 
Tail

Published by Julian Duenker

© Julian Duenker 2015

All rights reserved.

This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever  
without the express written permission of the publisher  
except for the use of brief quotations in reference to the book.

Copyright of cover Julian Duenker 2015
CHAPTER ONE

It's always the cafés, the cafés that instil that relaxing vibe, one which everybody so dearly demands to be the main ingredient of their very fine coffee. For Freckles the café this was no exception. The walls were mainly pale blue, which perfectly reflected the seasickness that most people felt whenever they ate the food. Ya the drinks were great, but none of the workers seemed equipped enough to serve even the slightest bit of edible.

The handful of customers that risked their stomach linings occupied themselves on the outskirts of the place, entertaining their conversations with the play of people that walked passed on the nearby street.

Sitting on a loose chair was the most interesting person anyone would want to serve, unfortunately she was too preoccupied to indulge those fictional conversations. Maybe a push would trip her into sharing words, who the fuck knows ya know?

Her jet black hair dripped down her face, caressing her tall cheek-bones and collapsing on the rest of her shoulders. Twenty six is a perfect age for her, just old enough to be respectable and young enough to accept the slightest bit of naivety that inflicted her abrasive movements. Her shoulders creeped over the table creating a physical barrier with her arms as if trying to protect her limp drink. Her black strapped boots danced at the bottom of the table controlled by what was left of her ADHD. Her jeans were the definition of wear and tear, peppered with historical holes and charismatic threads. Hidden beneath her relaxed sleeve was a tattoo. It wasn't your typical tattoo, the type filled with senseless squiggles irreverent pop art and generic quotes cherry picked from a foreign language. It was a very simple tattoo, coloured by nothing. A collection of thin black lines circled all the way around her wrist, ten of them in total.

Her name is Susan Murphy. She was never sure if she liked the name or not, going through various phases whereby she would either loath or respect someone for saying it. This was particularly frustrating for close relationships. On particularly rough days she would suppress the desire to bite the tongues off of anyone that said the wrong name. Aware that no one could keep up with her fickle preferences she had to swallow whatever punching anger she felt. Nothing crippling, but frustrating enough to leave a wet mark behind her ear.

Mid sip of her coffee a waitress filled to the joyous brim with professional friendliness came up to Susan slapping her across the face with her Polyethylene smile.

"Hey! Is everything good over here? Need anything else? Because I would be happy to help with anything you desire from the pits of my heart." The waitress rested her fingers on Susan's curved shoulders, making sure to make physical contact as it said on some online promotional article. Susan arched her neck to take a glimpse at the smile that desperately tried to make a good impression.

"I'm fine" Susan looked at her expecting the woman to pick up on the fact that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with her, but the smile was determined to achieve what it set out to do. "Well if everything is perfect then would you care to spend two seconds of your precious time to fill out this service quality survey? I would appreciate it so much." She spat from the corners of her plastic lips. Susan's knee-jerk answer was to say no and fuck off unceremoniously, but the more she thought about answering the survey the more attractive it appeared. "You know what throw it to me" Susan never thought that the waitress's smile could get any bigger, but her preconception was destroyed the very moment she asked for the survey.

The smiley woman pulled the survey from her back-pocket and gently placed it in front of Susan as if it were an exquisite dish. She then proceeded to place a pen perfectly perpendicular to the piece of paper. Every second that the smile took to place those two simple objects on the table exhausted Susan. The waitress threw one last smile at her and left. She noticed how the waitress placed the pen in such an exact position, so out of spite she shoved it at an angle to the paper. If you looked hard enough you might have been able to see a modest bit of joy seep through her locked lips.

Leaning back in the chair she picked up the survey and breezed through the questions. Simple and to the point. _How would you rate the service of Freckles café?_ Her immediate thought was to draw a beautiful depiction of some genitalia, but her attention was uncontrollably drawn to a table not too far from her own.

There sitting a distance from her was a young couple bound by relatable ideologies. The young woman had a beige scarf wrapped around her neck, with her fingers similarly twisted around her boyfriend's palm feeding off of each other's lust. In fact they weren't even touching the croissant that was ever so lovingly placed in front of them.

Susan dropped the survey and softly eased into the same position as the woman in front of her. She even forced her legs to stop exercising, sliding them into the same loved up arrangement as the woman she stared at, forcing her body to mirror the scarfed stranger.

At this point in the afternoon the café had emptied itself of all the filth that it had accumulated during the day. Hence half of the customers were gone, leaving only a handful of people dumb enough to still sit there and suffocate themselves from the fumes that leached through plastic smiles, toxic and all. She filtered out all of the unnecessary noise around her, digging her eyes into the couple opposite. The boundaries of Susan's thoughts filled with black, leaving a tiny hole in the centre which slowly focused on the strangers. The scarfed woman then detached her well-polished fingers from her boyfriend and ran them through her light brown hair, as if it were an ad for some generic hair product. Susan mimicked her every move, even attempting to position her fingers the same way as she ran them through her hair.

Her state of transfixed buffering was so strong that she only passingly thought about the boyfriend across from the woman. His Ibiza boy look was reduced to an insulting afterthought. The woman guided her hand down to the outside of her thigh, banging her hula hoop jewellery against her dress. She dug her thumb into her flesh as she gave her boyfriend the longing look that everybody knows the meaning of.

Susan participated in this sensual dance across the café. But instead of copying the face into dead air, she targeted her expression directly back to the woman. She even dug her thumb into her jeans in exactly the same way. But the woman was absolutely oblivious to the bizarre admirer from across the café. Susan could never pinpoint precisely why she always behaved this way, just entered into this minimal state of mind composed primarily of the desire to imitate. She reached a point where embracing it, cracked logic faults and all made sense to her.

The couple continued their very subtle conversation about what they were going to stuff each other with later on. The boyfriend made a joke and the woman let out a laugh filled up with sexual pressure. Laughter that tends to rely upon a feeling of release never turns out to be elegant. Susan without thought replicated that exact unflattering laugh, which immediately grabbed the couple's attention, throwing all of their built up sexual tension out the metaphorical window.

They cranked their necks towards Susan, giving her a mixed look of confusion, embarrassment and anger. By simply pointing out the most trivial flaw of the couple Susan had undermined their private pleasure. In return she didn't move an inch, leaving her coal boots to revert back to their ADHD inflicted stage and offered them nothing but pure apathy.

At that point the couple didn't know whether or not to confront this intrusive stranger, move on with their conversation as if nothing had happened or the more attractive option; to simply leave the café and make their conversation a reality at home. As they quarrelled with these thoughts Susan felt a sudden sense of calm. She didn't particularly care about the couple and their sexual priorities, but instead was more enamoured by the type of person that the woman portrayed herself to be.

Within this contrived and confused café this woman had entirely cut her surroundings from the moist bed that she played around in. She was able to ignore the walking smile working as a waitress, the cold food in front of her, the smell of the meat that had no reason to even exist in a café and even the three particularly huge holes on her boyfriend's sweat pants. She was able to filter out all of these incessant things and focus on the man in front of her. When Susan thought about this she felt an undeniable amount of respect for the stranger. She never saw her imitation as mockery, but rather it was more of a natural reaction, rooted from emotional innocence. So she continued and ingenuously echoed the woman across the café.

The moment the couple looked over to Susan, she couldn't help but give them a two second smile followed by a quick attempt to change her expression to reflect that of the woman's emotionally frozen face. So, torn abruptly from their idyllic state the couple decided to play it out and just ignore the anti-social woman. Susan instinctively played along. Not being able to get back into the warm and wet bed of the conversation the couple decided to talk about something a bit more neutral and family friendly. She then decided to finally eat the cold croissant that lay before her. She fumbled around with it a bit, eating it with a frigid taste of self-consciousness. As she ate it she tried to maintain some sort of a conversation while simultaneously trying to avoid the gaze of Susan, who started to similarly fumble around with her coffee. Susan was aware of how she made the woman feel, but never felt guilt, because the way she saw it she was merely paying deluded homage to the scarfed woman.

They all continued with this façade for an unreasonably long time, up until the boyfriend finally turned around resting his protein bar arm on the chair and gazed towards her. He didn't say a word. It's as if he just turned around to observe the peculiar situation without the need to protect his woman. So he just sat back and studied this dark haired woman from across the café. The scarf gave up and just decided to briefly confront her, so she stared directly at Susan and raised her arms "what!?" Susan ignorantly shared her look and then without pause did the exact same gesture back to the shaking scarf.

The tension between these three people seemed to exist within its own environment. The café just toddled along with its everyday routine, ultimately ignoring Susan and her unusual interest with the woman who had a beige scarf. There was only one other customer still left in the café. An elderly man trying to come to grips with his bizarre touched piece of flat metal. His desire to engross himself with... whatever it was, was held to a frustrating halt when the walking smile once more tried to capture another customer with her plastic coated lips.

The woman tightened her beige scarf with haste and gave Susan a furiously smacked stare. She was half way out of the café when she gave her boyfriend the whip and called him to come. He sluggishly got up and slid his sausage roll fingers down his sweat pants. For the couple that was the last word, the final heave from their restless waists, but Susan couldn't see the end. She didn't even notice the boyfriend walking past her. Her thoughts were entirely centred on that woman and the more she indulged those thoughts the more they shifted towards her scarf. It was easier for her that way. It gave her a sense of voyeuristic comfort. It wasn't that she went into some sort of alien state of mind, but instead it was a very innate emotion that she just willingly indulged to the greatest affect. It had consequences some of the time, but just like an addict it's the contrasting highs that leaves the deepest marks. So, she followed them fitting her booted steps into the woman's walk.

Now usually when someone follows another person they leave at least a solid twenty feet between them and their prey. But Susan disregarded this and latched onto them like some underground grungy beggar.

While the couple's nerves slowly began to slaughter themselves, Susan kept calm, silently aware of the situation. All three of them started to pick up pace walking down a rather empty street. Their worried steps turned into tiny little frantic jumps. The scarfed woman turned to face Susan while walking backwards. She raised her boneless arms and flailed them about in fury as if trying to discourage Susan. "What, for the love of!! What do you want from me. Why are you being such a child? Just leave me alone." Susan reciprocated by lifting her arms from her sides and throwing them carelessly into the air as well and wrapped her face with an acid expression. The boyfriend let out a patronizing laugh which surely enough grabbed the fractious gaze of the scarfed woman. He raised his shoulders unaware of which button he punched this time. She turned around and walked straight ahead trying to ignore Susan with the sound of her stabbing steps.

As they all trudged down the street a handful of heads were turned by the unusually fast pace at which they walked. It was an odd sight to say the least. Susan didn't know what the couple expected her to do, she didn't give that line of important thought any room. She didn't even know herself what she was going to do. She was enamoured by the feedback she was getting for her behaviour.

The traffic and people emptied as if the gods themselves just wanted to watch how it would play out. The sound of the city filtered itself to the inner thoughts of the scarf woman. They bounced restlessly from one exasperated thought to another. Her shoes and Susan's boots were the only clapped words left in her head, proper torture no? And on the other end of the group was Susan still banging her laces across the old pavement. The boyfriend came to his own conclusion that she was not a threat, so he began to see her as his pet. He always wanted a dog, he just wasn't sure if he wanted one with clothes.

As they neared the corner of the street and the couple's final destination; home, the scarfed woman had had enough. She turned around on her heels and like previously kept walking backwards. She tensed her muscles into a pounce position and bit her own teeth. Susan as expected clamped up and got closer and closer to looking like a dog, which undoubtedly confirmed the boyfriend's soggy thinking.

The scarfed woman stepped off of the pavement and an inch onto the road. Straight from the dramatic handbook a tiny red car came unannounced around the corner. The scarfed woman's knees were clipped filling her sweaty palms with dirt from the road. The driver froze to an abrupt halt as the boyfriend rushed to his woman like the ready meal knight that he was. Susan's carefree appearance quickly morphed into a refrigerated stance as she watched the scarf trying to stand back up. Her singular thoughts were flooded by a relentless feeling of remorse.

She couldn't wait around, she didn't want to apologise, she didn't know how. She had built this situation with instinctive reactions and now she had to end it with one more. So her boots lifted themselves from the pavements and ran. They didn't care what direction they ran in as long as it was a distance away from their consequences. It was easier for her boots that way, and in turn it was easier for her.
CHAPTER TWO

Her set of keys had a few paraphernalia attached adorably to them. Apart from the usual set of house and car keys, they had a tiny colourful skull with a smile hanging from the keys. Right next to the skull was a very contradicting plush toy of a rabbit with one of its ears ripped off by the various adventures that Susan accompanied the rabbit on. He just looked elated to see her again.

