Punk and Zen (8 page)

“Nina, I’m sorry,” she began softly, her mouth inches
from my ear, but I held up a hand to forestall her. I needed quiet at the
moment. I was, after all, still on the job. I watched my fingers tremble,
betraying how my body and mind felt as I took a deep, shaky breath, and keyed
the microphone.

“Boyz and grrlz, the freaks are out tonight.” My voice
came out steadily and with the right tone as the audience clapped and howled in
agreement. I waited a few beats for my next statement. “Tonight the moon is on the
rise—better watch out, ’cuz no one knows in who a monster hides,” I finished,
bringing the mix back up on full.

I shut the mike, then squared my shoulders and set my
face. A burning cold hardness that I had felt only once before, once when I’d
had to defend myself from the people who were supposed to love me, filled me,
and I turned around to look at Trace directly. There must have really been
something in my face, because as her eyes met mine, she stepped back.

We watched each other a moment, her eyes confused,
evaluating mine hard. She reached out for my face. “Nina, truly, I didn’t
mean—”

I’d had it for the night, maybe forever; who knew. But
either way, my expression stopped her cold, midword and midmotion. I stared at
her hand, suspended between us, until she dropped it.

I crossed my arms over my chest and settled back
against the board, languidly stretching one leg over the other. My guts shook,
my head hurt, and the spot I was leaning on ached in the way only an incipient
bruise can, but I’d be damned, twice damned, if I let her see any of that. I
was back in some semblance of control, and, real or no, mask or no, I was going
to hold on to it for dear life if I had to.

I took a slow, deep breath and let it out silently.
Focus. That’s what I needed, and that’s what I was after. “Trace?” I inquired
quietly, arching an eyebrow at her. An eerie, hyper-real calmness filled me,
and I was as steady and strong as a rock.

“Yeah?” she answered softly, and her eyes were wide,
shocked, as she studied me.

“If you want something, you have to ask,” I stated
quietly, and let those words hang in the air. I observed her face and took in
the quirk of her lips and sharp jawline, the hint of pain and confusion in her
now-darkened eyes as they studied me in return.

Trace took a step closer. “I’m sorry, I don’t know
what—”

“Stop,” I interrupted, my voice low and hard. “Trace?”
I asked again softly. “Get out.”

Unused to these tones from me, Trace held her hands
slightly away from her body, as if she didn’t know what to do with them, and
she stared at me, more in shock, I suspect, than anything else. No one, as far
as I knew, ever told Trace what to do—ever.

“Now,” I said, unfolding an arm and pointing toward
the door, and it became a contest of wills as we stared each other down. My
gaze was steady and unflinching, and my hand never moved from the direction it
pointed in.

Trace’s expression changed from shock to sadness as
she dropped her ABC eyes from mine, and her heels scuffed along the
carpet as she walked to the steps, gazing floorward. I recrossed my arms, just
watching her. As she reached for the door, she looked back up at me.

She seemed both sad and frightened. “We need to,” she
began. “I mean, I want…” She trailed off, gazing at me with an uncharacteristic
uncertainty.

By now, though, I had no patience left. This had to
end before I softened again, gave in and let her kidnap my soul. “We’ll talk,”
I promised, knowing what she wanted. At the moment, all I wanted to be was
alone. I was angry with Trace, yes, but much more than that, I was furious,
disgusted, with myself, with what she’d made me see.

Trace searched my face a moment, then finally nodded
and stepped out, closing the door behind her. I stared at it, almost expecting
yet another person to burst in. Finally, I stood up straight and stretched my
back. It hurt. Ah, well, I thought cynically. Another day, another bruise.
Besides, I would have plenty of time for self-loathing and analyzing later. I
still had to get through the night.

I took my headphones off and forced myself to go
slowly, to think of nothing, to catch and direct my breath as I measured my
steps to the door.

This time I locked it.

She
Sells Sanctuary

One
day I was introduced to power

She
hardly spoke—she never said her name

I
was preying in my darkest hour

And
she whispered to me, “Blood cannot be tamed.

