The Red Sin
I saw her first in the morning, all half-clothed and flushed cheeks. She wore my button down shirt from the night before and a pair of red socks. Her skin still glowed warm from the bedsheets and some combination of the summer sun and night's sin. And then: her spine bending gracefully as she bent to make coffee. I had seen her, of course, in the drunken haze of last night's lights and drizzling rain, but differently. In a satin dress and red nails, her eyes and limbs were far more dangerous. The morning after was softer, sexier, yet equally as terrifying. Coffee replaced wine and tender small talk took the space of sweaty touches. That was the first time.
Yet, within weeks, those graceful limbs and peachy skin became my poison as we jumped headfirst into the consequence of a summer's heatwave. She was all cherry-stained lips and soft, soft hair; breathlessness and warm skin. Yet still, she was forbidden. You see, while we spent a summer's month naked and passionate, I tried not to let her distant husband in another corner of the world occupy my thoughts. But still, he was there and she was forbidden. I tried not to let the guilt eat me alive. But I couldn't stop the indulgence of pretending - his life became, even if only for a month. I rationalized often, I couldn't. I tried to stop, it killed me. She was the only thing that eased my guilt - rather, distracted me from it - ever creating more of it. And so, I kept on blindly. Indulgent nights and drunken weekends kept me from facing the shame.
There was once a time after that she traced the little stretch marks on my breasts and asked me what I thought about it.
"What do you mean?" I replied, not as much a question as it was a ploy to hide the blushing because I knew exactly what she meant.
"About this. About the secrets, about the pleasure."
I said nothing then, but it kept me up at night, especially after.
On the morning that she called me for the last time, it was crying. Summer was at its end and the rotting stink of heat was permeating. I had missed her cherry-stained body for weeks now that her husband was home. But she was crying when she called and I had little to say. Her husband, she wept, was lying bloodied on the kitchen floor.
I don't remember much after. It was poison, her voice that compelled me there - thick with allure, dripping in honey and sex. Like the forbidden affair of a summer's month, her voice invited me to indulge again, but this time was different. But stripped of logic and numb with shock, I obeyed. And before long, transfixed in naivete or other devious innocence, I found myself standing in the kitchen doorframe, cursing the body beneath my feet. The head lay twisted at a grotesque angle, eyes dripping and cast to the window above the sink.
My mind muddled then to a helpless pool of black at the base of my neck and cold tendrils of panic wrapped their ghastly fingers into the grooves of my spine. I vomited.
I saw a million branches from that moment. But whatever had transpired and was to transpire was surely no matter of importance at present. There was only the shuffling and the burning and the whispering.
And then the body was gone, just like it had been for every time I had lain with her before - perhaps that's where my fault lay. His death had come slowly, you see. It wasn't just her sudden attack. Every time I had entered that house, I had killed him just a little bit more in mind.
Nerves wrecked the nights after. Sleep was impossible. A glance at food, and I was lost to a sea of green and nausea. Music sounded like the scream of sirens and every car that passed was a trial, my death. I didn't show up to work. I didn't care. I spent hours upon my hardwood floor, waiting until my legs went numb beneath me - then my arms and my toes and my chest. Sometimes the guilt faded if I drank enough. Yet every time I closed my eyes, I felt my own breath short in that sin that was stealing my sanity. I saw that twisted neck and the mark where she had swung the glass cigarette tray into his temple. Looking in mirrors was seeing that dead body upon the floor again, red blood bubbling about the head and gray eyes glazed with thick death.
And I've spent a week high on adrenaline and whiskey trying to forget it.
I realize I have been staring at the picture in my hand. I know not how long I have held it. And in it, she is laughing, head back, hair stuck to her temples. Red on her lips, red lace on her hips. Red. The only color I saw with her.
And then I am shaking, my hands are sweating, my breath short. What I did has become a numb reality and what I will do is a certain stable truth. I cannot stand to be still any longer. I sit upon my kitchen floor, paper and pen spread before me. All I become is the blame and the terror and the words upon the page. Tears finally come - a dreadful release.
Loralai,
My love, you have wrecked me beyond the burdens of a lover, wrecked me beyond any pain that I can bear. You have robbed me of dignity, robbed me of my sanity.
You ruined first passion with your cherry-stained lips - stained red now of the blood on our hands. I loved you, I love you now. Yet you have stolen my peace in the wake of these red sins. Perhaps passion and hatred are not so distant relatives. I cannot live in the wake of such. I hope you can forgive me.
