Sleepless
The book dropped from his hand in a despondent display of defeat. It’s no good trying to distract myself. It’s not going to happen, not until… Until what? There was so much that could be doing this, but at the same time, it was none of those. His body was drenched in more sweat than even a jog in the hot sun could produce. It made him feel utterly vile. He crawled out of bed to the shower up the hallway.
Just what I need. He had developed a preference for cold showers some years back. Especially since there was a bottle of vodka in the cupboard over the sink and he was too lazy to mix it in the kitchen. He poured himself half a coffee mug of the stuff, taking it into the icy rain pelting from the faucet. Once the mug was full, he raised it to his lips and emptied it faster than the water could refill it. The cold water washed the filth of his pores away in a torrent of soothing cool.
He began to shiver as the fumes from the drink made his internal temperature seem to rise. The cold was now unbearable. He turned the hot tap all the way on, at the same time making the cold nothing but a trickle. The sudden change in temperature was shocking to his tense skin. The steam filled the room as he reached across the bathroom to turn on the fan. The steam was sucked up into the ceiling and transported to whatever mysterious place it went once up there.
He turned the water to cold again as the vodka fumes wore off. He was uncomfortably warm now, the extreme heat of the water only making things worse. The water felt like bullets which struck his skin in ice-cold droplets.
He allowed it to soak into his skin before getting out. The water stopped. He looked at the mug again with a pensive expression. Then picked up the bottle and downed the whole half a litre that was left. It didn’t help. But there was the other stuff.
“Bella Donna.” The words had a strange irony to them, and a truth.
The small seeds rattled out of their bottle and into his palm. Their grainy surfaces would make them hard to swallow, were they larger. He placed one in his mouth and knocked back a glass of the wine from the fridge. It travelled down his oesophagus in a cool, tingling rush of fermented grapes.
“This year-that’s a good one.” Her voice sent tingles down his spine, the cold tendrils of her contralto entrancing him despite his best efforts.
“What do you want?”
“What does anyone want?”
“Right now I’d settle for sleep over your cryptic speeches, Claire.”
“You really are such a bore, Edward; especially considering your lack of clothing.”
He looked down at himself; at the smaller-than-average towel he’d wrapped around himself. “How did you get in here?” she was as immaculate as ever. Her honey-brown hair was scraped to one side, her loose, devil-may-care curls fell to just above her elbows.
“Oh, Eddy, I’m hurt. Does it really matter? I thought you’d just be happy to see me.” She pouted prettily. He knew she woke up like that from the days when he’d seen her in the mornings. Her hair fell into naturally flattering positions and she had never even had morning breath to the best of his knowledge.
“Leave now.”
“You certainly know how to woo a girl.” She had him pressed against the wall, his wrists held in her surprisingly strong grip. “Now, give me what I want.”
“I don’t have it.” The seed was beginning to take effect-it was making him heavy headed. It was hard to think.
“Give me what I want and I’ll give you what you require.” She was even closer now. If she weren’t so vulgar, it would have been very sexy.
“And what do I require?” he had her against the wall now, his own light brown eyes looking into her blue-green glaciers.
“I think you know. It’s been too long for you, Eddy. You’re young, time to stop living like an old timer.”
“You and I both know that’s too simple.” His eyes glared at her from beneath his scowling brows. He kissed her on the mouth once. A peck, no more. “You see? Nothing at all.” There was a clinical note to his voice.
He let go of her wrists, turned back to the fridge and put the bottle back into it off the bench. “If you’ll excuse me, I think it’s time you ******** off.” He turned his back on her as arrogantly as he could muster; dismissing her utterly. The bed was only a few yards away, but it seemed like an eternity. And then he was there. He fell into the sheets; their cool cotton weight was oddly comforting despite the smell of stale perspiration.
Then she was in there, her weight lying lightly on the mattress beside him. He could smell it. Her perfume-Chanel Nº5 he thought it was-was seductive on her. She snuggled into him as alcohol and the nightshade seed took effect. “******** you Claire.” His last words before sleep claimed him-the bittersweet, comatose oblivion of the Bella Donna.
“That may happen.” Her voice and that sardonic expression were the last things he heard and saw before dreamless slumber encompassed him.
He woke the next morning with his mouth tasting like an ash tray. Claire was gone. There was no headache; he never got that particular symptom. He was just lethargic and moodier than usual. He had yet another shower, this one pleasantly warm by normal standards. He’d set out clothes the day before, as he always did before he drugged himself into a stupor.
As he pulled on the plain grey t-shirt and his fitted jeans with the heavy belt, his stomach rumbled; he was so hungry that it even vibrated a little. “Yeah, yeah all right.” He often spoke to himself; it was a comfort mechanism.
Coffee is good. No matter how many times he repeated that mantra it never lost meaning to him. It was indeed good, even after the taste was removed by the toothpaste. He ate an apple from the bowl as he walked out the door, which he locked behind him.
“I thought I told you to ******** off.”
