French Quarter

In a dark room, a young woman, nude, reached behind her head to plait her curly brunette hair into a short braid. She was looking out the window of a hotel room, her shoulder leaning against its heavy satin drape. Outside, rain drops caught the reds, greens, whites, blues of the French Quarter below. Lightning shocked her. For a second, her body glowed, shadows furnished the room. She paused, fingers now quiet at the back of her head, knotted in her thick brown hair. Thunder slapped the Mississippi. Again, she jumped.

She turned away from the window and padded across the deep carpet to flick on a floor lamp. The room was in chaos. The contents of her suitcase were scattered about the dresser. Her wet bath towel hung on the television set. A book lay face down, its back broken. Her laptop lay on the floor. She winced and looked down. She was standing on broken glass. She sat on the dresser's chair and carefully pulled a small shard from the ball of her foot. She looked up from her fooot to the bed in front of her.

Torn and knotted bedclothes partially concealed the nude body of a young blonde, her legs sprawled, a beer bottle's neck inserted in her vagina, her public hair bushing about it. Blood streaked the body twined by sheets, a pillow under her back, the pillow on the floor.

The brunette turned on her chair toward the mirror. Her fingers gently touched a scratch on her cheek. She looked at their tips. They were bloody. She looked at her forearm, at a cut beneath the delicate dark hairs hazing it. This was a bite. I remember the bite. She stood to examine her whole body,turning to the right and left, looking over her clawed shoulder at her clawed back and buttocks. She said, "Huh." She touched her vagina. She winced and said, "Wow."

Again, thunder exploded. She turned off the light and climbed into the bed on the window side. She turned toward the other woman. She placed the flat of her hand on the other's breast. She's alive. Lightning illuminated the blonde's wounded face. She's beautiful She leaned over the other and gently kissed her lips. My enemy. She reached down the length of the warm body, her own body lightly brushing it at shoulder, hip, thigh, and bracing her shoulder upon it as she slowly extracted the beer bottle. She raised the beer bottle toward the window. She laughed, her face suddenly young, luminous. "There's still beer in here!" She lifted the bottle in a sketchy toast to the blonde and raised it to her lips, licked the neck slowly, tipped it up and drank. Lightning. She tossed the bottle on the rug, pulled the covers over herself and looked toward the window, sprinkled by shattered light. Look at those reds. Rubies. Blood. Our blood. Thunder growled far down the Mississippi. She closed her eyes. I love storms. She sighed.