Stars

“You have flaws…and I could make stars of them.”

Mac slid a cigarette from a box on the nightstand. The torn cellophane hung like a hangnail and gleamed in the scar of light that peeked through the half closed door.

“Huh?” He said.

“On your back,” Beth said, “here, a full flay of them, flecked and scattered.”

He twisted around and lay on his back and put the cigarette between his lips and flicked his thumb against the head of the match not once, not twice, but thrice before a fire crackled to life from the sulfur. He lit the edge of his cigarette, and waved the match through the air till it died.

“They’re called moles,” he said.

“I prefer to call them flaws.”

“Of course you would,” he said.

“What did they say again?” she asked. She grabbed his arm and nuzzled against it, and in the scant light, he saw that she was looking at the ceiling.

“I’ve told you once already.”

“But I like hearing it.”

He closed his eyes for a moment and only saw more darkness and nothing. He leaned his neck back. Something cracked. When he opened his eyes, he saw smoke in the faint light, filtered like old black and white movies in a cinema.

In the corner of his gaze, he saw the white, soft, hue of her eyes watching his face.

“They were just old. That’s all. Old and senile. Probably sick.”

“What did they say?”

“Homeless.”

“Tell me what they said,” she bit every word like they were made from apples.

Mac shrugged, “they told me…they told me that once I got married and Duncan died, I would be the richest man in the world.”

She smiled, “and what did they call you?” Her voice was far away and distant, dying fires on hilltops.

He took the cigarette out of his mouth and he glared at the flaming end. He thought of dancing in the rain. Outside, it was raining. He couldn’t hear it, so it had to be faint.

But he could smell it above the nicotine.

“They couldn’t even look me in the eyes,” he said, “they…they groveled and they crawled. It was like they were scared of me.”

The tip of her tongue poked out and ran along her teeth, “how did it feel?”

“It was cold.”

“No, no, the way that they looked at you. How did that feel?” Her fingers splayed on his chest, and then they hooked, and her nails dug into his skin. He winced and jammed the cigarette into his lips again and breathed. When she let go, there were little red crescent moons in his flesh.

Silence swelled in the room, thick and blockish.

She pushed off him and sat up, hand still pressed to his chest. With her other hand, she wiped the hair from her face. She leaned forward and the scar of light illuminated her corpse white skin.

He noticed then that she didn’t have any marks on her, not a freckle, mole or wrinkle. Her spine stuck out like a thick, grooved snake beneath her flesh. When she breathed, her shoulder blades looked like large bat wings.

She cocked her head to the side. The artery in her throat was a root.

“What if you could have them? The stars?”

“Can’t you do that?” He asked, “buy a star or something? And they saddle it up with your name and give you a certificate?”

“No, no, I mean really own a star. That piece of paper doesn’t mean anything, what if you could reach up, grab it and pull it down and show it to someone.”

“That would kill them.”

“I know.”

“I know you know. Trust me.”

“Did you see it in them? In their eyes? The stars?”

“They were just eyes.”

“But they were scared of you, they were looking up at you…like you were the heavens themselves,” her fingers dug again and the pain burned and Mac finally gave in and sat up, releasing the pressure.

He looked at the far wall as he tried to calm his breathing. She wasn’t looking at him. He thought. He didn’t know where she was looking.

The wall was pale, like her back, but it had a crack in it. There was also a chip in the paint. The paint was old and wrinkled. He thought it was because of water damage. The landlord had never told him about water damage.

He smoked some more, and then he got out of bed.

“Do you want something to drink? Cause I want something to drink,” he didn’t wait for an answer, and he walked out of the room. He could feel her eyes on him.

He poured half a glass of whiskey and then he topped it off with coke. He thought about getting ice from the freezer, but then he decided that he didn’t want to keep his back to her. He turned and he looked at the bedroom door.

It was a slot of shadow and nothing like starless nights.

He walked back in, sipping from his glass.

She was up on her knees this time, hands gently pressed to the sheets and eyes dull and gray and white and shimmering. The whiskey fell down his throat like lead.

“How do you think he dies?”

“Duncan? I don’t know.”

“They didn’t say anything?”

“No,” he stabbed the cigarette into the ashtray on the bedside table till it delicately and silently shattered into ash.

He got back into the bed, drank nearly half of his glass and decided he wanted another cigarette, slipping it from the box with the winking cellophane.

He grabbed a match.

“But why wouldn’t they tell you?”

He shrugged, “they’re probably lying. They were homeless and sick. Who knows what drugs they were doing.”

“Then how did they know about Duncan? How did they know about…” her hand moved excitedly, like she was flicking away some idea that she didn’t want to discuss.

He rolled his eyes, flicked at the match, brought forth a flame and lit his cigarette, breathed in and drank some more. Things were getting a bit softer now.

It was good.

“Probably read about him in the paper. They get those, you know, they blow around in the wind.”

“But then how did they know that you knew him?”

“Maybe they saw me leaving his office.”

Beth paused. She slowly turned around and looked at him and her eyes were corpse-like. Her mouth was a deep red and her teeth were little and sharp.

“They feared you…or maybe they feared us…they knew what you would have to do.”

“What?” he asked, “what do I have to do?”

She shrugged, slithering close to him.

“You have to be able to make your own fate, right?”

“Right…”

“And if Duncan has to die…maybe you have to do it.”

Mac suddenly snorted, and the alcohol and coke splashed up his face and doused his cigarette. A half strangled, half nervous laugh rattled out of his mouth.

She slapped him, short sharp, a clap of flesh against flesh that echoed like a gunshot. His glass fell from his hand and bounced off the thin carpet, glass chipping off the base. Whiskey and coke spilled across the floor.

She grabbed him by the jaw and her face pulled close to his and she spoke in a hushed whisper. Her lower body crawled up his till she sat on his chest, pushing her weight down on him, suffocating him.

Her other hand bit into his flesh again, digging in crescent moons.

“I could make stars from them,” she whispered, “all of the flaws you have…stars…such wonderful stars…”