FOREVER CHANGED

The prompt from Nicole B. Hagg~  There was the bing of a new text, the envelope in front of her and the bottle of tequila, all within arm’s reach.  She debated which to open first… ~  The prompt was altered slightly for the purposes of Daniel Landes’s flash fiction piece. 

Forever Changed

Our fluids and hair were left on the peaks, and in the valleys of the bed sheets.   Scant evidence of our carnal ritual, soon to be bleached and laundered. 

She left just before the sun rose.  Somewhere inside her was my vitality.  “You think you are someone don’t you?” she asked as we shared a drink in a hotel bar in a city neither of us lived.  “I don’t think, I know,” I responded slipping my hand further up her thigh.  She removed it and placed it on the bar top.  “You have no idea what you’re dealing with,” she said.  “What, or whom, I’m dealing with?” I ask.  She smiled turning her eyes to the floor revealing a graceful arc from her shoulder to her ear.  I could see the pulse of her heart coursing through a bluish vein.  I brushed her neck with my fingertips.  She flushed red and repeated her self in a purr, “you have no idea what you are dealing with.” 

She took my hands and opened them palm up.  With her index finger she traced a stigmata on both palms until a red mark appeared between my line of life and my line of fate.  “Why would you do this to her?” she asked.   I took my hands back and pumped them like a heart beat. I was drowsy, past the point of no return.  “She did it to me first.” I said.  “Revenge?” she asked.  I took a sip of our drink and mulled over the ‘why’ of what I was doing.  “Not revenge.  Equitability.  Balancing the scales.”  “She knows you are here and why?”  She asked.  “She knows,” I answer.  She again looks to floor.  Her hair is a black as the space between the stars.  I return my hand to her thigh.  She allows it to stay.  Without looking at me she says “She knows you are here and why, but she can’t possibly imagine with what.”  Again I wanted to ask her with ‘what’ or with ‘whom’ but I let it pass.                        

I allow myself to be led to the hotel room.  She became intensely somber.  Before we cross the threshold from the fluorescent hallway to the dark room I change my mind.  I want nothing to do with this.  I want to push her away, slam the door and lock it.  I just want to go to bed.  I am past the point of no return.  We cross over and she takes complete control.  The marks on my palms began to burn as she covers my body with soft kisses.  I know what is happening, what is at stake, but am powerless to stop it.  She drained me of my life force and replaced it with something dark and eternal.  I thought of my wife, of revenge and the god of love. 

She left with my vitality before the sun rose.  I lay, forever changed. 

I heard the bing of a new text.  I knew it was from my wife asking if it was done.  On the bedside was an envelope. In it would be confirmation that it was.  On the dresser was a bottle of tequila.  I reach for it forever changed, forever changed.