Susan's car was essentially a hunk of metal that provided the concept of travel and on an occasion brought that concept to a noisy fruition. It was painted a shade of red that only the female eye would be able to pick up. A man would just see the plain red scratched across the depraved metal, whereas a woman would see it as a berry red shade underneath the vehicles torture. There was even a crudely drawn dinosaur scratched into the hind quarters of the car. It was unknown if it was a sort of punishment towards the piece of metal or merely the repercussions of a particularly average night out.

She placed herself into the death-trap, but paused for a few moments before driving off. It was a small junction in her day deciding where to go next, the big motivation being money. Considering the fact that she was always too fluid to ever hold a job, money tended to be an elusive character in her life. But the ability to hold something depends more on motivation and desire, which she lacked desperately. The freedom of both chasing down money and her dreams were enough for her to ignore the prospects of honest to god damn work.

She was also looking out for something that would alleviate her boredom, but she knew that was a lot to ask for. So she forced herself to concentrate on the issue at hand. The easy answer was always there in front of her sitting idly on the dashboard of the car. The writing was written across the rough plastic demanding her to acknowledge it. But every time she indulged in that last resort she was consecutively stabbed in the stomach with a butter knife of guilt. It didn't leave much of a physical mark, but more often than not the pain is what left the scar.

At that point survival instincts were getting the better of her, pushing her further and further off the cliff. The act of placing the keys in the ignition was her way of deciding what her next destination was.

She knew that if she dwelt on a problem for too long it would eventually erode her own confidence to solve that problem. She was told that early on in life and used it quite often as a scape goat for the smaller problems. Even though she swore almost religiously by that she could never tell how long was too long. But eventually concluded that it was all relative and that she should listen to her internal body clock for the answer. It worked occasionally.

She drove her car towards an old part of the city, where the noise minimally consisted of murmured conversations between the odd wheels that passed. As she drove her arm was on the edge of the car door with the window down, allowing her eleven lined tattoo to exhale all of its conflicted hearts.

She pulled up outside a seventies styled house that lay a far distance back from the road. In between the house and Susan rested a garden that could easily have created the myths and stories from rotten candy fantasies. The shrubs grew past one another in a straight line as if they were part of their own floral pedestrian system. In the centre of the garden was an oval shaped dig. It started from the gate and died at the front door of the house. The centre of it deepened into the ground towards the middle as if it were some open roofed bunker. The bottom was aligned with sun-kissed sandstone tiles. They were pristine apart from the natural cracks found between them. Anyone that were to walk through found that at about half way their head was at the same level as the road.

On either side of this, were a collection of homely flowers, Troika, Magnifica and perennials populated the side welcoming the visitor as they resurfaced to the front door. The house itself appeared to be the tamest aspect of the landscape. Its corners had wear and tear and it was half painted a crayon yellow, with buckets and brushes left impatiently at the side walls. There was a large tree that roamed the back garden of the house shifting in its own weight as if it spotted a stranger. Its branches loomed over the roof protecting it like a bird nest.

Susan loved just being in the presence of the rainbow bodies of floral life. Her oxygen just tasted all that bit sweeter when she was sitting next to them. But these purely joyous feelings were quickly quenched by the thought of why she was there. That thought lay above her and the flowers like a wall blocking and hindering any prying eyes from assessing the situation.

As she entered the dip, a man, no later than 68 fondled the grass that crawled its way to the front of the house. Facing the sky and throwing his arms out from his chest he was laying in the bed of grass with his head near the edge of the oval entrance. He was head level with Susan yet he compressed grass underneath his back. He had slicked back grey hair shining its way down to his spine. Streams of a brighter era tore through his hair emphasising his physical age. He wore a very loose shirt with plenty of green thumbed stains and dirt infused marks across the translucent cloth. Dahoma coloured shoes with eccentrically designed socks ran up his legs. They threw back to acid filled days designed by the personalities of toxic colours. His name was Kevin Murphy and the moment Susan stepped into his garden he turned his horizontal neck and threw his daughter a smile.

"Hey Dadioooo!" She said slipping the vowels from under her top lip.

"Thanks for calling me that. You know how much I adore that." Kevin said with dry lips cracked from the brick of sarcasm. "And you know how much I love poking you." "Why"

"Stop giving me a reaction and I'll stop." She said forcing him to get up from his bed of bladed grass. The green cut his back as he raised himself to a towering position above her.

"I want you to come in and share a drink with me. I got this new fine Scottish whiskey from an old friend, well, saying that he was a friend is a bit of a stretch, all we ever shared were fists.....but he recently died and so he gave it to me in his will as a fella's goodbye." He dragged her into his kitchen while laughing the last few words. "I never thought I would be sad to see that old fucker die.... You know what, I think I was the only one at the funeral who felt that way. Felt like I was his wife. Bad enough because he tended to fight with her more often than with me. Fucking fat shit." The words slipped out of his mouth as if they were part of an ancient joke from the desert.

"I'm sorry the funeral was a waste of time. I don't remember any funeral ever being worth going to." "That's cause I've only ever brought you to one. Can't remember who it was either... think it was some neighbour... or something."

"Teacher." "Sure ya." She pulled the kitchen chair out from the table and sat down around his crème cupboards for the whiskey. The table elegantly placed at the centre of the room gave a balmy and palm clenching feeling to whomever entered. It was tough and solid with its corners tactically chipped off to instil that natural tree trunk look. In fact every aspect of the kitchen aided this image. Even though there was no immediate smell to the house, the simple thought of freshly baked brown bread would be convincing enough to actually smell it.

He banged the earthly brown bottle onto the table as he inched the conversation forward to the edge of his glass. "Meeting old friends is never a waste of time, I'll tell you that, even if they are laid out stiff on a piece of wood." Susan confused decided to dig even further. "You never really described them as being pleasant, never mind friends. So why would you see them that way now? Huh? Making no sense." He paused his attempt to open the bottle and looked directly into her eyes. "It's a sort of post relationship between me and the deceased."

Those spicy words reminded her of the reason she visited. It made the slow cooked guilt burn even slower in her throat. With every little aching aged movement that he took, her motivation gradually converted into that of a concerned daughter. He reached up into another cupboard to take out the enticingly cut crystal glasses. They longed to be drenched in Kevin's whiskey. As he moved them to the table his tattoo opened up to the air.

It was human curiosity converted into a scene of ink and old skin. It showed the image of a coffin occupied by a silhouette with broad shoulders. Susan always adored that tattoo as a child.

The glasses shook slightly as he brought them to the table. Susan noticed this and her goal to get filler money had fully disappeared. She cared for him greatly. This attached feeling was made all the easier due to the fact that they were the only two in the family. The black and white lack of relatives solidified the bond between the two. She knew that they had to protect each other form all the scary swamp monsters of the outside world called reality.

For the past five years Kevin had been dealing with heart issues, and his aged life style didn't necessarily help the situation. He was bound by tablets every day, which frustrated his childish nature. Susan always found that difficult to deal with. She hated his unhealthy attitude towards his own health. It was something she simply had to swallow.

"Did you take your tables yet?" She said as she pulled both of the glasses towards her and away from him. Kevin thick headed by that small gesture replies; "What ya ya. Of course I took em. I have been taking those things for three years straight and you are still reminding me. Now give me the whiskey or else I'm going to chase you out of the house like a mutt." He looked at her now sitting down with a naked puppy face begging for his glass back. She thought about it for a moment and came to the notion that she could either ask him for the money or lean on his soft side and stop him from drinking the whiskey. She couldn't have both idyllic options. No that was a scenario that was unobtainable. So with the question for money now out of the equation, her gooey ooey caramel side took precedence.

"I don't want to experience what it's like to be near someone who treats their illness as a joke. Very messy." Hearing that he placed his hands in front of her, palms down, fingering the slits of impressionable wood. "Look at these hands. They're good, they are really fucking good at their job. I've had them all my life and they have done nothing but pull me out of shit. They are well able to handle anything that comes near me. This whiskey aint gonna kill me." She disregarded his handful of a plea and continued to press deeper.

"But that's it this whiskey actually might kill you. You're not hiking or exploring anymore. I know this drink might seem like your friend, with its nice label and all that."

"You seem to know a lot." He said hitting the tennis ball of words across the courted table

"But what about me? Huh? Am I not allowed to enjoy you?... Your life doesn't belong entirely to you ya know. We are the only two in this family and you are prepared to leave it all up to me? I don't want to be left here all by myself. Do you know how difficult it is to maintain that garden you've grown? Feck that I wanna do other stuff with my time."

Taken aback by this, he paused and chewed on his thoughts for a few seconds. "I aint leavin you yet, besides there is far too much work to do with the garden yet." He presented a smile to her and grabbed the bottle of whiskey with a firm hand. The words gave Susan a sense of comfort, as if the pressure religiously evaporated.

He walked out of the kitchen and into the backyard with the bottle. She knew he wasn't going to drink it but she was slightly confused as to why he brought it out in the back. She pulled herself from the table and with curious legs walked out after him. With the cap open and the bottle tilted downwards he poured it into a dead piece of grass. She immediately reached out to him and grabbed his shoulder. "What are you doing!? Stop please stop." Tilting the bottle to its upright position he looked at her with a playfully confused grin. It was almost as if he was purposefully teasing her. What a comically naughty man.

"Please, please, you don't _really_ have to mess with it, might be of more use to somebody else than the dirt." She said with her praying hands.

"But it's of no use to me, out of sight out of mind."

"Well it might be of use to somebody else." She didn't necessarily want the whiskey, but in her penny clenching state of mind she couldn't help but see that almost full bottle of whiskey as a valuable commodity.

"You? Give this to you?" Kevin said with a shmear of clown makeup scratched from one end of his smile to the other. She knew he was joking, but she was still afraid to find out how far he would drag the joke. He lifted the bottle up from the tilt and gave her a smile to signal the end of the joke. He doesn't get out much. He embraced her, suffocating her with tired muscles. She didn't hesitate to wrap herself around him.

As they bonded underneath the bounded tree, Susan's thoughts darted back to memories of childhood. She stared into the rough and solid bark of the tree as she projected them. She could see her father moving between chairs in the kitchen looking for metallic parts that somehow jammed into his bike. Her memories of the house were always painted by Kevin meeting people, dealing to fix their vehicle and then screaming in frustration if something didn't start the way he wanted. He was a genius with the guts of any vehicle, but he hated the organised nature of workshops, so he gambled when Susan was a child and opened his own small garage near the house. He was renowned for his ability to punch a piece of metal and it miraculously turning into a working model of an engine. Whenever the business got too hectic however, instead of hiring on new hands or expanding the business he would just recommend the customer to the nearest garage. He loathed the herded nature of the garages, so he always kept his at the right temperature, balancing his business between money and pleasure. She always helped around the place, bringing tools back and forth. But her memories of the garage were always tinted with a dead grey. She grew into the nature of the business, but somehow always saw it as a cage made out of flaccid metal. Growing up she always had a strong sense that she didn't want anything to do with his business. Quite frankly she didn't have any sense of what she wanted to do. It crushed him at first, but the idea that his garage would disappear eventually eroded away at him, leaving nothing but happiness and hope that Susan would find what brings her joy.

The answer to all her financial problems lay within the twisted and aging metal of the garage. She was aware of that, but the tight birthly bond between her and Kevin wrote his every word into the bible of her mind. His main teaching to her as a child was to always do what makes you happy no matter what, which meant ditching the family garage for whatever theoretical happiness lay out there for her.

Both her boots dug into the earthly floor. Divided by their conflicting material they both attempted to deal with the harsh leather. One boot tried to bury the running guilt from the abandoned garage. While the other rested on the grass knowing comfortably that Kevin understood enough to accept.

He slipped the bottle into her hands with a hint of reluctance. Her worries had to be prioritised. Having dealt with her father, she was once more reminded of her financial hole. She wasn't afraid to ask for money. On the contrary she was rather used to the whole process. But in turn it made this particular time all the more difficult. In that pathetic painting of the two loose souls beneath the tree Susan couldn't force herself to once more exploit her father. If she had asked Kevin, he would have laid himself down ripping his liver out. For Susan however rational decisions were always repressed by emotional impulse.

They spent the next couple of hours sharing time through a lengthy cup of tea and a delicious discussion. She needed that nostalgic sense of home once and a while. Once her need was quenched she left, leaving him with a strong promise that she would return with more stories of her life. They didn't live far away from each other so it's not as if she had to trek across lost deserts and Asian jungles to get to him.

She drove on the road home with her perked friend placed lovingly in the front seat of the car. She even turned the bottle so that the label faced the front. The street lights erected to prepare for the evening.