Red, my darling, is all that you were to me. You were cherries and passion; and everything holy, everything devious. You were decadent and indulging, relief and blame, love and death. I will try not to blame you as I go in the red of my passion, the red of your sin, the red of my last drops of blood. For all who wonder, hear it now: this is my confession. Red in my words, red on my hands, red in the air around me. Pray, you find these words in the mess of red that takes me.
Yet, within weeks, those graceful limbs and peachy skin became my poison as we jumped headfirst into the consequence of a summer's heatwave. She was all cherry-stained lips and soft, soft hair; breathlessness and warm skin. Yet still, she was forbidden. You see, while we spent a summer's month naked and passionate, I tried not to let her distant husband in another corner of the world occupy my thoughts. But still, he was there and she was forbidden. I tried not to let the guilt eat me alive. But I couldn't stop the indulgence of pretending - his life became, even if only for a month. I rationalized often, I couldn't. I tried to stop, it killed me. She was the only thing that eased my guilt - rather, distracted me from it - ever creating more of it. And so, I kept on blindly. Indulgent nights and drunken weekends kept me from facing the shame.
There was once a time after that she traced the little stretch marks on my breasts and asked me what I thought about it.
"What do you mean?" I replied, not as much a question as it was a ploy to hide the blushing because I knew exactly what she meant.
"About this. About the secrets, about the pleasure."
I said nothing then, but it kept me up at night, especially after.
On the morning that she called me for the last time, it was crying. Summer was at its end and the rotting stink of heat was permeating. I had missed her cherry-stained body for weeks now that her husband was home. But she was crying when she called and I had little to say. Her husband, she wept, was lying bloodied on the kitchen floor.
I don't remember much after. It was poison, her voice that compelled me there - thick with allure, dripping in honey and sex. Like the forbidden affair of a summer's month, her voice invited me to indulge again, but this time was different. But stripped of logic and numb with shock, I obeyed. And before long, transfixed in naivete or other devious innocence, I found myself standing in the kitchen doorframe, cursing the body beneath my feet. The head lay twisted at a grotesque angle, eyes dripping and cast to the window above the sink.
My mind muddled then to a helpless pool of black at the base of my neck and cold tendrils of panic wrapped their ghastly fingers into the grooves of my spine. I vomited.
I saw a million branches from that moment. But whatever had transpired and was to transpire was surely no matter of importance at present. There was only the shuffling and the burning and the whispering.
And then the body was gone, just like it had been for every time I had lain with her before - perhaps that's where my fault lay. His death had come slowly, you see. It wasn't just her sudden attack. Every time I had entered that house, I had killed him just a little bit more in mind.
Nerves wrecked the nights after. Sleep was impossible. A glance at food, and I was lost to a sea of green and nausea. Music sounded like the scream of sirens and every car that passed was a trial, my death. I didn't show up to work. I didn't care. I spent hours upon my hardwood floor, waiting until my legs went numb beneath me - then my arms and my toes and my chest. Sometimes the guilt faded if I drank enough. Yet every time I closed my eyes, I felt my own breath short in that sin that was stealing my sanity. I saw that twisted neck and the mark where she had swung the glass cigarette tray into his temple. Looking in mirrors was seeing that dead body upon the floor again, red blood bubbling about the head and gray eyes glazed with thick death.
And I've spent a week high on adrenaline and whiskey trying to forget it.
I realize I have been staring at the picture in my hand. I know not how long I have held it. And in it, she is laughing, head back, hair stuck to her temples. Red on her lips, red lace on her hips. Red. The only color I saw with her.
And then I am shaking, my hands are sweating, my breath short. What I did has become a numb reality and what I will do is a certain stable truth. I cannot stand to be still any longer. I sit upon my kitchen floor, paper and pen spread before me. All I become is the blame and the terror and the words upon the page. Tears finally come - a dreadful release.
Loralai,
My love, you have wrecked me beyond the burdens of a lover, wrecked me beyond any pain that I can bear. You have robbed me of dignity, robbed me of my sanity.
You ruined first passion with your cherry-stained lips - stained red now of the blood on our hands. I loved you, I love you now. Yet you have stolen my peace in the wake of these red sins. Perhaps passion and hatred are not so distant relatives. I cannot live in the wake of such. I hope you can forgive me.
Red, my darling, is all that you were to me. You were cherries and passion; and everything holy, everything devious. You were decadent and indulging, relief and blame, love and death. I will try not to blame you as I go in the red of my passion, the red of your sin, the red of my last drops of blood. For all who wonder, hear it now: this is my confession. Red in my words, red on my hands, red in the air around me. Pray, you find these words in the mess of red that takes me.
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