Machete

by Nicole Thorn

  She gasped for air, then immediately started to cough. Loud and harsh hacking sounds that filled the entire room. I tried to comfort her by putting my hands on her back and rubbing her shoulders but I wasn’t sure if anything I did was right. Eventually, she would stop, wouldn’t she?

  My father knocked on my door. “Becket?” he called. “Is everything all right in there?”

  “Fine,” I said. “Manny took a sip of water, and it went down wrong.” The lie burned my tongue on the way out but I knew, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that I did not want my father coming into this room. He would wonder what was happening, and he would do something. Something that I couldn’t prevent.

  “Is she okay?” Dad asked.

  “Yes,” I called back, having to work extra hard to keep my voice from trembling. “She just needs a minute.”

  “Tell me if you need anything,” Dad said. His shadow disappeared from under my door but I waited until I couldn’t hear his footsteps anymore to turn back to Manny. She sucked down another breath, then seemed to be fine. The sound of her breathing hurt to hear but it was breathing. She hadn’t died in my bed while I slept.

  The image popped into the forefront of my mind immediately. Of waking up, and finding her cold in the warm sheets. Her face the wrong color, with bruises wringing her neck. She would have been lying there for so long, and I wouldn’t have noticed until morning.

  My heart thudded so painfully against my chest that it hurt. It would have ended then, I thought. And I could picture that too. The peace that I liked to dream about. The utter quiet and calm of the world around me. Still moving long after I had stopped. Because, if she had died while I sat here, what was the point of me?

  “Becket,” Manny said, her voice coming out hoarse. It sounded like she had swallowed rocks. I couldn’t stop my mind from throwing up every image that it could. I didn’t want to picture her with bulges around her neck, where the rocks had lodged in her throat, as if she kept shoving them in, one after the other.

  “What were you doing?” I asked.

  She opened her mouth, and closed it, then opened it again. “I... don’t know. I...” she trailed off and looked around the room, at all the things that weren’t there, at the emptiness that I had chosen to live in. Tears built in her eyes and started to fall down her cheeks in slow trails. I watched them, unable to bring myself to wipe them away. I couldn’t move from where I sat. I couldn’t even breathe through the panic in my chest.

  “Why were you doing that? Why were you choking yourself?” My words were hushed, like we were sharing a secret. I didn’t know how to speak louder, fearing my voice would crack if I did.

  “I don’t know,” she said, again. “I didn’t realize that...”

  I blinked. “How could you not realize that you were choking yourself?”

  Her chest pumped up and down, her eyes darting around the room. Manny launched from the bed and started towards the door. “I’ll leave,” she said, grabbing her dress. Her voice sounded tearful and clogged. “I’m sorry, I’ll just go. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”

  I was off the bed in the next second, grabbing her by the arm. She jerked, as if trying to get away from me but my hand was too secure on her arm. “Don’t go,” I whispered. “Just... Tell me why you were choking yourself. I don’t understand.”

  Her eyes looked anywhere but at me. “It’s okay, you don’t have to keep me around. I did something bad, and you don’t have to pretend that you’re all right with me.”

  “Manny,” I said. “Please, you aren’t making sense to me.”

  Something in the room broke, some emotion that I hadn’t known had been lurking in the shadows. Her words came out in a jumbled rush. “I didn’t mean to do it. That’s not an excuse but I did something bad, and it had to be punished because when you do something bad, you get punished, and I know that I’m just a fuckup but I didn’t want to hurt you, and I did it anyway, and now there’s nowhere safe for you to go, and that’s my fault, that’ll always be my fault because I wasn’t strong enough, and I should have realized that earlier, so that none of this happened, and I’m sorry but someone had to punish me because I did something bad...”

  “What did you do?” I interrupted her. It was a rude thing to do but I needed her to stop and breathe. I needed her to take a second, or she would pass out. Too many images ran through my mind. Blood, corpses with purple faces, and all the things that I didn’t want to think about.

