Just Let Me Breathe

      He’d heard her through the kitchen, down the hallway, up the stairs. It was a big place, with enough space that even with the furniture and paintings, rugs that he had no concern or care for in deciding that would leave a light echo. It was a check signed off. It was erotic when in the mood. 

       Problem here and now his mood was shifting, a jumbled mess of uncertainty and a thick need to sate whatever it was that was building deep down. The liquor helped if only slightly to curve that pull to walk out that door once again. When she spoke—or more, when she held her own, making a familiar joke back planning for a back and forth that dual thrill was playing on his own tongue. Instead washing it down with the brown liquor Malcolm found himself step ahead of step up the stairs where he’d told her to go. Neck of the bottle playing between warm fingers that felt clammy and cold all the same, mounting dread and arousal that acted like bile unable to make an exit until she was in full sight again. 

        “Yeah…” Malcolm started, tighter his grip got on the bottle. His eyes didn’t divert, he couldn’t see every curve or marks he’d spent so long memorizing not by choice but because Hannah worked her way into his psyche to begin with so fast and easily the physical was an experiment, an unloading that soon became his. Only his. He’d slowed his breathing, swigged at what pushed down those lingering thoughts that made her anything more than a body with blonde hair and tits he’d like come all over. The heels were a nice touch and the toe of his shoes made an effort in noticing, “I am…” using the bottles base to touch between her legs slowly, pushing inward so there was pressure on the very place they’d discussed collecting. Looking down on her now, it was a tug-of-war inside; part of him wanting to laugh, sinister kind of laugh where he felt as if he was putting her in a place that she no longer was the one resisting force that held a pass, the other wanting to walk away. Erase the image of her like this. “So how much?” he asked. The chill of the room perking her breasts in the dark, though he’d bet it was the bottle and his own desire to take. To make feel small. To amount to more than what it was she once meant to him at all, “For more. How much do you want? How much do you think your worth?” 

Her gaze sharpened, not with malice or surprise or hurt, but with the focus. Did Malcolm think that he’d throw her with that comment? Did he view her as a lost lamb unkwingly stumbling into the wolf’s den? There were no soft fluffly fantasies in Hannah’s head. She did not expect emotions, not tender touch or passionate kisses. The only thing he’d give her tonight was rough, detached sex, using her body to try and prove something to both of them. She was no lamb, and she’d made an educated choice. Two years ago she’d been in love with a man who was both cruel and kind. She’d loved both side of him, and while she had her favorite, Hannah was hungry enough to want to feast on his dark side too.

Though, as the cool bottle pressed against heated flesh and Malcolm coldly propositioned her like she was a prostitute, Hannah felt a stab of worry that she wasn’t even going to get the sharp edged taste of him that she’d come for. ‘No back and forth. Just you and me.’ That’s what he’d said in the restaurant but now here he was, still talking, starting the same old back and forth banter that was all talk and no show. It felt like he was stalling, trying to push her to be the one to pull the plug. Normally when Hannah got a gut instinct read on one of his unspoken wants, she bent over backwards to take care of it..of him. Not this time though, no she wasn’t going to lose this game of chicken to him. If he didn’t want to fuck her because he was scared of the consequences then he was going to have to end this himself. She was not going to spoon feed him an easy way out. In this moment, he seemed to have truly forgotten who she was. He was the stumbling lamb that didn’t know what he’d gotten himself into.

(via poetsloveher)

      He should’ve been expecting this reaction, her response to follow him out into the cold, not too far to his loft where the elevator ride would surly be twenty seconds of solid wanting to gouge eyes out, his and hers. A good few seconds where the bulge in his crotch would be exposed and the fact she wasn’t just another random coked out mannequin might just delay the process altogether.  But he wasn’t expecting it at all, He expected to part ways, be left with the newly formed image of her on knee’s in that chinese place sucking the way he liked with a muted china man off to the side yelling as if he had any control, releasing onto the sculpture off to the side of the entrance he had practically never seen before. “Yeah well, people change. It had to have taken you a bottle at least  to consider taking that guys’ balls in your mouth. Flossing with those hairs he missed during his last bareback waxing experience.” 