Getting closer and closer to her cave she noticed an assortment of sweets collecting at the front of a very fine establishment. So fine indeed it would make any moustache curl with sexual tension. The doors of the party were testosterone high, which provided a truly wealthy way of bursting in. Money drenched cars flocked around the entrance demanding attention with their metal feathers. The people that entered and exited hovered above the pavement refusing to make contact with the well-trodden ground. The assortment of dead reds pierced her eyes bouncing off the inside of her skull. The white lights dispersed like a disease onto the various statuette dresses that plagued the people. The stretched and cling-film dresses carried women around with them. Men shuffled like peacocks across the carpet with their condescending tar suits. The black form their pants didn't even understand the concept of infused colours.

The party appeared to be just starting. There was a lack of receptionists at the front. _Perhaps anyone with an elegantly bought stature could enter_ Susan thought to herself. The rose coloured gathering grabbed Susan's undivided attention, with perhaps ten percent left over for the jealous road. That familiar feeling, that desire that Susan knew very well started to accumulate within her impressionable marrow. She knew she was going to indulge to the highest, perhaps some food first.
CHAPTER THREE

It's easy how desires can change while sitting on such a fickle platform. With her car parked and her front door abruptly opened this rang true. She embraced her flat. She didn't love it or hate it, quite frankly her disposition towards the place was mainly derived out of necessity. She tried to make the best out of it, the unintentionally patterned wall, the depressed couch and the sexually frustrated bed. Despite what you might think Susan did attempt to clean the flat on occasion. Even though patches of filth were prominent, the main social areas were dressed well with empty tables and surfaces. Every so often an orgy of food would compile on the kitchen bench, but it would be eventually thrown away by Susan. It's as if the place was in a constant conflict between the generic filth one would see from a fool, and the clean flats that leave a very empty and missing maternal feeling.

Susan didn't mind the contrasting nature of her flat. In her head it created a small ecosystem that played with itself whenever she wasn't looking. Something along inanimate lines.

She fumbled around the place in the same routine she did every day. Almost to the point that her boots created a leathery road from the fridge to the couch to the bed. Every inch of her movements were dictated by the prospect of the party. Her heels raised high lifting her body to a more condescending position. Shifting like a cartoon swan she went into the bedroom dropping all of her daily concerns. All that was left was the carnal lust for food and that itchy desire to join the party before it died from funding, but that didn't seem too soon.

Each piece of furniture had some form of memory greased into the material leaving various stains in the same vein as birthmarks or wounds. A shadowed figure made out of alcohol printed itself into the folds of the couch embracing its foetal position. Every time her eyes swept over the darkly beige cushions soft memories re-ignited within her bones. Those thoughts always made her elbows quiver. She didn't know exactly why. Perhaps because the stain looked so much like an actual human being, in turn she had to keep reminding herself that it was as hollow and empty as a photo. It was physically unpleasant for her yet she never felt the need to remove the stained cushions.

Not knowing who or what the indulgent party was for made it all the more tantalising. While pondering the possibilities she peeled a few layers off until she was in a comfortable skin dipped with pink perfume. The bedroom was decorated from what remained of her carefree attitude, which turned out to be an astounding amount. With the window open the room breathed in methodically brushing up against the faintly skin coloured curtains. The carpet was reasonably clean apart from an attention seeking whore of a stain situated right of the bed. There was a row of overtly sexual Russian dolls placed on the window sill embracing the erotic nature of their wood. The foot of the bed had a clear direct view to the front door of the flat, protecting the extension of her mind from intruders armed with brushes and home refurnishing catalogues.

Giddy with mature excitement she released it upon her movements. Eventually she decided to start at the wardrobe, obviously the arched establishment wouldn't allow every Dick and Harry to roll in with cool cigarettes in hand. So she whipped the doors of the wardrobe open and revealed a dark and small collection of clothes including jeans and a few introverted tops. There was an immediate lack of colour to the clothes. A few of them even had holes sprinkled across the cloth.

A fine cut dress with money jizzed over every grain of the material is exactly what she needed. She only had one dress of that description. It was purple with white stripes sliding down the sides accentuating her healthy curves. A v shaped neck line eroded into the left shoulder leaving nothing but skin. It looked defined and proud, igniting anyone's attention dragging it along the bottom of the dress.

She actually found the dress in a bargain bin at half price. It was hanging over the edge of some bucket filled with men's summer shorts and sandals. She had no idea how it got there. Susan always liked to imagine it had some interesting story to tell. It was in a pristine condition further begging the question as to where it came from. Back-stories aside she plucked the dress from the railing and laid it out like a silky corpse onto the bed. Car alarms and barking played as the music to her very short dressing montage,

Next on the bucket list was food, which she entirely neglected at first. Resting her "expensive" dress on the couch she dug into a cereal. She didn't usually need TV or anything else to distract herself as she ate. It's not as if she had much to work with anyways. The internet was a reincarnation of a tortoise with erectile dysfunction and the TV was closely related to the cardboard box family. That family was always known for having a lack of ambition "sure if it's the same shape it'll do the job just fine."

Three pairs of shoes in total allowed them to form a tight click between one another sharing the daily adventures of Susan and her toe ring. They weren't particularly fond of the ring for it felt painful on particularly long walks. Her leathered boots got the most time with her, slowly being built as the leader of the small group.

There was a pair of generic sneakers whose scene consisted of parties and just generally social water hole gatherings. So in turn they spent most of their social life working with the vestibular system to maintain a passable amount of balance. Her regular black boots felt an immediate sense of loss when Susan put her high heels on and left the flat.

The car slid across the road simulating that of sliding down a wet mountain. Susan knew that the opportunities of the party were gradually preparing to return home. So she pressed harder on the car squeezing more speed out of the metal. As she neared the venue the street lamps brushed over her pale forehead. She let her hair hang loose over her shoulders pretending to be stiff with deathly fear that she would be singled out. She attempted to slaughter the fear in her head. All she wanted was to crawl beneath the wealthy sheet of the party and be unknown to interested stares.

The sound of the party bounced through the street. She decided to park the car a fair distance from the venue, as to not raise any suspicion. There was nothing of value in the car and it didn't advertise itself as something to bother with which would have made it stand out a mile if she had arrived front and centre with it.

She found a shady spot to the left of a building ruptured by fantasies of the seventies. The car and the dismembered wall were placed with photogenic notions next to each other. If a camera had been present it would have made for a very interesting photo of Susan climbing out of the car. Probably even placed in some pretentious restaurant for the costumers to ingest as they looked at their food.

With only a few steps away from her night, she focused on the hits of her shoes as they reluctantly marched forward to the wealthy venue. Natural nerves emerged from her skin shaking her like a freeze. When the place was in full sight desire paraded through her skull with determined marching drums. They motivated her pace. Before she knew it she was walking past all the fanciful heads and facing the entrance.
CHAPTER FOUR

Naturally an establishment like that tends to collect the dribble that rolls from its own pricey lips. Having that in mind Susan understood how long the stretch would be for her to enter the building without any chaffing encounters. So she walked in reminding herself to maintain an advantaged persona that she had created for herself.

The room was bloated form prior dining events. Its ceilings were virtually non-existent, almost requiring a periscope to see them. Money red and bought blues splashed across the walls subtly forcing the crowds to shift with the advancement of time. Most of the people stood still holding their glasses of arthritic wine. The age difference between the genders slit right through the middle instilling that generic stereotype of old rich dude and young gold digger. But that only rang true for a certain portion of the party. Women with elegant suits pushed against the android powered men. The left side of the vast room accumulated a horded amount of people prepared to dish out their elegantly phrased criticisms over the expensive food. Due to this, the right side of the room was peppered with the fit internet money. A bar was placed close to them as if the management were playing god with the people, taunting them with alcohol and bad company.

Susan felt suddenly self-conscious about her tattoo grabbing and rubbing it. She looked at each ring thinking it would be easier for her to start over on the right side of the room closer to the bar and closer to more contemporary drinks.

She had no exact goal for the night. She didn't particularly desire to mingle with the Gucci designed people either. The simple act of breathing in fresh people was enough to separate her from her bed sheets.

As she moved a handful of feet into the room a privileged woman, mid Forties, brushed past Susan and weaved her presence into the purple linings of her dress. The acknowledgement of Susan was not on the cards for that woman, purposefully. Her older expression was lifeless showing an already unpleasant judgement of the girl and her attire. This woman clearly relished in the process of discarding people. She was good at it, almost to the point where one could call it a skill.

Susan noticed how the arrogant woman's heels lifted ever so slightly to mimic the motion of a prize winning horse trotting through the betting crowds. Her palms were raised above the hip afraid to level them with everyone else's. Susan without delayed thought instinctively shadowed her keeping an eye on the woman.

The two of them were pulled through the shafts of crowds with the wealthy woman in front. The further Susan followed the more she noticed about the woman, in turn solidifying her closed focused impression of her. Her ear rings dripped with expensive blissful ignorance. Her face sharpened at the shaft of the nose by plastic "art" forcing the natural ageing process to retreat down to lower regions. Susan could sense that her bought face gave her a certain amount of "confidence". With each of the woman's sexually charged movements Susan found herself further and further into the gold plated pacemaker of the party.

Before Susan knew it she was surrounded by panther black suits with feathered ties demanding her attention. The woman made from wealth didn't seem to have a destination. She shifted through the various accounts of people with an odd pause to greet someone. She would present a condescending smile and caress the lower back of the most attractive man in the group, leaving the other men to swallow their bowl of irrational jealousy. It was obvious how she frustrated the other women, igniting bitter discussions with the purpose of belittling her bought pretentions.

As Susan digested all of those rich details a sense of desire cradled into the core of her head. Unlike previously the corners of her thoughts weren't coloured by black. Instead a degree of control allowed her to gain interest in the woman of wealth without being motivated by irrational blindness. It wasn't admiration, for Susan was aware of the woman's faults. It was more of a desire to understand the person. Susan's interest had been peaked, to a point to pretend to be her, to learn from her subtle sexual grabs and steps. Her evening was free, no one knew her, no direct obligations, which left her to indulge in the small and playful game.

Susan enhanced her inexperienced persona. She copied the stiff movements of the woman. She had to relax her bones and lower back to imitate it to a believable posture. She had no idea that a relaxed spine was required to express the movements of privilege. Having gained a healthy understanding of how to act like the woman Susan decided to swim to other ends of the party. The deep end still remained at the left side of the room with the depleting reserves of caviar and beachy fruit. The crowds gradually became unsettled because of it.

The left wasn't as appealing to Susan as she had thought. She was slightly surprised by the modern slice of the crowd that wedged itself into the room. It gave her a recognisable comfort. She knew how to deal with most of the types that surrounded it. Young business heads and artistically driven hands covered the bar. She moved towards them with her persona 2.0. The one thing that it achieved was the ability to exude an air of confidence. No matter how much effort Susan put into mimicking the woman she couldn't recreate that arrogant look. In the end she just looked like a young confident woman that walked around like a horse. None the less, Susan felt good. She was enjoying soaking in all the people.

The bar was the most obvious place to go to. The lack of money in her toy purse did scare her a bit. That night she saw a drink as a conversation starter rather than something to actually drink.

The bar was empty with a few bodies thrown over the benches sharing cold whispers with their temporary glasses. There was one man with software spectacles in the very corner of the bar by himself. He protected his rum and coke with his uncomfortable body. His spine bent over the stained wood allowing his silicon-valley bald patch to become the centre of attention. Susan could taste his lack of interest to share himself in this sort of establishment, so she scanned the area for a quiet seat.

Having sat down she knew that the bartender would come over to serve her, but with her lack of funds she didn't want to attract any unwanted attention. So with an itchy sense of haste she looked around the bar for someone who exuded a unique atmosphere to latch onto.

Not so far from her she saw a well-dressed gentleman sitting straight up facing the crowd. His interest wasn't in the self-sorrow of his drink but in the throngs of people that presented themselves in front of him. A glass of wine lay behind him up against his back. His navy suit jacket complemented his shaven chin. The image of youth still inflicted his face even though one could tell by the arched position of his stabbed black shoes that he has been in the realm of his early thirties for an extended amount of time. His elbows leaned up against the good nature of the wood, repurposing it as a make shift back support. Joy had receded from the corners of his jowls leaving it to recoup back behind his ears. Unfortunately not too many people look behind ears, in turn leaving the fresh eye wondering if he had ever felt happiness. Sharp boredom and smart apathy smeared around the bags of his brown eyes.

His eyebrows and everything surrounding them had caught Susan's attention. She noticed his reflection in the wiped glass behind the bar. It created an omnipresent illusion, building her interest in him even further.

