Distressed Assets #7
So close, and her hair smells like jasmine and cigarettes.
Slight shoulders, soft skin; full mouth—ripe mouth—clear eyes even when clouded a little with alcohol.
A haze, to the edges of her: silk blouse, orange glow of the streetlights; glint of thin gold necklaces—glimpse of a small pendant, a signet medallion, nestled against her chest—against her collarbone, under her blouse, and a bit of heat breeze rustles the green silk so it winks like a jewel, and she’s watching Lili, words—question, invitation, potential—lingering in the air between them.
When Eva breathes out her drag, Lili can taste the smoke, soft against her own hair, her own mouth, watching Eva’s mouth,
with lips a bit wet from wine, the flash of her white teeth; and her heart thuds, with the rustle of her own cigarette burning
down, hot against her fingers. Eva shifts towards her, just slightly, just barely, and they’re close, very close, with the
rise of their chests, and it’s like Lili can see her pulse, and taste her perfume, catch the taste of wine left on her lips,
and her heart keeps racing faster, and faster—tick of a stopwatch, a push towards something, insistent and fervent: Someone,
she needs to find someone, like this girl, here, fresh mouth, new body, the possibility of temporary refuge, physical warmth,
and some pleasure that could feel so safe for just a moment. Eva glances down—a flicker of lashes, a moment lingering at Lili’s
mouth—and how easy it could be—this pretty girl, just her type, how fucking easy it could be. To move a bit closer, touch of skin, a gleam of
eyes; another person, another body, again and again, until she’s bleached him from her; until his name—his name—is gone—Aleksandr, she can hear her own gasp, Sasha, I—and Lili leans in, she leans in—
But—the flinch of another’s skin.
Eva’s lips brush hers, and Lili stiffens.
She’s not him.
No one is him.
“Sorry,” Lili whispers, pulling away—finding her feet, stumbling. She lets her cigarette drop into the gutter, Eva’s confused
face. “Sorry, I need to go—have a wonderful night, truly, I’m just—I can’t—”
Inside, past the push and pack of bodies, she finds her friends.
“I’m going to head back to the apartment,” she tells Amina, leaning into her ear, hoarse under the noise.
“Back?” Amina repeats, confused. Her lipstick marks the rim of her cocktail, burgundy red.
Lili manages to nod. “I’m just—” Breathe, Lili, breathe. “Tired, I’m really tired—just need to sleep—”
“Do you want me to walk you?” James frowns, a little drunk, but serious.
“No, no,” she insists, extricating herself from Amina’s arm wound around her waist, the concern on their faces. “I’m fine,
really—please, I want you to have fun—”
As she turns away, as she leaves, it’s metastasizing with vengeance: spite for herself, harsh with agitating anger, this acrid
nausea in her stomach, alongside the panic—how close she got, how fucking close she got again—because the sight of Amina’s sad confusion, Jamie’s serious concern, in a dark bar bright with laughter, Paris in the summer
in their twenties, she’d made them look like that, like they felt empty-handed, like they felt useless.
She’s never truly hated herself, before.
It’s there, now.
Within reach.
Stumbling feet, fumble of keys—she throws a hand out against the wall, trying to steady herself in the dark hall, kicks off
her shoes, finding her room, unsteady breathing. Her phone buzzes—texts from James: (1:34 a.m.) text us when you’re there (1:42 a.m.) lili? (1:44 a.m.) lili we can see ur location but text us (1:54 a.m.) we’re
coming home rn if u don’t answer. She taps out a response—(1:55 a.m.) sorry, im back—and slumps down on the floor, against her bed.
She rubs her neck, trying to soothe her rapid breathing. It is dead quiet in her room, but her rising panic is loud, a collapse
of heavy blood in her ears, trains rushing in the night, clocks ticking faster, and faster—
(1:56 a.m.) finally!!
(1:56 a.m.) ok we’ll be home in an hour or two
The blur of blue-white light, the glare of her screen. There’s the red notification symbol: double digits, untouched, all
the unread texts from him.
Unmoving, in the last forty-eight hours—since she was sitting by the East River, since Michael was speaking to her—and only
a few days ago, she’d packed her things, she’d left the loft, she’d gone out alone, she’d let an unfamiliar boy touch her—it’s
like a flinch of self-injury, remembering, and her fingers around her phone start to shake—but the day before that, only the day before that, she’d woken up in his bed, she’d been in his arms, and he’d held her, and he’d kissed her, and that grin, the warmth of
him with her—the bright wash of morning light, how she’d grasped for him, how he’d held her, before he left, but it was more
than that—more than that—and oh, would that he had kept her there, pinned her down, let her struggle against him, but not let her move, not let her move
until this fever had passed.
Lili clicks through to his messages.
(7/31, 12:31 a.m.) Landed. I’ll be home in a half hour, dropping Michael off first.