     Watching her for a moment as she buttoned her coat, spouted confidence and started on with him as if it was all planned, how it was supposed to be. The hard part was looking her in the eye; he couldn’t quite register the pain he previously felt before, the one thing he’d sought out to squish. To make his own and to leave as soon as he could. Instead here she was, pushing past the door behind him—like it was old times. Except it wasn’t  and it could never be. With each step he lead, the end wasn’t more than a block away and gashes of what he was about to feel again surplussed like a tidal wave in his groin, an anxious pit ricocheted throughout his now filled stomach, making him feel sick to the point of almost vomiting when he found himself typing in the keypads number, stepping forward imagining turning to feel the heat beneath her winter coat along her neck, instead adjusting himself out of sight. Feeling his firmness. 

     It didn’t occur to him that she’d been her before, one time? Maybe twice…before they started anything. It was as if stepping into something entirely new. That strange sensation of mixed familiarity and the unknown. They reached the actual doorway, opening it with a finger print, (long gone were the days of keys), “Beds up there.” He acknowledged her demand, not jumping at it because why give her that satisfaction, instead going straight for the liquor. Letting her find her own way. Also he needed to deflate himself, too many instances were posing an attempt. How badly did he want to knock her out of the obvious, take her against that doorway, feel the strands of her hair wrapped around his knuckles as she tongued his cracks. To take her how he knew she liked, how she didn’t. Where she didn’t need the booze, he did. He wasn’t expecting her. He wasn’t expecting to be tossed back into her balls deep, balls at all. That imaginary version did just fine for him. This was hard. This was what needed a coating and exercise in stepping back and away any way he knew how. “I better not see you outside pulling any uh bombs attached Arab shit or envelopes with chopped off clits or love letters at my door…now that you know where I am.” 

She was more than surprised that they made it all the way inside the house. No quickie in the elevator, no banter that turned sour and sent one or both of them running. Was the silence because they both wanted this so badly or was it because they were both terrified to the point of complete incapability to do anything beyond move on autopilot? In the end it didn’t matter, because there she was standing in his home. Yes...it was familiar...she’d been here before, twice. Probably could have found her way back her a year ago if she’d really wanted to. She’d wanted to...thought about it once or twice, but he’d taken everything else away and all she had left to give him was the space he’d asked for. And so she hadn’t. Just like when he moved away, directed her towards the bed and went for wherever she assumed he kept the liquor. Hannah didn’t follow, she gave him his space.

He was chased with a sharp cackle. “Chopped off clits? Whose? Why do you think I’d shower you with clits, I’m sure you’re already swimming in those on your own.”

White knuckled grip on the rail as she headed upstairs to find the bed.  Her confidence was slowly seeping out of her pores. Maybe he’d chicken out, maybe he’d wait for her to pass out and send her home, maybe he’d have a drink and then kick her out because this was bound to be more complex than either of them wanted to be. Some part of Hannah wanted it to be on him though. He would have to either come fuck her or tell her to get out. She wasn’t leaving till he made a move, some kind of move.

It feels like she blinks and then she’s staring at the bed, not quite sure what to do. Malcolm had been very firm about claiming this space as his own and she didn’t want to overstep the small invite she’d received. This bed was not hers to stretch out in and get comfortable. He would not come in here and undress her slowly. Hannah expected no intimacy, and as she reached behind to unzip her dress, she tried to take a moment to ask herself what it was she did want. Closure? Maybe. Or maybe she just wouldn’t the ache to be fresh again. Maybe Malcolm was a slightly clotted wound and she wanted a fresh bleed, because the pain was what kept him close, missing him was how she forced him to remain a part of her. Maybe that’s what he wanted out of this too.

Dress pooled and then kicked to the side, she undoes her bra and lets it fall, runs hands down skin that has not been touched in two years. Skin that was his once and is aching to be so again, even if only for a moment. Hannah sat on the very edge of the bed, carefully balanced, clad only in her panties and shoes. He’d like that. Maybe seconds have passed, maybe minutes or hours or days. But it’s okay. She’s still breathing in and out so she must be okay, right?

       It felt like he’d played this game countless times, the sitting. The waiting. Where his typical nature to jump, to scream, to bash, to jolt anything else this is where they were. Again she surprised but only in the ways two people strained would do. Defiance. That or…and this was a kick, defiance or she was resigning completely. 

