Cigarettes and Flowers

Throughout the course of the night, she hadn't seen his eyes gleam so brightly in the light of a freshly lit cigarette. She didn't notice, but his pupils flared in the presence of the ember; the room lay shrouded in the embryonic stages of a new day, although an array of street lights attempted to float in from outside. He had dressed and drawn the drapes, and these lights were now filtered, interrupted by the poorly stitched cloth. The once frequent sounds of cars passing along the nearby freeway were slowly dying and this made her drowsy. Following a gaze fruitless of attention, she churned the starchy motel sheets as she turned her back to him, catching sight of two neatly folded hundred dollar bills on the worn night stand; the paper begged for the catch of a desperate woman's weathered hand. There were no words; only the dull ache inside her womb, a place so tender that now held no worth to her.

His eyes followed the curve of her spine, the flesh of her waist blossoming to her hips and he hesitated, as he gathered his breath, drawing a deep inhalation of musky smoke.

Inhale.

Fluid smoke.

The quiet sounds of her sleeping breaths had him thinking of his sum that he had dutifully rested on the night stand. When he had met her, he was curious to find out what lay beneath her clothes. How heavy her breasts were. What her creamy skin felt like.

Inhale.

Fluid smoke.

His cigarette had almost burned down to the filter, and he had chewed on it unknowingly, the taste of cellulose becoming more pungent as each second passed. What was underneath her flesh, he wondered. Lightly tapping the flaky stray ashes from the shrinking cigarette, he opened his palm up and pushed away the drapes to allow the street lights in. Without batting his straw-like lashes, he extinguished it onto his palm, savoring the feeling of his skin now melting around the baneful cherry. He pressed it forcefully then abruptly removed it, observing the wound's pinkish center. The skin around it was white, and it curled upward, like a flower in bloom.

She heard his footsteps, but they seemed farther away than they should have been. The mattress absorbed each of the steps and she stirred, rustling among the rough sheets, until he hovered above her like a bee, ready to invade a rose. She smiled awkwardly, until his hands drew around her throat. She felt the circular stickiness of his wound against the hickeys he had left on her neck that marred her beautiful pale skin.

And she thrashed like a hog being slaughtered.

Her hips bucked, and her arms flailed, but as he squeezed she saw that his eyes did not just gleam brightly from the light of freshly lit cigarettes. She felt her fragile blood vessels pop and the liquid gushed in places on her face that it had never flowed before, and that is when her sight began to flicker on and off.

Oh, she felt him wring her dry.

He gazed at her, the rawness of expiration almost palpable. Staring at her hemorrhaged eyes, he felt the weight of his stomach drop and the blood drained from his face. She bore into him with lifelessness shone through dewy eyes that were spotted with flecks of thick crimson. He swallowed, then reached for the sheet that was branded with her floral perfume; covered her, realizing that with the life taken away from her, her skin was the same bone gray shade of the sheet. He reached for the night stand, benignly pocketing the crisp bills before striding to the door and shutting it behind him with his most gentle gesture of the night.

He lit his last cigarette on his way out.