“There she lay, and the full moon of that night had risen over the wall of the court and its light fell upon her as she lay upon the bed. She lay naked for coolness and her hands were flung out and one lay curling and half open upon the edge of the bed.

But [he] did not wait. Although he saw how fair she was and fair as an image of alabaster in the moonlight, and underneath his rage he knew there was a pain in him worse than death, he did not stay. For the moment he remembered willfully how she had tricked him and how she would have betrayed him, and in this strength he lifted up his sword and he drove it down smoothly and cleanly into her throat, upturned as her head hung over the pillow. He twisted it in sharply once, and then he brought it out and wiped it on the silken coverlid.

There came a single sound from her lips but the blood choked it so he did not know what she said and she did not move except that the instant his sword was in her throat, her arms and legs flew up and her eyes burst open.”

- Excerpt from Sons by Pearl S. Buck

[Part 1]

She was still naked when she said it. Always naked. And it reminded him how he couldn’t understand how something as basic as nudity had acceptable parts and unacceptable parts, corners and crevices that should or shouldn’t be covered. Personally, he was more visually put-off by feet than he was by the average set of genitalia.

But how unflattering people would find her. Her lack of clothes, her breasts that felt so full in his hands even though when he looked at them from where he was they weren’t quite that large. Her belly was flat enough for clothing’s sake, but as it rose and fell with her breath he saw its soft roundness that curved above the ideal horizon of her contours. Hips wide, thighs full, shoulders broad and a mouth that was always curved in suggestive sneer. Her nose looked wider from this angle, and the white width of her flesh against his navy sheets made him feel almost soiled and dark in his clothing.

“That’s wishful thinking.” He answered finally. Her makeup was gone, and her hair danced in uncoordinated tangles past her shoulders, “How can you know all the things you’ve ever felt since you were born?”

She reached up to scratch the back of her head, and when she brought her arm back down he saw the mark on her palm again. Since the night he met her, when he saw it dark and illegible in the smokey darkness of his backseat, whenever he saw it after that he saw not what it was but what he made it. An angry red, singed circle of tainted flesh. It looked like it hurt. It comforted him to see it. Comforted him to see how she never even seemed to notice. Comforted him to know that he would never know what it actually was before he ruined it.

Can’t you get that that’s what wrong with me? He almost asked her so many times. When I hurt you, you don’t see it. You don’t see how I cause you pain. You see it as you would see a passing car, or a windowpane, or dishes in the sink or a stray cat on the side walk. You see it as ordinary. You see your pain as ordinary.

“Don’t be silly.” She replied, “I think I would remember being burned.”

She glanced at her palm, and for a second he thought she’d finally see it, finally notice the seared wound in her palm that had never left her since that night, that had never healed since he did it. He braced himself for her face to crumble, for her to realize how much it hurt, for her to demand from him why he had done that to her.

But just as easily as she glanced at it, she glanced at something else.

Almost all the time he’d known her, his hands were never shy to the white, curved flesh underneath her clothes.

The memory was glazed heavily with smoke and alcohol, but he still remembered the stillness of the Bridgeport road right beside the closed gates of the park on the first night they had met. He remembered stopping the car and leaping with her into the backseat, his palms sliding eagerly over her hips, clenching onto her ass before sliding up and scrunching up her shirt. He remembered moving over her, her shoulder blades pressed up against his chest and her stomach on the backseat while his hands gripped her wide, smooth thighs. He remembered his chin hooked over her shoulder, his jacket still on, his pants shoved down just enough as his hips moved nimbly against hers and he panted and whispered sweet, dirty nothings into her ear. He remembered that smooth, tight slide that made his eyes flutter with bliss, and the repeated clinking of his undone belt that was synchronized with his plunges. 

But even right now, right this second as their bodies clamored onto the bed and tugged each other into nakedness, the one thing he remembered most clearly about that first night was when they were done, when they had finally peeled off of each other, sat up on the seat and clumsily reassembled themselves. She had leaned her head against his shoulder, sighing with a deep satisfaction while he dug out from his jacket a crumbled, half-full pack of cigarettes and lit one up with a cool drag. He noticed her palm, turned upwards as her hand rested idly on his thigh, bore a strange dark mark that he couldn’t quite make out in the murky darkness. And it was an odd thing, being able to freely fuck some girl whose name he could barely pronounce but not feeling it right or perhaps too invasive to ask what it was, what it meant or why she had it. 

