Trash_ Stories - Dorothy Allison [54]
Come for me, asshole, and I’ll cut off your balls and push them up your butt. The parole officer had smiled, and my sweat had turned cold on my back. That wasn’t like me, wasn’t the kind of thing I’d say. It wasn’t even the thing I’d been thinking. It was as if Katy had pushed the words out of my mouth. It was exactly the kind of thing Katy would have said.
But Mickey had overdosed himself at Raiford, and I’d never seen any of Katy’s boyfriends again. Just Katy, anytime she gets restless and wants to come back. I look at her now and my throat closes up. I cannot make casual conversation, cannot talk at all. I want to reach for her but I am too afraid. She is the vampire curse in my life. You have to invite them back, and part of me always wants her, even when most of me don’t. Right now all of me wants her, flesh and blood, body and soul.
Katy’s thick black eyebrows raise and lower, seeing right through me, seeing my grief and my lust. “Ahhh, bitch,” she whispers, and it sounds like lover. She slips one hand under the sheet and strokes her nails along my leg.
I catch my breath. I could cry but don’t. Will we be lovers again? Is she real enough this moment to put her filmy body along my too-tight muscles? She wants to; it shows in the unaccustomed softness in her face. I feel tears run down my cheeks.
Now she says it. “Lover.”
“Junkie.” I hiss it at her, beginning to really cry, making a hoarse ugly sound in the quiet room. “Goddamn you, you goddamned junkie!”
“Ahh well,” she drawls, her fingers still stroking my leg. “It’s not a lie.” She drags herself over, rocking the bed this time, sliding under the sheet. She arranges her body to cup my side, her toes touch my ankle and her head turns so that her mouth is close to my ear.
“Not a lie, no.” One hand caresses my stomach; the other hugs my hipbone.
“Goddamn you!” I try to lie still but start shaking.
“Don’t be boring,” she says. I feel her tongue licking my cheek, wet and almost as rough as a cat’s tongue. My whole body goes stiff, and my hands ball up into fists.
“Why do you keep coming back? Why don’t you leave me alone? You weren’t worth the trouble when you were alive and you sure aren’t doing me any good now.” I start to fight her, trying to pull away or push her away. But she is smoke only, a cloud on my skin, and I can’t escape her.
“Motherfucker . . .” I give it up to cry and turn my face into the pillow of her hair. It smells so sweet and familiar, marijuana and patchouli.
Katy’s shoulders ride up and down. She arches her back and slides her body over so that her belly is on top of mine. I almost scream from the intensity of the sensation. It feels so good. It feels so awful.
“You loved me.” She says it right into the hollow of my ear.
“You love me still. Even after you left me, you loved me. You couldn’t stand me, and you damn sure couldn’t save me. But you couldn’t stand it without me either. So here I am. Feel me.”
She drums her knuckles on my hipbone. Her teeth nip my neck. I gasp and arch up into her. “I’m part of you,” she whispers. “Right down in the core of you.”
I pull myself back down and lie still, giving it up. “I know.” I push my face up. My mouth covers her, tastes her. Her tongue is bitter honey, sliding between my lips, filling my mouth, pushing my own tongue up to the roof of my mouth, expanding until I think I will choke. But I do not fight. I take her in. I want to swallow her, all of her. If she is a ghost, then why not? She could melt into my bones. We could be the same creature.
My hips begin to rock. My fingers curl up and try to grip her waist. A heated sweat rises all over my body. I want to rise up like steam into her, pull up right