“I Fall”—Life
Underwater

∗ ∗ ∗ ∗

That night, after I collected my pay, I was so tired I
practically crawled home and made straight for the shower, since no one else
was around. Trace, I knew, wasn’t there yet, or if she was, she hadn’t come
upstairs, and my roommates were still out and about—working, drinking, doing
whatever it was they did.

Once in the bathroom, I started the water running in
the shower, kicked off my boots, and stripped quickly. Balling the dress up, I
tossed it in the hamper, then inspected the stockings. Yep, ruined. Absolutely
wrecked. There were several holes along the seam. For a moment, I could feel
the bruising strength of Trace’s hands pressing against me, but I shook that feeling
off and tossed the nylons into the garbage pail.

I checked my back in the mirror briefly. The promised
bruise had materialized and would be tender for a few days, and a few scrapes
along my neck stung when I touched them. Ah, well, what was life without a few
bruises? Probably nice and painless, I thought wryly.

I wondered if my buddy, you know, my pal, my girl, my
best friend, my favorite body part, would end up with a couple of bruises.
Trace had been pretty rough, especially when she was ripping through the
nylons.

What a fucking event that had been, I mused as I
stepped into the showe r. I got soaked as quickly as possible and went through
the routine of bathing. Finally, when I’d rinsed off the soap, I stood under
the shower itself and simply let the water pour over me.

Trace’s words pounded through my head, so hard that my
head ached. It was time to get out so I shut the taps and reached for a towel.

My hair wrapped, I grabbed one of my robes from behind
the closed door (I have three of them: tiger stripes, leopard spots, and
black), wrapped myself in the black one, and began to rub my aching head with
the terry cloth. Suddenly, it occurred to me that perhaps my head hurt because
I was a little hung over, and my follow-up thought was maybe, just maybe, Trace
had been a little drunk as well, because I could think of nothing else to
explain her behavior.

But that made things more confusing, because didn’t
alcohol lower your inhibitions? Supposedly, it just lowers your guard; your
brain is definitely not functioning well enough to come up with new and novel
ideas, thanks to the effects of oxygen deprivation. So what did that mean?
Yeah, I’d wanted more between Trace and me, but I didn’t “go” for it, and Trace
had pretty much literally attacked me, which was still just unbelievable.

And I’d frozen. What the fuck was up with that? I’d
been fine, or at least I’d thought I was, just a little while before she
appeared. Was it really the tequila pop? Or was it something else? For a moment
there, I’d honestly considered just letting things happen—if I’d just, well,
given over, it would have been what Trace needed, it would help her to be
whole.

Why fight it or her anyway? I mean, it’s not like I
didn’t know that it didn’t matter who Trace was with; she always wanted to be
with me in the end. Except perhaps now, after this, this thing, she wouldn’t. I
admit that something inside me was afraid, and I wasn’t sure what I was more
afraid of—that we’d continue the way we’d been, or that maybe, just maybe, it
was finally over and I was free.

Free. That was a strange thought, and I shied away
from it. Free from what, really?

But something in my mind insisted that I’d done the
right thing, that this whole issue wasn’t just about whether or not we ever
fucked. I mean, look at me and Blue, um, Candace. What happened between us was
pretty damn intimate, can’t really get much closer, physically. But I felt no
tie, no connection to her, other than a warm friendliness and an honest lust.
The only game between us had really boiled down to this: she was interested,
was I? And there was no deceit about it. Yes, I was. Okay, maybe it had gone a
ABC little further faster than I normally would’ve let it and, for
chrissake, in the skybox of all places, but really no harm, no foul. She
wanted, I wanted; it was very happily mutual.

Too much, it was too much to think about—the words,
the feelings, and this strange sense of shame all floating together. That was
weird, the shame, I mean. I didn’t feel any about Candace, but from what had
happened with Trace. I felt like my whole body was as raw as my neck, as if I’d
lived out that nightmare everyone has sooner or later—you know, the one when
you go to school and suddenly realize you’re naked.