Her fingers curled slightly inwards, almost as to further beckon his curiosity, and before he knew it he was twisting his lit cigarette right into the mark on her broad, stiff palm. There was the loud hiss of the hot ash singeing her cool flesh, and it nearly made his eyes roll with some bizarre relief it gave to him. She sighed again, whether satisfied or passive he couldn’t tell, but she was still calm against his shoulder, breathing softly and easily.

That was when he realized not only what was wrong, but what was wrong with him.

There was no fun in doing anything in this horrendous heat, or at least that’s what she was bitterly thinking while her face was basically being mushed into the plush of the worn couch cushion. Not that she had much say in it when – ow, okay, that last move caused this strange sound to come out of her throat, something between a cough and a squawk, and it was enough to momentarily stop the low stream of grunts that were emitting from his throat in some bizarre, occasional synchronization with his sweaty hips.

“What the fuck was that?” He managed to sputter against her ear, his greasy hair tickling the skin on the back of her neck. As shocked as his voice sounded, it didn’t stop his his hips from moving.

Just like I promised; based on a really weird dream I had

She felt nearly blind as Brown-Eyes dragged her through the hallway and into her bedroom, a room that she had never been in before. She couldn’t help but feel strangely nervous; not that she didn’t want this, not that she hadn’t wanted it since the first time she had seen Brown-Eyes take the stage, swallow it whole and spit it back to the crowd in neon hazes, but it was also the first time anyone would have seen her truly unfolded.

Brown-Eyes didn’t seem concerned at all, no. Not when she slammed the door locked behind them, not when she shoved her into a big, old, cushioned recliner that smelled like cigarettes and coconut shampoo, not when she fell to her knees in front of her, looking up at her with those big brown eyes that looked completely black in the dense darkness of the room.

 “I, I want …” said Brown-Eyes loudly, but still so hoarsely it sounded like a whisper, “I want to taste you.”

She shuddered, like Brown-Eyes always made her shudder, her bottom lip hanging slightly open and her chest heaving with the big breaths she was taking. Her torso was still taped, her breasts screaming for freedom with her gushing breaths, and it was almost enough to convince her to stop. She was seconds away from pushing Brown-Eyes away, leaving the room and running to her bed so she could go to sleep, tight and alone with her flattened breasts and tattooed arms, with her womanhood still a secret between her legs

But Brown-Eyes was already undoing the buckle of her belt, the zipper of her jeans, and coaxing them down with her underwear, skimming her soft, white legs and pulling them smoothly past her ankles.

Brown-Eyes looked up at her; a red, shiny smile that sliced her pale face in half as she trailed her hands in between her thighs, spreading them gently, exposing the soft, trembling evidence of who she really was to the hot, stale air of the dark room.

 ”I …” she felt the whisper escape her, sounding scared and pleading all at the same time.

 “I’ve got you, I’ve got you, …” Brown-Eyes said quickly, slowly nudging herself between her legs, leaning down and letting her mouth murmur kisses against her inner thigh, her cheek pressed against that moist heat of her honest sex.

 “Fuck, fuck, I …” her hands were clenching the handles of the seat, and Brown-Eyes hadn’t even done anything yet and already she felt the need to bring her hands down and nestle her ink-stained hands and fingers into Brown-Eyes’ dark head of hair.

Brown-Eyes moaned softly into her skin, finally turning her face so that her mouth grazed the silky, wet mound. Her tongue escaped her lips slowly, digging gently between the folds of skin, tasting the heat and the syrupy moisture, flickering against her nerves teasingly. She shuddered and gasped; it had been so long since she had been touched like this, so long since anyone had been this way with her that she didn’t even know what to do with herself.

It was as if she was having this done to her for the first time all over again.

Finally, Brown-Eyes pushed her face fully in, her hands finding refuge on her hips, her thumbs rubbing circles into her stout hip bones as she sucked her clit into her mouth.

She leaned her head back, exposing her white neck to the darkness of the room, whimpering in shudders as Brown-Eyes dug herself into her, her tongue swirling inside her, her chin grazing against the start of her ass, her mouth just moving in and with her. It was weirdly intimate, yet still so distant, because she couldn’t see her face - only now was her vision starting to absorb the contents of the room - but she could definitely see, and more so feel, what Brown-Eyes was doing. 

Her tongue was pulsing right against her nerves, right against everything that screamed “yes, yes, more, fuck, yes, forever, yes,” and when Brown-Eyes let out a soft slur it vibrated inside of her and she had to tighten her fingers, let the loose hairs ensnare her knuckles. She had to hold on and never let go.

She could never, ever let Brown-Eyes go.

The roar of the venue was still raging against the walls. He was almost convinced that the voices themselves were strong enough to reach up and pull the ceiling down, suck the structure within itself so that the pipes and the bricks could join the chaos of the crowd.

