“I miss him.”
* * *
The bowl shatters across the wall and
sends porcelain shards and noodles in a cascade against the tile.
Each piece, as it flies away and begins falling to the floor,
disintegrates into nothingness as it gets further from Jeanette. It's
as if each piece flies away into pixels. She doesn't see that though,
or notice it. It's not a part of the memory; it's part of what's left
of it.
“How could you fuck her? How could
you do that to me?”
He's looking at her from across the
counter, his eyes full of a rage as vivid as the rage she feels in
herself. She knows there will be hell to pay for the broken bowl but
the time for that is later. She also knows that if she doesn't
express her anger now there will be much more than broken bowls
tomorrow.
“It just happened. You were gone
and--”
Her hands fly up from the counter where
she'd rested them and she pulls her eyes away from him to look out
the window behind her. There is no landscape outside but her eyes
don't tell her that, only that this is what she sees. A featureless
landscape of a color that is less than white and more than nothing.
“I was gone for a week! While I was
telling my mother how much I fucking care about you, you were fucking
her! You were inside her and I was gushing over how in love we are.
At the same fucking time! How the fuck is that okay?”
“Look, I know. It's not okay but you
have to understand. . .”
He trails off and she looks to him and
sees that he's crying. She sees that his knuckles are white against
the pale brown counter as he clutches the edge and she's no longer
sure who carries more rage and desperation.
She reaches across the counter to touch
his fingers. His knuckles are warm.
* * *
His hand is like a white hot iron
across her face and as her head cocks sideways she can feel the
imprint of each fingertip across her cheek and know that there will
be an outline there tomorrow. The skin stings and burns where his
hand has touched her face but the pain of the second slap is far
worse.
“Baby!”
The words are more squeak than shout as
they leave her lips but they're drowned out by the smack of his palm
on her cheek again. She can feel him pulsing and buried deep inside
her, his cock seeming to move with each contact of his hand and with
each searing spasm she can feel herself contract around him.
“That's too hard. Please. . .”
She presses her knees to his sides as
hard as she can as she rides him and starts to squirm from the pain.
The tear of her bottom lip leaves a streak of red across his palm and
she sees the blood as his hands reach to her hips and pull her down
harder onto him, lifting her and bouncing her body up and off of him.
“No.”
And then she's on her back and he's
holding her down. His giant hand is wrapped around her wrists above
her head and his body is on top of her, pushing against her. His
other hand wraps around her neck and starts to squeeze as he pounds
into her, pushing her head against the wall as she chokes under his
fingers. She can feel his hips shaking as he cums inside her.
* * *
Each drop of blood that falls from his
fingers seems to be accompanied by a tear falling from his eyes but
not a single drop of fluid touches the ground. Instead each drop
seems to disappear before it can land. Each splotch, red or clear,
never forms on her dress or on the floor but Jeanette neither notices
it or sees it. That's not part of the memory. It's part of what is
left of it.
“Baby, I'm so sorry. I'm sorry I made
you so angry.”
He looks up at her and his brow is
furrowed, his lip quivering. “My hand. . .”
His hand is a mangled mess and around
them on the floor she can see the shards of the mirror, each one
reflecting her terrified face. Small slivers are stuck in his
knuckles and she turns his hand over in her own, examining it. The
wounds are shallow and it doesn't seem broken but it seems there is
more blood than she's ever seen in one place.
“I'm so sorry baby, I didn't mean to
hurt you. I didn't mean to do it. . .”
She whispers to him and wraps her arms
around him and gently pulls his injured hand behind her as she does.
His body is wider than her own but she manages to surround him and
his head falls against her shoulder and begins to weep.
Each of his tears soak into the sleeve
of her top gently and with each new drop she whispers to him again,
“It's okay. It's all going to be okay.
* * *
“How can you say that? After he
hurt you so much.”
“But that's is. When he hurt me
was the only time I felt real.”
. . .
Terminate Simulation 14 . . .