  Manny stared at me. Her hands went limp by her sides, the tips of her fingers brushing against the hem of her sweater. She swallowed thickly, closing her eyes. “I hurt you,” she said.

  “When?” I asked.

  Her eyes opened once more, with a look of incredulity. “Downstairs. I cut you.”

  “You held the knife but I did the cutting,” I said. “You would not have done a thing if you had had a choice.” My father had made her do it, and I didn’t like knowing that had hurt her this way. My chest burned, and my jaw clenched. What had he been thinking, doing that? After how many times he told me that I couldn’t tell her anything?

  “I should have done something, Becket,” Manny said. “I should have stopped him, somehow.”

  “Manny, look at me,” I told her.

  Her eyes flipped up but she couldn’t stand keeping them on me for longer than a couple of seconds. My head told me that she didn’t like the scars, that she thought me ugly. My heart told me that she loved me, and I needed to believe that.

  “Look at me,” I said again, taking a step towards her. It forced her to stare at me. Her eyes were wet, glistening with tears. I wanted to make those tears go away but I didn’t think she’d let me hold her. My arms went out to my sides, like I was inviting her to look at me fully. “There isn’t an inch of me that is unscarred. Only my face and my hands. Do you know why?”

  “Because people would see them,” she said immediately.

  I nodded. “My father would have done that even if you had not been there. Even if you had refused me, something else would have happened. I do not blame you, and neither should you.”

  “I cut you. I’ll always blame myself for that.”

  “No. I cut myself, and I used your hands to do it,” I said.

  A hiccupping sound left her mouth. “I didn’t want to hurt you.”

  “I know.”

  “I don’t want anything to hurt you.”

  “I don’t want anything to hurt you, either,” I said. “I certainly don’t want you to hurt yourself. I don’t want to lose you. That would hurt worse than anything a weapon could do to me.”

  Another hiccupping sound escaped. She stepped closer to me, then stopped. I closed the distance between us, wrapping my arms around her as tightly as I could. She felt solid and real. Warmth radiated from her, into me. I breathed in the smell of ink that still came off her skin, as well as her shampoo from the hair right beneath my nose.

  We stood there for ten, fifteen, twenty minutes before finally breaking apart. Manny sucked in a breath. “I’m sorry for worrying you.”

  “Don’t be sorry for anything,” I said. “Just tell me that you won’t do it again.”

  Her mouth opened but no sound came out. She stood there, a war in her eyes. It was like the words were stuck behind her teeth, and she couldn’t make them come out. I took her face in my hands, tilting it back so that I could look into her eyes. “Tell me that it won’t happen again.”

  “Okay,” she said, and the one word sounded like it’d been pried from her throat. “Okay. It won’t happen again.”

  “Thank you,” I said. I leaned down and pressed my lips against hers. Gentle enough that she could have pulled away if she wanted to. Instead, she stood on tiptoe, meeting my kiss with one of her own.

  When she pulled away, she wiped her hand across her cheeks, removing some of the tears. The faded remains of my drawings had been done away with as well. In the morning, I would put something else on her face, something that would make her happy. Something that she
would like.

  “Becket?”

  “Yes,” I asked. I had moved back to the bed and pulled the covers aside. Manny let me guide her underneath the comforter, then I sat down on the edge of the bed next to her. I no longer felt tired. My body had been wired, like electricity getting shot straight through my veins.

  “Why does your dad do this? Is there a reason other than the fact he’s a...?” she trailed off before she could finish.

  “You can say it,” I said.

  “Cold-hearted asshole,” she said, and there was satisfaction in those words. I could not blame her. It couldn’t have been easy, standing there while I cut myself. Things in my head aligned, and I felt ashamed.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  “What on earth could you be sorry for?” Manny demanded. There was actual outrage in her tone, and it had the smallest smile picking up the corners of my mouth. It died quickly, before I was sure she even had the chance to see it. I liked giving her my smiles because then she’d smile back.

