The Wardrobe - 11. Deal

Deal

I walked into the men's room behind you and watched with my hands in my pockets and a small cold smile on my face how you began washing your hands and face, checking the black shades around your eyes, and frowning slightly at the natural ones. And then you bit your lips once and turned around to face me with a genial smile.

"Business," you said.

I nodded and pulled a twenty and a tenner out of my pocket, looking at it, at you, at it... and held it out to you. You took it gingerly.

"Is something wrong?"

"No."

You hesitated and cocked a brow at me, but produced a tiny folded paper from the frontpocket of your sweater and placed it next to the sink. I opened it carefully and squinted at the thin, glittering crust, and threw you a smile.

"I was told it would be complicated with you. But you're actually the easiest of my customers so far." You leaned against your sink and crossed your arms. I smirked and placed the tiny pad on my tongue. Lucy's mean little sister would only last for a few minutes instead of six to twelve hours, but hit me fast and hard. You watched me. Apprehensively.

"Why would I be complicated?" I had to grin.

You shrugged. It was haughty, elegant. I dug into my pocket again and found a big one. Tugged it out and held it out to you, casually, between two fingers. You raised your brows.

"I don't have that much on me, man. Sorry."

I chuckled.

"That's for the complications." I slipped the hundred into your frontpocket, and you recoiled slightly, with a frown that helped the acid melt in my mouth and flush downwards, pull me forward, and swirl around in my arms and legs as yellow and green spirals that screwed out of my skin towards you, tapping your chest and arms...

"Hey. What the fuck are you doing?"

"Dealing. Business." I was probably on you then, pushing you against a grimy, chipped black wall on a grimy, chipped white heater, and holding you to something you never agreed to. What I knew then was that I was feeding on a field of sour strawberry jam that looked like a sea and the log I was straddling was hot and soft, the trees groaned around us and quicksilver iron snaked into my mouth. I followed its trail with my tongue and took a dive into its narrow well, with a screaming rushing in my ears that cleared them for the musical dripping that followed. Like the crystal sobs of a nymph in a cave. I found her and watched her squirm in my hands. There were toxic icicles that sliced into my arms and neck, leaving prickly sensations and energy for me. Softleaved branches brushed through my hair. I sucked on a peach that tasted of air, salt, and metal. Mostly air, very hot wind, and a wisp of wet mist, just before a bird pecked at my lips. My legs ran from me and started dancing in irregular circles in front of me, while soft warm roots pinned the rest of me to the ridged bark of a tree. It was hard and cold. My front was in the sunlight, it burned a little. My dancing legs jerked back and forth, closer to me. I was sitting. What else, without legs? Haha... Grapes on my mouth. Couldn't break them, too soft. A lurching tingle radiated from the point of pressure, there, light shifted, light blue, you sang, a whistle, but only sobs of some subdued, sweet kind, and your eyes were black shades, closed. There were stains on your throat, wide exposed, thrown back, and they moved. They flowed like little snakes. You felt absorbed, but I had a feeling of having wronged you.

"Mornahunned."

"Uh... huh?"

"More... hundred. More, worth, more."

You looked at me, glassy-eyed.

"Than. Ahundred." I gave up.

I closed my eyes and rested my head against the radiator. You kissed me.