Metamorphosis.

Metamorphosis :: Le Commencement.

I

Shivering at the behest of the icy tendrils of fog insinuating themselves beneath her coat, she hurried beneath the low-rise halos of golden light appearing as hovering UFOs; the bulbous, flaked surfaces of the old gas lamps casting a flicker off the red brick underfoot.

Eyes swinging like dark chocolate marble pendulums over the thick woolen collar pulled close to shield her from the probing, inquisitive breath of winter, she snuck nervous glances down the empty side streets, turning away as the ghosts of memories yet to be lived, danced in twisted torment on the city smoke charred walls, reaching for her with their flattened, disfigured forms.

Stepping off the sidewalk onto the asphalt, glistening as though painted with fallen stardust, a sliver of a naked icy chill, trickled down her spine. Night absorbed her breath, to make it its own. From her lungs, the air wafted in decadent cotton candy plumes; misty, mystified, weightless with the sweetness of life, lingering for a second. soft against the harshness of night, before catching, then clutching to her porcelain skin, silently slipping into death, then reborn, as gentle frost resting on an angel’s cheeks

She lifted a hand, to catch the angle of the clock hands silently counting down the minutes of her life with a nonchalant disinterest.

3:45 am.

She was late.

~*~

II

The upcoming intersection loomed ahead of her, protective and dangerous all at once. The flooding from the four corner street lamps, casually washed the area of shadows and the evils that lurked therein. It always stood out as a temporary beacon of safety, giving her a fallacious sense of comfort that never failed to quickly gave way to an impending sense of trepidation, of what may await her when she stepped out of that haloed sphere; prey caught in the spotlight, for nightly hunters on the prowl.

But tonight, she hardly noticed the difference as she hurried over the hazy line separating shadow and light. Muttering expletives at the deities for cursing her with her fickle adherence to the clock, her usual graceful stride quickened to a hasty skipping step over the footpath, the click clack of her heels shuffling to no particular rhythm as she raced against the unyielding tick of time.

She couldn’t miss him.

Not tonight.

She stepped out, carelessly, to cross the street; her thoughts interrupted by the ear splitting horn of the lone garbage truck clanging its clumsy way down the deserted street, the gruff sleepy voice of the driver’s yell, startling her out of her silent reverie. Taking a moment to gather herself, her eye followed the vehicle as it stumbled out of sight, swaying, heavy under its own metallic weight, leaving a quiet vacuum of noise, in the wake of its monstrosity.

A quick shake of her head, a useless habitual gesture, brought her back to the moment.

And to the soft patter of footsteps behind her.

~*~

III

She had never been much of a runner.

Less taxing on her childhood asthma, she’d long found that she could walk miles and miles enjoying the gentle breeze as the air moved aside to make way for her swinging arms and sometimes balled up fists. Outfitted with whichever music playing device was in vogue at the time, her thoughts were the only companion she took on these walks and oftentimes found herself returning home long after twilight had set upon a wasted afternoon spent pondering the universe.

But even as a walker, she knew, everyone had their own inherent rhythm. She would be able to recognize the sound of her own footsteps should they ever be played back to her; just as she knew, to whom those running footsteps about to turn the corner, belonged.

Casting a hasty glance down the street to assure her of its emptiness, she scurried to the other side, cringing at the clacking of her heels, load against the unyielding asphalt that seemed to mock her for her hurried steps; her breath held tight, compressed like a vacuumed ball thudding against her ribcage, threatening to burst from the thin quaking layer of nervousness.

She stepped onto the pavement, lips moving in an unconscious silent prayer and pressed herself against the closest doorway, biting back a curse as the ragged brick tore at her fingers anxiously clutching for safety, like a child for her mother’s hands in a faceless crowd, and instead, finding sanctuary in its shadows.

And then she watched.

And waited.

~*~

IV

She saw him long before he turned the corner.

In his usual grey tee and baggy tracksuit bottoms, worn for comfort rather than style, she could already imagine the darkened cotton drenched with the signs of his exertion, clinging desperately like a second skin to the risings and fallings of his solid chest, that expanded and deflated to accommodate the frosty air he battled to drag into his waiting lungs to give his fatigued blood cells life.

And she was right.

