Priscilla

S6 ⭒ Episode Three

*Instrumental*
♪ The Claw • Richard Reed Parry
TW; Ab*se & Self-Harm.

PARASITISM

In a sparkling hotel room, Priscilla's smothered in a greedy laugh. Smothered in the taut belly of a tan man with a chest rug and a full beard. Sweaty. Sticky. Groping. Thrusting. The pillowy bed rumpled in blankets creaks and the camera shakes on a bedside table of little blue pills and empty wine glasses stained with red. Her moans are dramatically loveless. So lifeless and far away; her eyes squeezed shut. An embroidered, tasseled corset squeezes her waist tight, too tight, and in the everlasting reflection of the infinity mirror, it gets smaller, and smaller, and smaller. And she laughs and squirms at the scratchy licking tongue of him, at the pinching and the pulling, at herself in those mirrors like she adores it, while vomit coats my closing throat.

"Tell me how you love it, princess."

"I love it... feels so good. Best I've ever had, baby." Priscilla lazily smiles, casting her gaze toward the camera. Her mascara smeared eyes narrow seductively, and she buries herself in the mound of man lying flat atop her back, clinging to his bicep tight, "I love yo–"

I grip the screen of the laptop and slam it down.

Tingling ants crawl in my every limb and I rip myself up to stand, taking a heaping mouthful of air that my dying lungs desperately need. My whole chest burns. Hurts. A block of buzzing dread that feels like TV static builds in my ribcage, tics, and I fist my hand, rubbing it over my heart.

"I love yo–"

"Fuck." I grind out through my teeth, forcing an exhale.

"Halen."

"I love yo–"

"Fuck." I scrunch up my nose and slap my fingers over my eyes, rubbing and pinching at the skin there that grows hotter by the second.

"Halen, are you alright? Can you breathe?"

"I forgive you. I love you, Noelle."

"I love yo–"

"Halen!"

Two firm hands jolt my shoulders and I blink away the mirrors and the little blue pills, and the tongues, and the red sheets, and her brown eyes, and his calloused hands – and cough, steadying my focus behind Blue crouched in front of me.

A heavy wooden bookshelf is where the door to paradise used to be. And it's dusty. Frozen in time like a relic, just as everything else around me here is, in the room that Priscilla and I used to share.

There's trouble in the air and it's thick. She's not safe.

"Hal-"

"M'alright." Pulsing vein in my temple, I cough one last time, hard. My throat feels scratchy. I raise up from where I'm crouched. The window above Scilla's desk, I pace toward, wrenching it open. A soft gust of spring air cools my skin and I take it in as slowly as my body allows and will the whispers away; the guilt in my head, the cruel voices that have been relentless since that night.