But then, that was the beauty of rock n’ roll, wasn’t it? There wasn’t a limit to how loud the sound or how bruising the destruction; there wasn’t any punishment for the past of the future, no care for the discarded assignments or the tears still drying on the pillowcases - it was all about the moment. Right now, no one knew your name, or your purpose. The only knowledge you have of those surrounding you is that you all came here for the same, unified reason.

The noise.

Gazing into the crowd from beneath the baking stage lights, he saw the swirling, swollen mass of skin and heat and sweat; all lifting their voices to the same melody, the same words. The image never ceased to amaze him, so much that he almost forgot he was singing with them - that he was leading this giant orchestra of sound, that he was the conductor of their excitement. It was nearly heartbreaking to know that these moments were never forever, nor did they even leave a breath of what they meant. When an architect finishes his plan, he has the building that forever reminds the world of his sketches. When an artist finishes a painting, he has the work that catches the eye of the viewer, the product of his painstaking struggle. But these kids would go home with wet, crumpled ticket stubs, maybe a t-shirt or two. It wouldn’t matter what keepsakes they brought home, because the night would be over. The noise would be gone.

It would be silent.

She was just leaning back to see Gee’s expression as she responded when she realized the guy beside Gee was glaring at her, his eyes hazey with liquor, but still focused enough to show his annoyance, “Of course your dykey ass would be here even when those cocksuckers are on the stage!” His comment caused his buddies to laugh, and Frankie forgot all about Gee’s sweet atmosphere, and maybe even Gee’s really hot girlfriend, because before she knew it she had stomped over and, with the beer bottle still clenched in her fist, punched the guy right in the dead center of his face, feeling the satisfied crunch of his nose beneath her smooth, tattooed knuckles.

She then remembered what was written on her knuckles to begin with, and her drunken amusement was starting to coincide with her anger, and she smiled, “Trick or treat, motherfucker - and there’s more where that came from.”

The second time she woke up, she was stricken by how cold she was. The goosebumps riding the contours of her skin felt like icicles trying to trickle out from her pores. Her skin was so sensitive, and this bitter cold was trying to pull it from her pained nerves, and as she shivered all she could do was wonder why she was in so much discomfort.

The room was black. She wanted to sit up, look around, run away - something! - but she felt like if she sat up she’d vomit (again). Her stomach was tumbling, whether it was from heaviness or hunger she couldn’t tell, and it was confusing how full her belly felt in contrast to how much her irritated throat made her want to swallow something.

As she laid there on what seemed to be a cot, trembling almost spastically. she heard some sort of movement from the other side of the room. Her eyes were starting to adjust to the darkness, and just as she was starting to make out the dim contents of the room she felt an approaching presence by her side.

She forced herself to restrict her instinct to sit up, lash out, scream and defend herself for the sake of her sore, aching body. But the presence seemed warm, careful and collected. She felt a warm, coarse hand on her arm, and though she wanted to push it away, the chill of her skin still leaned into the foreign touch, and she heard a soft sigh from above her.

“It’s gonna be okay.” She heard a voice whisper, soft and hoarse with sleep. She wanted to believe it. Wanted to reach into the warm words and curl within them, heat herself up and never be cold again.

There was this slow warmth that started to spread up her body from her feet, and the sudden relief to her frigid skin pulled her back into sleep.

As if on cue, the lights - or, what lights there even were, anyways - went down, and the crowd roared, cheering the end of their tiring waiting period. This time she bothered to turn in her seat a bit, watch the stage expectantly, and was surprised to see quite a colorful ensemble strut across it. She had been used to the long greasy-haired drones, bulky bearded bodies with baggy Slayer t-shirts - this group was remarkably different. She couldn’t help but smile at the lead singer’s audacity to strut the stage in tight, fuchsia clothing, his hair springing upwards in bright, sharp strokes. But it was when she saw her that she decided that there was no fucking way this band could possibly suck.

She stomped onto the stage in worn, black boots, a plaid skirt rippling against her full creamy thighs, a tight, black studded and pinned vest stretched across her broad torso. Her bass guitar seemed inseparable from her venomous form, her thick black hair pulled into bitchy long pigtails, and her eyes were wide and wild, her lips a red slash across her white, gorgeous face. She strummed her coarse looking fingers against the bass strings, triggering the rest of the band to kick into this hypnotic, heavy synth-like rock-out jam, and she wasn’t even on the stage for a minute before she was kicking across her side of it, whipping her hair around and making rude faces at the crowd.

“I think I’m in love.” Frankie stated, blunt and unashamed.