and hated what he saw.
Hair, or lack thereof, shaved off for no other reason than boredom and drunken impulsiveness. Eyes, once crystal, shining blue, now bloodshot; the skin under one swollen and starting to bruise – he touched it gently, winced. His lips swollen, tasting vaguely of old blood.
The fluorescent light above him highlighted the bags under his eyes, his pale, blotchy skin, the way the make-up he’d so carefully applied a few minutes ago had run already into long, spidery streaks, as he stared, intensely, into the bathroom mirror, hating what he saw.
He wiped futilely at the streaks of mascara, of eyeliner. Getting ready. Got to look good. Got to look pretty. A twisted mantra. He laughed hollowly, a chilling sound in the silence of the white room.
Got to look good. Got to look pretty. Got to look good. Got to look pretty.
His fist connected with the glass of the mirror, sending shards flying across the room, a couple of jagged pieces embedded in his knuckles. He removed one. Winced again, watching his now-disjointed reflection stare back at him, its many eyes glassy, like spiders’.
Got to look good.
Got to look pretty…
tonight.
The man sat in the shadows of the bar watching the dancers sway on the dance-floor in front of him. To and fro, back and forth, their bodies moved in time with the music as though they were puppets on an omnipotent string. He let the corner of his upper lip quirk into a sneer, and took another sip of his drink, glaring into its depths as though they contained the answers that had so long eluded him.
Around him and about him, happiness overflowed like tears, and sometimes it became difficult to tell the difference between them. The club itself seemed almost sentient, living, pulsating to the raw, angry throb of the music. People giggled into empty glasses, their voices chiming like the same glasses clinking together. Lovers kissed, exploring each other’s bodies in the darkness, made reckless by anonymity. Everywhere was optimism, hope, contentment…
Except where this man sat, and drained the dregs of his drink, wincing as the liqueur burned a fiery path to his stomach.
He watched the watcher, and thought that this was strange.
Even as he danced and swayed in time to the music, his devastating, devastated beauty captivating the men who asked him to dance time and again, he could not look away from this one man, this stranger, who sat in the corner and glared out at the world like he hated it.
And even as he accompanied some guy whose name he could not remember to the bar, so he could be bought another drink, he kept his eyes on the man whose face was obscured by shadow, so only his eyes, vivid grey, were visible.
Even as he nestled into the arms of another man, allowing this stranger’s hands to roam over his body at will, even as he hated his body for responding to this unwanted touch, even as he left the club with another young, naïve conquest who would grope and fumble his way to yet another bored orgasm…
he did not stop thinking about the man in the shadows.
Six o’clock in the morning signified the start of another grey comedown. He lay in bed and watched the dawn light make patterns on the cream-painted ceiling, listening to the birds squawk cheerily outside his prison cell of an apartment. He had no idea where last night’s lover had gone.
He preferred it this way, preferred to wake up alone, so he could try and fool himself that last night was just an uncomfortable dream fuelled by the narcotic haze. But he could not dull the sharp edge of painful memories.
He rolled out of bed, grimacing at the smell of alcohol, sweat and sex that pervaded the sheets. Another day.
Everywhere he went, last night seemed to be hiding; from the dusting of cocaine that still remained in the wrap he’d bought, to the empty condom wrappers, torn in half, that littered the floor like brightly-coloured butterflies.
He ran a shower and stepped into it, letting the hot water caress him, hoping to cleanse himself of the previous night’s debauchery. But the red-traced scratch marks in his chest, where eager hands had clawed at him in the grip of pleasure, only reminded him yet again.
He switched the shower off abruptly, shivering as he stepped away from its maternal warmth, placing his bare feet onto cold tiles.
The sharp daggers of glass from the bathroom mirror were still strewn across the floor. Carefully, he gathered them all up in his cupped hands and wrapped them in a piece of tissue. He’d throw them away later.
Candles are for burning, so you can feel hot pain course through your reddened flesh. Razorblades are for cutting, so you can watch scarlet blood flow down your arms, your chest, your legs. Nails are for dragging across flesh to watch red ruptures appear like rivers in your skin.
A twisted catalogue, but one he knew off by heart, better than his ABC, learning it like a good boy. One he learned afresh every day.
He liked to watch people; that was why he went out to the clubs at night, to buy a drink and sit in the shadows and watch the people dance and sway and love. Voyeuristic, perhaps, but it wasn’t like that. He liked to watch the pure, the naïve, the innocent. Untainted by his presence.
Untainted by him.
The club seemed to grow darker and more confined every night, like bedsheets clinging to a body covered in a nightmare’s cold sweat.
He moved with the masses, lost despite himself in the pulse of the music, sweat, alcohol and tears glistening on his warm skin.
And then he spotted him.
The watcher. The watched.
He was sitting at the opposite side of the bar to last night, a cloud of smoke curling from the cigarette resting between his lips, as once more, he watched the dancers.
And once more, he was entrancing.
He saw the scene as usual. And he couldn’t help noticing the man who spent the night dancing and crying. The man whose once-blue eyes betrayed his every false smile.
The man who was watching him.
Dancing closer and closer, he saw the man turn his head to look at him. He didn’t bother to look away, to pretend he hadn’t noticed him at all.
Instead, their eyes met, and understanding passed from one to another as if along an invisible zip-cord. In a moment, they both knew, knew what they were. Knew what they had to do.
He watched as the other man came over, gestured him outside. He followed him through the throng, into the fresh air, back towards the younger man’s apartment. Neither of them spoke.
Clothes were ripped from willing bodies. No kisses tonight. Instead, he found himself on all fours, staring down at the floor and whimpering as the stronger man pushed swiftly, excruciatingly into him.
Fuck me.
He let himself be taken. Each thrust from the man straining above him elicited another moan of painful ecstasy.
Fuck me.
He arched his back briefly as he came, feeling the other man tense inside him, and then it was all over, and he was lying on the floor staring dully at the carpet pattern and not knowing what to do or say.
The man, the watcher, was just like any other first-time lover, eager to prove his worth, soon ready for a second round. He submitted to it, allowing this stranger access to his body just like all the others, allowing him to bite and scratch and ravage.
He noticed the scars on the man’s body, fresh ones mingling with old ones, scabs and slashes forming a network over his legs, his arms, his chest. He felt he should ask, but didn’t care.
He continued to stare at the carpet, even as the man ran his sticky, sweaty fingers up the inside of his thighs, followed by his lips. He made no sound or movement, other than to tangle his fingers briefly in the man’s hair, hating him, hating himself…
Afterwards, the man that he hardly knew tried to lie with him and rest his head on his chest. He rolled over and faced the wall, feeling him flinch as he moved away from his touch. But that was it. Didn’t he understand? He had had what all the others had had. He had given nothing in return. That was the deal. Now he was to leave.
He didn’t know what it was that made him turn back over; a slight noise, perhaps, that alerted him to what was about to happen, or else just a sense, a sense of impending doom, of goodbyes unsaid and beginnings unfinished.
The man was holding a knife.
His brain hardly had time to register this, hardly had time to register that he was wrong, that the man was giving him the best gift of all, before the steel of the blade was plunged into the soft flesh of his chest, making him buck his hips once more before lying still, in a fresh pool of his own blood.
The man, the watcher, looked at him, his dead eyes glazed and staring, and held the blade against his own skin, its point against his heart.
And he said his final word.
“Goodbye.”
~~
A/N: I would really appreciate some con/crit on the ending of this; I've had mixed reviews from other ites and am hoping that this one will give me what I need...
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