Mostly Spice

"You know," she began as her delicate fingers caressed the dirty brick wall behind her. "Men-" She dug her long nails slightly into the brick and looked up at me with intense blue eyes. "-are the real evil. Sure, Eve tempted Adam but Adam ate, right? Yet, its all blamed on Eve- Amity, are you listening to me?" she called, suddenly, from her spacey rant.

I looked up from my notebook abruptly, hearing my name. She leaned in, removing her hand from the wall and placing it on my thigh. In a whisper, she asked, "Have you considered balls?"

I arched a thin eyebrow in confusion. "Balls?

"Yes." she replied, simply. "On men. Men's balls."

I withdrew from the springy, old bed, shaking my head and sighing. "Lily, what are you even talking about? I don't want to discuss this." I said, folding closed the notebook I had been scribbling in. Lily seemed to have an unnatural fascination with the male anatomy although she'd never even seen a penis in person. She'd been a lesbian for as long as she could remember. Anything gore-related interested her as well. I didn't quite understand the attraction, but I accepted it.

She exploded with shrieking laughter. After a few seconds, she abruptly stopped, her face displaying a still, serious expression again. "But, have you considered them? The texture? They have the same wrinkles as Satan's horns. They're like little remnants of sin; like horns cut off. Horny, horny, horny. Horny little monsters." she explained, her inflection sharp and her eyes like fire. She certainly seemed to believe what she was saying.

I shook my head again. "Lily, you are crazy." I replied, simply. Yet, I knew there was a tiny bit of truth in her mad rant.

She nodded, as if she knew she were unstable. "But you like me anyway, right?" she asked, looking up at me with big, worried eyes.

I nodded. "I do." I told her. "But its 11:30 and you should be getting to sleep." I kissed her forehead goodnight and turned to leave but she was not satisfied. She tugged on my arm until I returned my attention to her and pulled my lips to hers, intoxicating me with her taste. Then, she pulled away and grinned innocently, teasing me. I pouted and she laughed, knowing I had to leave. "You're awful." I said and passed through the large hole in the wall where a door would have been if we had the money to afford one.

"Wait!" she cried, frantically, causing me to stop in my steps and peer back into the room. "Where are you going?!" She shrieked, panicked, as she did every night; every time I left the room.
"To the livingroom, to get some writing done." I lied, the words so dead and dull as I'd repeated them a thousand times. She nodded and turned over on her side to face the grimy brick wall. When I heard her exhale deeply, I grabbed my dark jacket from the dresser and made my way out of the bedroom, out of the living room, and into the blackness of the city night.

----

I heard familiar, rough voices call my name as the bitter autumn air bit at my cheeks. I ignored them and crossed the street to the sidewalk, lit only by the broken lamp which cast a pulsing orange light on the cracks in the foundation of the sidewalk and faces of two girls wearing almost nothing but their pounds of makeup.

I waved a small gesture of recognition and slid my dark jacket off reluctantly. My body began to tremble in complaint against the harsh air. I hoped that I'd be picked up soon- if not for the money that Lily and I desperately needed, for the warmth that waited in the backseat of a car or a dirty hotel room.

I heard the quiet disruption of gravel and turned to see a black car with its red lights glaring through the fog. I waited patiently for the driver to point out the girl he wanted but he only sat in the driver's seat, silently. Catching a quick glance at the other two girls, I could tell that they felt the same nervousness and discomfort that I did.

His shadowed face finally appeared slowly out the car window but he did not point. From his lips, which were the only fully visible part of him, he muttered, "You." I could tell by the angle of his jaw that he was referring to me. Something about him was more disturbing to me than any of the other flawed men I'd served.

I picked up my jacket and slid into the backseat of his car, against my better judgment. The warmth, however, calmed me a bit. I reminded myself that I was here to do work without discrimination against the customer.

"What would you like tonight, honey?" I asked, leaning a bit forward, suggestively. I glanced into the mirror at his shadowed face and waited for a response I never got. He drove for not even a minute before swerving into a dark alley, causing my stomach to tighten. I should have never gotten into the car.

I heard the doors lock as I struggled to open them. He began to climb into the backseat with me, a blade glistening in the dark. I heard myself whimper but could not bring myself to say anything. His lips parted into a cruel grin as he unzipped his jeans. I sunk into the cold metal door, still pulling hard on the handle in a desperate attempt to flee. The redundant thud of the lock matched the quick beating of my heart as he neared me, his right hand holding his cock just as his left held the knife.
"Suck it, whore." he demanded, harshly. He'd trapped me so close to the car door that I could feel him pressing against my face. I turned my cheek, uncertain as to why I was so opposed to sucking off a stranger the one time it could potentially save my life.

I heard him growl and his thick fingers grabbed my jaw and forced my mouth over it. "I said suck it, whore." he repeated, maliciously, shoving his knife to my throat. I felt tears well up in my eyes as I tried to formulate a plan. I sucked against my will and, as he got closer to cumming, the knife got further from my throat and his grip became looser. I felt as though it gave me the opportunity I needed but to do what, I didn't yet know.

I braced myself for what my instincts suddenly told me to do and, when the blade was no longer close enough to my throat to be very dangerous, I bit. I bit down as hard as I could and felt the muscles writhe in my mouth, broken from the thin flesh.

He fell back from me with a deafening scream and I spit his blood and flesh into his face, now visible and lined with thin scars that appeared to be from fingernails. I imagined the kinds of girls those nails had to have belonged to; girls like me- even worse, girls like Lily. I shuddered and felt for the knife he'd dropped and, when its cold caressed the pads of my fingers, I lifted it above my head and shoved it into the soft flesh of his throat. His scream was strangled by the blade and bytes of desperate wheezing and particles of blood spewed from his dirty lips. With a last, pathetic jolt, his thrashing stopped completely.

The silence that hung in the frosty air brought me more terror than his screaming did. Frozen above him with blood dripping from my mouth, I only stared at his still body.

Finally, my mind came back to me. I emptied his wallet, wiped off the blood on his shirt, put on my jacket and grabbed the knife from his throat. I'd seen enough tv in the basements of the crackwhores out west to develop a half-assed plan in my head. I drove to Park Bridge and dragged his body from the back seat, shoving it into the driver's seat so that most of his weight was on the gas pedal. I stood back and watched it drive off the edge, splashing into the abyss of water below.

I'd killed a man.

Suddenly, I felt the panic seep into my bones. I'd killed a man. I looked around for any witnesses and quickly darted into the direction of the apartment. My eyes watered against the wind and my lungs gasped constantly at the cold air as I moved. My legs trembled beneath my until I ran passed the madeup faces of the girls and through the squeaky door of the grimy, brick haven. I fell to my knees in the doorway and took a deep breath.

Out of my jacket pocket fell the wad of cash I'd collected from my victim. I ran my fingers carefully over it, as if it were some rabid animal I had to subdue. It was more than I made in a week. Biting my bottom lip, I shoved it into my pocket again and thought of Lily, asleep under a thin blanket on a lumpy, springy mattress. She could use the money. How I got it was just another secret I had to keep from her.