I should ignore the rapping but you want to see. Okay, sure, I open the door.
"Hey, girl," I says.
"Hey, Killer. I was in the neighborhood. How are you?"
Plucking out the panties from between my cheeks. I lean into the doorframe, cross my arms. Clear-headed, gum-chewing. "Bubbling over with joy'n utter happiness."
She's giving me the look over. "Hard to tell with your panties still on," she says.
"Are you flirting with me?"
Cut-off, no bra. I pass a couple fingertips over her exposed midriff. She could slow down on the late-night snacks. Hm. . . and right now this very instant here I am wondering all the sudden like how have I never paid attention? Vegan? No. She couldn't be. But maybe she's prejudiced and like only eats the ugly plants? The nectar-juice cleanse?
"Looking pretty good yourself," I say with a wink.
"Oh?" Those green eyes of hers, so vivid and awake. "I wanted to bring you a housewarming gift," she says.
"That's so very, very sweet of you. Funny. I don't remember telling you my new address?" We smile. "Maybe it's just me."
She steps forward. Annnd my arm extends across the doorway. She leans in, rubbing against me. Turns her head one direction. Then the other. "Aren't you gonna invite me in?" she asks. A rhetorical question. I'm mum. "Well while you summon the courage. . . here, let me show you your present."
I'm hardly curious.
Hand into her bag, hand rising out, and yes, of course. Living, breathing, mostly green. The pot is cute but who gives a damn.
"No."
She wipes the dirt crumbs from the rim, holds it out for me. Now she's wearing vulnerable on her face. You've heard it from me before. But this bitch is crazy.
"No," I says again.
"Please, I nurtured it just for you." Candid.
"No. Never. Again. Been through this too many times. Magical Little Pammie."
Leaning back onto her heels: "O-kay. I'll pretend I didn't hear that. But it's fine." A deep breath, one hand on her abdomen, full diaphragm, exhale, her "centering exercise". Which btw is attention-seeking. She kneels, puts the pot against the trim.
She stands and my head is on repeat: left to right, right to left. "You're taking it with you," I says.
"But why?!" She's the one becoming annoyed?!
"Bitch, you're crazy."
She crosses her arms: rack 'em up. "Someone's being aggressive. Foul language. Being disrespectful towards me."
"Uh-huh."
"Why so selfish with your new place? I'm just here to catch up it's been a long time."
"You cannot come in. Besides. I got plans."
"That so? A date?"
Lips curl into smile, the tip of my tongue peeks out.
"And with a man, nonetheless. Disgusting."
I don't always find her gaze comforting. It's not a weakness on my part, mind you.
"It's him, yeah?" she says. "Really? Just gonna run it back? Run it back with some half-wit, some punk with no real skills. Kinda like someone else I know." Her eyebrows raise. Lips purse. "Hm?"
Sarcasm, humor. She's taken after me. Why go for the kill when you can be passive-aggressive? She's gotten better with her temper, but she'll just keep on; it's still her endgame. For me, I'll just stay on the positive side of things. Can't let it get you down. I did skip the gym yesterday. . . lazy, lazy me.
"Look, my beautiful and sexy friend," I says. "I think it's time to say our goodbyes for the day. Don't you? Just shake hands, go our separate ways."
"Shake hands? But I came all the way here, all this way out of my way. Just to see you."
"I gotta be getting ready. Ya know. Take a warm, sudsy bath. Massage my nerves."
"Oh? Okay. Well. What if. . . I don't leave without a kiss? It doesn't have to be a big kiss. But think it over, it may be worth your while?"
"Pam."
"No?" she says, lifting the bag from her shoulder. Ever so slowly, immersed in the smooth motor functions of her body. She settles it quietly on the floor. Now she's getting centered. She straightens up, a couple inches taller than me. Crosshairs: "Don't forget to put your face on. Harlot."
Her elbows bend, her hands begin to raise as I step into the hallway. She's trying on a cute grin.
"Standard, predictable, boring ole child psychology. I keep telling you," I says to her, "sticks and stones."
Drum roll: And it's time for dancing!