     He could take in her features—and he did. Waited for something, some glitch. Mostly he waited for the outburst. When there was clearly not one to be had Malcolm’s attention wavered. He held his breath without knowing and the exhale was hardened by the need to breathe at all. Escaping instead was a cough, instinct had him covering his mouth. When she began playing with the ketchup he thought in that very moment about standing up and walking out into the cold as fuck New York air. Would’ve served him best, served him right even. There was so much more through those doors. 

     But Malcolm didn’t move, just watched her fingers forge nonsense. The thick, red substance resembling a start to something he couldn’t quite put his own finger on. Eyes remained downcast with the urge to look at hers, sure enough that those were things he didn’t want to see. 

      She kept tracing and soon enough a minute, maybe three passed, whatever it was it felt like a long time. His intention of scrappy one shots were gone, time slowed, sound drowned. It was as if the little china man had dimmed the lights, shut off all sound and started to move with the pace of his squinty eyed relatives afraid of bumping into a counter, a loop of nothing. ~ BAM ~  the ketchup splashed in tiny droplets on his own sleeve. Feeling her hand collapse below his. It was hard too, probably too hard but on instinct he curled his fingers underneath with expectation, leaning in closer with a sort of snapped energy— There was only so much of that he could watch. There was only so long he could sit here like this. Tasting the tangy remnants with one swift suck of her finger on his way to removing himself from the life suction that was the seat. He clicked into action, those two seconds it took to taste even an inch of salty skin and to feel her inside of him ignited a fire and glossed over the chance to really look at her and he relished in that. That tiny beat, after using the back of his own hand to wipe at the sloppy wet on the side of his mouth, thickening the coat he was wearing to bear the outside soon enough,  “You want a truth? I’m still here because I hope that sake will go straight to your head. That I get to feel what it’s like to fuck Hannah Brooks again. No back and forths. Just you and me. Like old times. You want the truth… there it is.” 

She jumped when his hand smacked down onto hers, and then the slivers of heat raced up her arm, took over her cells like a virus. It wasn’t a soft, sweet touch, but it was a touch and it had Hannah’s heart racing before Malcolm had even captured a ketchup slathered digit in his mouth. She shivered, her thighs clenched, he looked at her like she was a drug he hadn’t sampled in ages and he would be a sweaty mess of withdrawal on the sidewalk if he didn’t get a hit.

His truth should have made her angry, should have made her pull away. In the back of her mind, in a matter of seconds, she saw exactly how it would play out if she did. She could take this tiny admission, this tear in the narrative he’d been wrapping himself up in for two years, and she could throw it in his face. Tell him no, tell him to go to hell. He didn’t get to just show up and talk about old times like he was entitled. He didn’t get to just fuck her because they happened to cross paths and it gave him an urge. Or at least he shouldn’t. She should go home alone, maybe throw something at him before she departed. Sleep alone in a bed that suddenly felt too big, probably dream soul crushing things, and wake up in the morning feeling like it was Day One all over again and she was pieces scattered on the floor.

Of course that’s probably where she’d end up if she gave in to the want coursing through her veins too. Malcolm would have a taste and then immediately feel the weaker for it. Maybe he’d be extra cruel the second they caught their breath. Or maybe he’d slip away politely after she’d fallen asleep. But either way she’d wake up with the taste of him fresh on her lips, she’d wake up hoping even though she new she shouldn’t, that he was still there. And when he wasn’t she would cry and rage and shudder and be pieces of a person.

Lose. Lose. Lose.

There was no winning here. 

But he’d promised him truth, hadn’t she?

She rose from her chair, shaking fingers moving to pick up her coat and attempt to coax it up her arms. “Truth? That’s all I’ve been thinking about since the second you sat down.” If it didn’t matter either way, if she was going to be broken and battered in the morning regardless of her choices, then she might as well give in. She could pick him...she could greedily and pathetically lap up whatever scraps of touch, of togetherness he was offering, and have a few hours of bliss before the pain set in.

She buttoned her coat, movements rushed, the lust in her eyes, saturated in her syllables.“You’ve never worried about getting me drunk before a fuck before, Malcolm, not back in the good old days. You’re an idiot if you think I suddenly need a buzz to tell me what I want, to get me into bed. Your place had better be close by though, because I can’t promise that I won’t come to my senses and if you’re going to fuck me tonight it’s going to be in a bed.”