  “What you did is not all that different than what I did,” I told her. “You’ve promised that you will try not to hurt yourself again, and I’m not sure that I can give that same promise. I can try, if you want.”

  “Will your father hurt you worse?”

  “There is a chance,” I said.

  Silence stretched for several long seconds. “Do you know that what he does hurts you?”

  “He loves me,” I said. “He’s trying to make me better.”

  “No. He gets off on the power, or maybe he likes watching you bleed but in no way does he help you.”

  I frowned. “He does,” I said.

  “How?”

  “He makes sure that people don’t want to be near me, so that I don’t get hurt,” I told her.

  She was quiet for so long that I thought she had fallen back asleep. Then she whispered, “What do you mean?”

  I turned so that I could face Manny completely. I took one of her hands in mine and brushed my fingers over her skin. “My mother left because of me. Dad forgave me for that but he wanted to make sure that neither of us had to go through that again. So, he made sure that if anyone wanted to spend time with me, they were the kind who don’t leave. By making me like this.” I looked down at myself, at all the scars that had marred my body. “He’s still working on it but you don’t want to leave me, do you? So maybe all his work has paid off.”

  There weren’t words to describe the look on Manny’s face. She sat up on her knees, pushing the comforter off her bare legs, and took my face in her hands. “No, Becket. No. No...” She kept saying it, like there weren’t any other words that she could speak.

  “No what?” I asked.

  She closed her eyes, leaning her forehead against mine. “How old were you when your mother left?”

  “Three. Or four. I’m not entirely sure. I don’t remember much from then. My first memory is of the day she left me.” My hands found Manny’s hips. I traced the curves with the tips of my fingers, enjoying each line and angle of her body. Strangely, I found myself reluctant to look into her eyes.

  Manny kissed my forehead, then my temple, then my cheek. She moved across my face until her mouth managed to find mine. “Your father took a scared child and twisted things around, until they only looked neat to you.”

  “I don’t understand,” I said.

  Manny tilted my face up so that I had to look at her. Blond hair fell around her face loosely, and her pale green eyes seemed to shine in the light coming from the window. Her thumb traced along my bottom lip with so much care, so gently that I could barely feel it. “I know you don’t,” she said. “But I think I finally understand. One day, I might be able to explain it to you.”

  “Is it something I should know?”

  “Absolutely. It’s something you need to know. But not today. I don’t think you’re ready yet.”

  “Okay.”

  “You don’t mind that?”

  “I trust you,” I said. My hands pressed tighter against her hips. “I love you, and don’t want to lose you. Do you need me to promise not to hurt myself? It’s only fair, after your promise.”

  Manny frowned. She sat back on her bottom, crossing her legs. It made my sweater ride up her hips, and I wanted to trace her legs with my hands. I didn’t because the conversation was more important than my need to touch her. To feel her touching me. It was like my skin craved her.

  “I don’t need that promise from you,” Manny said. “But I want you to promise that you’ll tell me if something happens. Like this.” She touched the smiley face I had carved onto my chest. “And the burn on your back. Those happened since we’ve started spending time together, haven’t they?”

  “Yes.”

  “If something else like that happens, I want you to tell me. Immediately. Can you promise me that?”

  “Yes. I promise that I’ll tell you everything that happens, and I’ll tell you immediately.” I took her hand, lacing our fingers together. “I’ll never leave you, Manny. Do you want to stay with me?”

  “I do,” Manny said. “But it’s not because of what your father has done to you.”

  “Then why?”

  Manny tilted her head so that our eyes met. “It’s because of you. Everything about you, from the way that you smile, and the drawings that you give me.” She ran her hands over her collarbone, like she could touch the picture I had put into her skin. “To the way you hold my hand and listen to everything I say. I want to stay because everything about you is perfect. It doesn’t need to be changed, or fixed, or tweaked.”

