Merrick: I catch my reflection in Cassie's glass, the scent of her dark lover rising electric. Some time between leaving Kadie's and stumbling into her arms and Mimi's bed (cheap, convenient, and free of social niceties) hours ceased to matter – now, two bottles past empty mini-bar, she's a dead weight at my side, the soft pink flush of her cheeks and deeper stain on her lips making her seem more alive than the devilish ice-queen who dominates her waking hours… My angel. I give her trinkets, which she pockets appreciatively enough, and rum, which I think she likes better. In return she takes away everything else – the dull grind of 9-5 and the nothingness that cradles it; mortgage, deadlines, all melting away, eclipsed by that one moment of bliss when I'm no one but who she wants and she is everything I need. The perfect woman, the Goddess with the universe in the palm of her hand, creation and destruction in her kiss.
The slightest movement of her soft, childish chest beneath that man's shirt (crimson, oversized, and unbuttoned to beneath the navel) is entrancing, her dog-tags glinting, clinking with each rise and fall, slender fingers wrapped in the chain they unconsciously play with… My own trace the tiny batwings at the base of her spine – no need to see them to know each line, only the agonizing desire to be closer. Funny, how I know every inch of her surface, and yet I've no idea what's written on those tags, why she never takes them off – last shard of something fractured? Love token, maybe? And yet, she's so young. Has she known anyone but me?
I don't need to know… it's the drink talking. Who cares who she is outside these walls, outside my bed, as long as she plays the game for me now, as long as she's mine for just a moment?
And yet…
Scarlett: Cold fingers on my neck. Darkness recedes at the speed of light. Shit. How long have you been asleep, stupid bitch? Get up.
On your feet, Scarlett. No matter how the room sways, stay standing. Trust that the floor will stay there. Fool, you let yourself get distracted. Drink made you slow. Blind. Stupid. Stupid, stupid, stupid!
Catch sight of Merrick, somewhere in the haze, breathing hard for all the wrong reasons… What the hell are you doing, girl? Stop waving that knife in her face!
She sheathes it, eventually. Drains the glass like its water, a trick she repeats before slumping on a chair opposite the bed – our bed - , a third measure in her unnaturally steady hand. "I could've killed you, y'know"
Me, I'm shaking, can barely hear above my own heartbeat. Somehow I laugh. Harsh, nervous, barely above a whisper. My mouth's dry and the words nearly choke me – "You're just a kid, Cassie. You can't kill anyone"
"What the hell do you know?" On her feet again, tearing great chunks out of a carpet still warm from our other exercise. I try to track her erratic progress as she careers from wall to wall like a fat, half-dazed fly caught in a midsummer glass house, but she's too fast and I'm far too drunk…
"Okay, calm down". The third rum is gone. She pours another. "I don't think that's a good idea"
"Why should I give a damn? Christ, Merrick" – more fire in my throat, to match that lacing my every word – "You're starting to sound like my mother"
Only not. Because darling mommy dearest obviously doesn't care what I do so long as I marry a rich city type. You sure screwed that up for me, didn't you? Bitch. You're intoxicating. You're inebriating. You're distract…
Dull crash. Red spurt. Guttural, mewling scream…
… but not from me – mute, mesmerised by the delicate interplay of hot blood and shards which glitter like ice. Shards I'm picking out, much to her disgust.
"You should let a doctor see to that…you don't know what you're doing." It sounds stupid before the words have left my lips, her ruthless precision and calculated skill betraying an unnerving familiarity with the gruesome. She doesn't stop, or look up. Doesn't flinch once.
Not 'til the last bit's out can I pause, take in my surroundings. Gail told me once how anything left in a cut like this could travel round the body and kill you, sometimes weeks later. Sounds like a pretty crap way to die, so lucky for me this wound is neat.
"Okay, ow!" Cassie slides to her knees, eyes fixed on her ragged palm.
I kneel next to her, slip an arm around her shoulders, thinking how weird it is that she's so cold and still when I'm shaking yet again. Jesus, babe, who are you? What have you seen – oh God, what have you done? – to make you so detached, so unmovable? "Are you all right?"
"I'll live… fucking kills though"
"Hey…" I slide closer, my warm and fear-sticky hand brushing her stone-smooth skin so we both shiver. "Less of the killing"
My lips on hers, on mine. I break away, look her in the eye, impish – a game I know too well. "Does that mean more of the…"
I nod. She grins. The curtain falls…