Red Lights, Black Hearts

by Fabiola Francisco

  “We have the ability to wash away the stains of our souls.” With that he leaves.

  Max didn’t show up tonight. Maybe he finally understood I’m more of a burden than a peace project. Maybe he gave up and dumped the pieces of the puzzle to the floor and walked away with a sense of content for at least trying. I didn’t give him what he was looking for.

  Despite what he said, I’m stained, touched by ugliness. I’m untouchable in an unworthy way. Not the prized untouchable. You know, the virginal kind. No, I’m the dirty kind. The type that if you get too close my darkness would swallow you whole. I’ll suck you in so deep you’ll never find the path back to light. And that’s why Max should stay away from me, because as much as I don’t believe that there’s still good in people, he’s just too much light. His optimism holds hope for a world that no longer shines. He doesn’t deserve to get crushed by a black heart.

  Without his visit, I had more time to release on the pitiful men that come in looking for the only thing I have to offer, my body. They submit to my ways so I can shove and pull them around. Men secretly enjoy being the submissive, and in this hideaway they can surrender to that want without society labeling them less man for giving the woman the power.

  I have been on both sides of that coin. The submissive not by choice, and the dominant to seek the power stripped from me.

  It wasn’t until I found my mother’s note that I knew the truth of her upbringing. The truth she’d been hiding so many years. The truth that incarcerated her and set her free. She killed herself because of that truth.

  She always thought she was unworthy of love. My father finally left her. Love could only go so far. Unworthy. That’s the kind of shit they put in your head. When he realized his love would not be enough for her, he let her go.

  I wasn’t going to end up like my mother. I wasn’t going to let that gender devalue me more than it had.

  I guess it’s true you attract what you carry with you.

  I got the scum of the scums. The follower of that Saint in Red. Tired of being his victim, I drank a scotch and waited for him. The last time he raped me, my mother’s blood was the image behind my lids. I hated this man.

  I killed him that night. A stab straight to the chest. I didn’t even hesitate. The feel of the knife cracking through him satisfied me more than it should. When you’ve been beaten and abused, you stop caring of the consequences. The anger and resentment that builds is so great it blinds you.

  I’d take prison any day for the satisfaction it felt to kill the bastard. Indifference in a dangerous place.

  The twisted thing is, they defended my motives as self-defense and temporary insanity from the abuse, and set me free. Free. After that, you’re never really free. You carry that disgust with you until you become emotionless and hard. Cold. A prisoner to your own self.

  You don’t know anything until you’ve hit rock bottom. Nothing left to lose when you’ve been stripped of it all. Nothing left when you’ve been swallowed by the dark.

  In a final attempt to leave it all behind, I ran. One ticket: Destination Holland. I don’t know why I chose this place. But like Bale told me that night we met, you can’t run from yourself. Now I live with myself. The girl I was hardened into became the woman I am today. .

  I feel a shadow behind me. I keep my pace steady and don’t turn back, but I place my hand in my coat pocket, gripping my pocketknife. The best I can do in this gun restricted country.

  The steps of the person become heavier. I continue to walk, ignoring the fear trying to grip me. Not this time. When I feel him close enough, I turn with my knife.

  “Whoa!” He lifts his hands in surrender. “Sorry.”

  Agitated, my eyes adjust in the dark alleyway. This damn city and its narrow streets.

  “I didn’t mean to frighten you,” Max says.

  “What the fuck,” I spit out. It’s too much with the memories that emerged.

  “Hey, are you okay?” I realize the knife is still in my hand and I’m shaking. Vulnerability seething from me. Weakness.

  “Yes,” I say harshly and put it away.

  “I tried to make it to see you on time, but I got caught up with a business client. First time in Amsterdam so he wanted to do all the usual tourist crap people associate this city to. I saw you walking and tried to catch up. Maybe I should’ve called your name to not startle you.”

  “You didn’t startle me.” His cocked eyebrow tells me he’s not buying my shit.

  “Come on, I’ll walk you home.”

  “I can walk myself home.” Defensive, I pull away and walk ahead. He meets me and follows in silence. He knows not to push further tonight.

  I stop at the door of my apartment building. Max stares at me, seeing beyond the glass window. Tonight I gave him that opportunity. Tonight I showed emotions.

  “Goodnight, Sam.” His hand quickly pulls my head to his lips and he gently kisses my forehead. It is the attack of a snake, quick and smooth, but it isn’t venom he pours into me.

  “Goodnight.”

  When you’re constantly haunted by the ghost of your past you get accustomed to shadows around you, but when those shadows are materialized, that memory triggers something inside you.

  Max is starting to become a permanent fixture in my life. He’s there offering his light in hopes that I will emerge from my own obscurity. What his presence does is make me remember. Makes me feel again and I don’t want to feel. I want to stay as I am, but he was right. The glass will shatter, although the wounds won’t be what he thought. What those wounds will be is the escape of the naïve girl that secretly thinks there’s a way to fix me. She’s a fool.

  Winter in The Netherlands is a cold hell. The air burns upon contact with the skin, but I welcome it to freeze me further. Numbness. The air I breathe in hardens my lungs into ice and circulates through my body. The sun sets early, leaving more time for the night to conquer. I prefer the night. It keeps me hidden in its shadows.