     The plate was cold and the food looked unappetizing but her aggression towards it and the way she stabbed the thing, chopping angrily at it’s shell was a lift in the mood. For her she was showing him something, she was showing off her stance her defiance and all it made him want to do was laugh. Maybe she really would fulfill his fake future expectations. 

      Clearing his throat, freeing the itch to retort, instead he learned forward on what at the moment felt like weak elbows. Sobriety mixed with lashes of a high percentage alcohol played it’s part. Dipping two fingers between the plate of crusty, dried dumplings purchased and consumed solely by his now ex and her now ex potential fuck for the night, Malcolm sloshed one back like he was eating an oyster. Showing it’s remains with every bite— he’d definitely had better. A look of disgust on his face as he swallowed it back and reached for another. 

      Hearing her resign, more like take charge. Make it less of a  taunt, make the game all the more not interesting. Not that he was fully invested at this point anyways, he was sinking— she knew that. All rambled and jumbled emotions that started as a simmer and poked their heads up high were shot back down the more and more she spoke. She breathed or she looked at him and he his facade was being chipped at. The food another bland excuse to contain the multitude of options, his tongue holding back another quick remark to test, more in the line of smothering as a metaphor for a time of accidental asphyxiation gone a little too rough. No now he was actively thinking, his actions always spoke for themselves, there was a time when her word was what he needed to think on those actions but now…staring at her again. No flinching this time, the dumplings he started eating like popcorn, like there was a trainwreck about to happen on screen and all the limbs were going to be shot B movie style from each and every window. Had to pay attention to catch them all, each bloody, veins dangling, shredded flesh of each limb. All important details. She’d said those magic words, every time you open your mouth…so he wouldn’t. He didn’t. His chewing was done with, he took one last big swig and sat in front of her. 

      And stared. Just stared. 

Hannah knew she’d get what she wanted when she played those cards. She knew him. She knew him and if he didn’t want to willingly give her compromise then she was ready to blackmail it from him. He could have their future, he could crumple it into a ball and suffocate them both with the wait of their longing, but he could not take their past. She wouldn’t let him. So she was going to sit here, cold dumplings stuck in her throat along with all her hopes and dreams and love, and she was going to remember the table they sat at in California. How happy they’d been, how it seemed like he’d finally allowed himself to relax just a little bit, to take some slow steady breaths of air like he actually deserved it. At some point, at some time, she’d been good for him. Maybe it hadn’t been sustainable in the long run, but it had happened, and he could bury it deep but it was always going to be a part of him now. That he’d been capable of that.

She wouldn’t force her nostalgia on him, though she could have. Hannah had the feeling she could have gone off on a long romantic painful tangent and he probably would have just sat there and let her. Malcolm came in hot and heavy rude and distant...but the truth was...he’d never once tried to get in the way of her getting something off her chest. She spared him though, because she was sure he knew....that she loved him still, that she missed him, that she was still his. Surely he’d seen right through her skin and organs to his name tattooed on every bone in her body.

More sake...definitely needed more, even though she could begin to feel the warm gooey fuzzed edged effects of it. She stared back, silent, defiant, and even though there was no words tripping off her tongue she knew Malcolm could see the conversation in her eyes. The questions...the part of her that wanted to plead...the part of her that wanted to not miss him at all...the part of her that wanted him to fight for her, for them. The dumplings were gone now, cold in her stomach, and she dabbed at her mouth with a napkin and took another gulp of sake and tried not to let her lower lip tremble, tried to ignore that sting in her nose that told her the moisture was going to start in her eyes again. 

Hannah broke the staring contest first, eyes downcast at her hands sitting idle in her lap, a beginning hiccup of a sob disguised as a cough. If she couldn’t talk then she was going to cry. He could sit there stoic and contained but she couldn’t, the feelings were going to come out one way or another,, but she was afraid that if she tried to get up and leave he’d only follow her in the hopes he could energize things to a back and forth fight again. 

She reached, towards the middle of the table where the condiments rest. The plate is empty but she grabs the bottle of ketchup and squeezes a healthy dollop onto the plate, takes her fork  and idly runs it through, smearing, messy, like some fucked up crimson version of those little zen sand gardens with the rakes.

Silence. Why did the silence feel so unbearably loud?

