Her high pitched laughter echoed through the wall.
The morning sunlight slithered beneath his piss stained
curtains and onto his floor. He yawned, taking in the smell of
mold and old bile that polluted the air.
She's at it again, he thought in a hazy daze. At
seven in the fucking morning she's at it. Her bed pounded
against the wall in synchronized thumps. In between them she grunted,
switching over to a high pitched moan.
It was a fake moan; he knew them better than any man did,
including Tommy. Her moans echoed their pulses throughout his
thin sheetrock of a wall. Their intensity would grow and with
every moan that escaped from her mouth he remembered entering
her. He remembered how her body contorted and how her breathing
became heavier and deeper while her right leg quivered in exalted
excitement. Her moans were abysmal, coming from the gut. It was
her girlish giggling throughout his sinful encounter that brought
a smile to his face. She was a great actress.
His mind raced into fabricated thoughts.
She wasn't fucking Tommy, she couldn't be fucking Tommy.
He made her gut moan. No, this couldn't be Tommy. This was probably
Arthur or Johnny B from down the street. Those two could never
make her gut moan like Tommy could.
He wiped the sleep from his eyes as they were locked on
the discoloration of his studio's ceiling. He shivered as a cold
breeze tickled its way up his back to the tips of his fingers,
a delusional side effect that he had grown used to. He contracted
his right fist to match the rhythm of her pretentious moans, hoping
it would steer his mind away from his aches and from his desire
to start again.
Damn it Tommy, he shook his head. The sun's rays
slowly began to fill the room with warmth and light, catching
a fancy spider web, filled with snared gnats. It briefly entered
the shower, glistening off the grime on the shower tiles and past
the clumps of hair clogged in the shower drain. It illuminated
his open box of needles that sat near his wedding album on his
dining room table. The glow radiated his ceiling. He squinted
at the warped image above him. The rain from last weekend had
leaked through the roof, combining the yellow colors into a perturbed
image of the Virgin Mary. He wiped his eyes, trying to rid his
sight of her.
No, it can't be, not again.
She was back with a posture of disgust and eyes that implied
to disbelieve. In her under formed hands she held what looked
like a peach stained rosary. She was back, to taunt him again.
He looked away, mumbling her name: Dolores.
It birthed a state of euphoria that numbed his thoughts.
It was almost as good as his fix. The moaning increased, jolting
his commingled mind. He searched his night stand, which was overcrowded
with piles of crumpled papers, used needles, and a circular ashtray,
filled with used cigarette butts. Behind the debris, in a solid
oak frame, stood a picture of her and the cabin with the Colorado
Mountains in the background. Her brown hair blew to the right,
forever frozen in the wind with a smile he would never forget.
The sticky wetness dripped from his index and middle fingers as
he gripped one of the used cigarettes. His hands gleamed during
the brief moment of light from the match. The wedding band was
gone, leaving a barely visible band around his finger.
Dolores, he whispered in a muted silence.
The odor of week-old nicotine overcame the sulfurous smell
of the extinguished match and it snapped his mind back to his
reality. He heard her moan again as he inhaled, his back against
the wall, the vibrations gyrating his body, like he was in her
again. It brought forth an arousal he hadn't felt since that time,
since it was just them, before his habitual fix. This revelation
attacked him in the form of bent needles.
The moaning and giggling continued.
His arms grew warm, aching in a burning sensation that
he'd felt before. He scrubbed them, scratching over old wounds
that'd never heal, knowing that it wouldn't make the pain go away.
Finally the gut moaning ceased. He thanked the Virgin.
He heard her front door open and heavy footsteps stumble
down the hallway. Tommy's gut moaning girlfriend giggled. He lifted
himself from his bed with a pernicious aroma of urine fumigating
his nostrils. He opened the door, just in time to hear her speak.
"Good morning, sunshine."
Sunshine…call me sunshine again. She remained
hidden; her silhouette slithered along the wooden floor as she
slowly and gracefully revealed her slim leg. He wanted her. He
wanted one more try.
Dolores.
She closed her door and the hallway fell into an eerie
darkness. He closed his door, shuffling his feet back to his bed.
He slowly climbed back underneath his covers, pulling them up
to his eyes. The Virgin Mary had changed positions. Her head was
tilted toward his bedroom window but in her hands, she still held
her peach stained rosary.
