bc rewrite.
March 17, 2008, 7:41 p.m.
She opens her throat and bares her teeth. Perfect. Precise. Standing at a soldier's rigid attention at the expense of three years of lip-shredding orthodontics...
"I�m such a fucking whore", she laughs, and spills the rest of her two-dollar well drink down her shirt. Slides her keys across the table, runs her fingers up Boy's thighs, and mumbles cross-eyed and lip-twisted, "You driving me home, baby?" But it's really not a question.
I know what she'll look like slumped over in the passenger seat of her own car, ever cautious to click the seatbelt properly, forehead smearing a jagged line over the window. I know the keening laughter that will slip through loose lips when she bangs her too-skinny hip on the doorknob and trips over the braided entryway rug. I know that she will at least make an attempt to brush her teeth, elbow resting on the door frame, eyes closed, room spin-spin-spinning. I know what her eyes will look like if she forgets to take out her contacts again. Like she's been crying for weeks. And I know what that looks like as well.
I know what liquor does to her feet, her hips, her hands. I know what laughter does to her eyes, her nose, her chin.
I also know what shit-whiskey does to her brain. Scatters it across the carpet, tucking its� folds into the farthest corners of the bar. The sweaty recesses filled with sequined halters and boys� hands inside of them.
That�s where her eyes are focused. All deer-in-the-headlights on the piss-stained airspace outside the bathroom �for ladies and rapists only.� Where two girls are scuffing up the wall, all knees and elbows and skin-on-skin. And I see that look in her eyes. That cicada plague look. Comes around once every seventeen years and wreaks havoc on the eastern shoreline of my heart. A harmless mating call that causes total devastation, displaces the locals.
She shakes her head with such force that I look down at her feet, certain that her thoughts must be writhing on the floor there, jostled from her ears. Images of me plus her in a London hostel, my lips pressed into the sweet curve of her ear, fingers working her belt buckle. Topped by her the next day, a puffy-eyed heap of I can�t do this anymore.
We can�t do this anymore.
I grind my heel into the scuffed toe of her boot, simultaneously crushing our past and snapping her attention to our present. I bare my teeth in what I hope resembles a smile and point at Boy.
�Take him home. Fuck him stupid. And call me as soon as he pulls out.�
She smiles sadly and draws up one shoulder in a half-ass shrug. Grabs Boy by the collar, stumbles out into the frozen January midnight with him prancing doggishly behind her.
I give a hesitant four-finger wave to the slamming of the bar door. Turn up the shot of whiskey she left warming on the table. Breathe deeply as it washes the venom down my throat.
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