Sharing words with the man became her self-appraised goal for the night. She dug her arm into the inside of her thigh, tucking it away from outside view. Only the very top of the tattoo was visible. Every so often she would remind herself of the contemporary crowd around her and that her tattoo wasn't particularly obscene. For nights to come, this would be the moment where she would remember feeling vulnerable. A radiated feeling in her hips teased her most of the night. That moment at the bar however, with no money and the most interesting person placed perfectly from her, would splatter a defined stain into her memory.

With the feeling of haste pushing up on her lower back, she got up from her chair and trotted over to the pristine figure. Her movements were broken up by her trying to remember how the older woman hovered. With wrists snapping between different heights and her steps lacking human pacing, she had at an instant forgotten how to be arrogantly confident. The layers of her persona that she had built for herself over the entire night had deteriorated with every fractured step towards him. She created a noticeable bang as she sat on the blood red cushion top next to him.

His neck tilted ever so slightly catching her silhouette in his peripheral. Susan sat quietly for a moment, attempting to ignore with great difficulty. She crossed her legs rubbing her skin, arousing a bed of fire in her upper thighs. It created soft warmth, alleviating any cold discomfort that stored in her stomach. She hooked her heels around the low metal bar of the stool giving her straight stability.

"How many people here......how many have you spoken to?" He said as he froze his gaze onto the shifting tides of the party.

"I don't think anyone yet... You're the first. You must feel very special." The words slipped out of her mouth raw. Her facade had shrivelled into a transparent mess on the wood of the bar.

"Are you one of Jameson's models? He likes them when they've got personality."

"Well you _really_ make me feel special. Nope I'm not a model and I'm not one of anyone's anything. I came here by myself."

"So I assume you don't know anyone here. _All_ these people are new to you?" Susan didn't know how to respond to that remark. She twisted on her stool to face the same direction as the man, now staring calmly into the sea of the crowd. The sea life from the bottom of the ocean rose at night. Alcohol collaborated with fresh oxygen from open windows in the distance to takes its toll on the crowd.

"I guess not, all new faces to me. They tend to be the same everywhere just with different makeup depending on the locale." In the split moment between her responses she felt the cold night air brushing up against her soft nose.

"Well then you have the freshest eyes in the building." Playing it cool was his drink, subsequently forgetting the glass of wine behind him. Susan noticed and wondered if he was perhaps uninterested in drinking, or he was just too preoccupied with the tide of people in front of him.

With his raised finger pointed vaguely at the people he said; "having seen some of these people, having heard them chat with themselves, would you come back to this place?"

She pondered his words, knowing full well that she would most likely never come back here. It was too inhospitable for healthy dirt to thrive in.

"No .... I probably wouldn't. I don't mean to offend ya like.... the red clashes with my only dress ya see." She let the words fall from her lips with an accent of laughter. He shifted his waist until he was comfortably able to look at Susan. He bore his eyes, evaluating her soft face. She brushed her dark hair back over her shoulder without provoked thought. He likewise tightened his chin and lips to sharpen his skin.

"Mathew." He didn't gesture to shake hands or anything. He simply placed his name in front of her expecting her to react positively. He didn't remove his eyes form her face.

"Susan Mur..." mid surname she decided that it would be best to keep it to herself until she knew his.

"Susan Mur?"

"Susan"

"You really are new to this place." He couldn't find any recognition in her eyes leaving his brows to dip with a mix of surprise and confusion.

"So you genuinely came up to me, not knowing who I am."

"In and out of the crowd you would have stolen my attention, but then again not much is required to take it." Half way through the sentence he stopped listening to her. The need for all the facts didn't arise. His palms tried to grasp the idea that someone was interested in him other than his reputable name and his colour drained photography.

Detaching himself from her gaze he ploughed his eye line along the people that presented across the room. He saw a tall woman, reaching for six foot and running away from experienced age, she leaned on the side of her hip tilting her body into a group of depraved eyes.

"There do you see that girl over there, perched between the older woman and the waiter... the one with the black slit thigh dress." Susan couldn't see the girl but nodded anyways to move the conversation on.

"Do you see how she stands, legs and hips perfectly straight to mimic that of a curve. She was designed that way. This one in particular was pulled from Belgium." As he spilt the words from his mouth, Susan finally caught eye of the woman he was speaking of. Right before she could form a coloured thought he interrupted her by swinging on the axis of his chair and banging the wood for a drink. It was all very abrupt leaving her to pick up the fleeting thoughts that she had built for herself, but oh so unfortunately they seemed to have disappeared beneath the faint maroon carpet.

He wrapped his ring-less fingers around the shaft of the glass and beckoned the bartender to prepare something exquisite for her. Susan was pleasantly tickled by his politeness to the bar man. Considerate syllables curved from his jaw.

"Now that we have the drink and the good company I want to find out more about the darkly haired woman that sits in front of me. What _do_ you do?"

Deciding to open her gates slightly, as if she hadn't already, she replied openly, unafraid to say dank words to a first name stranger.

"I'm unemployed, and enjoying life. Apart from the odd finance worry I spend most of my days looking at people.... _not_ in a creepy stalker kind of a way... I don't think I have the equipment anyway for that kind of a past time. Plus it just seems too demanding of a hobby for me like. I probably wouldn't have any time left in the day to plan on cleaning my flat.... _or_ chat with myself." She knocked back and forth delighted with her own light-hearted response as she sipped delicately on the tip of her bloody Mary glass. As much innocent joy she got from acting like a child she also got from poking holes in herself.

They both sat backs facing the pompous people, enjoying the reflection of themselves in the mirror behind the racks of unobtainable liquor. Mathew didn't respond to her immediately. This was a trend she picked up from him through the night. His long and well-fortified pauses created the impression that he was contemplating heavily what his next few words would be. As with everyone, it impressed her at first giving the illusion of depth. In the end however she would find out that it was in fact something he had learnt to appear thoughtful, in turn attracting the admiration of young and stiff products. "And yourself?"

"I am a photographer, but it's the least important aspect of me."

"Oooh what kind of photos do ya take. I bet I've seen some of your work around the place. I mean if you can afford to hang around here then I'm sure a few of your snaps grabbed some attention... so?"

He reluctantly cleaned up his posture preparing himself for the dreaded discussion.

"I take photos of models for an agency... from around the place... you know fashion and the few pretentious black and white stuff." He became sore over time by conversations being driven by people's assumption of him. So it was unsurprisingly refreshing to meet someone as peeled as Susan.

"It must be nice to be creative all the time. Don't know if I could do that myself.... I would probably end up stabbing whatever I created, if I was bothered enough to make it in the first place." Susan said with her lips quivering from the light hearted reply.

"That whole process lures you in with the illusion that your expression could fill whatever is missing. But all it manages... is to hook and force you to create things that already exist. Naturally people love me for it. I wouldn't recommend it as a profession." Realising the mood killer of a reply he gave, he created a smile to keep her within his company.

The attention of the room emptied itself to what was left of the young guns. This is when the aged called their chauffeurs to collect them, picking up what was left of their wealthy notions. This left the building to tend to itself. The workers finished some of their shifts and the drunks populated the last few spaces of the numb carpet.

Susan and Mathew's conversation grew along with their stack of empty wine glasses and bloody Marys'. As her bare skinned knees became more comfortable with his calm and deliberate words, so did his pacing with his replies. As their interest in one other erected, so did a rather short and stacked man behind them. Dressed in smart navy pants with a striped grey waist jacket, allowing sleeves to be wrapped around his elbows, he stood in the centre of a crowd ingesting their lathered attention. He had a tattoo sleeve of floral heavens crawling up his bulky arm. From a quick glance a mountain of meat and ink, would be the first impression. His height however would designate the notion that perhaps he was compensating for his pony stature, or maybe his tattoos said the usual "I don't give a shit" attitude. Either way you looked at it, his image stuck in people's minds, complimentary or other. As he tried to listen to both his entourage and the two love birds at the bar, he became unsettled and almost intrigued by the woman next to Mathew. He gestured his apology and moved his shaved temples over to the bar.

He wrapped his dark bracelet wrist around the waist of Susan. She jolted away slightly, tightening the gap in between her knees.

"O you're a jumpy one aren't ya." He looked her up and down, dropping a man's smile right between the bridge of her nose and her lipstick. Already she despised him.

"Mathew... I didn't know you were recruitin tonight. I see you're going for a more "down to earth girl" this time round. Can't disagree"

"Susan this is Steff ... we work together. I don't like him either." He said as he shared his relatable eye-line with her.

"No actually. Steff.... we are just having a drink. If you are in the mood for recruiting then I'd recommend touching some other girl. They might actually be attracted to creepiness." She tried to keep her back straight and as far away from his sleeves as possible. But with the leaning tower of drinks building in her judgement, she found it all the more difficult to keep steady and smart. When she thought about this it made her feel as if she let her guard down.

"Ya we are just having a quiet and private drink."

"Private huh..."

"I can't make a hint any more obvious for you. Private... quiet.... What other words do I need to pull out of the thesaurus for my message to get across to you?"

"I got the message. Just deliberately ignoring it, like the cunt that I am. Aint that right Susan?" The full stop to his sentence was made from a bundle of inherent laughter. Susan clearly saw joy tremor beneath his biceps.

She looked at him with expecting eyes without the need of saying a single word. He clearly knew that he was bothering the two. He just enjoyed fondling with their privacy.

"Before I leave ... Susan ... I just wanted to let you know how much of a pleasure it was to meet you." He placed his arms on the bar to order a drink to finalise the night. Mathew rose from his seat and placed one hand in front of Susan blocking her.

"Steff I won't say this again...... Please leave. And don't bother saying another word before you go because I'm well aware of your speeches."

"I'll leave... but you know and I know that I am going to say as many fucking words as I want before I go. But no speech. I'm too tired for that shite myself." Steff left the bar, reluctantly giving up on his childhood dreams of having a shot of whiskey.

"I'll see you Thursday." Mathew needed to have the last few words, to give himself a sense of protective closure, alpha male style stuff.

Steff walked back over to his entourage. Mathew watched every step that he took. Susan wasn't sure what had just transpired, she felt nervously open, contemplating the validity of Mathews actions. None the less she was still pleased by how he handled the situation. She eventually grew tired of the packs of boys that would wound each other for her.

The time had emptied itself of its own recognition. With the staff subtly shoving the remainder of the crowds out the hoarded door Susan and Mathew followed suit. Cars rolled up presenting their leathery back seats to the tired and drunk. Susan had expected Mathew to have had some luxurious car, but as it turned out he arrived at the party with a taxi. His reputation was more golden then his wealth.

Regardless of what happened Susan wanted to fold herself in her own blankets. Over the course of the night she had warmed up to him, enjoying the idea of what he could be once she dug into his hairline. Her memory of the entire night was coloured by her soft knees and upper thighs. That vulnerable guard was slowly chipped away by the proceeding conversation between the two. Covered by the cool dark sky and Mathew's electric heated arm around her shoulder. She felt safe. They stood together under the sandy arches of the event. Bags of coined people rolled out through the doors guided by the whipped hands of the staff.

As the taxis piled up on one another, Mathew pondered the thought of what he wanted from the night. He was drawn to Susan and her exposed caramel spots. He could instinctively smell the tender nature of her skin and it in turn poked an emotion within him. Protection is the word that described the fleeting thoughts through his mind. It was a very natural feeling that came about.

Both of them decided to stick with one another for the night. It was an easy choice considering the wealth of alcohol that seeped through their skin. Having placed his fingers around her lower waist he gestured for a taxi. She reciprocated by wrapping her arm around his back, digging her painted nails into his dark suit.

The taxi provided a sort of other dimension for them. They felt at ease with the seats, themselves and the driver. With their shaking and impatient movements they thrust their hands over each other like a pack of sexually charged irons. Latched onto one another exchanging fired saliva, they embarrassed the seats under them. The driver was used to that sort of thing at night. The first few times he unashamedly became aroused by the dance in his back seat, but over time the magic had worn off.

Their destination was the least of their concern, and in their haste to start their lubricated engines, Susan had told the driver her own address. She didn't feel the need to worry about her car, the state of her flat or what he might think. The thick layer of alcohol had built a wall preventing those thoughts from crossing over from the meaningless pile to the prioritised pile.

The taxi pulled up outside her flat with a hard punch of the handbrake. They clumsily shuffled up to her flat. On various steps she clipped the heel of her shoe, eventually flinging it from her foot. With a fast grab she held it in one hand as Mathew half lifted her up the rest of the stairs. There were stairs, but there was also a lift, which Susan should have remembered since she lived in the building for more than three years.