Hannah Brooks || Self Para

Oddly enough, out of all the shitty aspects of relearning life post break-up, she’d found that meals were the hardest. It had taken Hannah a long time to remember what a meal for one looked like, to stop ordering Malcolm’s favorite Chinese tidbits, bringing home Tiramisu from the store and remembering that she hated the taste of it if she wasn’t stealing bits off his fork. The world and the empty spaces of the house would crash around her, fingers trembling, and she’d be a crumbling waterfall of grief. But she remembered the first morning she got through a bowl of cereal without crying, without thinking she heard the floor creaking as he padded into the kitchen, most likely armed to the teeth with a mischievous plan to make her scream.

Some days she hated bursts of memory like that, other days she felt they were the only things that kept her together. Hatred could numb, and she couldn’t hate Malcolm, not for doing what he needed to do to protect himself. She wasn’t mad at him for leaving, no, she was angry at herself for allowing herself to become a danger to him, to his already precarious mental state. Intentions didn’t matter, not really, and the truth she’d come to accept was that as much as she’d wanted to be good for him, her presence had worsened the white capped waves of chaos and self loathing inside of him. He’d had every right to abandon ship, to go solo if that was the only way he knew to keep afloat. That was the hardest thing to get over, the feeling that she’d failed him, that she’d hurt him with every act of love and kindness she’d ever shown him.

Hannah’s mind could only go through so many thoughts, so many emotions and scenarios before there was nothing left but one base want that she knew she’d never shake as long as she lived. It was a hope that he’d find something somewhere that truly eased his soul, that there was some kind of peace for him that didn’t involve a casket. Staring over a bowl of cereal, her eyes dry for the first time in what felt like centuries, she’d realized that healing didn’t always mean feeling better, not right away at least. But it meant no longer feeling the need to pick at scabs, to study the lines of a scar until your vision blurred. It meant taking a breath and realizing that you had to move on, you had to do what you had to do to float too. She still cried some days, like the one where she’d accidentally washed a shirt that smelled like him and realized she’d never get that scent again. But she laughed more often, she focused on the things that gave her joy like her job, like budding friendships that stabilized her. She would never be the same Hannah she’d been without Malcolm in her life, that was a fact that had to be accepted. But she could be another equally good version of herself, she could be a goddamn self help book dictionary definition of a healed soul who moved forward and kept going.

Of course then there’d been the night of wine with her mother, eight months out, the porch cold in November air. 

“How are you doing?”

She was certain the smile had felt real on her face when she gave it. “I’m okay, Mom. I miss him … I think I’m always going to miss him, but I’m okay.”

Her mother wasn’t the type to hold back her thoughts, and Hannah was met with pursed lips as the elder blonde reached out to cup her daughter’s face in both hands. “I want you to think very hard about this question, Hannah. Because the destination is affected by the means of travel. How you get to okay, why you get to okay, it matters more than you realize. Are you okay because you’re okay, or are you fighting tooth and nail to be okay just in case it gets back to Malcolm that you’re a mess. You always told me your worst fear was ending up on a … how did you word it … tally list of things he used to hurt himself. Are you moving forward for you or because you’re still trying to take care of him?”

It was like an electric shock. Hannah blinked, took in a shaking breath, felt the moisture come back to the edges of her eyes like it had never left. “I don’t know Mom. I don’t know. What if I never know? What if I’m never sure that i’m actually okay ever again?”

Arms twined around her and her mother’s steady heartbeat thrummed against her ear, as soothing now as it had been when she was little. Sobs twitched and poured their way through her, as hard as they had been that first day. Because deep down she did know, that right now at this very moment she was trying to be okay for him, she had to be okay for him because it kept him close to the hollowed out edges of her petrified heart. Maybe some day she’d be able to give the question a different answer. But right now, as fucked up as it was, this was what she needed to stay afloat. A ghostly, Malcolm shaped lifevest made up of all her best intentions, the love still bubbling up under her skin like an old coat of paint insistently bleeding through the new one.

       Ooh she was digging now. She dug hard, nails through flesh biting at the remains and chewing like it was sunflower seeds. The kind that got stuck in your throat of course, there was still that vulnerability. That part of her that wanted and did, say what it was she wanted but she was uncomfortable too. He could tell that much. Still, her bite with words was enough to radiate some sort of surge deep down. Not so deep really, it was surface. Eyes narrowing as if to be caught full on. Malcolm’s mouth opened with a word to retaliate but he stopped, not out of concern for her and what it was he could say but a need to delay. To let what she’d said seep in. For him, and for her. 

