This War Paint

Butch


So there was a girl running her smooth hands down my chest, our clothes lying discarded in the dimness behind the bed. It felt good, I couldn’t deny the surprised moan which passed through my lips, and it felt intimate, my own fingertips exploring her too. She was groaning like a whore. And I grinned, knowing I was an expert at eliciting such sounds.

We were at her house, in her room, the beige walls dimmed to blackness as her blinds protected us from the sun. The bed reeked of another man’s cologne and things he had no doubt left behind too. It didn’t bother me that I wasn’t this girls’ first time, and I wouldn’t be here last, I didn’t even care that my name burning her lips was blurring into someone else’s.

Nothing about this situation was unusual.

Mandy was her name, Jason was her boyfriend’s. We’d met months ago at some underground gathering no adults were allowed to know about, and for good reason. We smoked substances probably not meant to be smoked at all, and drank copious amounts of alcohol to the point of paralysis. It was the type of hangout us delinquents of the town congregated to. I was normally always there, always in no rush to return to my car or job.

She was a pretty thing, beautiful when I was high, and had made it more than clear that she was a girl who found my bad-boy image appealing. I didn’t know then that she had a boyfriend – some guy with a squeaky clean reputation – until our fifth bedroom encounter. And by then it didn’t matter because Mandy made me feel so fucking good. So I was the bad person everyone assumed and slept with the taken woman.

I wasn’t in love with her. God, I wasn’t in love with her. She had hands like magic and a tongue that could spin gold but I didn’t love her. After all, she was no Jane Hathaway.

Brown hair clung to the sweat on her forehead as I worked above her. I could feel her eyes blazing into mine but just remained focused on the headboard, on reaching my climax quickly. Neither of us wanted to be caught. Neither of us could afford to be caught. If I wanted any form of redemption this was not the path to take for it. If she wanted any form of respect then this definitely wasn’t the right path.

“Oh my God,” she moaned, running sharp red nails down my tattooed back. I groaned too. We were almost there now.

The intimacy we shared in these moments was strange. When she screamed out and I growled into her shoulder, there was only our pleasure and sweat. Just moments before we had tortured each other, focused solely on how to make the other suffer and squirm. And afterwards I’d assemble my clothes together and pull them on, feeling her stare examining my tattoos slowly.

I intrigued her. And she liked to think that by sleeping with me she was learning about me too. Just knowing I was dangerous and forbidden had her heart hammering against her chest. I took advantage of this and made her believe that for just a split-second she wasn’t seeing Butch but the vulnerable Fraser far beneath. She didn’t know there was more of her. More girls who scratched me with their nails and made me groan. She wasn’t to know I was plenty of girls’ dirty secrets, wet dreams. She couldn’t know that the only side she’d ever see was Butch.

“You could stay a bit longer,” her voice was husky from screaming. “My brother won’t be home for another hour.”

I turned to look at her properly for the first time. Dark hair still stuck around her head in a mess, make-up smudged, the stained sheets she hugged to her didn’t quite shield her pale breasts. I should have felt a pull to want to rejoin this girl but there was nothing. Only a distant longing for her hair to be red and skin bleach white.

What I did feel was the first wave of guilt hitting me squarely in the stomach. Poor Mandy thought I wanted more from her than just our good time. For a while she’d been content with that arrangement too but there came a time when they wanted more. They started entertaining thoughts of a proper relationship, and wondered out loud if they should dump their boyfriends. As if I’d step up to the plate when they did and would want to hold hands and such.

Instead of telling them the truth I’d feed them the same bull shit. I was protecting them from the town’s scrutiny by keeping it all a secret. I was happy with things as they were. I didn’t want to jeopardize anything. If my being the town’s black sheep had taught me anything it was how to use my words for the best effect.

The truth was a lot less pretty. Ugly in fact. They simply didn’t mean enough to me. Our actions, while intimate, our moments, while fleeting, weren’t enough to keep me tied to them. They’d never find their names carved into my chest with ink. My everything was already owned by someone who barely knew who I was, and she would be the only tattoo I’d proudly brandish, the only girl I’d have.

“I don’t think that’s such a good idea,” I said in between the folds of my shirt as I pulled it on.

“Why not?” she pouted “we could just talk if you’re tired.”