  She leaned forward, pressing her mouth against mine. Her lips were warm and soft. They weren’t so gentle this time, though. They pressed against my mouth with an urgency that I answered without hesitation. My fingers dug into her hips, and I pulled her against my body.

  She shifted around, so that one of her legs was on either side of me, pressing against me as I grew hard. She shifted around, making quiet moaning sounds that were swallowed up by our kisses. Her fingers pulled at the shoulders of my shirt until she finally had it over my head. She threw it onto the ground.

  I pushed her onto her back and hovered over her. My body pressed against Manny’s as she ran fingers over my ruined skin. They found every bump, every rough surface, every too-smooth surface. My scars had been laid bare for her, and she gave each one individual attention. Her eyes drank them in, and I wasn’t sure what to make of that.

  The sweater she borrowed ended up on the floor next to my shirt. Her fingers brushed along the hem of my pants as I traced kisses down her jaw. She arched and pressed her body against mine as we moved. Her legs shifted, until I could fall between them.

  Manny wore nothing but her panties, so my mouth could move over almost every inch of her skin. Her fingernails dug into my shoulder as I traced a small circle around her stomach with my tongue. The demand was clear. I crawled back up her body until my mouth could meet hers. She groaned, throwing her head back against the pillows.

  Her hands slid into my pants, and I moved aside so that she could pull them off. In the same movement, she pushed my boxers down. My clothing was discarded easily, and then Manny shoved me down onto the bed and crawled on top of me. It was her turn to explore my body with her mouth.

  Her tongue grazed along some of my scars, and the sensations were different with each one. In some areas, I couldn’t feel anything. In others, it was the barest flirtation of sensation. When her mouth came to my erection, she didn’t hesitate in sealing her lips around me. I groaned while she worked her mouth, so carefully and easily that I couldn’t think while she did it.

  Then she moved on, tracing the scars over my legs. When she found each and every one, she laid back on top of me, her breasts pressed against my chest tightly enough that I could feel her hard nipples. I dragged my hands down her sides and to her hips. With ease, I flipped her over.

  I stared into her face, running my hands along her jaw. She refused to look away from me.
I could hear her heart beating a steady rhythm, and her entire body felt warm and excited beneath me. Her blood pumped underneath the surface, in a quiet rush throughout her body.

  She panted and twisted around beneath me. Her hips pushed against mine, and I was sure she felt my erection through the thin fabric of her panties. Little breaths escaped her as she started to rub herself against me. I pushed at her, coaxing a moan from her mouth. I smiled at her and pressed even tighter, until I would have slipped inside her if the panties weren’t in the way.

  She growled digging at my shoulders with her fingers. The demand was obvious. I pulled her panties off and slid down her body. My lips found her inner thigh first, and I pressed a kiss against it. Manny writhed, and continued doing so until my mouth found her core.

  One drag of my tongue, and she came apart. I memorized each of the sounds she made, even as I continued to work her. My tongue continued moving against the most sensitive part of her. Her body turned into a live wire, sliding across my sheets and pulling at my hair. I enjoyed every minute of it but I had to memorize it, as well. If it never happened again, I wanted at least this. This one perfect moment, where I got to watch her.

  When she started to come down, I stopped teasing her and slipped my tongue into her. Just enough for her to feel it. Then I followed it with one of my fingers. Manny arched, making another desperate sound. I rose up on one of my arms while my other hand played with her warm, slick flesh.

  My finger slid in and out of Manny, and she gasped while I moved in her. My name fell from her lips, and the desperation in that had my focus wavering. Manny tilted her head so that she could see me. She breathed hard, making her breasts move in an almost hypnotic way. “Becket,” she groaned again.

  It was all she needed to say. I pulled her legs further apart and placed myself between them. Her eyes fluttered closed as my erection pressed against her, like the promise of it was almost too much. Carefully, moving an inch at a time, I pressed into her. With each movement, I gave her a second to adjust, then I’d pull out and push back in.