His elongated shadow hit the concrete pavement a split second before his jogging footsteps, the low hanging moon, an unforgiving spotlight, keeping a keen eye on him from behind. Fingers wrapped around a water bottle in one hand, and clasped around a lighter and keys in the other, his fists, held loose from practice, punched angrily through the air, as though endeavoring with each jabbing strike to transfer a trace of an unconscious, toxic fury into the pristine breeze, tainting the invisible molecules with a red hot burning frenzy that spread like an acidic wildfire and froze the scattered atoms into a crystalline sculpture of quiet rage.

She pulled herself into a thin sliver of flesh, pressing tighter against the wall, as he came into direct view. His feet pounding against the frozen ground thudded against her brain, stamping deeper into her cortex the rhythm of his steps. Her face burned iron hot, as the veins in her flustered cheeks pulsed with a gleeful abandon as each second that she held her breath in fear of being discovered, her blood transmuted to a gushing river of liquid lust.

Never turning to sight the shadowed figure watching from the doorway across the street, he steadily made his way down the deserted road, calling out just once, to his faithful four legged companion before, once out of reach of the pale street lights, disappearing from sight.

She sighed. She hadn’t missed him after all.

She wrapped her lips around the single word he’d offered as a gift without knowing, savouring the dog’s name in her mouth, shaping her tongue to mimic the sound as it had been in his voice, not realizing, the fact that it matched the author’s name of the book crammed into her bag, was no mere coincidence.

Pushing away from the doorway and stepping back into the lighted street, a coy smile dancing upon her lips, she couldn’t help but wonder.

Would she ever know his name?

~*~

V

Her wistful pondering, met its fate at the generic ringtone of her cellphone, hammering against the silent night with its vulgar clang, shattering the thin glass bubble that housed her most secret thoughts.

Fumbling around in the hidden cavern of her deep coat pocket, her frozen hand struggled to secure a tight grasp around the vibrating sleek device, and clumsily pulling it from the tangle of scarf and slippery fingers, the phone smashed to the ground in an awkward fall, sliding along the damp footpath metres ahead of her.

“Fuck!” Her frustration punched through the air in the single expletive as she skipped over to the ringing phone. Bending over to reach for it, her unzipped bag slipped off her shoulder to clatter to the ground, its contents scattering around her feet in a random collection of her personal effects.

“Fuckfuck!” Squatting to grab the phone among the chaos, the incessant ringing stopped just as she flipped it open, in time to see the name that never failed to make her cringe, flash in white letters under the words “Missed Call”.

Rocking back on her heels, she tilted her head forward, resting her forehead on the smooth black edge of the phone in a tableau of resignation, taking a deep breath, as she readied a single blood red nail to press the redial button.

A black Channel lipstick tube shoved into her line of vision, and a quiet male voice halted her movements.

“I think this is yours.”

~*~

VI

Silver tinged moonlight seared through the splits in the vertical blinds and spread along the floor, like tentacles of enemy radar seeking human heat. A cold draught rattled the uneven, broken slats, whispering through cracks unseen, in the walls and in time, here, in this rented room, where life was temporarily abandoned in the place of simply existing. Sounds, that were drowned by the bustle of living in day, now at night, played centre stage, drifting up from the street, to poke at sleep with a derisive snicker.

A soft metal jangle at the foot of the bed pushed against the wall, was followed by a short command in a male voice.

The jangling stopped.

And then a sigh.

He’d come to hate the night.

True, with twilight came sanctuary in darkness, but these days, he preferred the anonymity of being just a faceless figure in the crowd. At night, every demon that came out to play had a name. His was denial.

Sliding his legs over the cheap linen, to rest against the floor, he sat up, reaching over to the barren nightstand for his watch. Squinting, to make out the numbers against the dimly lit LED screen, he cursed.

Apparently even insomniacs could over sleep.

Slipping sock covered feet into the running shoes he’d last discarded under the bed, he walked over the basin, cringing at the creak that accompanied his every step, he caught the running cold water in his cupped hands and splashed them over his face, shivering as errant droplet trickled down his sleep warmed neck.

Turning the tap closed, his eyes searched the dark falling upon the figure still huddled on the bed.

“Come on.”

Hesitation non-existent, his canine companion jumped off the bed, the metal jangling in rhythm with the paw padded footsteps on the floor, and both stepped out the thin wooden door and down the peeling paint decorated hall way.

And as they both stepped into the night, he couldn’t help but wonder.

Would he see her tonight?

~*~

VII

He was getting old.

The revelation drew an ironic laugh that tore through him just as ragged as his breath, like acid wildfire through the billowing pockets of his lungs.