“I knew that was just the alcohol talking.” She was standing there, breathing right down his neck as his hands suddenly fumbled at their task. “Let me get that for you, Eddy.”
“My name is Edward.” He moved to block her view of the lock, finally jiggling the key free of the door’s hold.
“And mine’s Claire, but I think that’s unnecessary since we already know each other.”
His suit jacket was heavy and black armour against the cold winter’s morning. The vision of her in a perfectly cut, pin-striped power suit and break-neck stilettos made him want to vomit in its perfection. “Either tell me in plain terms what you want or leave me alone.”
Her voice was pleasant as she replied. “I want you on a platter, so that I can have you sent to the taxidermist to be set on my wall. Then, I’ll invite my friends over to laugh and my trophy-you, will become our ash-tray.” She lit up her cigarette then, calmly drawing it in as if to illustrate her point. She remembered how he detested smoking, and blew some smoke into his face. “Frankly, I want to break you. You’re a marvellous toy, you know that?” She took another drag. “Breaking you the first time was the most enjoyable experience of my life.”
“I have to get to work.” He set his face, bent his head and brushed past her.
He could feel her triumphant smile at his back as he walked away. She’d gotten to him. She’d won, as usual. “You can’t run from it forever Edward. You and I both know where it’ll ******** off Claire.” This was fast replacing ‘coffee is good’ as his favourite mantra.
The train to work was almost peaceful; as he was going in the opposite direction to most commuters he actually got a seat and a chance to unwind with his slim portable music player headphones lodged firmly in each ear. “System” by Chester Bennington; it was a strangely relaxing piece despite Bennington’s penchant for melodious screaming. The sentiments in the song so well articulated those he held for Claire that he couldn’t help smiling to himself...
He arrived at work, seating himself at the modest desk and computer where he performed his task for the company. His fingers fluttered across the keyboard as he typed memo after memo after letter after report. The phone rang occasionally and he had to answer it before the second assistant could get to it; the girl was utterly incompetent. She was stunning to look at and nice enough, but also utterly vapid and totally inept.
Lunch hour meant he got to have lunch at the trendy coffee place around the corner. It was a little place called Harlequin’s House. It was the sort of place where some of the smarter kids from the nearby high school went to in order to discuss ideas over mocha or cappuccinos instead of going to their sport classes. It was also the place where one could meet the people who’d been ugly losers in high school, and who had undergone an ugly-duckling style transformation. Just like Claire.
Edward had known Claire during their high school years. Back then, she’d been plain with frizzy brown hair and pimples. Then, during the last year, her skin had cleared up; she’d dropped three dress sizes and developed curves instead of a potato-sack body. Her face was still average and her hair still frizzy-until the curls had gotten larger and her face had refined during university.
Edward had undergone similar changes. During the final years of school his shoulders had broadened and his skin, which had always had a certain glow anyway, lost much of its oiliness. He’d lost the braces as well and grown another six inches.
But Claire, rather than being shaped into a more compassionate human being by her experiences before she turned into the traffic-stopper she was now, had been moulded into someone who was frankly dangerous. She didn’t have a legitimate job. On paper, she made a modest living working for a small company which took care of databases for larger organisations. Edward didn’t know the truth, but he had his suspicions, especially considering the place she lived in and the stuff she’d bought. No-one could be that good with money. Not even us. He ordered his usual-a flat white, and sat down near the back to read his book.
Claire came into the joint just as Edward finished his first page. She sat down opposite to him, her low-cut shirt beneath the tight, drainpipe power suit showed off her perfect and pale cleavage, the Chanel Nº5 filled the air around her with the faintest tint of its presence. Heads rose as she walked in. A few openly stared. One tall, thin woman with long titian hair and who was dressed entirely in black to offset her pale skin and dark green eyes raised one fashionably thin and angular eyebrow as Claire strutted confidently across the room.
“I’ll have a double shot mocha with soy milk and extra froth.” Her demanding and silky voice cut across his isolation. The waitress dutifully wrote it down, pulling a rather comical impersonation of Claire’s haughty expression as she walked away towards the kitchen.
“Is there nothing sacred to you?” his voice was a carefully regulated monotone.
“You and I both know the answer to that.” She regarded him coolly.
“This is my turf. My rules apply here.”
“As you wish. I was already aware of that when I came here.”
“You’ll give me a straight answer. What do you want?”
Claire’s drink arrived, and she started drinking it as soon as it was put on the table in front of her. The waitress could have been no more than a shadow for all the attention she was given. “I’ve already told you that.” The malevolent gleam in her eyes was truly unnerving.
“Why are you stalking me?”
“I would hardly call it stalking. I think you know why.” She raised her eyebrows quizzically. “You’re restless. So are myself and all the other members of the old crowd. But not as badly as the two of us.”
“It’s hardly surprising that we’d all be having trouble sleeping-especially you.” He paused to let her squirm. “Anyone would have trouble just staying sane after what we’ve...”
“You never did have any mettle. I slept like a stone every night until quite recently-the last week or so. Without the aids you seem to find so necessary. Something’s stirring. I can feel it, smell it almost.”
