“You got blood on my coat,” she said, as she treated it in the bathroom sink. I fell back onto a crisply-made bed, my head spinning.
“What the fuck is wrong with you? You’re going to bleed on that too!”
I sat up slowly, unsure if the music was in my head or downstairs. The loft apartment didn’t belong above a dive like the Quarterdeck. It belonged uptown, overlooking the river, above the thriving business district, and it was decorated as such. Each “room” of the studio was partitioned by mid-century furniture and patterned area rugs. Canvases of abstract art bought local and the occasional scenic photograph adorned exposed brick walls. Artificial light poured through floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking the street, casting a yellow hue into the darkened apartment. She stormed out of the only structure not original to the building, a dry-walled roofless box in the corner of the space. She grabbed me by the lapels and up from the bed.
“Get this off and into the wash,” she said, frustration in her voice. “And shower while you’re at it…you have a junkie’s stench on you.”
She claimed an ability to smell it on me, like a pheromone of weakness, only good for attracting predators. She could always tell when I needed a dose and she wasn’t wrong. My body ached, but not from the beating. I hadn’t stopped sweating since we entered the apartment, though the confrontation was over. I pulled at my coat and entered the bathroom, ashamed of the truth in her words. From the outside, the box was more function than style, but inside it was deceptively large with a floor of heated tile, a walk-in shower that could fit six, and a stacked washer/dryer. I squinted, my eyes acclimating to the light bouncing off shiny porcelain and white quartz. I emptied my pockets on the vanity and hung the holstered weapon on the towel rack, prompting an exhalation. As I stripped, I heard heavy footsteps moving my belongings from the bathroom to the bedside table. I loaded the wash with the only clothes I owned and climbed into the shower before hot water had time to arrive. She went back to angrily pre-treating her coat.
“As always, Esme…your sympathy is palpable.”
“Ohhhhh, so it’s a special kind of self-loathing tonight? I should’ve known after seeing you take that beating from a barista.”
“He used to be a lawyer…”
“Not any better.”
“…that probably had an ex-MMA personal trainer or at least a gym membership,” I said, as the shower filled with steam. Esme threw her coat in the wash with a laugh.
“So, what’d you repo?”
“His kids’ VR rig. While they were playing it.”
“Wow…maybe you are a piece of shit.”
Her foggy outline took a seat on the vanity. She hadn’t said anything I wasn’t feeling, even before I took the job. Pink water streaked down my chest, my mouth tasted of pennies. Hot water burned at the cuts and scrapes, pulling my mind to the present and away from what led me to their apartment building earlier that evening.
“He deserved what he got and so did his family. Twenty years ago, they didn’t give a shit about us and if we were still the baristas suffocating under our own poverty, they’d blame us just the same,” she said.
She was rarely wrong and always opinionated, an honest sounding board for my worst thoughts.
“I hate being the one who does it. I hate myself for needing to do it to them,” I said, turning off the shower and rubbing the water from my eyes. A towel hit me in the chest as I stepped out. She watched me dry off while I stared past her into a partially fogged mirror. The man in it was slight but de-conditioned, like workouts and consistent meals had eluded him for a while. He was poorly groomed with a stubble-covered face framed by unkempt brown hair that hadn’t seen a barber in months. His eyes were sad and hollow, resting on lavender bags that asked “What have you done to us?”
“When did you stop listening?” Esme asked.
My blank stare answered the question.
“Go lay down. I’ll get your medicine,” she sighed.
I finished drying, then crawled into the soft bed. I stared at the ceiling, the familiar sound of electric locks opening echoed through the apartment. Esme walked along the side of the bed, grabbed my phone from the table and straddled me. She placed a rolled, Madak-filled cigarette to her lips and lit it with a butane torch. She pulled the smoke into her mouth, then kissed me hard on the lips. I inhaled apples, shisha tobacco and opium.
“I can’t do this anymore.”
“What can’t you do?”
“This…gig work.”
My eyelids grew heavy.
“I was a cop...I could go back,” I whispered.
“I know you could, honey. But Coursing pays bills.”
She held the phone to my face. It buzzed and chimed the sound of an unlocked wallet. Her nails clicked on the glass screen, then she pressed it against her phone which returned a similar chime. Transaction complete.
She put the cigarette to my lips. I dragged until half of it burned to ash.
My body sunk into the Egyptian cotton sheets, weighted down by the opium in my system. She started to grind as warmth spread from the tips of my hair to my toes. I closed my eyes and floated away into darkness.
"...like a pheromone of weakness, only good for attracting predators" ... “He used to be a lawyer."
Brilliant lines. This guy may be a "piece of shit" but he is real, I can see him, and I like him. I look forward to the next installment. (And even though I am an English teacher, I can accept Esme saying "lay down", because she would use that grammar. ha ha) Nice work, Mr Smith