Each step, every exhausted propulsion of his body into the welcoming arms of the cold, dragged fatigued whimpers from his muscles, and even as he lifted his arm to wipe the rivulets of sweat stinging his eyes, he cursed at the fickle nature of gravity as it weighed against his wrist as he turned it to catch the time.

An errant moon beam, streaked across the circular glass pane, the glint bouncing off the watch face to dance over his retina, and he cursed again as he struggled to focus.

Turning the corner, he paused for a moment under the lit intersection, to stare at his wrist.

Fuck.

His lead filled limbs had added an extra 5 minutes to his running route, and he’d missed her.

Turning, to make his way home, a voice floated across the empty street, angry, angelic.

It was her.

~*~

VIII

“I think this is yours”

The words lingered in the air, swinging back and forth in the space between them, unclaimed, as though both unsure as to where they had come from, and how to react.

He was here. Right here.

Her eyes, unconnected to the thoughts dancing to a frantic chaotic beat in her head, flickered upwards, in a secret hope to meet his, only to find them shadowed, as his back stood haloed by a looming street light.

And yet, still she searched. For a flicker of life in the sunken pools of dark gazing back at her, her surroundings washing like broken glass pulled under the current of the receding tide, as she found herself engulfed by the fabric of fantasy that was woven by all her secret moments shared with him.

Was it only mere seconds that passed, as she lost herself in the day dream, or did she sit staring up at him for days?

He cleared his throat, dislodging the discomfort he felt under her shiftless gaze, taking a half step forward, thrusting the lipstick tube closer to her face. His movement cleared the path for a direct beam from the overhanging light to dance across the features of her upturned face.

And his breath, as well as time, froze like falling stalactites; the chill of ghostly fingertips, wrapping themselves around his heart, and squeezing.

Without warning, her hands reached up to take the vial, fingertips brushing up against his, as if reminding them of their function. The touch shocking her soul back into its body, as she found her voice.

“Are you ok? You look like you’ve just seen a ghost”

He thought he had.

 ~*~

 

IX

The overwhelming scent of perfumed honeyed spices slammed against her, drowning her senses, as it did every night, as she pressed her shoulder against the door and stepped inside the room. Wrinkling her nose in distaste, she smacked her lips as, even in the crowded space she spotted the small rotund purple bottle carelessly left open and on its side on the nearby dressing table, rocking back and forth, as its owner rushed past her, grinning at the plastered look of disgust on her face, and leaving a renewed thick waft of the house of Dior in her wake.

Shouldering her way through the mass of bodies in various stages of undress, she found a vacant stool in front of the mirror and threw her bag onto the stained oak bench. Ignoring the sound of glass vials and plastic tubes falling to the ground, she lowered herself onto the seat, muttering a stream of expletives under her breath. “The only thing they did right was naming it Poison”.

Casting a glance at the clock in front of her, she ran her fingers under her tired eyes and reached into her bag for the solid metal case. Clearing a space on the bench in front of her with a careless sweep of her hand, she opened the lid and begun her routine. Five minutes, that’s all she’d need. Months of experience had honed her preparation time to a mere five minutes, using shortcuts and tricks the other girls had taught her, and she smiled as she gently pressed the foundation sponge against the line of her jaw, remembering the friendly rivalry of the earlier days, when the nights were defined by the hours they spent together, waiting, rather than the hours they worked apart.

She lifted her eyes to glance back into the mirror, her memories blurring the activity in the background behind her into shapeless silhouettes, and her hand rested idly on the edge of the bench, still clasping the sponge, as she stared into the eyes she no longer recognized as her own.

How had she arrived here, and why? And how was she ever going to leave?

Her reveries were cut short by the booming voice that carried to her ears long before the owner came into focus in the reflection of the mirror.

“Jaidyn! You’re late!”

Feeling the ground give way to the footsteps behind her, she plastered a grin on her face, as she looked up at the women approaching her. Tamara towered over her, in both height and width, her hair pulled back into a messy bun, an engraved pair of chopsticks peeking out through the golden mass of curls. The skin around her eyes decorated by lines that didn’t simply tell of the years of her life, but of the endless forks in the road that had led her to where she stood today. And today, that was glowering at her young charge, as she simmered, simultaneously angry at Jaidyn for her tardiness and anger at herself, for her anger melting away at the sight of the cheeky grin on her face. “Stop grinning at me, you little bitch, and get ready.”

“Five minutes,” Jaidyn pressed the sponge to the dark patches  under her eyes, wondering at the magic of make-up as they seemingly disappeared, “I’ll just be five minutes.”

