Breathe

He looked at me.

My heart skipped a beat, an embarrassing flush swept up my neck, breaking into a lip-top sweat. I looked down, but couldn’t resist the urge to glance up again, and hold his gaze. Those eyes. 

I kept walking forward by reflex rather than decision. My knees suddenly wobbly like a toddler. My feet leaden things. No one in that city street noticed us, locked in our visual embrace. Steaming magnets drawn closer, right out there in public, losing every thought but the thought of him. Of her. Closer.

No one would notice two people, just walking down the road like every single day. So normal.

My eyes were wider than they should be, my hands clenched so tightly my nails hurt my palms. Reminding me. Pain.

A tear oozed escape and wandered through a bed of little wrinkles, and I blinked. Just once. And he was still there looking. “Breathe” I actually said that, and a passing person turned their head, as I inhaled with little sharp steps where a lungful should have been.

I thought I could breathe. I thought, misguided, that I could breathe.

“Breathe” he whispered “Breathe baby, I don’t wanna lose you now that I’ve got you…” and he tightened his grip. A drip of sweat plonked off his forehead, onto my lip. “I’m listening.” I zoned. One. Two. Three. Nine. Ten. A moment of lost consciousness. Just a moment. And a cold lungful.

“Yes baby! Breathe!” he was so aroused. I deserved an Oscar. My God I could act. My life depended on it. I slowly opened my eyes, soaked with tears, and they locked with his – beautiful, honey brown, wide, embraced by laugh-lines; you’d never in a million years know. I smiled, my lips opening to a rounded “whooo”. That was right. Correct response. “Yes…” and he smashed his body inside mine and I just did what I had to do to see tomorrow. “MY baby. MY beautiful. Ahhh!” And when he was done he held me so gently. And stroked my neck past the bruises and hot red welts of the evening, and playfully poked the little dent where my clavicles join. Hard. But I refused to cough. Or choke. Or be less desirable. Because that handsome thing, that tall, alpha man. Was all mine.

As he slept, sated and sweaty, I stared away. The cold industrial-style loft apartment felt smaller and more comfortable in the darkness. I thought through every moment. The past year had been amazing, mindblowing highs and party central. The coke, the laughs, the limitlessness of it all. And then the pain.

When was it he discovered that accidental hair pull during sex, where I winced, really made it all so hot? “Alraaaaaght!” I yelled in a buzzfield of fabulous wine and some pill I’d ingested. “Oh you like that, girl? …I like that…” And he did like it. When the chemicals had waned and the buzzing no longer buzzed, his decision that moment, changed everything.

And the pain and fear and expectation of him holding my throat. Hard. Of watching me dissolve into almost oblivion, was what excited him the most. I lay in the darkness and worked out how I could control my life again. And breathe.

I sipped my coffee, slowly absorbing the morning’s caffeine, the warmth of the sun on my back and the rich liquid. I smiled at him across the kitchen island. He fairly beamed. “You know hunny” I drawled “I have an idea”. I tilted my head and smirked suggestively. “Oh? Do you now?”

I dressed him carefully, kissing his skin here and there, in his best suit, starched white business shirt, tailored charcoal jacket, Japanese silk tie. He looked immaculate and he knew it. And he looked all the better because he was so well dressed, but only from the waist up. “Now, that’s how I like you to look…” I whispered. “Come” and I lay him on the floor on the rich red Persian carpet. I looked at him and drank in the visual moment.

“My turn…baby”. He gasped and blew out a whistle of anticipation. I climbed onto his body, ready. I leaned forward slowly. Blinked. Now was the time. I slipped the pill into his mouth and licked my lips. He said “what’s happening?” happily as the dizzy softness overwhelmed him. 

Nice tie. 

I pulled it tighter. He reflexed hard, nearly tossing me away. But by this time I was quite determined, and the pill had worked. I pulled again, his face dark red. I took a serving spoon and twirled the tie around it, twisting, a little more; a little more. Until it was done. I cried and whooped and came all at the same time. It was over. He was dead. And I was free.

All day I lay on the floor next to his body. My mind was free but my self didn’t know what to do next. When it was dark I pulled and rolled him, wrapped in the carpet, out onto the warehouse firestairs, and with a kick, into the dumpster in our laneway. “Rubbish” I said, confirming his status, and convincing myself and anyone who could hear, that I was just throwing away some trash.

I love a long cross-country drive, and it was time for a new life in a new place. I drove until I felt safe again. I drove until I could breathe without wondering what was next. I never listened to the radio reports, or the TV news. I was free and I needed to stay that way. I cut my hair short, it was light and could never be gripped to hold me down. I ate well and walked a lot and felt fit.

City life suited my need for anonymity and inclusion. My customer call centre job let me chat with all kinds of people and made me happy and fulfilled. I didn’t need a partner just now, I had friends from work who accepted me for who I said I was and that was just fine. “Anyone for a coffee?” I called across the studio “Ooo yar… flat white thanks!” I skipped downstairs into the sunshine and the few blocks to our favourite café. Breathing in the lovely autumn air, life was good. Head high. Future bright.

As I strolled along the street I stared up to the gargoyles and fancy stonework on top of the Victorian buildings, enjoying their contrast with the glass skyscrapers. I hoped the coffee shop had fresh muffins today.

And then I saw him. He looked right at me. And he smiled.