These Words Are My Heart and Soul

My legs couldn’t carry me fast enough, but I reached the toilet just in time to throw up. Panting, I ran a hand through my hair. Morning sickness was a bitch. I guess little Laurie would never like baked beans on toast. Hell, I sure didn’t.

“You okay, baby?” Frank asked comfortingly, smoothing his hand over my back.

“Do I fucking look okay?” I mumbled into the toilet bowl.

“Well you sure as hell don’t sound it,” he half laughed. “Want a drink?”

“OJ would be great.”

“Anything, mommy.”

He left and my back felt cold where his hand had been seconds before. Seeing as my throwing up seemed to have ceased, and because I missed him in the seconds he was gone, I sauntered downstairs and sort of fell onto him. He laughed, holding me up, and handed me a glass of freshly squeezed organic OJ. I smiled lovingly at it and swigged it off, feeling satisfied and happy.

“You know what?”

“What?” he asked.

“I’m so insanely horny,” I grinned.

His eyes widened, and his face cracked into a cheeky smile. The doctor said that sex wouldn’t harm Laurie, and was in fact rather good for her. I suppose you could say we were testing his theory J.

Afterwards, we just lay there. I smiled and buried myself in him, my back flush against his chest. I pulled his arm round my shoulder and kissed the back of his hand. He laughed lightly and spread his fingers, closing them round mine, holding my hand. Giggling slightly, I put his hand against my stomach, then looked round at him. He smiled and kissed me, then moved his hand across my belly. He nuzzled into my neck, kissing it lightly.

Another perfect moment in my now just about perfect life.

***
My eyes stung. I was still lying in the playground; the vomit on my fishnet clad knees was dry and so was the vomit round my mouth. Leaves and grass stuck in my hair, and twigs and small branches stuck to my clothes - what little of them there were.

The sun was rising, blinding me slowly. The trees rustled in the wind, seemingly whispering to each other. Pinks and reds shot across the sky as the sun left China and arrived in America. It shimmered through the clouds, painting the perfect picture of the perfect sunrise. The sky told me it was around five am. I was to be up and out for school soon.

As the gold’s and oranges hit the clouds, the sun appearing bigger, I decided to skip school and take another working day off. Meaning I was out of about 2K; but what did it matter? My health, my sanity and my all-round well-being was at stake.

I had a sudden epiphany, an inkling of realization that my standard of life was utter crap. Earning my living by being the town bike, and then splashing out on alcohol and other self harming things. Forget the spiral, I was already rock-bottom.

As I began to hear kids going to school and cars on the roads, I decided to pick my sorry ass up off of the ground and stumble home. The cold night air had sobered me up a bit, meaning I could just about walk in a straight line; though I didn’t dare reach in my pocket. All sorts of bucks would fall out and fly away, and I couldn’t lose a penny. That was my money for living.

Whilst walking home, I decided that this week, I was going to pay 3K of my hard (oh the irony) earned cash into my life savings, for a point in my life where the rain stopped falling and the world was lifted off of my shoulders.

At the moment, I had about 20K stashed away, for a clean break in my life.

Once my finals were out of the way, in a year and a half, and school was finally over, I was going to quit the sex business, settle down with a great guy and have a house and a car, couple kids - a meaningful life.

Like the one I’d always imagined having with Gerard.

But seeing as that was out of the window, I’d have to find someone and start afresh. But all of this was after school. Prostitution was a way of keeping myself on my feet, something I could bury deep in my past; it’d come back to haunt me eventually though. I knew that well.

Since aborting my baby - I still regretted it with every ounce of my being - I’d wanted so bad to be a mother. A real one, like my mother had once been. The kind she’d been before that greasy fuck came into her life; she’d always been my hero, my rock, my mom.

And yet, I didn’t want to be a mother. Everybody I’d ever known, bar Erryn, had rejected me and pushed me away in some disdainful way or another. I don’t think I could handle it if my kid ever hated me. I couldn’t handle the guilt of my past ruining my child’s life, however old the kid might be when he or she found out. It would be devastating. Imagine the torment the little person would go through if the other kids found out; no son or daughter of mine would go through what I did.

So I walked home, staring hopelessly at my mothers car as I watched her climb into it and drive away. She didn’t see me, and if she had she’d just blanked my existence. And so I carried on walking, the milestone to my own house. The closed sign remained up, yet a few workers and blokes stood outside, chattering and smoking and rubbing themselves, getting ready for what they hoped would be in store for them.

“I’m sorry, people, but I’m staying closed today. Personal problems. Look, I know, okay? You’ll all get a 20% discount tomorrow, but only you who’ve shown up now. No one else, okay? So don’t, like, you know, go bragging to all your buddy’s that you’re getting a cut because they’ll want one too and I’ll be out of business. Would you want that?” I asked, trying to keep my tiredness hidden.

Everyone shook their heads, and the customers wandered off. My colleagues, my friends, all gathered round, hugging and kissing me and wishing me well, saying they hoped I’d be alright soon. Only four of them knew that it might have been somewhat to do with mom, as they remembered clearly that I’d told them I wanted to see her on my birthday.

They said their goodbyes and I waved them off, before unlocking my door and wandering in. I walked over to my secreted bed in the little hidden box room at the back, and collapsed onto it. My one free eye, the one that wasn’t squished into the soft conditioned fabric of my pillow, hardly blinked, watching the clock tiredly as it passed seven am, eight am, twelve pm.

My stomach ached, screaming for food, and my brain called out for a nicotine fix, or a caffeine dose, or possibly just one drop of alcoholic measure. But I refused to move, my entire body shaking from withdrawal from the four things, despite love and music, that my body needed to function right.

As a result of lack of sleep and solace and supplements, my head spun and my heart thudded. I rolled over, gasping loudly and heavily from a sudden lack of oxygen to my system. My fingernails dug into the bed sheets, breaking and bleeding as sounds of my rasping breath filled the room. Stars appeared in front of my eyes, and looked as if they were bursting as the room continued spinning. My heart thudded hard; I felt like I was fitting.

Everything tightened up and I felt like a three hundred pound weight had been dumped onto my chest, or like someone had got hold of my lungs and was squeezing them tightly. The ends of my fingers and toes tingled, but it was like an almost painful tingle that made my arms and shins twitch awkwardly. My breath squeaked as I gasped desperately for air, the room growing slowly darker.

Until it all went black, and I seemed to stop breathing.
***