“Faster, he’s been waiting for 15 minutes”

“He’ll wait”

The older woman bent down, whispering conspiratorially into her ear, “Yeah, for you, he just might.”

Jaidyn leant forward towards the mirror, expertly running the soft black kohl pencil along her water line, “What does he want? Did he say?”

“What he always wants.”

~*~

X

The steady rhythmic click clack of her pointed stiletto heel down the pristine polished jatoba hallway ricocheted off the scarlet walls, bouncing back and forth in a thunderously calm chaos, the sound of new steps mixing, mingling with old, a Doppler effect of past and present, such that when she arrived at the last door on her right, she couldn’t tell if it was today, yesterday, or if she was watching her life play out from afar, an endless affair of footsteps up and down this corridor, never really knowing what awaited her behind the bevelled edged frame of this wooden door.

Her hair-thin jade bracelet slid down her wrist as she turned the door knob, stepped into the room, and leaned back, pressing the heavy door shut.

As if in anticipation, a mental order rather than an involuntary physiological response, her pupils instantly dilated, drinking in every morsel of light in the stiflingly dark room. Only experience told her not to take another step forward, not because she knew what obscured her path, but because she didn’t.

“Mike?”

Only silence was her reply.

She knew he was there. He never betrayed his presence by either sound or vision. But there were other ways that the human body can sense the space around them. More sophisticated than the reptilian forked tongue, human skin, the most exquisite of fabrics, beaded with an infinite array of cells designed specifically to absorb the environment around it, could sense heat, cold, rough, smooth, comfort… and danger.

Not that there was any danger to sense. It was the stale concoction of day old Old Spice, his worn leather jacket and nicotine and scotch tinged breath that told her, he was somewhere in the room, watching her.

She stood in the pitch black, counting her breaths, in, one two three, out, one two three, in one two-…

“You’re late”

His voice, interrupted her count, and told her, he was barely a breath away to her right. She shuffled her weight to the left, pivoting, trying to catch his silhouette in the dark, her bracelet catching, and clinking against the door frame. She opened her mouth to apologize only to expel a gasp as she felt his hand wrap itself around her wrist, driving her with sheer force to her knees, as she lurched forward, bracing her fall with her other hand, as he held his grip on her wrist and pulled her body upright.

He leant over her, and she felt his hardness through the stiff hem of denim press against her face, as he rasped into her hair, his breath, putrefying, simply in its proximity.

“You know I don’t like waiting”

“I know.”

“Do you think I have nothing better than to sit here waiting for you… slut”

In the dark, the corner of her mouth curled into an ironic sneer as she heard how the word awkwardly tripped out of his mouth. Foreign, forced by a fantasy of how it might sound, how it would feel verbalised, conflicted against the society instilled taboo of the word. She swallowed her lapse into reality, fell back into the moment, and assumed her role once again.

Letting her hand relax in his grip, she curled her fingernails to graze teasingly against his inner forearm, turning her face to press her cheek into his groin, as her other hand slowly crept up the inseam of his jeans. Her fingertips light, but increasingly insistent as they tiptoed up the growing bulge of his crotch, she felt him stiffen as she reached the zipper.

“I’m sorry, I was late. I know, I know how much you hate it, it won’t happen again. But, you know I know just how to make it up to you,” she purred, her voice pouring from her lips like liquid sex in the dark, diffusing his anger and stoking the fire of his desire, “you know I know just want you want, know how you want it, why you want it.” Her words, silken, were woven into her movements as she pulled the zipper down its metallic, jagged path, and slid her fingertips along the length of his trapped, aching cock.

His lust drowned all pretense of the dominating role that he held, fanciful, at best, notions of playing out. His fingers around her wrist grew slack and tight in time with his breaths and the pit of his stomach caught fire as she fished out his rigid cock through the opening in his pants and slid her fingers in a ring down the shaft, pulling him to his maximum length, before tightening around the base, the soft pad of her palm, pressing against his swelling balls as she took him, swiftly, deeply, wholly into her mouth.

His moan pulled her mouth into a smile that only tightened her lips around the glistening head of his pulsing member. As her lips , wet, plump massaged the rim and slid down his length, her cheeks bloated, surrounding his shaft in a hot billow of air, then, relaxing her mouth, she let the air escape and wash over his saliva drench balls, making him shiver as her tongue traveled along the bulging vein down the underside of his cock.

He wasn’t going to last much longer, he never did.