Message-ID: <3113eli$9708181206@qz.little-neck.ny.us>
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From: DevoSpudC <cwilson9@ix.netcom.com>
Subject: Emptiness (f/m, dark, quasi-n/c)
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EMPTINESS


   My mask runs down my face like blood, turning my Prize Winning
Looks into a streaked and muddy mess.  I walk blindly, the steady
rain mixing with tears and makeup and dripping down my cheeks.  I
don’t know how long I’ve been walking like this, but I know it’s
not long enough.  I have to get farther away.
   My heels are clicking loudly on the wet pavement.  I kick them
off my feet.  They fly off into the night, disappearing as I want
to disappear; quickly; quietly; without feeling.  I keep walking.
   The asphalt is cold and hurts.  It feels harsh.  Real.  
Liberating.  Nothing shields me from it.  The pavement is there,
and I must accept it and deal with it.  Someone has always tried
to shield me from the reality of life.  Not any more.
   It’s late, and all of the stores are closed.  I pass by a 
large glass window and see myself reflected in it.  The yellow 
glow from the dim streetlamps turns my skin a sickly color, and 
my face is that of a mannequin, mascara-streaked and lifeless.
   "Look at you," my mother’s voice speaks in my mind.  It is 
then that I know I have gone insane.  "You’ve let yourself get 
dirty, you stupid girl."  Her voice is thin and reedy with 
disappointment, just as it always has been.
   "Your pretty white dress is ruined."  She continues, 
indifferent to the fact that she’s been dead for two years.  
   "Honestly, Erika.  How do you expect to get anywhere in the
world if you don’t look your best?  Where would you get in life
looking like that, like dirty white trash..."
   "Shut up, mom,"  I whisper.  My voice is weak, empty, like the
hollow nothing that screams inside my chest.  I can see her face.
Her thin lips twisted into a perpetual frown.  I can only 
remember her smiling once, after I had won my first beauty 
pageant when I was eleven.
   "Well, you never were smart enough to take care of yourself,"
my mother chides.  "What did you do without me to take care of 
you?  Ran off from that nice boy Keith, and got yourself knocked
up by some no-account, greasy garage mechanic who gets himself 
killed by some lunatic.  And then you don’t even have enough 
sense to come in out of the rain."	
   "Shut up!"  I take the sleeve of my five-hundred dollar dress
and rip it up to the shoulder.  It feels good.  I tear the other
side, ripping the sleeve down all the way.  I feel like laughing,
but all I can do is make choking noises in my throat.  Just like
my real mother, she said the one thing that would hurt me the
most.  
   Mark.  Oh God, Mark was dead.  It was a thought so horrible
that my mind couldn’t hold on to it.  It kept slipping away like
blood in a rainstorm, leaving only a terrible emptiness in the
core off my being where he had once been. 
   "What would I have done without you, mom?" I choke into the
darkness. "I’d have grown up.  I would’ve known what an asshole
Keith was.  I’d have known that he was just going to use me and
throw me away.  You always taught me to stand up straight and be
pretty.  Pose and smile and keep the checks coming in, right mom?"
   My voice turns hoarse, but I keep on, saying all the things
that I’ve never said but have always wanted to say.  
   "You were happy that I was a producer’s girlfriend.  It meant
more breaks for your little girl, your little breadwinner!"  I
continue to tear my dress until I can squirm out of it.  I twirl
it to the ground, then stomp on it.  I trample it barefoot into
the muddy street.  Keith bought it for me, in a small but
expensive shop in Beverly Hills.  It had been my favorite dress,
but that was back when I thought I knew who I was; a pretty girl
with a storybook life and a promising career.  Now I’m an insane
empty shell standing half-naked somewhere in downtown LA, 
probably moments away from being raped or shot or forgotten.  And
the really funny thing is, I don’t care.
   I fall to my knees on the curb.  Keith flashes by, all dark
eyes, tan, and polish.  "God, Erika," he says.  "What happened to
you?  You look like a whore."	
   Fresh anger bursts out of me from a place I never knew existed.
"That’s all you wanted, isn’t it?"  I say to the air in front of
me.  "A whore to fuck and lie to and look good in public with?"
   My voice was steady now, level.  "Is that why you kicked me
out of your life when I stopped modeling?  I’d even started to 
love you.  I was stupid and I loved you.  And you couldn’t even
treat me like a human being. Go away!  I hate you!  You and 
mother both!"
   It suddenly fell silent.  I could hear the patter of the rain
on the sidewalk, and I realize that my butt is wet and freezing
from sitting on the curb.  I had been shivering all over, but now
I stopped.  I feel each individual raindrop strike me and trickle
down in my hair or on my skin.  It was as if a dirty window had
shattered inside me, letting me look out clearly for the first
time.
