“Her Mascara Ran…”
March 31, 2008
Lying naked beneath the ivory pillars of the Gordin Tru Hotel, there is nothing left on her but quarters and dimes, a crumpled up dollar bill and a receipt from a smoke shop. The occasional nighthawk walks by and makes their contribution to the beautiful corpse. Sympathetic streetlights shine tall, making her cold skin pale. Her eyes are deep and dark, a layer of wet eye shadow congeals around her eyes. Her face lays in a puddle of tears, blackened by her mascara. The moon shines brightly in the dark puddle, little specks of blood make the stars in her teared sky.
A block down in the distance the sound of a bebop piano from an all night club rips up smoky wooden floors. The piano music breaks through the walls as people open the black doors to leave letting that wild sound out into the night.
Across and down the street, up the stairs and through the alley four or five sit at the counter in the late night diner, sipping coffee, reading the newspaper, staring off into the shadowed city. The all hours type of thing you only find in paintings and desaturated memories. A recognized customer, a slender gentleman with a cane and dark features left his coat at the door. His hands were pale tonight, paler then the diner server had ever seen them. The gentleman placed his hat on the counter and sat on a stool. No one looked up from their coffees and newspapers. He had never felt so cold in his life. Lost in thought, stirring cream into his mug, he remembered her. Always telling himself to forget the past, never to think of what could have been, what wasn’t, what he regretted. Don’t do this to yourself, he thought, as the steam ran down his throat. She was just a girl.
Just a girl…
The past has a funny way of making you forget faces. I could tell you the time of day, the weather, I could tell you what the marble smelled like in the hotel lobby that day. But I couldn’t tell you what her face looked like. I can tell you about a red dress. I can tell you about blood red stiletto high heels. Green eyes, lime green. A genuine leather bag, still smelling like it was tanned yesterday. She had the smell of sweet death on her. I couldn’t take my eyes off her lips as that lipstick moved with her words. She was the type of girl that would almost whisper just so you would have to really listen to every word. The type of girl you’d worship if you got the chance. She was never in one place longer than a night. You miss your chance, that’s it. You’ll never see her again. You’ll end up in a diner in the middle of the night feeling your veins pump ice.
My elbows rest on an ebony balcony railing as I look out across the wet city. She doesn’t believe me when I said that this would be the last rain we’d ever see together. Her perfect green eyes gaze at the clouded moon, a look of loneliness like I’ll never forget washes over her pale face. The two of us look out at the glowing lights, we both know we’re alone. Alone and cold and wet in a dark unforgiving city. It keep us wet. Always wet. I breathe out smoke into the night sky and watch it disappear. What’s wrong with this place… we’re fifty stories up and still not in heaven.
Don’t you know I loved your faults… Don’t you know I miss you now?
I miss you.
I have never been so alone. Even surrounded by people, I’ve never been so cold.
I miss you.
To be continued…
Posted by goodnightcat
Filed in angel, bar, cafe, chapter, coffee, dark, death, fiction, love, narrative, night, romance, smoking, writing ·Tags: city, dark, death, fiction, girl, love, mascara, noir, writing
Her Mascara Ran… Part II
July 3, 2008
The tips of her fingers run across the piano keys, barely touching, making no noise. The smoke of the club clings to the walls and floor. The stage lights are still on, the house lights have been off all night.
2, 3… 2, 3…
“You know” she tells me, “you can’t really tame a cat.”
“Hmm?”
2, 3… the metronome clicks back and forth in the empty night club.
“They don’t earn your respect, they’re there, living, being themselves. You earn their respect.”
“How so?” I ask, stirring the olive back and forth in my martini.
“You buy a cat or maybe you find one in the ally next to your apartment. You bring her home and bathe her and feed her you give her a name and you care for her. But she’s not appreciative she takes your charity for granted. You spend that night with her and that’s it. As far as you know she’ll be gone the next morning and you’ll never see her again.”
“But she needs my food.”
“Everybody’s got food.”
“Maybe I’ve got everything she needs, she just might be very comfortable in my black and white apartment.”
“She doesn’t like to stay in one place, she’s a drifter.”
“A gipsy?”
“No, she never begs.”
“A freeloader.”
“She doesn’t need what people give her. They just try to get her love.”
“Who needs a cat’s love?”
She looks up from the keys eyeing me through her black hair, her green eyes glow in the darkness.
“You.”
I smile and drink the dry gin and vermouth, letting the olive rest on my tongue.
“It’s not so easy though” she says, “being a drifter.”
“She gets to travel the world getting tastes of every city, lavished in love, wanted by the world, why wouldn’t it be easy?” I say.
“She can’t ever just settle on one taste… she doesn’t ever feel complete. To be irresistable and unatainable makes her voracious. She’s always hungry.”
She stands from the piano stool, her black dress revealing her back and legs. The front holds her perfect breasts. Staring at her makes my insides hurt. It makes me feel disgusting and unworthy. I can barely even make eye contact with this angel.
She holds her hand to me and I take it.
The olive is bitter once I taste her skin. She’s sweet and smooth, I run my teeth along her slender neck and her thin hairs stand straight up.
“But who wears the collar?” I whisper.
“Depends on the owner.”
2, 3… 2, 3…
She is lissome and light. Grace De Monoco fills the air with a sweet scent. I stir inside of her, holding lightly to her curved back. Those green eyes never leave mine. Her teeth bite her lower lip so tight I see dark blood starting to trickle down her lipstick.
“Beg for this” she says.
“Please.”
“No. Beg, beg for all of me.”
I beg, “I need you, I can’t let this go. Don’t ever leave.”
She smiles and I see that blood run down her sharp chin.
I beg, “God, I need you, I crave you, I adore you.”
“Just once” she says quietly, “just once maybe I’ll stay.”
That sweet release brings me clinging to her. I let everything go. My life, my dreams, my fears and paranoias. I let it all go. She’s still smiling a cheshire smile. Dripping blood onto my chest she’s biting so hard. She shakes and holds onto me. For that moment we’re closer to each other than we have ever been to anyone else. Neither of us realize what’s happening. Not at that moment. Not tonight. This is just another night and people don’t make connections.
She releases her jaw and wipes the blood away with the back of her wrist, “perfecto.”
Out on the balcony she smokes in my silk Komono, the robe wide open blowing in the night wind. I join her, staring out into the dark city.
It’s always the same. Nothing new, just release.
We stay silent, listening to the crackle of her cigarette and the calming night air.
Reminiscing back, the more it turns into a faded memory. Just something in the past that if you were to recal it to someone else it would seem insignificant. Just another pointless moment in the night. But as much as I reminisce and she begins to fade I’ll never be able to forget what she said to me on that balcony that made me uneasy for the first time in my life. It made me unsure about Lucid Dream. A dream I couldn’t wake up from.
She turned to me, her big green eyes looking into mine and held out her hand, “when I fall for you” she said, “I’ll kill myself.”
2, 3… 2, 3…
Posted by goodnightcat
Filed in bar, chapter, dark, death, dream, fiction, life, love, moonlight, noir, writing ·Tags: chapter, city, dark, death, fiction, love, noir
