Scorpion At Dusk
Dudes insecurity was crippling, he’d just finished asking her a question about herself which was rhetorical. He had answered it for her. Incorrectly. Water can’t boil if there isn’t a fire underneath its ass and therefore she was not mad because the air on her skin made it so. The fire under her ass was him.
She laughed. Dragged her cigarette. Calmly. Cooly, so controlled that it was terrifying. He shook in his boots. Retracted further. She had not moved except to drag her cigarette. Almost as if she hadn’t seemed to notice him.
A small smile broke over her lips. She volleyed back with another rhetorical question.
“You mean to tell me you haven’t tried to get to know a single thing about me? But alas, I apologize you do know everything about me. What I want. What I need. That’s why I get everything I want.”
A long, pregnant, loud, saturated, and uncomfortable silence later. He spoke:
“I base who you are off of what you’ve told me…” She ignored him.
“How often do people say what they really mean? How often do they finish what they say they will?” She didn’t expect him to respond. The answer was so ridiculous. They both stayed silent for moments longer.
“How many times out of,” she dragged her cigarette slowly. “72…do you actually do what you say you’re going to do?” She asked this time more forcefully. He shifted where he stood. It was not clear whether he was merely gaining a better stance or retreating slowly into safety. It was almost more fearsome that she behaved with such poise, because she became unpredictable. Her victim had no idea when she would strike, if she would ever…
She turned on him. Slowly, shifting her gaze toward his direction, her head cocked—curious. His face sunk further, but the words he spoke never matched what his face read. He spoke finally.
“You talk about yourself all the time. We have had so many conversations about your projects and your life and childhood…” he droned on and faded out.
Wrong. Wrong. Wrong ANSWER
“I have given you an answer to what you ask and told you more than what you inferred, what you know about me is what I have selected by design and therefore you know nothin—,” She paused, taking another drag. “Because you are not ready to receive. You don’t deserve access to me.” She paused again, gathering her words precisely.
“I speak and you bark. I pour and you drain. I confess and you archive. Like a lawyer I cannot afford, I have the right to remain silent if the person who is supposed to love me makes me plead my case. I sing and you deny the sounds coming from my voice by overshadowing them with your own. You think you’re louder, you think you’re better. Every man believes that the words they speak are the only versions of the truth, that’s why it’s called history. Therefore, once you acquire enough information to hold me against me, I gotta start making shit up.
The cantaloupe man, the scribe, and the sultan all saw the same thing, and yet they all tell the story differently. The way you know me is through blood and iron. You watch as you slide a dagger right through my side. My blood drips from the hilt and spills onto you in hot crimson, yet the burn makes you more passionate with the desire to feed. To feed upon my wounds and drain the life and light from my spirit like a steely kiss from death. By these heinous acts you know me. You know my suffering. You know my sorrow. But do you know my joy? Do you know my healing? Do you care?”
