Originally appeared in Urban Graffiti 2016
CW: Self harm
Take the blade.
Her voice is smooth almost a monotone and the handle of her blade is cool against my sweating palm.
She watches me — my eyes directed to the left of the thing in my hand. I don’t tremble but my eyes shake.
I am so afraid.
Look at it. She doesn’t speak but I hear the command.
Looking hurts.
I look at it folded demurely in my palm. The pretty pearlized handle worn smooth where her fingers have held it. If only she could wear down the terrors that live in my skin with that touch.
I turn it in my hand and open it.
The action is smooth and silent, the way the light fragments on the thin edge dazzles my eye. This is probably what love at first sight feels like.
I run the flat of the blade across my arm; it whisks away a stripe of hair. There is no sound but there is music.
When I look up at her again her shirt is off as always I am taken by her frilly bra and freckled sternum.
She lowers one strap and I stare at the expanse of plump flesh cradled in her palm.
Now.
Her murmur is barely anything, need like this always takes her voice.
Her blade and my fingers create together, mingle her blood and lust with my fear and love.
Relief for her, anticipation for me. Yet my hands are steady as is her breathing.
Tonight it is not my turn but I am satisfied.
When it all gets to be too much, we know.
We know it in our own flesh and fingers and scars.