The door of her flat swung open to the end of its hinges. With a pause derived from oral exhaustion. Susan felt once more exposed. She immediately regretted bringing him back to her place without even the memory of it happening. She no longer felt horse like confidence from the older woman earlier in the night. With her dress unintentionally half unzipped she felt fully naked, instinctively holding her purse in front of her hips.

Mathew took this moment to gawk around the place. His eyes breezed over the dead couch, the T.V. and the kitchen. In his slightly more than tipsy state, he ate all the tiny pieces of Susan's personality that spread itself across the surfaces. The covered in crumbs toaster, the half cleaned pile of dishes and the damp towel hanging on the back of the open bathroom door, all of those details reminded Mathew of a time that had long past. He missed it so dearly. The combination of her innocently loose hair, the relaxed nature of the flat and his drunk sailor legs created the most comforting heat that he had felt in a while.

He noticed her introverted steps as she shuffled around the flat trying to clean up her thoughts. She had her left hand stretched behind her back attempting to zip up what was left of her dignity. Before she could find her bearings he held her arm with guarded softness, wrapping his fingers around her tired ring tattoos. She turned on her heel like some woman from a late forties Hollywood film. It was all very dramatic stuff, directed by their own blurred and foggy vision.

He jolted his jaw to say something mesmerizing to make her calves bend, but the only thing that came out was a breath of hot air.

What proceeds is an interpretation of a paint by numbers image of their sex. Try to bear with.

Purple poured into 12, smoothly merging with edges of 9. The hot red mixing with purple made the page stretch as far as the paper could go. No. 2 felt isolated with cold alerting the recognisable pink to warm its pencil edges. The painting shook with loud silence. In turn pushing on the purple even further. The boiled red and purple dug their claws into the back of the paper, rising above the number's soothing spots that expected different colours. As the colour reached the top, a splash of yellow plunged into 5 across the paper, forcing the purple and red to reach for new spaces. The rough edges of red mixed with the purple and yellow which resulted in streams of sweaty paint running down the painting. It reached the end, now having fully covered the page, even numbers that didn't expect to be touched. The paper dripped from whatever torn colours were still moist. The brush was particularly pleased.
CHAPTER FIVE

With the sweat hardening into their alcohol skin Susan and Mathew both lay facing the wardrobe. The window was closed, blocking off every possible hole to the outside world. It created a hot sweaty bubble. With Susan still asleep after last night Mathew's eyes broke open exposing themselves to the pink tinted room. The curtain's collaboration with the sun was the cause for this welcoming hue. It was a memorable highlight of Susan's mornings. He wiggled his body an inch at a time. Rolling his fingers through his destroyed hair, he casted his gaze over to Susan. Her long black hair hung over the pillow as if in a coma. Her right arm was attached to her front with the tattoo peering out from under the quilts.

With his clothes lazily fitted around himself, he moved into the kitchen. Morning silence possessed the flat allowing all of the tiny characteristics of Susan to stand out. He walked around causing as little noise as possible. Moving as if he was in an art exhibition, he analysed every sculpture of Susan's home life. A smile couldn't help but cut through his mouth. There was a bedroom pillow carefully placed on the sitting room chair acting as the beds younger cousin. Food was placed in little castle shaped piles in the fridge. A family of small plants roamed the ledge of the kitchen window, with the smallest one shrivelled, a piece of paper representing its grave stone placed beneath it. Mathew soaked it all in, he ate it without restraints, every single dirty angled pose.

Memories of the night previous flushed into her head, pushing through phases of alcoholic thought. First was the known regret phase, born by her mountain of drinks. Second was the analysis stage, this took a considerable amount of time as she lay in bed looking at the details of the room. Half way through she flung the blankets from herself and positioned her arms until they were in the shape of a cross. This wasn't an angelic or religious metaphor, Susan simply enjoyed the feeling of fresh air in her armpits.

The third stage usually comes later in the day, or even a few days later, but for Susan it crawled up her back with fingers tied in soft cloth. With each tap of the linen fingers they left an area of warmth on her skin, removing any doubtful thoughts previously. The orange memories of regret now coloured themselves into a kind shade of baby blue. She loved it all, hugging her legs until they almost touched her chest. It was good to get out of the house she said to herself. And with that bookend of a thought, she got up and put on a loose t-shirt.

With the window open and the soundtrack of the city resumed, she shifted into the kitchen to grab some food. Every time she left her bedroom in the morning, a part of her hoped that the furniture and apparatus would rise up and pick a new spot around the flat. She hated how they were always in the same position as the night previous, yet she was simply too lazy to move them herself.

The fridge doors exploded open with her hung-over hunger. She took out a few slices of plastic packed ham and Emmental cheese. Slapped them together with almost burnt slices of toast and rested her elbows on the counter of the kitchen staring into the sitting room. The crumbs of the "sandwich" created some form of waterfall onto the counter, she looked at it and told herself she'd clean it later.

Right at that moment her eye caught something on the edge of the counter. It was a tiny piece of paper, with its edges torn roughly from something. Abrupt writing painted the picture for Susan, she knew instantly who it was from. She was just slightly surprised he would leave _anything_ behind. Picking up the paper she rested her body on her left hip creating a sort of sassy look of expectation. Only a few words plagued the paper. His name first of all, Mathew scrawled quickly into the top. Beneath wasn't a number or some form of contact, but an address. A few letters of the address were dug into the page, trying to make it as clear as possible. It reflected how important he wanted her to be able to read it and how much he wanted her to show up. There wasn't any specific time either, just a time of day; afternoon. Bizarrely uncomfortable as the heroine, she wasn't used to it, but the thought of meeting Mathew again aroused her cute little happy receptors. Cute.

Her time was planned with an incessant tick. And no, she wasn't going directly to Mathews, she felt the need to make him wait a bit, let him sizzle like the renowned rasher that he was. Taking the free time in her hands she decided to pay her father a visit. Sure why not. When you don't have a job or daily purpose, entertainment slowly becomes the substitute.

With cheap food filling her stomach she showered herself creating a layer of skin for the day's load of events to pile up on. Afterwards she laid out an assortment of fresh clothes from the pile next to her bed, pulling her new pair of jeans to her waist. She picked her boots up by their leathery necks. Another long day ahead they said to themselves.

She paused in the hallway outside of her flat and froze when she thought about where she had left her car. A few steps to calm herself down and she started to walk to where it was parked. It was absolutely empty of anything important, which gave her confidence that no hooligans would dare molest it. Those darn hooligans lollygagging with fluorescent lights.

Having walked the sunny distance to where she remembered she parked it she found it sitting silently in the same location. No fecked scratches and no one bothered enough to waste their time stealing it. She knew she was lucky, but she didn't ponder on the "ifs" and "buts" extensively. It required too much effort to visualize the naïve consequences she might have had to have faced.
CHAPTER SIX

Clouds kidnapped the bright and sunny pavements, in turn filling them with rain. It immediately instilled that indoors day feeling among the people. You could see it in how they walked, hunched over protecting themselves from human interaction. No one was prepared for the bi polar weather to start crying half way through the day, so, many people shuffled from building to arch with summery light clothing. The rain cooled down their bare skin, freezing their expectations for the day.

Susan was in the car, huddled by her own warmth and the notion that she wasn't wet. There was a small gap in the left window however. Broken and refusing to move up just the slightest bit to cover whatever little warm joy remained in the car. Shots of rain trickled into the car forming a wet patch on the left seat. Susan hated how the car filled with the smell of outdoors, but at least she wasn't wet she told herself.

She parked the car right outside Kevin's house, as close as possible so to not get wet. She covered her gaps of skin with any loose bits of clothing and prepared to dash. Flung the door banging it against a dent in the wall and locked. Jumping into the ditch of the garden she kept her head down, bearing no heed to the homes of the flowers. The rain bounced and slid down off of her rain coat. It was one she had as a teen so there was a large tear sliding up the back, accompanied by a missing sleeve on her left arm.

Key in, dreams of warmth unlocked. She stepped in quickly removing the coat and left it on a nearby chair. The open rooms were empty closed off by the sound of rain. The curtains in the back kitchen were closed giving the lower half of the lower half of the house an evening feel. She expected him to be inside because of the rain and seeing as he wasn't downstairs she assumed he was upstairs. She's a marvellous detective.

Debris of his earlier life spread across the front room. Paintings didn't cover the walls, instead allowing peeled old skin to form the bumpy soft texture around the room. Small trinkets scattered across the surfaces compensating for the lack of family photos. Kevin always whispered his adventures into her ear when she was a child. The stories of him across the deserts and abandoned villages filled her with un-schooled imagination. At her age they gave her the colour palette for her to paint with. Through her father she was introduced to an array of shades that didn't exist in the structured bubble of a world outside she knew.

A plate of half eaten potatoes rested on the table. The residue of his presence was apparent in how he left his utensils. It appeared as if half way through eating his dinner something happened grabbing his attention, in turn leaving his collected meal cold from waiting. After seeing the grave of food left on the plate her original idea of him sleeping slowly disappeared with every connection. But she needed to check, to make sure where he was.

Grabbing hold of the uneven railing she suppressed her steps, just in case he was actually asleep. Her head raised over the carpet until she was at height with the hall. It was long and void of light, with the faintest of glimmers of outside shining through the gaps in the doors. She could never imagine this house not being part of her life. Her childhood moments inflicted every crack in the house. At the very end of the hall was Kevin's room and to the left of that was Susan's room, capsuled by nostalgia.

She couldn't help herself, she had to gander an eye into her bedroom, her father could wait with the rain. Her room was ajar soaking in the atmosphere of the dank house. Everything that she hadn't taken when she moved out was still in the aged position they were when she left.

Her single bed covered the corner next to the window looking out the side of the house. Her knees felt thin like when she was a child. She could feel that blissful happiness from when she was younger stab into the back of her neck forcing a smile. A handmade press of books presented itself on the opposite wall. She remembered how it would always fall on its left side, knocking the books out. Stacks of small books were replaced as the leg instead of making a new one. Kevin always insisted on fixing it, but Susan had no desire to, saying that the books did the job just fine. Naturally it always baffled Kevin.

A doll corpsed itself on the covers of the bed. Its body was half naked exposed by the wear and tear of a child's playfulness. Susan never gave it a name. She didn't particularly like it much when she was young. When she first received it as a present she was so disgusted by the doll is that she buried it in the back garden. But over time boredom got to her, forcing her to engage with it. Using it as a crayoned canvas, she coloured it with graved drawings and morbid dreams. Shapes and broken lines harmed the dolls face, not like some demonic child's victim but instead a different kind of toy. Through the unintentional fun that she got with the doll she formed a strange bond with it, finding it harder and harder to let go of it. So in the end she left it to protect her room, respect built every time she saw it sitting loyally between the waves of her blanket.

With her nostalgia stimulated once more, she remembered her quest for her father's whereabouts. Creeping back into the hall she placed her hand on her father's door carefully. The creak of dementia wood would have woken up the dead, so she just moved it enough to squeeze her head through.

The room was empty, void of any breathing pair of lungs. He wasn't in the house, perhaps he was gone somewhere. Shopping for food? She arched her neck around the body of the room looking for Kevin as if he'd be hid in a corner crying to himself like the heartfelt man that she wished he was.

The room was littered with scarred memorabilia. Totem be totems in the designated corners. Dead skin painted the curved wood surfaces. Odd physical rocks represented the cemented memories of the aged man. They all formed around, hand placed, in a circle of needed friends. With attributes placed by the wrinkles of his eye, they provided the illusion of company. She had been in his room with often sight, but she had never seen such a strange placement of his belongings as if stretched out like a thigh muscle. As she gawped at the red meat, a noise came through the window which looked out into the backyard.

Inching her attention up to the pained glass she focused her vision through the fog of rain. A sound of metal fighting rock shattered through. She saw her father's silhouette off in the distance shaking to her own fear. Storming down the beaten carpet she stood in the frame of the kitchen door and looked out into the battlefield of the backyard.

Ever since Kevin had decided to redress his garden, the back side of the house was always dripping with the ideas of what he wanted it to be. But the task of redecorating took time and effort that he decided to spend on the front first. Because of this the back garden was left to grow with a distorted back brace, morphing the spine of the grass to live in patches. A fantastical football pitch is exactly what the garden looked like.

Kevin was in the far reaches of the garden, banging his shovelled grip against the ground of rock and stones. She moved towards sheltering herself underneath the umbrella of the tree. Few bullets of rain passed through the gap in the branches, but she ignored them, focusing on more pressing matters.

Howling her words through the sheets of rain she said; "Dad!! What are you doing.....? Come inside." He turned around digging the shovel into the ground to throw his next words. "I need to work.... planting a few things. The garden won't finish on its own."