      Fingers traced glass rim at his hands, slow-like, as if there was something wrong with what he was doing until he had to look at her then. Full on, fast. No lingering trail just straight into her pupils. There were times where mistakes were made, and this was proving to be one. She wasn’t backing down, she wasn’t crumbling. He knew he shouldn’t have expected that but he did. Instead he wanted to either do just that, sink in his seat and call it defeat. Or, and for the first time in a long time, first time with her that’s for sure, the image in his head was a snap shot straight to the nose. Make those blue eyes really pop. But even then, he instantly felt regret. “And what would be a bad one? Huh? I don’t have those anymore.” 

     It stuck with him. That urge from before. Wondered if it was a the booze talking and the time and distance or if she’d really become that irritating. It wasn’t him—couldn’t be, he was the same. Always the same. He wanted the same. Went back to the same. Had to be her. (Had to be her)Thinking she knew him. Thinking she could play with him. “You look good too. Fuckable, clearly—” a thumb thrown up in the direction of the whack-off that already up and left before. Pouring another round for the two before sliding her’s. “I made a bet the other night that you’d be that skinny fat. That you know uh—” pretend wracking up the right words, hands doing the work, “Let herself go to the point where clothes concealed it wasn’t until you got a good grip when those lights were off. Like fucking a fatass but no cushion. Just the loose skin slapping sounds. All the bone stabbing and gassy. Bic Mac for breakfast, lunch, and dinner gassy.” Giving an exaggerated chill, he slammed back his newly poured drink. The thing that made her irritating is that she would easily see right through any of this. All of this. 

The thing of it was, she’d already forgiven him for the leaving. Anytime someone tried to comfort her by dragging Malcolm’s name through the mud she would snap, bare her teeth, up in arms. Because he had fought for her for two years...for two years he had navigated unfamiliar territory, had let her in, had built a home with her. Nobody but her knew how much he tried, how much of himself he’d invested. In the end...in the end she’d been more dangerous for him than he for her. In the end if he’d had to choose between withering away, eaten up by his demons in her presence because he had to let down his walls for her and the monsters got in too, or leaving and self medicating so that he could stay in some degree of functioning oblivion...she supported the latter. She supported him...even when it meant her heart. Even when it meant scars laced down the fronts and backs of both their souls.

It was this that she hated...this. He could take away their future, he could break her heart. But did he have to shit all over their past...did he have to so dedicatedly act like she had never meant anything to him? It was a lie that he knew she saw through and yet he did it anyway...and that somehow made the punch harder. “Who knows maybe I’ll fulfill that fantasy image for you one day...there’s still time right? Especially if I have a yearly run in to look forward to with you that’ll push me right into the ice cream aisle at the grocers. In fact, let me get on that for you right now...I’d had to disappoint you if you’ve got money on this after all.” The dumplings had gone cold but it was fine, it was fine as she aggressively stabbed it and took a bite. She wondered how he would feel if he knew she’d dropped twenty pounds after he’d gone, that Jude had been the only one who could coax her into eating the tiniest bit of food for the better part of six months....there was a time where Malcolm would have been able to count her ribs. She took another bite, and another, then grabbed the bottle of sake and tipped her head back.

Since he’d left she’d gotten better at the art of medicating her brokenness with liquor. It didn’t matter that she saw though him. It didn’t matter that she knew buried deep in his chest was a heart that missed her too. This was still a knife digging into every vital organ, it was an ache that made her want to dig under her skin and snip every vein that went to her heart so that the goddamned muscle would stop its constant wailing. It didn’t matter....those three words keep sounding in the back of her mind, a godawful mixture of Malcolm’s voice and her own. It didn’t matter how she played this, it didn’t matter what she said or didn’t say, it didn’t matter, and she could feel the sludge at the bottom of her soul urging her to just call it a night. Walk away first and let him have his win, go home to bed and just stay there for a day...for five...maybe for a month till someone got worried and sicced Jude on her again.

“Why are you still sitting here,” she finally whispered, her voice like the sound of cracks forming in glass. “You’re not having fun with this, not really. What’s the plan Malcolm...push yourself to you snap...push yourself till you do or say something so horrible it’ll give you enough fuel to flagellate yourself for another year? Because I’ll be damned if I’m going to let you use me like that.” 

