Page 32 of Little Deaths

Let?“Screw you,” Donni told the ceiling as he knelt down to pull off her shoes. “You think just because I’ve had your dick in your mouth, you get to tell me what to do?”

“Still a bitchy drunk, I see.” He didn’t sound bothered by it.

“I’m not abitch.”

“You just play one on TV?”

The feel of his big hands moving over her arch made her pull back, making him pause a beat before he pulled on her zipper and tugged her pants off, baring the red lace beneath. She saw him looking at her panties, perhaps remembering how they matched her bra. She curled her legs.

“That’s enough.”

Rafe drew back obediently, tossing the coverlet over her bare legs. She drew it up to her chest, hugging it to herself as she watched him pace in a way that reminded her of a caged wolf. Picking up her perfume bottles, bending down to study things that caught his interest.

“Cut that out,” she said, when he picked up one of her expensive bracelets.

Rafe tossed it back down with a clatter that made her wince before stopping at the chair in front of her vanity, touching the silky hem of the dress draped over the back.

“You’re wearing this in your IMDB photo.”

“I hated that shoot,” she muttered. “I cut my tongue on the knife.”

“Why is it out then?”

“I was gonna wear it.”

“For me?” His eyes sharpened. “Why?”

The words she wanted died on her tongue. How to explain her reasoning when it felt irrational, even to herself.

You only see me as I was and not as I am now. I hated that I used to feel everything so deeply, but now I mostly miss feeling anything at all and I hate that my youth was stolen from me.

I hate that being beautiful made me feel so ugly.

So I was going to be ugly for you.

Rafe leaned over her and she held her breath as she gripped the coverlet. There was slight crinkling around his eyes that weren’t wrinkles yet but would be soon. At least one person had caused this man to smile, and often. She wondered who it was, and how they handled his darker side. Did she laugh off his temper? Or did the two of them spiral down into chaos?

“You were more than just a fantasy,” said Rafe. “I saw you—the real you. Beneath the charm, beneath the glamor. You were sad. Lonely. I was, too.” He drew his finger down the curve of her shoulder, following the edge of the coverlet. “I didn’t want to share you with anybody else.”

“You didn’t see me,” Donni murmured. “Nobody did.”

“Maybe not,” he said. “But I’m looking now.”

And then the door closed behind him and he was gone.

???????

Being in his childhood home after so long was strange. He had so few good memories here—except with her, his mind whispered. How many times had he bitten his lip after some fight or argument until it bled, until every room brought with it the metallic taste of blood?

He opened the medicine cabinet. It was still stuffed with all of his father’s old prescriptions, including some very old Quaaludes. His father’s friends had jokingly referred to them as thigh-openers when they were drunk. Rafe grabbed a bottle of aspirin and went to the fridge.

She’d made that joke about eating olives for dinner, but the contents of the fridge suggested it wasn’t a joke. It was filled with kombucha and water and not much else. A tiny olive jar and bits of odds and ends that could have been the paltry leftovers of someone’s dinner party. When he cracked open a few of her cupboards out of curiosity, they were equally sparse. Half-empty bottles of spices stood sentry beside packets of Indomie Mi Goreng.

Her dog yipped excitedly as he entered the room juggling the water and aspirin, but Donni had passed out cold, rolling onto her side. Her dark hair curled around her face in a tangled dark halo, catching around her ear. She had multiple ear piercings: gold hoops near the rounded tops, with little skulls piercing the lobes. They glittered faintly in the light.

He set the water and aspirin on her nightstand, next to the crystals and essential oil rollers that had made it so that he could not even breathe around certain spices without thinking of her.

She was a beautiful woman, captivating to watch. He especially liked her hands, and the way she moved them while she talked. It was unbelievable that she hadn’t become bigger than she was. Her unusually expressive features made it hard to look away from any scene she was in. Talking with her could make you feel like the only man in the world. It had for him.

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