   "Hey, lady.  You all right?"  I don’t need to look to see 
where the voice comes from.  It came from a young man who’d 
stopped to help me when my car broke down on the freeway, a 
simple, honest man who’d been the only good thing that had ever
happened to me.  
   Mark.
   He is there, standing next to me on the curb.  I try to touch
him, and I break a nail on the lamppost.  I want to cry. I want
to die.  We were going to be married.  I am three weeks along
with his child.  He can’t be dead.
   Then, it comes back to me in a rush, feeling like a cold knife
being twisted in my gut.  I shiver and sob as I see Mark smiling
pleasantly at me across the table.  He wants to get the waiter’s
attention because our wineglasses are nearly empty.  He lifts his
hand to signal, and I hear the screech of tires and see the flash
of headlights as a car turns and speeds by.  I don’t even 
associate the popping, chattering sounds with gunfire until I 
hear the screams and see Mark moving, sliding over the table to
push me down on the floor.  He falls on top of me, and at first I
think the dark liquid dribbling on my face is wine, until some 
trickles into my mouth.  
   "Mark!" I scream to the rain, hugging myself in agony.  I’d 
run away.  I’d looked up at what was left of his face and just 
pushed him off and ran.  I don’t even remember if anyone tried 
to stop me.  I ran away and left him there in the remnants of our
veal parmesan and fettucine, and suddenly I want to die.
   I get up, shivering, then turn and slam my fist into the 
window.  It only cracks, cutting my knuckles, but the pain is a 
feeling, a good feeling.  I scream and hammer at it with both 
hands until it shatters.  I catch a glint of light from the 
ground and I freeze, staring down at a long shard of glass.  It
reflects my face back at me; its edge streaked with my blood.  
It seems to call to me; to promise an end to my pain.
   I bend and pick it up, then touch it to my left wrist.  It 
feels cold, like a corpse’s kiss.  Mark’s kiss.  I snarl at the
thought and draw the glass across my wrist.  It cuts like a razor,
the pain slicing through the emptiness and into the small part of
me that is still alive.  My mind goes suddenly clear, clear and
cold like polished ice.
   I look at my blood pulsing out of my arm.  I look at the glass.
I know now that it has tricked me.  It whispered to me of release,
but its sharp lies only lead to a deeper blackness, one that 
would never end.  I throw it down and it shatters, its cold 
promise broken.  I clench my right hand around my wrist.  It is
slippery and sticky.  My life is draining out of me, despite the
cold, despite the rain.  Not just my life, I realize, but my 
child’s.  Mark’s child.  But that already seems so far away, 
like some half-remembered dream.
   I walk down the street, feeling colder with every step.  I 
can't be dying this fast, can I?  I shiver violently.  My blood
trickles down my hand and to the street, dripping into the rain
and washing away, pouring out and vanishing like everything I’ve
ever cared for.
   There are headlights coming, headlights that are already 
slowing as I step into the street and wave my arms, not caring
that I am dressed only in a rain-soaked Natural-Fit bra and a 
pair of black silk panties.  The car stops, and I stumble around
to the driver’s side as a man starts to open the door.  I hug my
arms to my chest, shivering.  
   "Please help me," I say.  "I-- I’m in trouble."
   He looks at me for a second, no, looks me *over* for a second.
   "All right, get in," he says.  I hesitate, but I really don’t
have a choice.  I quickly walk around and yank open the passenger
door and collapse in the seat, barely able to shut the door as he
starts driving.
   "Jesus," he says, noticing me bleeding on his upholstery.  He
fumbles around under his seat and comes up with an oily towel.  
"Wrap this around it," he tells me, draping it on my arm.  "What
happened to you?"
   I almost laugh.  I don’t know where to start.  "I got a little
upset," I finally say.  I look him over, seeing a thirtyish man
with brown hair and a stubbly face, plain features, slightly
overweight, with dark eyes that keep looking straight ahead, 
seeming to ignore me.  Suddenly, belatedly, I begin to feel 
afraid.
   "Where are you taking me?" I ask, my voice trembling.  The car
is warm, but I am still freezing.
   "Home.  My place."  He looks over at me curiously, as if to 
say 'Where else would I take you?'
   "Let me out."  I grip the door handle tightly.  He frowns and
keeps driving.  "Let me out!"  I scream, suddenly near panic.
   He slaps me; a light backhand that barely stings.  I look at
him in shock, my mouth hanging open.  No one has ever slapped me
before, not even my mother.  
   "You’re in trouble, right?"  He says quietly.  "I’m taking you
somewhere safe."