      It was like watching a movie, really. There was no interaction with him, it was between the two of them. Only his own voice playing some kind looming feature. Going back and forth to the blurb to her, it wasn’t until it was pointed out by the tampon that it was clear her shoulders were shaking and it wasn’t just from laughter—that moment was a sting. A reminder really. It was always one thing he wasn’t able to take. Thought he’d be far past that and yet here he was on the verge of walking out himself and laughing all the same.

     All he was was expecting to take back maybe another shot of sake and walk out the door, leave these two because not defeated, but lazy. She was holding her own, not sure if there was any lasting energy with someone she’d planned on keeping around and succumbing to her expectations of him, because no matter, her expectations were what got him to stick around and stick around in a more than civil state. Expectations went nowhere. 

      The cumshot was up and out and smacking a bill on the table in a huff, and that only made Malcolm grin. Proud almost of having to do in his mind, very little. Watching Hannah take back the full shot, eyes laced with red he slid into the seat that was now vacant. In a too sober state for this but a mental high simmering, releasing few jolts here and there throughout. Like a manic with spastic episodes he still watched her close. Her throat contracting with the liquor that probably burned and the wince of her eyes. There was an urge to trace the bones outlined on her flesh along her neck, feel what it was that made her reclaim her calm. “Wouldn’t put that on New York…” Pouring the glass she just took for herself again with the Sake to take back himself this time. Purposefully twisting the glass to match where her lip’s made a stain, “It’s made you uh more…desperate. Huh? You know he would’ve asked you someday to rail his ass hard with big fat black cock strap-on right? Made you tender him up nice and loose with a wet rimming. Couple of fingers.”

It wasn’t fair. If it had taken two years to build their love, shouldn’t two years have been enough to get over it, to get over him? She should have been able to assess him with cold, indifferent gaze, perhaps a bit of nostalgia for what had been, but a main course of strength and assurance that past was past. But there was no time with Malcolm...it felt like he’d always been the one at this table, like she’d never missed out on a single day of the way he got a glint in his eyes right before he said something he knew was going to be a button pusher. God damn she was still his, she was still his as easily as she still needed air to breathe, it was pathetic. It was desperate. “I’d probably rail him with whatever he wanted if it meant I could count on him to still be there in the morning,” she answered. Her voice wasn’t cold, it wasn’t icy, it wasn’t controlled. There were quivers, catches, it was a raw, open wound, seeping, it was the harsh truth and Hannah knew Malcolm well enough to know that he hated truthful comments more than anything else.

She couldn’t look at him anymore. Not because she was afraid of him seeing through her attempts at calm, she knew that was a given no matter where she looked. Because the man across from her knew her better than she knew herself, even if he didn’t want to admit it, even if he wanted to pretend to forget how much they meant to each other. But because she craved the sight of him so badly, she needed to look down, away, the floor the walls anywhere but at him. Because this was temporary....this was make believe. He was going to linger at this table just long enough to hurt her, to hurt himself, and the second he ran out of hurt and the other feelings started to slip back in, he’d flee. Yes, he would flee like the coward he was and she would go home to her empty bed and wonder....wonder honestly, at this point was he even the most fucked up individual in this ghost of a relationship? It felt like maybe she’d taken the crown.

‘But then you know a lot about desperation, don’t you, Mal? Maybe you just rubbed off on me.” Words strangled each other, did battle as they tumbled off the tip of her tongue. On the one hand she wanted him to stay, she wanted to soak up this moment for as long as she could, play pretend in the back of her mind, some romantic alternative reality where he had purposefully come back for her, where he was was going to admit he’d made a terrible mistake. On the other hand she wanted him to leave so that she could breathe, so that she could put herself back together and stop feeling like she was in cardiac arrest. But she wasn’t going to be the first one to run this time, no, no she was sitting at this table till he ran first. “You don’t look as shit as you did last year,” she admitted, finally lifting her gaze to rest on his face. There were questions in her eyes, so many, but the problem was that she knew the answer to most of them already.So it didn’t matter. Nothing she said or thought or felt or wanted in this moment mattered. “Guess I caught you on a good night, huh?”