  “Hey, S. You okay?” Bale says when he sees me walk through the door of his small rental office in the back of my room.

  “Yup, just ready to work.”

  “Maybe he’ll come by tonight.”

  I don’t need Bale thinking I’m caught up on a man. I also don’t need him knowing Max walked me home.

  “Bale,” I warn. He knows who I am.

  “It would be good if you opened up again.”

  “What about you?” I ask, turning the conversation back on him.

  “You know we don’t all have that option.”

  “And I’m one of those?” He should know better than to suggest such blasphemy. Bale is one of my kind. Another black heart that wanders the streets of purgatory. His story is different than mine, but the result the same. Indifference.

  “Go out there and do your thing,” he encourages me knowing it’s useless to suggest anything else. I walk into my room and do just that. After I change, I open the drapes and begin to move to the beat always stuck in my head.

  I lure them in one by one, biting off pieces of their soul as they exit. The more they come to me, the more power I have. They feed me something more potent than any meal can. Every man has a different desire, but the common thread is they come to me to fulfill it. All but one. I can’t fulfill his desire. He wants more than physical, and my body is all I can give.

  My wild reflection moves in rhythm with me. Wild Tame. A wild animal held in the constraints of a window until her prey dares enter her cage and she feasts. His words mark my memory.

  “Your usual is here,” Bale announces before he lets Max in. I close the curtains and turn. After last night I don’t want to talk.

  “Your tempo has changed. It’s more upbeat.”

  “Your face has changed. It looks more worn down.” I insult him. It’s true though. He’s let a short beard grow that matches the brown of his hair and his eyes are sunken.

  “Just tired.” He sits in my usual chair, stretching out his long limbs and tilting his head
back against the corner.

  “Do you ever get tired?” His question confuses me, but I know what he refers to.

  I don’t want to answer.

  “Sam, it’s okay to want more out of life. It’s okay to want to clear yourself from the scars and allow them to heal, but only you have the ability to do that.”

  “Some cuts are so deep, the flesh will never be able to heal,” I reply.

  “How about the heart?” he asks.

  When I came to this city I was alone in a world that was no longer familiar. I didn’t know what was real or not. I’m so used to hiding the truth behind a persona that dominates, fighting to keep demons at bay.

  “My heart is non-existent.”

  “If it were, you wouldn’t be here.”

  “Being here is the price I pay for thinking I would be able to free myself from hell.”

  “What hell incarcerated you to such degree of hatred?”

  “Don’t play with the devil, Max.”

  “I don’t mind getting burned if the fire comes from you.”

  “You’ll regret those words. You’re too good to be painted with red.”

  “You don’t know that.”

  “I do. I know your kind. Always stay good, Max. It’s easier to be blind to the bad then awoken to it.”

  “And it’s easier to forgive than continue to hold on to the poison.”

  “You’ve clearly never had anything to forgive.”

  “You don’t know that. Forgiveness is a choice. You’re free to make it.”

  “Then what? Become the weak that are led by evil again because they are blinded by the illusion of light?”

  “You twist my words.”

  “You want to free mine.”

  “You’re not indifferent. You’re angry. You’re living with the bitterness of other people’s behavior poisoning you. Forgive and free yourself, or continue to bury in the darkness of venom.”

  He stands to leave before his time is up. Without a backwards glance, he says, “I’m walking you home tonight.” Obstinate. That describes him today.

  I had a dream once. I can’t remember it, but it was a good dream. I was happy. I wasn’t always this way. Was I? I think I had friends once. I think I knew what love was at one point. What was my dream? I can’t remember it, clouded by the smog of pain.

  The heat in my apartment is too warm as I yank the sheets from my body. Dreams are for fools. Forgiveness is for fools. Max’s words still ring in my mind when he walked me home. You’re the prime example of poison when you don’t forgive.

  He was harsh last night. Too honest. Right before he had to leave again to Germany. He comes and goes. When he’s here, he’s ever-present. When he’s gone, he’s a figment of my imagination.

  He said he would be back. He always comes back. He returns each time with more purpose. He returns each time with newfound confidence to figure me out, and bring me back to life.

  And I’m always here when he comes back, dancing in a window of my own creation to a crowd of puppets being controlled by desire. He seems to stay longer each time and is away for less. His presence is marked by his words and my silence.

  “You don’t see what’s happening,” Bale tells me as I change clothes.

  I raise my eyebrows, waiting.

  “You don’t see it because you’re so into yourself. It’s nice to see though.” He smiles and leaves me alone.

  None of the faces that stare at me are faces I care to see. I block them off, just focusing on the forms that come and go. Tonight I’m numb to the pleasure. Tonight, I’m indifferent toward my passion and emotional toward what I always held with indifference.

  I’m a walking, or dancing, contradiction to the being I’ve been for so long. I’ve gotten used to seeing him, but he left with such harshness. I don’t like him that way. I liked him better as a compassionate fool. He leaves with those being the last words he speaks, and I’m left with memories. I’m left with the impact of someone else’s words.