"Come over here." He left his shovel behind and apprehensively walked over to her warming his shoulders with the blankets of branches.

"Why do you have to do it in this weather... can't you just leave it for another day and come inside... hot cup of tea. How does that sound?" At that point she had wrapped herself in her own confused skin huddling for warmth with the embrace of her arms.

"It sounds great but I started working and I plan on finishing... I'm not allowing this weather fucking decide my day." He said as he middle fingered the sky.

Frustration built up in Susan, mainly because she had to endure the weather to indulge his words. She decided to dig a disapproved look into him. No other words would have worked, so she turned on her heel and went into the house. He stood there with his own slight guilt. Brushing his coarse hand up against the trunk of the tree, he dug a hole with his work boots deciding what to do next. The shovel stood erect in the dirt, while Susan dried herself off in the eye of the kitchen. The rain filled the hole he was digging. With that in mind he thought to himself that maybe the weather would take care of it, maybe time would pause for the garden's back hole, and perhaps Susan would forget.

The back door of the house swung with reserved force pushing small puddles into the kitchen. Susan stood by the kettle preparing a cup of hard conversations. He ignored her at first, shifting about the kitchen building up an uncomfortable silence while he dried himself off and changed his clothes. She slighted her neck over to him.

"The garden is that important is it? Some buried treasure you're not telling me about... or maybe some bunker hiding all of our relatives." She said with undeniable laughter for the situation. Holding his soaked shirt in a bundle he ate the question.

"Did I ever tell ya about when I stayed a while in Canada?"

"No ...and I don't like it when you avoid my question."

"Just give that cup of tea, sit down and listen... cause I'm listening to you. K?" He placed himself at the end of the table, waiting for his cup of always over-milked tea. With her knees banging up against the underbelly of the wood she sipped on her warmth waiting for the story to slip out from beneath his wrinkly heat. He warmed his palms with the drink first before igniting his story.

"I was in my late twenties... I think. Doesn't matter. Having no one at home left, I had decided to roam around the place. Puberty is no fucking fun when you have no one to torment you know."

Susan raised her legs until they were pressed against her chest instilling that natural feeling of self-achieved warmth. "Ya my favourite story is the one with you through the highlands of Iceland."

"Ya... damn right... glad you remember that one... This one played a little differently though. I forced myself to try different places... to find a place to stay and eat. Was in Canada with that goal, through towns and villages by myself. A couple of stolen drinks, food and foreign fists later I came across this old fella. Bag of fucking skin he was. Seemed like an easy target to steal from, so I followed him home. As you do when you don't have a dinner in front of you." Letting out nostalgic laughter he leaned back into his worn chair.

"I genuinely thought I was being stealthy you know... moving between bushes and shite. He knew well though what I was up to that night.... I got to his house and waited until he settled down for the night... waitin for the cover of darkness as the poor man's bible says. But you know hunger can make a man tired... while I was asleep he moved me into his house. He had so much flabby skin it must have hid all of his muscles, cause I was _heavy._ When I woke up in the morning he had placed out a breakfast for me and all.... I didn't know what to think. Kind Canadians I suppose." She leaned forward with hungry breath lining her lips with the taste for insight.

"I stayed with him for an "I don't know how fucking long" amount of time, but I was in no position to refuse. The place itself was nice, you know forests and trees and fields. All the space that the young man me needed to run around in. I was never very kind to people that dared to place a leash on me you know. So I spent most of my days out in his garden and worked shifts for him at his sawmill. He fed me and then I spent every evening out under the garden with him. The simple act of giving me food was enough to make me submit." Whether it was the thought of how ridiculous it all sounded or the swishing muscle memory of his chopped off tail, he managed to laugh.

He finished his tea in one gulp finalising the cup. The rain tormented the glass from the windows. The arms of the tree tortured itself with the bending strength of the wind. Colour grew fearful of the outside noises, running away from their surfaces in an attempt to find somewhere inflicted by rays of what was left of the sun. Each depressing element of the kitchen seeped into the odd words pulled out by Kevin.

"A forest fire started one night... Tried to save him and all that heroic jazz. The garden gone, him gone, house gone, I had nowhere to go. Everything about him and that place were the only things that kept me alive... so I just slept outside the ash place... every _fucking_ night." somehow he managed to find the corpse of laughter in the conversation.

"He paid me with food and shelter so I didn't exactly have any money to go somewhere else. Beautifully symbiotic relationship between an old kind man and his testosterone fuelled dog no? Naturally when one party disappears so does the other. But somehow no one told me this, so I stayed at the burnt down place and tried to salvage who knows what... running around waiting for my master to return like the good boy that he trained me to be. It doesn't matter how attached you are to someone, food always comes back reminding you that life still exists and so do you." With that he grabbed his cup of tea and banged it against the hard table to punctuate his point.

The empty liquid in Susan's cup rang hollow within the bones of her fingers. She didn't know what to say, she didn't feel the need to say anything, just diverted her attention to the dwindling heat in her knees. "What happened next?"

"I just stayed until I found somewhere else to sleep, shit and eat. When I left the trees were in the same bent position as when they had died. That garden couldn't survive you know. No matter how much I wanted it to return to its former beauty."

"So with the story over, I feel _very_ entertained. Thank you very much. Should be a movie and all, but why? Why did you tell me this? It's depressing enough with the weather outside." At that point the conversation had receded to the back of his tongue, parched and begging like a mad man for another drink. "I just felt like I needed to share. That story has been playing in my mind all morning and I guess I just need someone to lay it on." "Selfish."

He got up from the table and proceeded to drown himself with a new cup of tea. Susan followed him with her eyes as he leapt from his chair. She was half expecting to see a tail wagging from all of the fucking dog references in his story. But nothing, unfortunately he was just a normal man with no tail. _Damn_ she thought to herself. Her enjoyment for fantasies burst then and there.

"So what's the story with the demonic circle of props up in your room?"

He took the shift in conversation as his queue to stretch. Contemplating where he should rest his ass next he hovered from one corner of the room to the next.

"I'm just running through some old memories of mine. Nothing creepy about that is there? I don't exactly have photos to make a scrapbook out of so those tiny things are the closest thing I have to my earlier life."

"I get that, but they are just laid out so dramatically."

"Indulging myself." The rain kept banging like the rain does, forcing all the tiny droplets into a state of self-reflection. Like why do we have to be wet? And why do we have to fall and hit the ground? All of their questions had actual answers but considering how they were in fact water and lacked the ability to think, those very simple questions became their transcendental philosophies.

"Now it's my turn to snoop around your daily life. Get up to anything interesting... in the past day?" The words came out buttered with creamy laughter, showing how little he expected her to say.

"Ya actually... I met a guy at a bar last night. Mathew was his name.... first name basis. Fancy photographer and all that... I'm planning on meeting him again soon. He is vague enough, like all he left me was an address and a time. Don't even know his last name yet."

Paused at the kettle, he turned around and leaned on the counter with his pressured hands.

"As your father I feel obliged to tell you that that sounds so fucking fishy I wouldn't be surprised if it was a fish market he was leading you to." He was laughing at his cheesy reply but at the same time Susan saw genuine worry inflict his face as he tried to squeeze the light hearted jokes from his cheeks.

"You know that I can handle myself right?" Susan said trying to lure him into her body language. Kevin swallowed the bait and leaned into her over the table.

"Out of everyone that I know, you are the one who can handle themselves the most, I just don't know how... Mathew handles himself." "He's fun." She said ending the conversation on her note. She appreciated and loved the concern that he had for her but it would always end on her note. Both of them knew that.

And that was all they could say to each other. The rain continued to thrash its body against the walls of the house. Kevin waited until the weather calmed down from its temper until he went once more into the fray of his back garden. They shared a few more polite words between each other, but with time pressing on Susan's ankles she left heading towards somewhere new. Before she escaped her old home however, Kevin had placed a small lump of cash in her palms. The transaction stank of repetitiveness, so she just covered her nose and thanked.
CHAPTER SEVEN

The weather continued to cry over its undeserved hatred. Susan cruised along a road heading towards an increasingly desolate part of the city. Once used buildings scarred by traumatic events spilled across the wet muddy plains. Unused warehouses born from the money boom's silver lined womb plagued what was left of the empty spaces. Her car drove a fair distance from anything resembling life. Trees and shrubs had gone to a better place, evicted by the demanding fumes of nearby factories.

As she drove, she fondled the very motive for driving out in to such a sparse place, where the only company clean enough to talk to were the shrubs that lined the road. Dangerous? She fucking knew it. But something about the sharp edged kick she got from her escape was enough to motivate her to cut her ties with her city life and spend the next while relaxing in her car. She couldn't bear the smell that had collected in her flat. What to do next? Well perhaps occupy yourself by thinking about some really heavy and depressing stuff, and that's exactly what she did.

Kevin was an only child still reeling in from a car crash that killed his parents. Very traumatic shite, regardless of how attached one is to their parents. They were all he had, which happened to be the part that stuck with Susan the most seeing as it directly affected her. Every so often when she felt the need to care for him, he would throw his feelings under the bus like every other man that participated in the seemingly man seminar that every boy has to take. _Feelings are weak_ and all that chest bumping bravado. It was always a useless effort for Susan to try and talk to him about it. The first acknowledgment of his family was enough for him and nothing more. _Our family_ she would always say back to him.

The death of his family was so traumatic is that it sent him a flight from land to land to finish his puberty. She always took it as a slice of life but the part that stood out to her was the fact that she had never seen any of them. All she had to go on was Kevin's apology for losing any photos of them across his enlightening journeys and adventurous tales. Sometimes it was hard for her to believe that he had lost the only photos of her only relatives. She prayed that it was merely a convenient excuse for him not to have to bring up his family, but her boots shook afraid that he was telling the truth.

The absence of music filled the car. Her boots covered by the shadows of the pedal cave twisted in their seams. Her right boot pressured itself to act instinctively, while the boot on the left waited, halting, assuring itself that Susan's soft skinned father would take care of himself. Their leathery thoughts shivered up Susan's legs, tickling her hairs. Unnerving to feel while driving.

She pulled up behind a collection of abandoned buildings. The image of a boring apocalypse wouldn't have been far off. Her movements were paused by the dank embrace of her own head, sitting and enjoying the hard hitting melody from the rains own tortured worries. The car filled up with foggy smoke. Her neck felt heavy leaning on her head rest. Playing back a simple tune in her head, the rain acted as the fast paced drum. It calmed her boots down, easing the worries behind their black laces.

She no longer saw outside the windows. The combination of smoke and her limp mind filled the windows with fake images of her flat, spreading straight to the frames of the glass.

The stains of her couch fitted within the plastic rims of the windows. Looked as if her ensemble of furniture were somehow projected onto the interior of the car. Her arm flung to the back of the car fumbling around for something comforting to grasp onto. With the tips of her fingers she thought she felt the corner of her pillow. It was overbearingly white with the slightest hint of dampness. She tried to pull it forward into her lap, but it seemed to be attached to something. She forced all the strength she could possibly muster out of her steamed muscles.

In her half eaten state she looked to the ever growing back seat of the car. All she saw was her bed, with the blankets forming an oval shaped interior. It demanded her to bind her sleep to it. The bed was furious, shown by the fact that it stapled the pillow to itself. It was clean however, absent of any apparent filth. To Susan the freshness protruded through the quilts, leaving a trace smell of bought perfume. Fucking weird though like and she knew it.

The bed politely asked her to leave the boots behind. Too much thick air flew through her eyelids for her to be able disagree. The bed appeared like a bought paradise to her. The ideology and dirt common fears of outside no longer existed to her. All that was left was the hairy arm of the bed, selling the lubed idea of a safer future for her. A confusing sense of comfort.

In colour's family picture, Mr Black was always the admired one, told by old whispers that they would be the one to succeed. It gave Mr Black an unparalleled amount of confidence. Which he, an actual shade of colour, used to full affect every night. Everyone ignored Grey. Colours' silence would break Grey's confidence to achieve even the slightest of tasks. It forced Grey to seep within the mundane, to become unnoticed to the eyes of anyone. But every night Grey would slip beneath black's performance and control what he couldn't reach. Black stayed darkly ignorant to the ravings of the monotone, but Grey didn't care. She enjoyed every moment of the night, embracing every little joyous surface that she painted.

Susan's socks pressed up against the wet glass. She jolted the slightest bit. Her hand dug into her crotch acting as the most basic form of heat. The hole in the thigh of her jeans was fingered by her index. Her other hand was huddled around her neck.

Her lips cracked open in rhythm to the pained edges of her eyelids. All she could see was the subtle battle between Black's dominance and Grey's serene love for herself outside in the night. Susan momentarily focused on the handbrake, thinking for that brief moment she was in her bed.