   I sit there and feel nothing.  My life has crumbled away 
before my very eyes, leaving nothing of me that I recognize.  I
am not afraid, even as he runs stop signs and red lights, never
stopping, never slowing too much, never allowing me a chance to
jump out.  I am still calm when he pulls up in the parking lot of
an apartment complex and takes me by my bloody arm, pulling me 
bodily out of the car and tugging me along the sidewalk and up 
the stairs like some disobedient child.
   He holds me firmly as he unlocks the door of the apartment, 
then leads me inside.  I am too weak, too numb to resist.  He 
pushes me into the bathroom and sits me down on the toilet, then
fetches a shirt from the other room and tears it into strips.  He
takes off the oily rag and bandages my wrist and knuckles tightly.
I'm not bleeding as much now, though I still shake like a leaf.  
He cleans my hands and arms with a warm washcloth, then dabs at
my face.  
   He’s trying to pretty me up, I think blankly.  He looks at me
for a moment before leaving and coming back with a soft terry-
cloth bathrobe, which he drapes around my shoulders.  Then he
gently pulls me to my feet and takes me into the living room.  He
sits on the couch and pulls me down on his lap.  I try weakly to
squirm away, but he locks his arms around my waist and holds me
there tightly.
   That’s all he does.  He just holds me there, letting the 
warmth of his body soak into me.  I let my head fall against his
chest.  Despite his strangeness, I feel much like I did when I 
was a girl and my father would hold me on his lap to comfort me.
As I begin to warm up, some of the ice that had formed inside me
begins to melt, and I cry softly against this stranger’s chest.
Later he might rape me; he might kill me.  But right now he was
my father, whose shoulder I had cried on a hundred times, and now
I would do it once more before the darkness swallows me.
   As my tears begin to slow, I look around blearily.  The living
room is cluttered but not dirty, and lacks any traces of a 
feminine touch.  He is alone, like I am now.  I almost feel sorry
for him, but I am still too numb inside to feel much of anything.
   "What’s your name?"  He suddenly asks.  His voice is calm.  
Soothing.
   "Erika," I answer into his chest.  "Who’re you?"
   "Carl.  Are you hungry?"
   I am surprised to realize that I am, but then I remember that 
Mark will never be able to eat again.  Or laugh again.  Or make
love to me again.  I feel sick.  I shut it off, I shut Mark off.
I have to.  It hurts too much.
   I nod.  He slowly slides out from under me and walks to the 
kitchen.  I wonder why he is doing this.  He is helping me, 
probably even saving my life, but I still can’t trust him.  
People just don’t get involved with other people’s problems, not
unless they want something.  Especially bleeding strangers that
appear out of the rain.
   As he moves around the kitchen, I take a closer look around.
I am sitting on a long, soft, light beige colored sofa, which 
lists slightly to the front and left, probably from a broken foot
In front of the sofa is a wide and solid-looking oak coffee table
and five feet past that is a medium-sized television sitting on
an imitation mahogany book shelf, along with a compact stereo 
system.  The TV remote sits on the coffee table, along with a 
stack of various magazines and one brown plastic coaster.  A tall
fluorescent lamp stands next the shelf, illuminating the room 
with a soft yellow-white glow.
   My senses somehow seem clearer; sharpener than they’ve ever 
been.  I can smell the faint odor of spilled coffee on the 
cushion I sit on.  I can hear the soft murmur of a television 
set in the apartment below.  It is Jay Leno, making yet another 
tired joke about President Clinton.  I let my eyes rove.  The 
books on the shelf are mostly fiction, with a large variety of 
sci-fi, fantasy, and horror.  Stephen King seems to be a favorite,
along with Edgar Allen Poe, Arthur C. Clarke, and Isaac Asimov.
My host seemed to be a well-read person, at least.
   He returns in a few minutes with a cup of hot soup.  He gives
it to me, and I thank him and hold it between my hands, the 
warmth helping to steady them.  I am no longer shivering, though
I feel like a character in a Poe novel, perceptions twisting and
being driven to madness by the chaos of life.  Carl sits next to
me--not too close--and turns on the television.  He flips 
channels, stopping on MTV.  Gwen Stephani dances around on the 
screen like Madonna, but Carl’s attention is on me.  I look at 
him, the lyrics seeming very loud in my ears.  'Excuse me, mister,
you’ve got me all wrong.'
   Feeling nervous with his eyes on me, I take a sip from the cup.
It is plain chicken broth, still rather hot, but it tastes 
wonderful.  I drink it down quickly, burning my mouth a little.
The heat spreads down my throat and stomach out into my body.
   "Feeling better?"  He asks after a minute.
   "Yes, thank you."  I did feel much better.  Almost alive.
   "Why did you do that to yourself?"  He asks, indicating my 
wrist with his eyes.
   I don’t answer for a moment.  "I ... I lost someone today.  My
fiancee.  He was... killed."  I feel the tears starting again.  
