sex / drugs / rock 'n' roll
Panel 1: Blood
When she smiles you can see her little white teeth, striking, in her little pink mouth, against fleshy red lips. They are very pointy. You tell her, only half joking, that she should have them filed. She just smiles in response, baring her little fangs again. It grows on you. After a while you enjoy the sensation of them nibbling gently on your lower lip, her kisses soft yet with an edge, an extra little kick from the slight discomfort she causes. It becomes a strange addiction, as is she.
You like girls with dark dark hair. You think she is the most beautiful girl you have ever seen. She with her long black hair that falls down her back, straight and silky, pale pale skin and green eyes. Exotic. Yours.
Hours pass with her, daylight to dark, hot feverish kisses all over your body, eagerly reciprocated by you. You never use your teeth, after the clumsy accident near her elbow, but you feel she treasures the scar, for she bore the pain with a frission of pleasure. For all her nipping she never leaves any marks. Not that you notice at the time, mind too busy thinking about not thinking, body involved in the most intense flood of feeling - shudders, an epicentre between your thighs, a release - resting in peace afterwards.
Only one small mark. Above your shoulder, closed weals. Not at all painful. At work you can somehow feel the blood pulsing near the wound and involuntarily your fingers find it underneath the material of your shirt collar. Makes you remember what you did last night, makes you shiver in anticipation of tonight, of the beautiful girl with black black hair and sharp sharp teeth. Blood pumping even louder in your ears.
When you go home she is gone, no trace of her ever being there but the lingering smell of her shampoo, and underneath maybe touch of iron but it flickers, is gone. Blood coursing wildly in your veins.
Panel 2: High and Dry
It begins with an audible gasp, a head thrown back in surprise turning to dreamy wonder. The girl with the dark lake of hair untied bent over the table, making foggy circles on the mirror there. She inhales, rides the rush, leans back into the plush brown cushions and relaxes, letting her body float in happy langour.
The boy enters the fray of this story but she doesn't remember when or where or why. But she can feel that he belongs in everything that makes up her life so she lets him stay and he loves the high just as much as she does. She doesn't like needles, but she could stare in fascination all day as bit by bit the shiny steel point enters the soft flesh on his upper arm ; follow with her eyes the obscenely purple vein running down the whiteness of his skin, trace one trembling finger to his clenched fist of pure emotion. "I love you babe" she slurs in the vain hope he would tell her the same. This was the one dream the drugs couldn't give her, the love she craved. He always remained silent, basking alone in the glow of a good hit.
These are the many memories that swirl by in her dream states: a colour of glittery disco tops, smooth bodies sliding sensuously past her, music with fat beats. All happy sweaty memories and she can feel the heightened sensations of turquoise sequins on her breasts, the feel of tight muscles in brown limbs, lips fevered with a strange sort of desire, searching. She remembers tears, salty sweet release.
There are sadder memories.
Him kissing her roughly, pushed up against the wall, probing. Pulls back disappointed, the taste of drugs gone from her mouth and easing from his racing bloodstream, pounding in his ears. He pushes her away and she listlessly curls up in a wicker chair in the corner, a faded white. He sits naked in the centre of the shabby room, sobbing and angry, hating her for watching him come on his pain, neither judging nor helping him. She stares past him, wondering where her next hit will come from. Too tired to go looking for it, too hungry not to.
She always knows she is alone, even when she is not.
Panel 3: Homebake
In this sea of humanity - a crowd of body-glittered shoulders in girly tops and bare chests glistening with sweat - she stands in the harsh sun, hands on hips, waiting. Her exposed back alternatively red and tanned through the straps of her top, hat askew on her head.
The band comes on with no announcement but an eruption of cheers, roars, thrown beer bottles. Laughing, the lead singer launches a mighty intro of drums and bass and straight into a catchy riff. People begin to move as one, start pushing forwards as if to throw themselves onto the energy radiating from the music, impossibly loud from four tiny figures on a raised platform. In the sky, high above, the speakers thump with the beat of the song, reaching hearts - slowing them down, speeding them up. The dramatic pulse of being part of the exhilaration. Even through the dizziness she thinks I never want this to stop.
All around her people throw themselves up, sideways, into each other - never down. Breaths of cold air cut sharply in lungs, captured in upward thrusts above the haze of sweat, limbs and hair. Some are lifted up, passing like heroes borne out on their shields in pyrrhic victory; others content to slide along reluctant hands until they disappear head down into unexpected holes - warrens of people shrinking away from the extra weight, the displacement of view.
This is our new single announces the black shiny guitar, strapped to a thin body in a white Bonds T. She strains to get a better look. A new melody, vaguely remembered on the airwaves last night, now in the flesh stronger and better than ever before...that once before. Frenzied movement still in the immediate surrounds of the stage, but the newness has not yet rubbed off and it shows. Lines behind a certain point stop swaying, stare confusedly into the sky. Shade their eyes from the cloudless sun and wait out this one. Hope the next one is that song, the one they came here for.
No warning but the sudden approval of the throng, energy levels accelerating, as three familiar chords are played...
The happy moshers in the front all imperceptibly step backwards from the power of the sound, almost falling to the floor, a chain reaction of movement to the back. The happy moshers in the back surge forward in a stand against this wave that is taking them away from the music. She becomes a human sandwich, hanging on for dear life to the friendly arm next to her, unattached as far as she can see, but its steadying weight a comfort. Perpetual motion carries her off her feet, heart beating faster and faster until she gasps with the adrenaline pounding inside, the rush carrying her.
At one with the masses around her.
Nothing but the sound and beat and magic of the music.
Sun setting in the west, dips below the curved shell roof of the stage. When the lights dim the spell will fade, but the memory remains.