Frightened by the lack of light it sunk in for her that she had slept in the car for a considerable amount of time. Engulfed by burnt ideas of what could have happened she tried to stay calm, whispering tiny packed words of comfort to herself. Climbing into the front seat she placed her shook hands on the steering wheel. It took her a reasonable amount of time for her to gather her thoughts and remember how to drive.

The car engine started, alerting any fictional evil people that lurked in the shadows of Susan's well deserved fear. Her neck swung around the car trying to cope with the thought of her being in the middle of the night be herself. But she had no one to blame apart from her little friend called impulse. The vulnerable car swam through the waves of confident MR Black's shades. Susan drove with stuck haste and fast fear.

Mr Black swallowed the corners of the car park, bringing those terrible nightmares to fruition, while Grey tried to separate the patches of lit up cement from Mr Black himself. She circled the street lamps quietly forcing Black to find other territories to terrorise. Yet with all of this he would be the colour to be praised, lauded by wet flesh clapping. All she saw was the light blinding out his stretched coal skin.

As Susan drove through the night her car sputtered muffled words of exhaustion. The nocturnal tide took its toll on the smoothly bent metal of the car. She wrapped her sides with the loose hangings of her jacket, holding them with her armpits. She wasn't necessarily cold, but yet a desire for familiar warmth arose between her layers of skin. And with the slow thumps of the night it succeeded, making it the only viable thought that roamed around in her skull.

Her car parked. Her keys were wrapped around her index finger as she leaned up against the wood of her front door. Even though she wasn't in the slightest bit drunk she still managed to tumble her way into the front of the flat.

The faint yellow light from the hallway ran all the way into her home, slicing through Mr Black on the carpet until the yellow glow reached the bottom half of her room. She closed the front door quickly before any of her nightly terrors came to a melodramatic climax.

Her boots shuffled against the grain of the floor. They never enjoyed the rough texture of the carpet, but yet it always instilled a warm realisation that they were once more safe at home. Stemmed from the day, baby blue pain made them think about Kevin. Thinking about Kevin was one thing, but to be stuck pondering about his past is another. Her left boot tripped itself against an imaginary hump in the carpet, burdened by the heavy worry about Kevin and his youthfully young state of mind.

All Susan had was the dreamt imagination of what her family could have looked like after hours spent gazing into the bathroom mirror. That feeling, that one green and lonely feeling created that empty hole which tormented Susan's spine.

While the tangled laces of her boots were preoccupied with their own back-seated self-discussions Susan finally caught onto a cord of a lamp. She tugged with a tired lack of patience. It was still miles better than Mr Black's portfolio of work outside.

She walked into her bedroom and pulled the blanket of skin off of her. First her boots went, then the jacket greeted the floor.

Even though the bedroom had an apparent lack of light, it still flashed itself with toxic and faint colours in the corners. Purples and reds danced with each other teasing the warm blue that hid underneath the sheets of her bed. Susan tried to ignore them but they managed to make her legs feel as if they weren't hers. Digging her chin into the folds of the blanket she held onto her legs and thighs trying to keep them attached to her hip.

That precise feeling, that desire to hold onto warmth controlled her tangled movements. She wanted to go under the covers. She even saw the warm blue glow, but her cold legs refused her from moving into the warm embrace of her bed. Her contradicting bones screamed through their own marrow until they reached her head, banging on the inside of her skull. Jarring.

One by one she plucked her worries from her spine and left them outside her room. First was the memory of her non-existent family, then was the worry of Kevin and himself, followed by the lost memory inside her bedded car. She slowed down to the pace of sleep and climbed under her blanket.

The flashing colours in the corners tamed themselves until there was nothing left but the limp light in the kitchen. Every piece of heavy breathed furniture had settled down allowing Susan to finally shut down.
CHAPTER EIGHT

Nocturnal people shifted between one socially acceptable hub to the next. Their horny footsteps banged against the pavements as they stared at their own sexual snaps in the reflection of shop fronts. _I'm edible_ they said to themselves as they guided their hands over their hips and shoulders as if they were a horde of sexually aroused rabbits. Raw legs pranced around the empty streets cocked like attractive rainbow feathers. It was all very erotic stuff, bought straight from your nearest farmer's sex shop.

The trees and sprouts of life tired themselves out from the thrashing of the rain. Because of this they all lay dead spread across Mr Black's dark plate. The only interaction they had was a short tango with the wind. It made the plants look demented, flying from side to side without any apparent third party.

It was Kevin's favourite thing about the night, the eventual strong arm of the wind forcing his hard work to come alive. He spent that night perched on the seat of his open front door. His arms wrapped around himself to protect his chest from the unknowns of the night. Only he knew what boxed memory he guarded between his ribs.

His left arm snaked up around his chest until he started to message his own neck. He felt the muscles, shifting and turning them over on each other like a bag of pasta. Turmoil erupted itself in front of him as the theatre of wildlife outside danced as if under the influence. Glorious stuff. But that night, that night he didn't notice much of it. Staring at something else that danced in front of his eyes he leaned on his spine and fondled his hair by the front door.

With the city impatiently plucking its own forearm hairs it waited for the day to once more give it purpose. It didn't care about Mathew, it didn't even know about Kevin and Susan appeared as a broken speck of dust on its concrete coat. With half of its arm now red raw from the plucked hair, the sun came just in time before the city teared up from the self-inflicted pain.

Rays of sun from the windows entirely surpassed Susan as she lay cryogenically on the bed. She was covered by the shadow of the wall behind her, which was good because she always hated waking up with the piercing sun. It always cut her morning bed stretch down short. Her gasping legs and arms escaped from the blanket, trying to cool themselves down from the rest of her overworked and overheated body. The faint imprint of her wild dreams remained on the inside of her eyelids. Whenever she would look at them, they would shift right out of sight. She couldn't look at them straight on which woke her to frustration. Her body was overclocked desperately grabbing for some more ram. The sweat from her armpits dripped through her top, making her feel uncomfortably restricted.

Pulling whatever was left of the fresh air in the room she got up and stretched herself. With the memories of yesterday wiped from her hard drive she tried to pull her limbs away from herself as far as possible. She could feel her skin turning and tearing. She ran her fingers through her scalp unintentionally grabbing onto small clumps of grease bound hair. The relaxing touch of her stretch was immediately undermined by the feel of her dirty head fur. She walked up to the mirror right of the bed. Its frame was decorated with her own boredom, dressed with marked sketches and reflective doodles.

Susan for the first time in what felt like a decade actually looked at herself in the mirror. She just hated the look of her constantly wet black hair drooped over her shoulder. Throwing a few strands behind her shoulder she ran her left hand over her chest feeling the grooves that joined to her neck. She loved her small shoulders, her solid and round nose, her untainted and innocent skin and her protruding ears. She liked to think she knew what her thighs were, what they had and what they wanted. The mirror once more reassured her of her own orgasmic desires forcing a rare smile of confidence across her face.

The hum of the fridge tried to communicate the interpretive carbohydrate dance to Susan. Luckily enough for the fridge's contents, she was suffering from a lack of nutrition from yesterday. It was a marriage made in heaven when Susan proposed to the fridge. Taking out a few slices of plastic packed Edam and a coffin of old butter, she made a sandwich that barely even deserved the classification.

Stomach full and her day empty she sat like a sideways L on the couch. Her ass was directly on the face of the faced stain. Not bothered to turn on the TV she just turned her neck around the room picking up on anything new that had changed in her cave. The house never really lived much on its own without Susan being present.

The simple contact she had with her knees made her feel safe. All in all it was a very quiet orchestra that played in her flat. Looking to her left she saw her boots collapsed in a coma on the carpet. Her left boot was lying horizontally spreading its half open laces across the hills of the floor. Susan entirely ignored her right boot, it looked as if it didn't need help, for the time being anyways. Her left boot on the other hand pointed with its leathered index finger to Mathew, specifically to the note that he had left. She pondered about it for a moment, trying to visualise the crumples and creases in the paper. With it framed perfectly in her head she thought about going to meet him. _Where does he want me to meet him?_ _Will it be too soon to meet him? Should I wait until tomorrow to go there?_

As she threw those thoughts from one end of her skull to the next, her eyes slept for a finger full of hours. She didn't notice that she had slept, she hadn't even felt the usual crawl over her face. The only thing that gave her an indication was the shift in shadows on the coffee table in front of her.

The day had now taken a yellow tint, signalling the peak of the day for most people. A red crease had pressed itself into the canvas of her palm as she removed her hand from between her thighs. She felt like a slob, like a bottle of cheap men's deodorant and she loved it. But she didn't want to spend the rest of the day locked in a repugnant bottle so she peeled her sweaty skin from the couch and pulled herself into the shower.

With her hair clean and her filthy layer of skin ripped off by cheap shower gel she pulled a pair of dark jeans over her hips. It had a few holes but she always told herself they added to the character of the fabric. She Knew it was bullshit really but that's how she justified not having to pay for a new pair of jeans. With an ocean blue woolly cardigan covering her top she walked out to retrieve her boots from their habitat. When she slipped them on she felt the slightest bit of dampness. She guessed it was sweaty from last night. So without the need to confirm, she sprayed the inside of her boots with deodorant. They weren't happy.

She picked up her small purse and checked the note that Mathew had left behind. As she looked at the address she realised what she was actually getting herself into. Having just met this man, that she didn't even know the last name of, she was going to go meet him at a location that he decided, without any form of contact. She could fit her entire fore arm into the gaps of logic, but she had nothing productive to do that day. He somehow dug into her and it was a relatively new feeling for her. Indulging in it was one thing but she also knew to be careful.
CHAPTER NINE

The roads were dry, craving for the slightest smear of Vaseline rain. Their tortured cries were muffled out by the busy shoving of the traffic. The taste of fumes from people's frustrated heads and the breath from the cars fell onto her tongue, delicious no?

Her legs hovered over the pavements and Grey's daily territory. She couldn't feel her legs moving across the ground, as if they had formed their own lower congress, walking desperately for bony independence. The sun was perverting directly above the city.

It took a solid hand full of minutes to get to her destination. The building was surrounded by an empty forest of concrete and trampled pavements and yet you don't see any conservationists complaining about that, tying themselves to the ground do you? Anyways, Susan halted for a second, eating on the building and the people that flushed out from the glass twin doors. It collected a batch of good looking moving statues with those erected cheek bones and meat in all the right places. This was undoubtedly a modelling agency. Their choice of clothes that didn't make sense gave the impression that it was more centred on fashion.

They dipped their skin with oils to give it that sallow sheen. The front of the building was cursed by the idea of rich windows, reaching from the ceiling to the floor looking out into the sandbox of profiles. The side of the boxed building had no such windows blocking anything from the outside world from tainting the model's richly vibrant fabrics.

Susan walked into the front of the building with exquisitely built expectations. The room screamed with its width and stretched out length. Fluorescent tubed lights span across the long corners of the room. Straight to the left was a neatly decorated desk with towers of collected pieces of personality. The newly bought computer faced the empty chair where the secretary should have been perching her worked body. Susan was surprised the agency even had a secretary. She wasn't too versed on the modelling business so the information didn't sprout naturally for her. Behind the desk was a large sign with the name "Callaghan" in finely edged silver letters.

Apart from her self-digesting thoughts she was entirely by herself in the room. The floor was layered with the idea of what modern day wealth should feel like to the unknown boot. It made Susan's shoes feel out of place. Susan immediately grabbed her hip trying to keep in all the imaginary bloody gutted worries. The light from the encouraging sun bounced off of the tiles and towards some double doors at the end of the room. Without even thinking about it she knew she had to go through those doors. But she didn't know what was behind them, if Mathew was even there, or if she might interrupt some shoot that was going on behind the crystal white doors. _They look heavy_ she thought as she fingered a small vulnerable hole in her top, exposing a slight bit of skin. _Maybe I could just take a peek, just a small and quick one, quiet and sneaky._

Cruising towards the door she thought about who owned the agency and all those technical exposition questions that people care about so much. Well seeing as she didn't know what Mathew's surname was, it made her realise that she should have probably looked him up while she was checking for the address. It made her feel like a headless dildo vibrating its way through the fancy building.

As she moved regretfully towards her wooden goal, the sound of footsteps clapped themselves out onto the tiles. Behind Susan the secretary had appeared at her desk holding a plastic tub filled with slaughtered leaves and salad dressing. With a fork full in her mouth she stamped her high heel against the ground beckoning Susan to come over. At least she was polite enough to not talk with her veiny mouth open.

The woman was roughly laid out within her ripe thirties and wore a black and white dress, which reflected how short their conversation would be. With a bangled swing of her wrist she finished the last gulp of her food, signalling for Susan to say something.