“You’re a monster.” The tone of his voice made it sound like a pleasant remark, someone could be listening.
“No need to pretend to be nice. They can’t hear us. We’re sitting out of sync with their version of reality.” She stood up then and screamed with a super-sonic shriek that could have cracked the windows. No-one in the room so much as batted an eyelid... except the pretty girl with the red hair at the table next to theirs. She turned the page of her book calmly, but he was sure he’d seen her flinch.
“She can.” He indicated the titian-haired woman. “Does that mean she’s in on it all? Or just that you’ve lost your edge?”
Claire hissed between her teeth at him, her perfectly proportioned face transformed into a vision of ugliness by her anger and hatred. “Neither. It means she has a fondness for other people’s business.”
“Or perhaps there’s a reason she can hear us. Maybe she’s meant to be a part of this.”
“So you haven’t given it up after all.” She half-smiled in an almost sad and friendly way, but the sharp look in her eyes belied the mild, maternal expression on her face. “Is this one of your bastardised disciples?”
“Hardly the term I’d use; do I worship him? I’m a contemporary of his. You’re Claire, right?” Her placid olive eyes stared Claire down with their tranquillity as she sat her Jessica Rabbit-esque curves comfortably in a stool she dragged over from an adjoining table. “My name’s Alexandria.”
“Pretty name, that is.” Claire’s voice was dangerously calm. Everything about her movements, the clothes, even way her hair had been pulled back tightly from her face into a loosely curling pony tail, screamed predator.
“Thank you.” Alexandria’s disarming sincerity was the one thing Claire was unprepared for; she simply didn’t know what the appropriate response would be.
“You. You’re the one who’s giving poor Eddy the Bella Donna.”
Alexandria’s button nose wrinkled slightly in distaste “Of course not. I even tip his Vodka down the sink when I go over. They’re poisons-dull the mind and harm the body.”
“She hasn’t been coming around much, then?”
“What do you want, Claire? I’ve left the old crowd. That chapter of my life is over.”
“And yet here we are. Tell me, dear, how many times did you have to violate him to get him to start training you?” Those cold, cold eyes turned their merciless gaze towards Alexandria.
“None.” There was an equally dispassionate tone to Alexandria’s voice.
“Over? If that were true, some persuasion would surely have been necessary.”
“Suspended, then.”
“I would say you’ve been quite active from this viewpoint. I need your help Eddy.”
“I see no reason why I should lift so much as a finger to help you. ******** off back to whatever Hell you were sent from.”
“I’ll take that as a no.” She seemed oddly hurt, as though what Edward had just said actually affected her at an emotional level. She stood calmly from her stool and left Harlequin’s House with a stiff back, her break-neck heels clapping loudly on the highly polished pavers of the floor.
“What did she actually want?”
“To toy with me. She likes that.”
The pathway clunked slightly against his black shoes as he turned off it into the villa apartment he lived in. He unlocked the front door, thankful he didn’t have to attempt the perilous stairs to the upper floor in order to enter the ground-floor living space. He turned on the light as he entered, its bright fluorescence illuminating the hallway and the rooms beyond the open doors; the bathroom on the right, the open portal to the kitchen a few feet down from it... his bedroom directly across from the bathroom. All of these were ignored as his feet led him to the living room at the very end of the hallway.
He sat down in front of the television infomercials, the bright colours and fake smiles almost significant to his alcohol-dowsed mind. He uncorked a bottle of wine from the mini-fridge next to the lounge, pouring it into the glass he’d left there. A faint waft of cigarette smoke and Chanel Nº5 hung in the air, making him wrinkle his nose as the image of Claire strayed into his mind. She won’t even ******** off when she’s not here.
He was sick of the inane products and the models with their excessively wide smiles and overly toned bodies. None of the DVDs sitting on top of the shelf on the opposite wall from him appealed either. He half contemplated the Bella Donna before dismissing it as unwanted. Alexandria’s lectures must be getting to me.
He took another swig, before turning off the television and placing his MP3 player headphones in his ears. He swivelled his thumb over the volume control until it was up to maximum, then turned it down again to a less damaging volume. There was no point in being deaf, even though the break from her voice would have been a relief. Both of their carping voices.
The smell of coffee wafted in from the kitchen, making his nostrils twitch. He heard muffled voices, probably female... and the sound of mugs clinking against each other. He turned left into the archway that marked the small kitchen with its island bench where he ate his meals on the stools.
But it wasn’t him sitting on the stools. It was Alexandria and Claire, their quiet laughter filling the room with mirth. He stepped through the arch and into the room, switching on the light as he did. The voices suddenly stopped and Alexandria’s Jessica Rabbit curves disappeared, as did Claire’s red-lipped mouth and sleek dark hair.
He padded his way to the island, inspecting it. There were no rings from the mugs; no mugs at all. The green kettle was stone cold to the touch. He shook his head and went to bed, falling into the clean, white sheets his housekeeper had provided.