  Those words are the first of his that judged me. But is it judgment if they’re facts? I prefer to live with venom. It inspires me. The venom keeps me sane in an insane world. It runs through me pumping into my heart’s truth. Truth. Most people disagree with my truth because they prefer sugar coated lies.

  The truth of this world is that it is cold and mean. It swallows you up and chews on your soul before spitting you out as a mutant of the being you were. People prefer to blind themselves from this and just remember themselves as the mutant. Forgetting who they were before that. You never really know what a person has gone through. As much as we think we know people, we don’t. We never get to know who people really are. If we did, we wouldn’t fall at the feet of the devil. Many people go through life not even knowing who they are at the end of it. Only left to come back another time to suffer again because of their oblivion.

  I’ve gone off again in my own head. Thoughts with no real path circling my mind. I hate when I get like this. Philosophical with the outcomes of life. This is what connections with people do to you. They make you think. They make you analyze. This is why I tried to keep Max away. Now he has a name and eyes I search for even when I know they won’t be found.

  I lose count of the people that enter my room today. Most just want to get blown or handled a bit. They’re all faceless today. Drapes open and close automatically. My reflection shows me again that person that has been trying to claw her way out. Her eyes aren’t black like the night; they’re indigo like the sky before morning breaks, bringing in light.

  This time he was away for a week. A week of curiosity. I never know how long he’ll be away for until he returns, but I always keep count. I don’t know why. I see him staring at me from the street before he enters. There’s a difference in his eyes. The way he looks at me is intense, and maybe I’m captivated because his last words cut deep.

  “How was Germany?” I start the conversation for a change.

  Max arranges his coat over the back of the chaise and sits.

  “Cold.”

  “It’s cold here.”

  “It’s warm inside.”

  “I’m sure there are places in Germany that have heat like in Holland.”

  “Not the same kind of warmth.” His eyes stare into mine.

  I prefer words over the type of silence he is giving me now. It’s too much. I look away and arrange my things on the dresser.

  “I missed you.”

  My hand freezes over the blindfold. It would be easier to put this on him than to look into his eyes.

  “I don’t understand why.”

  “I’ve grown fond of you.”

  “You don’t know me.”

  “I know enough to see through the glass now. I know enough to see you’re a woman who hides behind her misfortune out of fear of attracting more of it.”

  “Stop.” I seethe.

  “Look at me,” he demands. “I dare you to.”

  The thing with us is we have a play with words; the words spoken have more meaning than the superficial combination of letters. If I look at him, if I take his dare, what I’ll see is everything he’s been trying to show me since he walked in here that first night. What I’ll see is the man I searched for before my heart was hardened by the wrong one.

  When I turn, I see his vulnerability. I see the color of optimism washing over him. I see the fool inside me breaking through.

  My breathing erratic, he stands.

  “Look at me,” he repeats in a firm whisper.

  And I look, giving him what he wants when I know I can’t.

  “I missed you,” he breathes out again.

  Our fucked up relationship is taking a toll on him. My burden of darkness is weighing heavily on him. He’s taken it upon himself to fix me.

  His lips brush mine and I suck in his goodness. I’ll strip him of it all, and he doesn’t deserve that, but he tastes so good.

  He crushes his body against mine, the hard wood of the dresser pressing against my ba
re back. He’s desperate. I feel him. He’s begging me for what I can’t give him. Regardless, I continue to breathe him in, inhaling each time.

  “Let me take you home. Now.”

  “I can’t. I have to work.”

  “Don’t do this.”

  “It’s already done.”

  My veil of indifference has lifted. It’s already done. With that glimpse of goodness, I am a hunter after every ounce of it I can suck. I didn’t want this.

  “I’ll be waiting for you. We aren’t going to do anything here.” He looks around my small room, suddenly too small for the man standing here with me. And walks out.

  Alone, I swipe everything on the top of my dresser, causing a crash on the floor. Anger. Foolishness. My indifference is gone. Or maybe it was never there. Maybe Max was right all along. Indifference is impossible. Indifference is just an excuse to make less of ourselves against the world. Indifference is for immortals that have nothing to lose.

  I sit in my chair and surrender. Who I thought I was has been replaced by who I have tried not to be these past years.

  At this moment I hate Max, but I know I’ll leave with him. Even if it’s just for a little while, I want to take in his light. Even if it’s a fantasy created by madness, I want to pretend my soul is not tainted with blood.

  Tonight I just want to be a woman wanted by a man who doesn’t have to pay me to care for him. It’s been so long since I’ve been that woman. And when Max finds out all my secrets, it will be him who will run. I won’t have to push him. For a little while I can pretend I’m more than the vengeful woman dancing in a window.

  Drapes still shut, I’m ruined by the man I know is sitting in the cold waiting for me.

  “Bye, Bale.”

  He dares a smile as he waves me off.

  I hit the cold street and walk. Max stands from the edge of the sill he was sitting on outside of my room. A smile tugs at his lips and I ignore it. Misery loves company.

  Max swipes my hair to the side and his lips touch my tender skin. He holds my back to him with his right hand while his left hand snakes around and tilts my head. I feel all of him against me as his right hand cups my sex through my jeans. I’m hot with need.