   "I’m very sorry," he says, looking at me with a sympathetic
expression.  I look back down at my empty cup.  "Would you like
more?"
   I nod, and he takes the cup and refills it.  I sip at the warm
broth, still feeling weak, but stronger than I was. 
   "What do you do?"  He asks tentatively.  "Are you a model?"
   "I was," I answer tonelessly.  "I don’t know what I am now."
   "You’re very beautiful."  He leans closer, putting his arm 
around me and squeezing me gently.  I don’t protest.  Somehow, I
know what’s coming, but I won’t fight him.  I don’t have the 
strength, or the anger.
   He takes my hand and kisses it.  "I won’t hurt you," he says
as I look at him.  "I just want to make love to you."  In a 
strange way, I feel relieved.  I believe him.  He doesn’t want 
pain or violence; he just wants to use me.  I’ve been used before,
though not so blatantly.  I think I can deal with it.
   I say nothing as he stands, then pulls me to my feet and 
guides me to his bedroom.  There is no fear in me; no desire; no
anger.  Only resignation.  I am powerless in this, just as I was
powerless to stop Mark from being murdered.  
   He steadies me with an arm around my waist as he slides the 
robe off my shoulders, then lowers his head to kiss my neck.  His
lips are warm.  He reaches around and unclasps my bra.  He pulls
it off and cups my breasts in his large hands.  His hands are 
also warm, and cover my small breasts completely.  He slowly 
removes his hands, then bends slightly to take a nipple into his
mouth.  It hardens as he sucks at it.  It feels pleasant, but 
that’s all.  
   He nurses at my breast for a few minutes before switching to the
other and slowly sliding down my rain-soaked panties.  He seems
to want to take his time.  He slides my underwear down around my
feet and runs his hands up my legs to caress my ass.  His 
breathing is heavy and shuddering.
   Standing, he gently pushes me down on the bed so that I’m 
lying on my stomach.  I look back to see him drop to his knees 
behind me, then lean forward.  I feel his mouth on my butt, 
kissing over the cheeks and down the cleft between them.  I feel 
his tongue on my asshole.  It feels nasty.  It feels good.  I 
grit my teeth, trying to fight the conflicting sensations.  He 
slides his tongue down and over my slit, coating it with his 
saliva.  At first I think that he just wants the added 
lubrication, but he keeps tonguing me, kissing and sucking at my
pussy until it begins to awaken; despite my numbness; despite my
lack of desire.
   I feel him searching for my clitoris, and as the heat grows 
between my legs, it emerges for him to find.  He sucks and nips
at it with his lips, and I lie there helplessly as I feel a 
orgasm being slowly drawn out of me.  In a short while, I climax
silently and emotionlessly on the bed, the only sound is the rasp
of his breathing and the wet sucking noises of his mouth.  
   He moves behind me, then I feel the pressure of something warm
and blunt at the entrance to my vagina.  It slides in slowly 
without pain, just filling me steadily until I feel it nudging
the entrance to my womb.  He groans as his penis bottoms out.  I
can feel his crinkly pubic hair against my ass, and his testicles
brushing against the skin over my clit.  He stays there for a 
long while, and I feel my insides molding themselves around him,
my pussy clamping itself snugly onto his penis.  It seems to want
him.  I don’t, though the sensation of his intrusion is like the
pain of the glass window.  It takes my mind away from the other
feeling, the other pain, the one that has stolen my soul.
   Slowly, he begins to pump his hips, driving himself in and out
of me with long strokes.  I lie there like a cheap whore, 
motionless and silent as he humps me eagerly.  I turn my face 
away from him and he stops, pulling out of me gradually until I
hear a wet sound as his penis pops free.  He gently turns me over
on my back, so he can see my face again.  He grabs me around the
hips as he slides back in.  
   It’s not me he’s fucking.  Its my face.  
   After a minute, he begins to pump faster, and he grunts as I
feel his penis swell and send a hot jet of semen into me.  He
groans and rocks his hips, trembling as he ejaculates heavily in
my body.  At least I don't have to worry about getting pregnant.
   He stays there between my legs, his penis beginning to soften
in my vagina as he kisses my neck and breasts.  After a while he
pulls out and cleans me up with a washcloth.  For a rapist, he
seemed very considerate, even passionate.  I wondered how long it
had been since he’d had a woman, willing or not.
   I crawl tiredly under the sheets, and he joins me, quietly
whispering how good I was.  A little while later, with the lights
still on, he fucks me again, this time for almost ten minutes
before he comes.  I lie there with my eyes tightly closed, 
wanting only to sleep.  He finishes and turns out the lights, 
then snuggles up to me under the sheets, holding me like I was 
his girlfriend.  For tonight at least I suppose I was, and 
somehow that brought me a small measure of comfort.

The End?

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