Page 42 of Jackson
13
Jackson
Summer’s cries subsided and she drifted into sleep. I felt peace wash over me, until she rolled onto her side. My blood, our sweat, and my cum was smeared over her body. I enjoyed that sight normally. I got a sense of empowerment when the woman beneath me was covered in my fluids, as if it degraded her in some way. But not Summer. It saddened me to see her that way. The sheets were tangled around us, again smeared with blood and cum, my stomach thesame.
I gently pulled my arm from under her and slid from the bed. I wet a washcloth in warm water and returned. While she slept I cleaned her. My tears dripped onto her stomach as I washed my nastiness from her body. I gently pulled the sheet from underneath and rolled it into a ball, leaving it by the bedroom door as I headed for theshower.
I knew I wouldn’t get any more sleep, so I dressed. I wrote a note and placed it on the bedside table for her, before covering her with a fresh sheet, and thenleft.
I drove to the bar. I needed to finish that wall, I needed to lose myself and settle my mind in my art. I unlocked the door and turned on a light. I collected my paint, put in my earbuds, jacked up the music, removed my t-shirt, and then got towork.
The sun had risen when I finally stood, stretched my back, and rolled my neck to relieve the tension in my shoulders. I got a little high on the paint fumes, higher still on the sight of something that was most definitely my best work. I took a few paces back and stared. I pulled the earbuds from my ears. In one way it was a shame it was in the bar, an area not well lit. To fully appreciate it, it should be viewed in daylight. It was so detailed and that one wall represented me, and my life. I scanned the wall, it was my biography running from left to right; the darkest depths of my mind to my saving grace,Summer.
“Wanna talk?” I heard and turn to seeDexter.
“How long have you been there?” Iasked.
“An hour. I’ve been watchingyou.”
“An hour? I didn’t hear you comein.”
“Why are you here? It’s six in the morning; you should be getting some sleep. And come closer, I want tosee.”
His eyes had trailed down to mystomach.
“Oh, Jack. What the fuck did you do?” hesaid.
“I needed it, Dex. She asked about my father, I told her I killed my mother. I flipped, we fucked; she helped me feel.” I wasrambling.
I sank to my knees and cradled my head in my hands. I heard the scrape of the barstool Dex had been sitting on. He knelt in front ofme.
“How did she help you,son?”
“She cut me, with her nails. She sat astride me and helped me. I neededit.”
I heard his sharp intake of breath and I felt the hand he had placed on my shouldertense.
“She didn’t do it willingly, Dex. She did it so I wouldn’t hurt her,” Isaid.
“Where isshe?”
“She’s home, she’s fine,sleeping.”
“Did you hurther?”
“I don’t thinkso.”
I watched him sigh and nod his head. We sat that way for a while, I watched my tears drip through my fingers and pool on the dusty wooden floor. I don’t think I’d cried as much in my whole life than I had those past few days. Perhaps the end was coming; perhaps I was closing on rock bottom, finally. I would welcome it with openarms.
He stood and walked behind the bar. I rose and followed him, taking a seat on one of the stools as he grabbed two bottles of beer. He snapped the caps off and handed meone.
“I think your episodes are getting closer, Jack. I’m worried about you. One day you’ll take this too far and seriously hurt yourself. That cut is infected. I think you need a differentstrategy.”
“Don’t quit on me, Dex,please.”
“I’m not going to, I just need to rethinkthis.”
I swigged on my beer bottle as we fell into silence. “I’m close, Dex. I’m close to rock bottom, that’s a good thing, isn’tit?”
