Fingers and Lips

Dark outside. Curtains closing. On the violet plastic table beneath
the window is an Easter egg in its gaudy yellow box. This allows us to
place the room in a time of year. It's not a record breaking weather
Easter, not in red on a chart that begins recording too recently to be
historic. Not warm, clammy, sticky, but the air is still too close as
it wipes its sweaty fingers down her back. She sits thinking on the
edge of the bed as if about to get up, but she can't move forward until
last night is clearer. She remembers the word epiphany but feels it is
too strong for this and anyway she isn't religious. It was just a
thought, just a moment.

I can't give you what you want.

His hand has found hers beneath the silver beer-drenched table. His
body presses against her back and he leans to kiss her bare shoulder
gently, as if they're lovers, have been lovers for some time. He
strokes the inside of her clenched up hand, runs his thumb across the
lines and plump flesh. Tingles, shivers. Presses his lips to her neck.
Eyelashes. Tingles, shivers. She sits on his left thigh, balances her
weight on the points of her black and purple shoes with the high, high
heels. He's very close. She hasn't looked him in the eye. His eyes are
on the mole to the right of the line between her breasts.

Kiss me.
I can't.
I think you're very pretty.

She sees his eyes now, turns slightly so she can look at his face. His
hair touches her cheek as he bends to press his lips against her bare
shoulder again. Dried sweat. But clean underneath, caustic clean. And
so well spoken.

Please.
I can't. I'm having time off from all this.
Kissing?
Kissing. Men?I can't?

I can't give you what you want.

And now here, in this Easter room, she thinks of his blue blood shot
eyes and hand in hers and the kisses on her shoulder, her neck. Gentle,
safe, missing, rare, appreciated. She thinks perhaps her time off
should end because the feeling of a hand in hers and lips against her
flesh has brought back memories. It never used to be like this. When
she was younger it had been easier to enjoy being kissed and held and
talked up by men because she didn't know at the time how much pain and
trouble could result in a few passionate actions. Now it was better to
ignore even the beginnings of anything and spare the tears. But she had
trained herself so well in the avoidance of torment and agony, eye
contact and conversation that all tenderness and lust, fingers and lips
had gone. Fingers and lips had gone.

He wants your number.

Your number's up.

When had the game changed? When had it become life or death? For how
long had she been prey for the wolves? She carries misery and regret
with shame and guilt inside a black handbag, encoded by digits on a
pink mobile phone. Vibrates. He's got your number. Vibrates. He's got
your number. Vibrates. Red button.

He can't give me what I want.

She won't find it here tonight, on his lap beneath the blackened sky.
They go inside, struggle through the people, find the dance floor. Tiny
shards of glass stick to the bottom of her shoes as if a thousand
Cinderella slippers have been shattered.

So this is it? This routine, this weekly ritual, this constant d?j? vu.
The room is loud; it sends pulses through their feet, pounds within
their stomachs and tickles their restless ears. The songs are the same,
a few new ones at the start of the evening, but later the DJ relaxes
into the usual play list. They can name all the songs and know every
lyric. By the end of the night they are hoarse from the effort of
singing along as if it would add meaning to things, as if there is
salvation in the words, shelter from the routine, from life, from
everything.

Where is the love?

Not here, tonight, beneath these white plastic tiles and flashing neon
lights.

I don't know why I came here tonight.

To be somewhere, to dance, to love, to have every expectation
fulfilled. She will be asked her age on entry, provide proof and then
be overcharged for everything she wants. She will queue, sweat, ache,
laugh, wind, grind, whinge and want to go home early but stay to the
very end.

So no one told you life was gonna be this way?

No one told them anything about this. This wasn't in their plans. Where
are the knights in shining armour, the handsome princes, and the
heroes? Are they here next to us undoing their shirts and smiling
sycophantically? Is this them? This could be either the beginning or
the foregone conclusion, but everyone is second-guessing, placing bets,
crossing fingers, and licking lips.

Is there money for a taxi? Are you hungry? Take me home.

This room feels like a prison, the walls are edging her feelings,
cutting her off from outside and open spaces, leaving her to more of
the same. The house is growing into a tower, up, higher, no way down,
no door and no long hair either. She misses arms around her. She sleeps
with a dent in the mattress, the presence of absence an uneasy partner.
She lies in bed until the afternoon reading books, with her eyes
following the words and her mind in the distance foraging through
memories.

Here in this moment she waits for the doorbell to ring. He will be back
with the same wide grin and starry eyes to flatter and flatten her ego
with one casual comment.

I care a lot about you.

She will taste the sweat on his skin.

It will mean nothing, nothing but the everything she wants it to mean.
It will mean she gives herself away. It will bring that pain in her
chest that threatens to split the bones and crush the organs. He knows
about pain and love and is so pretty and funny how can he be evil
incarnate? Last spring, they were climbing a hill from the beach to the
town above and he held her hand, just reached out and took hold of her
as if he'd always done it and it was expected. But then he'd been
kissing that girl in front of her in the club, letting the rasping
tongue savour his face and his waist be encircled by the tight jeans
and pointed boots. He had been too drunk to notice hopeless undying
love collapsing in the stairwell in muted and puffy eyed
surrender.

It's a shame he'll never love you back.

He's still the dent in her mattress.
The doorbell is never going to ring. Love has been and gone. She swings
her legs and drums a rhythm with her heels against the bed. The moment
the stranger's lips and fingers touched her skin was the feeling a
recovering alcoholic must get from sniffing a newly opened bottle of
gin in a room full of drunkards. Perhaps her time off should end. Just
a sip? Passion so long repressed and rejected is not forthcoming so she
sits waiting. He won't be back. Blank, flat lining, used, alone.

This year's love it better last.

I can't give you what you want.

Kiss me.

Ok.