It's a steel grin as her left hand grabs the back of my neck. So my left hand reaches behind her neck. And now we have two ladies bent at the waists, lowering ourselves in the knees, keeping our legs just out of reach. The clinch, cheek to cheek. She puts her tongue in my ear.
A fistful of her shirt, and the fabric rips. A tear-away, her plan, I hesitate. . . She hook-trips me to the floor. Then on top of me. My heels digging into her hips as she tries to climb higher on my horizontal body. I will administer the pain of regret, even off my back. Even to the little friend here.
She half-stands, does some flailing trying to pass my guard. Not happening. Again: on the hallway floor of my apartment building. Tomorrow this'll be on YouBoob. And I'll get the royalties owed me.
"You lost last time," she manages to say, already breathing heavy. Poor girl has stopped exercising, can hardly keep it together. "And bitching cause it was without a gi!"
"That wasn't a fight we were in bed!"
She punches me hard in the ribs, all knuckles. My heels still pushing her hips, my knees at my chest. And my toenails! Red diamond on black, black diamond on red. I make him suck, and they just can't be smudged! If Man came from the dirt, he'll taste the bottoms of my feet from where I've trampled. Ya hear me, right?
My elbow on the upswing and she gets her cranium cracked. It opens up her eyebrow, blood filling the space. Not my type of shared fluid so hopefully the hair will clot it; she keeps hers. Am I of weaker character since I prefer a pencil?
My arm around her neck, I pull her face into my chest. "So much resistance today!" I says.
Need to get back on my feet. She's a freak athlete, fat or not. I push the top of her head down my body. A little more then I can sit up.
"These pasty thighs!" she cries. "Tans can't even fix you! Forever!"
"Says the redhead albino!" I jab the heel of my hand into the side of her head. Four. Times. Calculating and with force. Like I'm counting off the band on a heavy-flow day. And then sounds of the pipe organ, and the carousel! The sun, the jubilation! "You have a bloody axe-wound!"
She grabs my head, tangling me in her fingers. She hauls herself higher on me, my hair roots pulling up like weeds. So close to the brain it sounds digital.
And so flat on my back again, I give her the stats: "Those Kinsey Reports. Male decreased-arousal most common symptom of Caucasian blood-red vagina." I notice her pit-hair, which I like, if it's intentional. "Even across all races of people!"
"Pseudoscienceis your field! I'm the real scientist!" She's panting. Mouth open. "Faux degree with Mommy's money!"
"My mother weeds her yard with antifreeze you narcissistic twit!"
I grasp her top, tear it off. Her boobs, they're okay. The green-sewn insignias never cease to be creepy. She wiggles upwards on me: the squirm, the titillation. Her thighs try getting over mine for the mount.
Cleavage is smashed over my mouth and nose and I can't breathe! But I get the shirt-rag under her chin, cross it behind the head. I pull the ends to hopefully lop off her head.
And so the both of us, dying for our last breaths. Me staring at the ceiling of this shit-hole apartment building, the burnt out light full of dead bugs. The peeling paint, likely lead-based: headaches! abdominal pains! mood disorders! Now a rumble in the floor against my backside. It starts vibrating the wall too.
I scramble getting these tits out of my face! "Stop it, Ivy! Don't do it!" I try rolling onto my hip. "I just moved in a week ago! Dammit! There's innocent people here! Women and children!"
"You're Princess Di now?! Bitch!"
One of my hands pinned against the wall, she punches me a bunch of times with her spare. Knees me right between the legs, which hurts more without a dick, boys. Screams of the maddened and I shriek "fire!" to break glass.
Collarbone lowering over me. Again. My mouth and nostrils plugging by her darlings. The floor makes snapping noises—-then a jarring jolt. The jagged cracks and shadowy lines in the walls and ceiling, running every which direction. They begin to change hue. Like watching grass grow at an accelerated speed—-or a shag carpet, since we are inside—-coming forth into the hallway like the 1970s. Oxygen depravation's a lot like counting sheep. And green is the colour.
🎶 [Muffled:] Envy is the bond between the hopeful and the damned🎶