Article: 178996 of talk.bizarre
Newsgroups: talk.bizarre
From: grendel@canetoad.uucp (Tremble y Tense)
Subject:  Unforgettable Fire
Organization: The Emerald City
Date: Sat, 3 Dec 1994 01:03:25 GMT
Message-ID: <1994Dec3.010325.3507@canetoad.uucp>
Lines: 239
Status: O


She sits staring at the large mirrored window directly in front of her.
Her hands rests on her lap but occasionally she will rub her palms back
on forth on the smooth surface of the table in front of her.

There is one light suspended above the table.  It's brightness makes
her look paler than she actually is.

He sits with his back to the mirror staring at her, waiting for her
attention to shift; he does not want to rush her.

He will do that later if he has to.

She looks very at ease for the exception of the occasional stroking
of the table.

Very calm.  Very content.

However, he sees the conflagration; the blaze in her eyes.

Bright and hot, for all her cool exterior.

Suddenly her eyelids flicker and she shudders violently.

A small smile appears on her lips.

"Someone walking over my grave."

He looks at her a moment.

He shuffles his papers and clears his throat.

"Let's start with where you met him."

"Why?  Is that of any importance."

"Yes.  I would like to know if perhaps the...environment is what
affected you."

Stares at him and looks around the room.  Shifts in the chair and begins
to stare at the large mirror again.

As if in a trance, "No.  I met him at a diner.  I...had forgotten to take
my medication and I must have said something aloud.  I can't remember
what it was, but he leaned over and asked me if I was alright.  I said I
was.  Then...then I got very angry."

"Was it anything he said that made you angry?"

"No.  It was how he looked at me.  The way he leaned toward me, as if
he owned me.  As if I needed his protection.  It made me very angry.
Very angry."

"What happened then?"

"We talked about the weather, about how it was so hot I had seen a fly 
land on the hood of my car and die."
She snapped her fingers and said, "Dead. Just like that.  
It's not hot in here.  It's very comfortable.  I like that."

He doesn't prompt her.  He waits for her to continue.

"I asked him if he was just visiting and he said that he was here on business.
That he was being assigned here by his company.  I asked him if he was
married and he said he had been engaged but he and the woman had thought over
the idea and decided against it.  They stayed friends.  Isn't that nice?
Staying friendly like that?

"When did you leave the diner?"

"I asked you a fucking question, you smear of sewage.  Isn't it nice that
after you've fucked someone and told them that you love them but don't
want to be with forever, that you can still stay friends? Well?"

He waits for the echo of her shout to fade.

"When did you leave the diner?"

She rests her elbows on the table and on raised fists gently places her 
chin on her knuckles.

"I don't remember.  I do know that I told him to follow me in his car to
a bar.  I told him I hated to drink alone and he agreed to sit with me
for a little while."

"So he never asked again about the medication?"

"He didn't really care.  I know that now.  He didn't really care that I
hadn't had my medication.  That was a mistake."

"What did you discuss at the bar?"

She slowly lowers her fists and stares at him very hard.  He shifts in
his chair and forces himself not to look away.
The look in her eyes makes him uncomfortable.

"We...we discussed the difference between making love and having sex.
We discussed which we liked more.  If we liked to make love TO someone
but want sex FROM someone.  We talked about how the line becomes
blurred.  Having sex with someone you love.  Making love with someone
you hate.  Complicated but simple."

She pauses and looks at the mirror again.

"We had a few more drinks and he...he reached out with his foot under
the table and pulled my leg toward his...He asked me if he could come
to my room."

"Your room?  You were staying some place?"
"I was staying in the motel across the street from the bar."

He decides that if is time to stop letting her just speak.  It's
a waste of time as far as he is concerned.

"Let's start from the beginning again.  You've been lying to me.
I have witnesses that say they saw you in the bar in the afternoon.
You only had a drink when prompted by the bartender.  
Mr. Martin came..."

"That's his name?  I had forgotten."

He looks at her and tries to discern if she truly feels no emotion about
the entire situation; if she truly doesn't care.

"Mr. Martin came in sometime around five o'clock and you walked
over to him and began to talk to him.  The both of you had a few more
drinks and then you left around eight."

She begins to drum her fingers on the table.

"I had met him before.  You asked about the first met time I had met him.  
I had met him before...then.  The first time we ended up at my room.  
That's where I learned what he liked.  That's where I learned..."

She stops as if thinking of something else.

"He was abusive?"

"In comparison to what?  When? To who? Everyone is abusive at some point.
In our heads or in real life.  Sometimes we just don't like to admit it.
I admit it.  I admitted it to him."

She smiles again.  It is a smile that reaches her eyes and is a genuine
display of pleasure.

"That's what I did to him.  I admitted that sometimes I love and I
abuse the people I love.  Is it abuse if someone wants it?  Is it abuse
if someone asks you for it?"

She leans back in her chair, relaxed after releasing some of her pent up
heat.

"The first time you met him you had sex with him and...?"

She slowly shakes her head in a negative motion and smirks at him.
"No.  We didn't have sex.  We learned about each other.  The second time
we met, the time this conversation is really about, we were going to have
sex."

She crosses her arms over her chest, pouting slightly she stares down at
the table.
"The second time we met I was excited because I was hoping it would be
different this time.  You know, I was excited by the probability of
experiencing the unknown."

She pauses obviously in deep thought.

"But...?", he prompts.

Her expression doesn't change but it is as if someone has ignited his
flesh when she glances up at him. 

"But it wasn't anything new.  It was exactly the same.  That made me angry.  
Very, very angry."

"So you go back to your room and what happens then?"

Now she leans forward, puts both hands flat down on the table and looks
as if she's about the rise from the chair. 

Through gritted teeth, "I handcuffed him to the bed and with a scalpel
I cut small patches of skin from his stomach.  He couldn't scream because
I had taped his mouth shut, but he did strain quite mightily.  When I
began to remove his scalp I heard him pop his shoulder out of his socket
in his attempt to get free."

"About an hour later I cut out his trachea.  I think in the process I slit
his throat.  What did the autopsy say?"

He is a little stunned by the sudden confession but upon further 
examination it's not entirely unexpected.  It's as is she had grown
tired of the game.

He sits there a moment longer, scrutinizing her face; wanting to
remember forever what it was like to look at someone like her.

Someone ablaze.

He looks into her eyes and is captured by her gaze and mesmerized 
by her inner light.

Her unforgettable fire.

Finally he breaks her hold and nods at the mirror. 
Shuffling his papers he finds the form and puts it and a pen in front of 
her.  "Sign this."

She takes the pen and signs without looking down at the paper.

He takes up everything on the table and stands up.  He doesn't leave because
he has to know.

"So you do this because you enjoy it?"

She is staring at the mirror again and he realizes that she is probably
looking into her own eyes, as mesmerized as he was.

After a long moment she answered in a soft sleepy voice.

"No...I do this because I burn."



                     "Tis spiky in here."
                           "Yea, tis no place smooth in my mind."
						Grendel









Fashionably late.
-- 
                       "With or without?"
			            Mona