And then, the crash, its hit of impact: the calls and calls, when he’d gotten home, seen the absence of her.
(7/31, 1:01 a.m.) Where are you?
(7/31, 1:03 a.m.) Lili, answer the phone.
(7/31, 1:05 a.m.) Where are you? Are you alright?
(7/31, 1:06 a.m.) Jesus Christ, please pick up the phone.
(7/31, 1:06 a.m.) Where are you?
(7/31, 1:06 a.m.) Lili, what the fuck is this? What the hell is wrong?
(7/31, 1:34 a.m.) I’m outside your apartment.
(7/31, 1:34 a.m.) I can see your bedroom lights, please just let me up.
(7/31, 1:37 a.m.) Please just answer the fucking phone.
(7/31, 1:37 a.m.) I’m thinking the worst right now, are you safe? Are you hurt?
Spaces between texts, minutes between messages: when he’d stood in the street, when he’d called her name; when Jackie went
downstairs, when he’d begged her to let him up.
(7/31, 2:13 a.m.) You took everything, all of your things?
(7/31, 2:14 a.m.) Lili, what the fuck?
(7/31, 2:14 a.m.) I’m begging you. What the fuck happened?
(7/31, 2:15 a.m.) Tell me what’s wrong.
(7/31, 2:15 a.m.) Whatever’s wrong, please just tell me.
(7/31, 2:17 a.m.) Fuck, just answer me. I’m going crazy here.
(7/31, 2:19 a.m.) Lili, please.
Hand on her own throat, shaking—her shoulders tremble through the burden of her own breathing, the racket of her pulse pushing
higher and higher.
There are voicemails, too.
She clicks on the first one.
“Lili, where are you—”
A sob breaks past her teeth, so desperate and instant, at the sound of his voice. Lili clasps a hand over her mouth.
“—your keys? Talk to me, just pick up the phone. I can help, whatever happened—Christ, that’s what I’m fucking here for, what
else—” She hears concern, urgency, his discomfort with being utterly in the dark, and there, there—anger.
Lili lurches towards that.
Silk rustles as she draws her knees up, letting the hem of her dress pool around her hips. She clicks on another voicemail.
Her hand slips between her legs.
“—coming to Brooklyn. What the fuck is this, Lili? Are you alright—”
She isn’t wet. Her fingers are clumsy—drunk, desperate—but she imagines his hand over hers, as the soft fabric of her underwear
gives against her wrist, as a dull burn of pleasure starts to glow.
“—fucking talk to me—”
A sound—half-moan, half-sob—cracks in her throat. Her head tips back, searching out a hard, low ache inside of her, an injury of want.
“—don’t freeze me out like this—”
Like she is trying to find old bruises, like she’s trying to scratch open scars—body memories of this man, a wound she can
dig her fingers into, push deeper into her own skin and muscle. Enduring, something she can’t lose of him. Him, this man who
touched her so acutely she can remember the exact way her gasps felt, rasping out of her throat, under his hands.
“—Jesus Christ, do you have any idea what’s going through my head right now? Fucking tell me you’re safe—”
If she touched herself deep enough, hard enough, would it be like him? Are there traces of him in her body that she could
grasp at, chase after, still find?
Are there remnants of how she’d asked him to hurt her?
And would he hurt her still?
She tries to imagine it now: a weight at her neck, pressure against her windpipe. Anger, heated, and closed to her—hurt forced
into her, again and again—something that would bruise, that would bleed—
Is this all you want from me?
Her phone clatters to the floor as her hand keeps moving.
This moan, an ache in her skin—like she’s searching for an entry wound, praying there isn’t an exit wound: that the bullet
of him remains lodged in her, that these shadows of his grip, lingering heaviness, are hers to hold onto—that the heat of
his body is still inside of her, cleansing, in how he could make her feel like nothing, but a nothing he wanted—
Is this what you deserve, Lili?
Her bare heel slips against the wooden floor, as she chokes on a sudden, panicked sob.
“Please,” she gasps, a beg caught in her throat. Her fingers slip lower, slip faster as she tries to push back on tears, bite
back her panicking, and it feels like the only thing she knows how to do, how she can make body-pleasure bloom on this acrid
wash of pain, while her mind rots, her heart rots, her entire self rots in some darkness she swallowed whole.
Her chest craters under the rapid race of her breathing, under the pressure of things she couldn’t—didn’t—let herself have, things she wanted—wants, wants, wants, a beat inside of her that tattoos like a bruise, that is not healing; and her body, shaking, like a fever is trying to leave it, like a fever is finding a home in her, taking up the space of what she tore out of her.
Please—please—
How could she have done this? To him, to her, to them.
It’s so bitter in her body, the taste of her own grief, how humiliating the warmth of her own shame can be, how far and deep
this pain can cut—a loss she thought she was avoiding, and she thought it’d be easier, that it’d hurt less: to maim herself