OOM: Sweet Dreams

[latino_menace]

Martin had cried when he’d put him down tonight. Ramon wonders, in a dispassionate kind of way, whether that’s because he’s started feeling he can be more open around his pai. Except it isn’t, and he knows that. It’s because he’d been scared. Green, watery eyes and clinging and then shying away, the tears that didn’t stop when Ramon read poetry to him as Random had asked him to. He reads to him every night because Random had asked him to. This was the first night that the boy had cried.

The living room is empty, laid bare by the last of the day’s light falling through the windows. He doesn’t switch the lamp on. He just sits in an armchair across from the thing, a bottle held loosely in his fingers. His second today. It’s the first day that he’s started drinking before Martin went to bed.

Her face shines from the stone, sitting amid its box and wrappings and protection. He’d only opened the side, stopped when he’d seen her face laughing at him. Safe in her box, freed from the rock by the artist that had loved her. He must have loved her. Gently cut away her prison, so he could smile at her and see her shine in return.

("She's reaching for her lover. Can't you see it? She can almost touch him now, that's why she's smiling.")

He fumbles in his pocket and pulls a bag of white powder free. No qualms about doing so – who’s here to stop him? He’d forgotten that he likes the sound of the razor chopping through the small crystals, the gentle clink clink clink as it taps on the glass surface of the coffee table. The sting as it hits the top of your nose, the energy that courses through you a few seconds later, the feeling of power as your body wakes up and your mind reminds you what you are. Yes, he’s missed this. You know the truth when you do this.

She’s laughing at him. Sitting there, coddled and safe. Her face is beautiful as her lover comes to her and carries her to bed, makes her fly. Gives her himself.

That’s what Random had seen, wasn’t it?

("She’s beautiful")

He shuts his eyes but still sees her face. She’s there, watching him. And laughing.

* * * * *

He says nothing to the babysitter when she arrives, confused and blinking sleep from her eyes. It must be an incongruous sight, to be faced with a man dressed for going out at one in the morning, but still with a bottle of tequila dangling from his hand. Half a bottle. Less.

He’d taken care, tonight, when getting ready. (Clink clink clink) No tie, but the suit is hand-cut by the very finest tailor. The shirt is Armani and silk, the cufflinks platinum and diamond, the watch is a Rolex. The gun is a Glock, the knife polished to a shine. But he says nothing to her. Just pulls five hundred Euros from the wad of cash in his money clip, hands it to her, and leaves. He’d taken care when getting ready tonight.

Lisbon is still alive when he gets there. Europeans go out late. He bypasses most of the town, where there are lights and tourists and bars and music. The car is abandoned on the side of a road and he gets out and walks, away from the noise and the people. It’s dark, where he ends up. Streets not so pretty, no flowers to decorate this part of town. Just weeds, that call to him from the occasional doorway

("Procurando algo, amigo?")

in voices that see a target but somehow, don’t approach. He lights a cigar and walks, smells trash and sees waste and feels like he’s home. It’s been a while. But that doesn’t matter because he is who he is, he’s powerful and angry and it doesn’t matter what happens, nothing’s going to take that away from him. Not tonight, or any night. He stalks along and mentally wills people to try. Let them see what’ll happen.

‘¿Señor?’

A rich voice, and he stops. One slow blink and his head is turning. She isn’t in a doorway. She lounges against a wall, in her uniform of stockings and miniskirt, red lipstick and high heels. He smiles.

‘Sí.’

This is what he’s been looking for.

* * * * *

Her room is in a house. It smells different from the street outside, sweet and intoxicating and unmistakable. Crack is like that. Smells sweet, tastes sweet, feels sweet as it kills you from the inside out, rotting your brain and body until there’s nothing left. Like cancer, he thinks, as she closes the door behind them. Like love.

Music pounds from the room next door. Marilyn Manson, and he listens as she turns and looks at him. He says nothing to her silent inquiry, pulling the money clip from his pocket and tossing it down on the dresser. She’s still proud, he sees, not beaten down yet by her profession and addiction and need as he drops his jacket over a chair and calls her over with a crooked finger, unzipping his pants with the other. She smiles seductively as she drops to her knees and he watches her, the smell of decay filling his skin and music in his ears.

Sweet dreams are made of this...

Her hair is long. And black. It’s wrong, as her touch is wrong, but everything’s wrong and that’s what he wants because he shouldn’t be doing this but he’s too far gone to care. Drugs make you never wrong.

Who am I to disagree...?

They pulse in his brain as full red lips close round him and he watches, letting her work without pressure or direction from his hands because it’s the wrong hair and he’s not going to touch it. Until he does, because he will be and his whore is touching him too and that makes this allowed.

Some of them want to use you...

She knows what she’s doing. She knows what she’s being paid for. But he watches her face and doesn’t like it because she’s proud and a bit arrogant; even though that’s why he chose her, he doesn’t like it. His expression doesn’t change,
’I don’t want them to see your face when you’re making love to me.’
even when he’s holding her head still so he can come in her mouth, because no whore is going to be the unmaking of him.
I’m not falling apart for anyone but you, Random.
‘That good, baby?’

She’s not allowed to call him that, so he hits her, pleased with the look of shock that crosses her face, (not so full of yourself now, are you?), and jerks his head towards the bed. She goes, holding her jaw and fear in her eyes. He smiles and starts unbuttoning his shirt.

Some of them want to be abused...

It’s been over a year since he had a woman. There’s no novelty to it, he’s had more than he can count in his time and one’s the same as another. He’s more interested in her face as he pins her arms and makes her scream, watching her (fall apart, keen in agony, lose herself in pain) as he takes her hard, too hard, her pretence at seducing and domineering peeled away by the violence of his touch and the utter contempt in his black eyes,
...shouldn’t be doing this, she’s all wrong...
I want to use you…and abuse you...

fuelled by drugs and alcohol, thinking only of the love Random’s making to (his whore) the other woman, the woman in the sculpture, the one that’s laughing at him and touching what’s his, placing her soft hands on something that she has no right to touch.

Sweet dreams are made of this...

And when he’s finished, it’s not enough. How could it ever be enough? Its worse, this knowledge of (vows broken) betrayal and the emptiness of this rotten, stinking room in a crackhouse full of broken people. So he watches still, as his fingers close round her throat and the shining blade of his knife is dulled with blood, washing away his sins with her silence and the knowledge that she cannot now give him away, share what she’s seen, tell of what he’s done.

Everybody’s looking for something...

He dresses with his eyes on her, silk and diamonds to cover the stains. When he leaves, no one sees. It’s dark here and he’s always lived behind a shield, a man that no one can reach.