Hannah didn’t know what to expect from him, or herself. Did she make a beeline for it now? No, no that hadn’t worked well last year…Malcolm was a predator he chased you if you ran. She needed to play dead, which in this instant meant continuing to look like she was comfortable and having a good time. And so she sat back down, raised a brow at Marcus whose mouth was open in complete horror as he looked between her and their impromptu guest. Oh this poor guy…in about ten minutes he’d pretend to get a work call so he could flee…he wasn’t the type that was going to be into the idea of people with baggage. Especially when that baggage had such vulgar language skills.

“Just take a glass, Marcus,” Hannah insisted. “Consider this a nice character building exercise in staying calm in uncomfortable situations, work on your poker face.” Hannah reached forward, pushing one glass towards her date and claiming the last for herself. “That’s an awful toast, absolutely awful.” She raised her glass, refusing to look Malcom in the eyes, trying to smile at Marcus like there was any chance she could see him playing a significant role in the rest of her year or the next one to come. “Should have toasted to freedom. That’s what’s most important to you isn’t it, Malcolm?” She clinked her glass against Marcus’, and the poor man hadn’t budged an inch since Malcolm had opened his mouth. Hannah tilted her head back and downed the sake in one go, empty glass returned to the table, her hand gripping her fork like it was a life raft as she made a dedicated effort to finish off her dumplings. 

Marcus seemed to have finally found his words, short sputtering syllables. “I’m sorry…Hannah…do you…are you telling me you dated this guy?”

She let out a bought of crystalline laughter that was highly inappropriate for the situation but eased some of the pained twisting of her internal organs. “Yep. Sure did. I know…I know, that’s confusing for you to process, but we had a ying/yang thing going for a few years and it worked until it didn’t.” Her head turned, not looking directly at Malcolm but instead eyeing the sake bottle. “Do I get a refill or did you fill your “sharing is caring’ quota for the evening?”

       There were a few good seconds between taking the shot to watching between the two— there was nothing to this guy. He knew it now especially. Hannah if not susceptible to his ways she was in all things, honest. And there was no way in hell this splintered dick held any sort of relevance with her if he didn’t know anything about her past—him. Really. There was a spark there then, a moment where his expression changed. Cocky. Eyes narrowing at the guy. He was a nothing. A nobody. That much was clear, someone to pay Hannah’s Chinese tab and leave an exact 20% tip. 

      Watching as Hannah slid the glass forward, taking the dig in. Where she didn’t look away from her douche he didn’t look away from her. Controlled now. Demeanor calm. A 180 from where he would’ve and was about to be not moments before. “Yeah it is. It’s been…revolutionary. Ideal.” That last word tinged with dramatic overtone. 

     Turning back and forth now, the long lasted used tampon finally spoke, surprised somehow. Malcolm in turn crossed both arms, stroked the recently shaved chin as if to really contemplate the question between the couple. Nodding faux seriously at their remarks. “Oh you’re right. Here let me…” Acting as if he’d been suddenly kicked out of a stupor. Twisting the top once again, Malcolm poured, poured hers. Poured his own. Poured the herpes to his right’s until it filled the brim since he hadn’t taken it back like the pussy he could tell he was. Downing his own quick, and fully, “Oh…where’s my manners? Toasting to those who jack it to fists up the ass and sucking tranny’s during a train.” He began quickly pouring his own glass again, messily clinking again at Hannah’s fucktard. “Bottoms prolapsed!” 

How pathetic she must look to him. How powerful and smug he must feel, seeing the hole hed left in her and the way she could barely mold herself into the appearance of a person. Ideal. This hell hed carved out for them both was ideal. She was drowning, she was lost and broken and he could see that and take it and use it to beat himself up further and now everything theyd been to each other had been whittled down to this...her nothing more than a hammer he beat himself stupid with.

The prolapsed bottoms comment had her let out a snort of laughter, almost choking on her sake. The laughter shook her shoulders and melted so effortlessly into crying that her body language barely changed.

"Hannah are you..."

She held up a hand. The concern in Marcus' voice was kind but obligatory. "I'm a mess...but I'll live. You can go. No sense in trying to wait it out and pray your phone rings. I would have gone all dead fish on you anyway, I'm sorry you wasted your Christmas Eve." She didnt protest when Marcus rose and slammed down a fifty on the table, buttoned his jacket and stormed off. She did however reach for his very full glass and slam it back with fervor.