I brushed my teeth (I’m a Crest baby), and somewhere
during the rinse and spit cycle, I realized that my hands were shaking.

Maybe my blood sugar was too low. It had been quite
some time since I’d had anything solid to eat, I rationalized. Besides, that
made sense, in a purely biological sort of way.

Wrapped in my robe and stepping out of the bathroom
finally, I walked into the kitchen and drank some orange juice. That would take
care of the sugar. I left the light on over the stove, since it would shine
nice and dimly in the living room, then went to the bedroom that I shared with
my roommate, Jackie.

Oh, yeah, roommates. I had two. Captain, otherwise
known as Cap, who was a police officer and had a room of his own, and Jackie, a
good friend who’d invited me to move in when life became unlivable at my
parents’, since they’d given me the boot because I couldn’t fit in with their
master plans for my life. But that’s another story.

Fuck it. Since the room, located right off the living
room, was really small, Jackie and I shared a bed, which wasn’t quite the
hardship that it would seem, given that I spent half my time downstairs in
Trace’s. But when Jackie came home, and she would soon, since she worked at
another local bar and was probably doing the after-hours hangout, she’d want to
talk, at the very least, and I was in no mood to chat or to sleep next to
anyone, at all.

I took a pillow from the bed and a blanket from the
closet and made myself a nest on the sofa. Why is it that a pullout sofa feels
terrible when you pull it out, but leave it closed, and it’s great for
sleeping? I was glad I’d left that light on by the stove because I hated
sleeping in the pitch-black dark, and Jackie always shut off the small lamp I’d
leave lit on the dresser in our room.

Satisfied with my bed engineering, I lay down on my
side. Definite mistake. The moment my knees touched, my favorite body part
twinged. My poor buddy, all pain and no gain. I didn’t have another pillow, and
since I hate to let my head droop to the side and I didn’t feel like sleeping
on my back, I scrunched up the blankets between my knees. That was better—not
much, but better.

I don’t know when I fell asleep, but I thought I was
dreaming when I heard Jackie come in, talking with Trace. I guess they must
have gone to the after-hours together. That wasn’t too surprising. Jackie and
Trace had been best friends since high school (in fact, I’d met Trace through
Jackie) and were twenty-three and twenty-four, respectively, to my twenty. ABC
They were definitely a lot more used to partying than I was, on every
level.

“Hey, she’s sleeping.” Jackie’s voice was pitched low.

“Yeah, well, it’s been a full night,” Trace whispered
back. “She hooked up with this girl and…” The rest trailed off into a quieter
whisper that I couldn’t make out, and I didn’t care. I snuggled tighter under
the blanket, forcing myself back to deeper sleep.

In that mostly unconscious state, I thought I heard
Trace say that she needed to talk with me, and I heard Jackie say good night
and go to bed.

I drifted further into darkness, everything silent,
and I was warm, toasty warm. A body pressed against my back, and arms wrapped
around and held me firmly, but with love.

I dreamt of the beach, and ocean-colored eyes, and for
the first time in ages, held warmly in that embrace, I dreamt of an old friend,
maybe the best friend I’d ever had, Samantha, standing before me by the surf as
the sun went down, the light catching on the pendant I’d just given her as a
birthday present.

She smiled at me in the setting sun. “If you’re ever
lonely, come to me. I know what it’s like to be lonely. If people hurt you,
because you’re not like them, come to me. I know what it’s like to be
different. When you hurt, when you ache, let me take that from you. I ache,
too,” I heard as a whisper in my ear. A soft hand caressed my cheek, and the
sun, surf, and Samantha disappeared. I had truly been dreaming, after all.

I missed her so much my muscles cramped with the
longing, a hard ache that ran through my bones the way it does when you’ve
spent the night sleeping cold, and a chill chased after it as I realized it was
Trace’s voice I heard. But this time, I really couldn’t move at all; I was just
too damned tired. Trace had somehow wrapped herself behind me on the sofa. Her
body pressed against mine, her arms held me, her words sank into my brain.
Every single one of them broke my heart.