I scoffed. The problem was not that I was tired; the problem was that she actually expected me to cuddle up with her after our passion. It was hot and steamy and unattached. I didn’t understand why girls forgot that.

“Jason. That’s why.”

“Oh, so staying a little longer after we have sex makes what we’re doing behind Jamie’s back so much worse.”

“There’s no ‘we’ Mandy, I’m not sneaking behind anyone’s back.”

She rolled her eyes and pulled the sheet fully up to her neck as if only just noticing how it barely covered a thing. “Everyone’s right in what they say about you Butch.”

They always got bitter when the realisation dawned that I just didn’t want a relationship. I was used to it. And after every encounter they’d swear to hate me forever and find themselves a week later begging for another touch. There wasn’t anyone as dangerous in our town. Nobody who could wield the power to empty rooms as quickly as I could. Some were drawn to that while other wanted to spit on it.

“Whatever Mandy,” I made for the door, hoping to cut whatever she was going to hurl at me short. They were just going to be recycled words all the other girls had used.

“Whoever she is, she’ll never love you back Butch.”

None of the other girls had said those words though.

I stopped, my shoulders already far too tense. For the first time in a long time I felt uncertain of exactly where I stood, and exactly who I was pretending to be. Butch didn’t love anyone – that was what he exuded. Butch was all I’d been to people. And yet Mandy had seen straight through all of that bull.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I hedged warily.

She let out a long laugh I’d never heard her use before. If my body wasn’t tense at her first outburst it certainly was now, every muscle locked firmly together. She was taunting me with that laugh. Telling me she knew that I understood exactly what she was talking about.

“Come on Butch, who’s the unfortunate girl? Who’s the one that’s stolen your cold, hard heart?”

I didn’t turn, not wanting to take in her ugly scowl or burning eyes.

“You’re crazy,” I hissed.

“Of course I am, I’m sleeping with you aren’t I? Risking my happy relationship for you!”

“I never asked you to do that, you came onto me,” I addressed the door coldly, still remaining facing away.

“Oh of course you didn’t because you’re fucking Butch! Girls throw themselves at you, attempting to break into that chest of yours and learn all your secrets. But you’re already in love with someone, betraying that girl by being here with me right now. You’re cheating on her Butch, breaking her heart.”

“You don’t have a fucking clue,” I finally spun around “so stay the fuck out of my business!”

She smirked, knowing she’d hit a nerve. “Like I said, she’ll never love you back. Nobody can love you Butch.”

“This is done Mandy,” was all I said before finally leaving her, making sure to exit out the back door. Neighbours here loved to gossip and, although I didn’t care for Mandy at all, I still didn’t want to put her in the spotlight. She had a happy life. Nice family. I wasn’t going to be the one who ruin that for her. I was already the guy who’d used her. I didn’t want to be anything worse.

What she’d said, what she’d venomously spat, was all true. Jane would never fucking love me. She could never understand that I loved her. We were so opposite, I was so condemned, on a path so shadowed I could barely see my own hands. She shone, so brightly it threatened to blind us all.

And I was betraying everything I had vowed to become by having sloppy sex with a girl I didn’t care about. I was no closer to Jane now, only further away, where she wouldn’t be soiled or dirtied by my foul reputation. God, I kept screwing everything up and making everything just fucking worse.

I pulled myself over Mandy’s fence quickly and reached my car where it stood on the side of the road. That was one more girl who hated me and one more girl who’d still managed to hurt me with her words. It still shocked me that she’d known I was in love with someone already, I’d told Max only and he was really the sole person I trusted. He wouldn’t have told a girl like Mandy about it.

I’d have to do a better job of hiding it, have to make Butch meaner and colder. Nobody could know, because there lay my weakness. Jane was my weakness. People in this town used these things against each other with surprising manipulation and to find a weakness in me, the black sheep, would make everyone’s day. I wouldn’t give them that satisfaction.

I wanted Jane on my own terms and if I was going to achieve that I’d have to give up the meaningless sex. Girls like Mandy would come and go so fast their pretty faces would blur together, and it didn’t bother me one bit. I could let that go. I could let that all go.

At least we had one more thing in common now. I wasn’t a virgin and, according to David Armstrong, neither was she.