Dirt

Siren Songs

    We slept late into the evening and when he awoke Trevor was in a peculiar kind of mood. He told me he needed a drink but there was something about his lack of eye contact and conversation that made me uncomfortable. As he shrugged his way into his pants he finally spoke to me, voice low and inexpressive, “Can you tell me something?”
    I was almost afraid to tell him yes, scared of what I could have possibly done to upset him once again. I ran over this morning’s events in my mind quickly, scanning my brain for anything that could have been misconstrued between us. “Yes.”
    “Just tell me, why the fuck am I wasting my time on you? Here I am, out here in a city I despise, taking care of you when I could be taking care of my own shit and my business.” The lack of irrational anger in his voice worried me, this was something he had thought through. “I mean, you’re leaving this shit-hole city in a few days to go back to school. Please enlighten me; tell me why I’m doing all this bullshit.”
    His words stung my brain as I felt my head grow hot with self-hate. I knew I had been leading him on, hadn’t I? That I would be leaving this place and trying to forget about him after an experience I had no hopes of forgetting. I knew it had just been wishful thinking in believing that we could make each other happy for only a week and then go back to our lives as if nothing had happened.
    “I don’t know what to tell you.” I replied in a bit of a murmur, I had known it would come to this eventually and yet I hadn’t prepared a response to the obvious question. Poor Nora, always caught up in thought and never well rehearsed; I had been foolish.
    “Hmm, well isn’t that grand.” He stated with a sickly tone of voice, slipping his shirt over his head and struggling to find which armhole belonged to which arm. “Well you want to know what I think?”
    No, I sincerely didn’t want to know what he thought and yet I still found myself nodding half-heartedly at him as though I had no idea what he might be about to tell me.
    His eyes seemed to glow with antipathy as he looked into mine for the first time since he had awoken; it caused my stomach to churn. “I think we should give this one more night and then I’ll take you home so that we can both get back to our lives and stop fucking toying with each other.”
    Toying with each other. I wondered if that was the conclusion he had drawn about us in the past few days or if he was simply trying to detach himself from the situation as I found myself doing as well. “If that’s how you feel, then alright.”
    “If that’s how I feel? How I fucking feel? How do you think I feel Nora?” My name on his tongue was terrifying, “Please tell me how I fucking feel because I’m trying to fucking figure that out right now.” I could hear the anger rising within him as he asked me this and I prepared myself for any hurtful words that may soon be coming my way.
    I was too afraid to divert my gaze though I wanted more than anything to look away and hide under the covers of the goose feather blanket. My voice shook slightly, “Angry. You feel angry.”
    He turned away from me swiftly with a low growl, breathing in deeply, “I’m not angry, I’m just- I’m just fucking… frustrated.” With each word he took air into his clenched chest and expelled it with exaggeration. “I just need a drink, I need to drink something right fucking now!”
    I needed a drink too, if only to stop me from running into the bedroom closet and never emerging again. “Then let’s drink. Let’s drink until there’s more alcohol in our bloodstreams than blood.” In my mind this was no joke, I felt completely certain of my decision.
    “Yeah… yeah. That’s what we’ll do.” His fists were shut into balls that brought out the whites of his knuckles and he still did not turn towards me. I watched the muscles in his back rise and fall with each ridged breath and simply waited for him to gain control of himself, because it was all I could do.
    I made no attempt to calm him this time, I did not want to go near him. I felt somewhat hurt and had no idea why; none of this was Trevor’s fault, if anything I had brought it on both him and myself. Maybe it was the fact that he had finally left the fantasy I was so desperately trying to cling to and that now I was left to face the consequences of everything I had done in my fit of independent fervour.
    It was selfish for me to want him to pursue our relationship when it would inevitably end and yet I my feelings were still sore as if they had somehow been bruised by him. I sat on the edge of the bright white bed and observed him patiently as he muttered to himself and slowly relaxed his body; I wanted more than anything for him to look at me.
    He let out his final breath with gentle precision, releasing the last traces of scorching embers of atoms that were prickling within. Shoving his feet into this boots he told me, “Let’s go.” without a glance in my direction. I stood up immediately and followed him out the door.
    The sun was setting over the city like a drunkard spewing his guts and blood onto the sidewalk; it made me want to never see daylight again. There was a bar right across the street from our hotel with flashing neon signs of mermaids and martinis luring us with nauseating pop-culture siren songs.
    We walked side by side, not touching and not talking, creating a distance between us that burned me to my very core. The bar bouncer looked at Trevor and I as if he had been an escaped asylum patient and I his child concubine; I attempted to give him the most fake of smiles but could not even muster that.
    It was a simple glance from Trevor, threatening certain death with only his eyes that allowed us instant access into the building. It was also a simple glance from Trevor that granted us two seats at the bar, so graciously given up by two young men who up until meeting us seemed to be having the time of their lives.
    And then what followed were a series of drinks, one after another after another and not stopping for chatter in between them. Trevor drank straight whiskey, no rocks, I assumed because ice would dilute the liquor; I drank vodka-cranberries, the drink I had been denied on my first night on vacation here.
    After about 4 glasses of liquid happiness I nudged Trevor and told him I was heading to the washroom without making eye contact and he nodded in return, eyes at the bottom of his drink. I made my way to the very neon and very pink outline of a woman propped onto a black metallic door poorly decorated with artistic graffiti, a pathetic attempt at an urban atmosphere.
    The room was filled with girls blubbering to each other in a series of slurs, either with excitement or semi-tearful or both at once; their voices almost made me sick to my stomach and this explained the two stalls with heeled feet popping out the sides as some poor souls threw up the drinks they had just spent 60 dollars on.
    Before leaving I happened to notice my own reflection; the leftover mascara and morose frown combined with my disgustingly sequinned top. I needed to leave before I could begin despising myself even more, if that were possible. Midway though my short journey back to Trevor and vodka, my choices of poison for the night, I felt an arm wrap around my waist and a very unwelcome hand brushing itself onto my skirt.
    Up until this moment I had believed that my mood had reached an all-time low, but I was devastatingly wrong about that. A flare of stomach sickness and wave of hot disgust overcame my entire body as I twisted myself away from this deplorable excuse of a man who believed he was entitled to touch whatever he set his eyes upon.
    “Excuse me sir but what in the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Whatever terrible storm of emotion brewing inside me caused me to yell. The man was evidently somewhat drunk, but this did not by any means excuse his pathetic behaviour. I found myself using the palms of my hands to push him away; even the slightest feeling of his breathing underneath his shirt made me want to gag. “Do not fucking touch me.”
    His reply was a mixture of excuses and insults that his slurs made indecipherable, this made no difference to his cause because before he had time to complete his incomprehensible explanation he received a rather well timed fist to his jaw, knocking his head into an angle that would hurt the next morning.
    Trevor had managed to knock him to the ground with a single punch but this evidently was not enough. Sitting on top of him as if taking horse-back riding lessons Trevor dealt blow after blow to the poor man’s face, rendering him unrecognizable within a matter of seconds.
    Instinctually I had stepped back in a bit of shock but whatever inhumane part of my mind that may have existed allowed me to take guilty pleasure in watching the young man get beaten to a pulp and then receive several kicks to the stomach as bouncers attempted to pull Trevor away from him.
    I stood glued to my spot on the unsightly glittered tiles for a moment as Trevor was dragged to the exit, staring at the mangled man with my head cocked to one side like a curious child. Every exposed inch of him was red, purple and blue; he looked to me like a beautiful Jackson Pollock painting and at the same time a horrific crime scene.