"Mathew?" she said, still confused with the new language that this secretary had introduced her to.

The tightly bound blonde dipped her chin with acceptance and looked Susan up and down, melting her eyes into a form of liquid so she could drip her condescending judgements all over her. The secretaries curved and angled eye line boiled Susan down making her feel very uncomfortable with herself and her holed attire. She felt as if she was on show like a dairy cow, prepped to be milked behind those doors that she so desperately tried to get behind. The secretary interrupted the silence with a swan like gesture towards the stairs on the right. The stairs were in the process of being built with a few steps still suffering from their last owner.

When Susan looked back at the secretary she was already sitting at her chair with another nail varnish wrapped fork of salad. Her gaze was bought out by some online shopping gallery. She didn't know what exactly she expected to get out of the secretary, so swallowing her own attention she left. With the dream of peeking through the now pointless door left behind she went up the stairs. Each step had odd cracks that flashed and exposed their private material. She couldn't tell if the cracks were because of a lack of care over time, the style, or the possibility that the building was recently decorated and they were half finished. She couldn't tell because the edges of the slitted granite looked as if they were purposefully broken to instil that contemporary broken look.

Once she reached the top of the "expensive _?_ " stairs she paused for a split moment to take in her surroundings. Believe it or not but Susan never spent much time in these sort of places. Nothing much was different on top, except for a wall of windows to her right that looked out onto the scalps of the many people that walked past. Pressing herself up against the body of glass she almost smelt the hair products from all the different people. It was a brief delight for Susan to look at an angle of people that rarely got much attention. Looking at all their naked scalps made them look stripped to her as if they were all stretched out on some couch with their knees up in the air.

Having had her fill of naked stranger's heads she peeled herself from the social TV and proceeded down the hall to Mathew. The hall was deceptively long, with its doors widened more than the average which made the white clinical walls appear bloated. The further she went down the hall the less natural light came with her, slowly being replaced by fluorescents strapped and gagged to the ceiling. She could hear her boots shiver against the tiles. She concentrated on every door that she passed. None of them released any telling sound as to which one Mathew was in, how much noise can a camera make? So she faced the door with the most active flow of light and edged it open.

White light clashed against strings of yellow which formed a bouncing routine through the particularly white room. No windows, artificial stands and cups of light formed their own lit up ecosystem within the room. The back of the Elinechrome Litemotiv Softbox faced Susan as she placed herself in the frame of the door. Towards the end of the room holding a CANONE EOS 5d was Mathew. His white shirt tucked into the back boundaries of his smart navy pants.

Large paint buckets were being tortured, having their liquid limbs pulled across the drum of the room. It was just him and a model. Between the two a small pile of open buckets with pools of rainbow paint slathered across the workspace of the room.

Tall and curved by a natural diet the model wore a light white dress acting as the canvas for the rainbow style collection of paint. The door was silent so it hadn't alerted anyone to the creeping of Susan. The room was a perfect rectangle, however it felt like an oval to her. Angling her neck to consume the room she noticed how large white painted pipes sprawled from one corner of the room to the other, giving that oval shaped look. The more she choked herself with looking at the room the more it looked like the inside of an eye. Wading herself through the thick fluid she walked a distance behind Mathew leaning up against the retina of the place.

At the centre was Mathew unaware of Susan's presence, fingering his camera with smooth motions, leaning and crouching. Susan was surprised by him. She expected him to be cladded in the cum of wealth, but he was splashed by the back hand of the paint buckets with streaks of ejaculated rainbows climbing their way up his white shirt. Lingerie red dripped from the arch of his back leaving a puddle of mixed maroon beneath his shoes.

The model had noticed Susan but acted professional ignoring her presence and not alerting Mathew. The only sound that fondled itself in the room was the flash of the camera hitting the model's satin dress and the odd carried breath that seeped from Susan's lips.

Not wanting to interrupt his work she stayed as quiet as she possibly could. Eyeing up the black eye-lined model in the eye of the room Susan began to digest every facet of the models behaviour. She started at the top and worked her way down. First the face. Bluntly, her nose was sharp acting as the cream bench for the arches of her shadowed eyes. Wooden red hair detached itself form the scalp of the woman standing on its toes trying to balance on the scalp of the model. Her lips were politely open as if she had to breathe on the lustful stank that arose from her own thighs and she seemed to be very apathetic about it.

Susan looked at the models lips for a while analysing the curved cookie jar nature of them. Placing her hands on the rough white wall she leaned on her left hip and concentrated on her own lips. Opening and closing them like a fish she attempted to capture the same expression as the model. Her eyebrows shivered as if dying from a hairy seizure, while she maintained the open fly nature of her bare lips. She didn't have a mirror so she had to go off of the feeling of her twitching facial muscles to see what she looked like. Her eyebrows relaxed to a reserved sexual state and her lips were prepped for an airy kiss. She felt sexy. She was not.

Susan ate at the exposed ankles of the model. She was perched at an angle directing her hip in the opposite direction as if she lost the ability to point with her finger so she had to revert to using her torso. Her neck lay back horizontal to her body. Susan admired the level of professionalism of both of them. She could almost sniff the foreign fun coming from her. It was interesting, poking at the soft temples of Susan's head, teasing and taunting her to lick the image of the model. She was used to leaving a trail of dehydrated saliva behind the femmes that marched across her view. This time was no different.

Susan stepped forward from the wall a slight bit giving her heels enough room to raise themselves to the height that the model hung from. She relaxed her spine resting it on her pelvis which felt unnatural at first but she gradually adjusted her soft tissue to the daggered stance. Detaching her neck from her chest she left it idly on her shoulders at just the right angle so she could still see across the horizon of the room. The angle at which her spine relaxed cut the feeling out from her legs, but she didn't seem too pressed.

As the model pranced around on the large white sheet spraying herself with lubricated cups full of paint, Susan grew accustom to her posture. Her expectations shattered once she realised that it gave her nothing. Quite frankly she didn't really know what she was expecting form her bent hips and broken neck, but yet she was still filled with a drowning sense of disappointment.

As Mathew spit out a few remarks to the model, Susan had entirely forgot the reason why she had come there in the first place. All she could hear where the hushed murmurs and gears of her thoughts trying to remember why she was there and what she expected to feel form imitating the woman. But with all of her effort, all she could manage to do was build a very nice frame around the empty feeling that dug itself into her womb. Sending hollow kitchen knives up through her veins into her shoulders which felt like being in the foodless cavity of a fridge. It wasn't comfortable, forcing her to break from her hard earned position back into the cardigan holding stance she walked in with.

The unexpected laughter from the model woke Susan up from her icy and self-deprecating thoughts. The model had spilled a substantial amount of paint on her face and nearby equipment, which made her look like some purple plastic doll. Mathew paused for the moment and twisted himself around to take a break from looking at the woman. Grabbing the hilt of his nose he hovered over to Susan. His eyes pulsated with horny veins stressing out under his skin.

"Hey! Apologies for the cryptic nature of the letter I left you. Hangovers can break any line of thought." The feathered words passed straight to Susan guided by their locked eye line. The model had at that point sifted into the background blending her tarnished white dress with the walls.

"Mathew Hughes." He said as he relaxed his camera by his side. Raising his hand to her he left his gaze on her shoulders dashing his clear view from every piece of skin that she had on offer. Susan noticed his giddy eyes and reciprocated with the strongest hand shake she could muster.

"Susan Murphy. My day was sort of on a down turn. You know what it's like, lack of entertainment... and people to stalk. Plus I don't have the proper camera... actually I have to confess. I didn't come here because of you. I just came here to steal some of your equipment."

"Be my guest. I don't pay for the equipment anyways so you wouldn't be directly hurting me." She smiled as she listened to him. His words reassured her that it was the right choice to meet him. He ran his fingers through the sticky stream of paint that earlier splashed onto him while boiling his voice to an erotic base. He did it on purpose. It proved useful with walking skin sticks.

Gesturing to the model to give him a finger full of moments he made sure that his back was straight with his shoulders up high. Strong alpha man stuff. He learnt it straight form his bible of childhood cartoons.

"So... this is my job. I dance around with buckets of paint all day... And maybe take a photo the odd time. Most of the work comes from buying and choosing the paint. Very intricate and delicate line of work." He said with his smile open.

"Ya I can see... looks like a lot of fun."

Mathew turned his head and bolted the few words needed to the model.

"Having fun?" the model popped her head from the cradle of her crouched attention. Her deer eyes bore themselves into the foreign woman that resided at the end of the room with the man. She raised her left hand serving a thumbs up with an accompanying rock and roll tongued gesture.

"She happy, she's definitely happy. You know what would make me happy; lunch. Like I know you probably don't want to be interrupted with your _very hard work_ but it was kinda your fault that I showed up now since all you gave me was an address, no time or number. Soooo.... Lunch?" Susan said. Her gooey vulnerable pools spilt out of her without realising it. Not caring about it as well was something.

"You're as sharp as your point. I'll be quick. Just have to snap a few more glossy wallpaper pics, change my shirt and make her feel like her hard worked legs didn't go to waste today. Models tend to get very unsettled if their time is wasted."

"I think anyone would be annoyed if their time is wasted. I don't know if being a model has to do with it."

"I'll agree with you all day but I actually have to go back over there. I know this inconvenience is all my fault but if I chat anymore the paint will dry."

Susan nodded her head and let Mathew re-join the rave of paint that stimulated itself. The model was happy to see Mathew return to her wet rainbow party. Susan was not, but she knew he had to finish his job and she felt the need to play along. It was the frightening idea of boredom at home that kept her lingering in the agency.

The remains of her breakfast sandwich evaporated into annoying desires that slapped Susan across the face every time she thought about how long more she had to wait. She slid herself down the wall until she was sitting on the ground trying to calm down her hunger pangs. Mathew swung his camera from arm pit to wrist trying to make his work appear livelier. The eyes behind his head encouraged him to initiate his "impress girl" protocol. With the big red button pressed he danced about the white tiles bringing himself to a regretful sweat. The model saw sweat flash onto the white of his shirt greeting the strings of paint.

The theatre between the two continued for an unexpectedly long time. Mathew in his performing tights had entirely forgotten about time and the quality of his photos. His focus was so much on trying to make a generally stationary photographer more active is that he ended up leaving Susan in the corner eating her stomach lining.

Feeling like he had taken enough photos and wasted enough paint he travelled over to a nearby table. He grabbed a towel and threw it behind him to the model without looking. She grabbed it by an inch of her extended nails. He changed his top while Susan caught a few curious glimpses that reminded her of their night together. He had a series of stitches that tripped up the side of him. They were faded enough to be overlooked, but she was still surprised that she didn't notice them the first night. Then again she wasn't exactly sober.

The model rubbed herself with the towel until she realised that her attempts to wipe the already stained dress was a sad dream, so she just washed her face with a bottle of water and wrapped the towel around herself.

Mathew dressed and reasonably clean hushed Susan out of the room. Back out in the hall he started to walk her down and back into the entrance area with the silently clawed secretary.

"There is an atrium of food downstairs... it's generally where everyone gathers around when they have nothing to do. I always sneak in and take other people's food. It's cruel and all but I try to make up for it by putting my own food in there for other people to steal. They rarely eat it, but it's the act really."

"How much food? And are we like talking salads and exotic Mediterranean shite." She said as her pacing sped up down the stairs.

"Not _that_ much in the fridge, but there's a good variety. I'll let you have some of mine. I think I have a chicken salad left hovering about."

"Well why can't we just go to some café nearby? There is a fuck tonne of them around."

"Ya I'm sure there is.... But I guess I just want you to meet the people I work with. It will be quick and then we'll have the rest of the day to ourselves." He said hoping that he would see the slightest bit of excitement in her face.

"Sure. About this chicken salad of yours, how old is it, and what else is in the salad and is there dressing?"

"No it's only from yesterday, not old... not old and I can't remember what else is in it."

"Thanks. I really appreciate you giving me your sloppy fridge filler." The sarcasm was so salty it burnt her lips. Politely laughing he moved the conversation downstairs and into the atrium. How delightful no?

"Café afterwards so and then maybe a drink." He said as he pushed the double edged doors open. "Who said anything about drinks?" Came accompanied with a pleased smile form Susan.
CHAPTER TEN

The atrium kept its muscular walls taught at all times with the odd stretch mark plastered across the white walls. The room was a circle shape with consistent arches following the walls wherever they went. Beneath the arches was a dip that protruded into the wall. Bluntly coloured sheets draped around the room above the arches stapled to the cracked and crying walls. They were tortured with paint lathered over their undeniably old foundation as if the inhabitants were afraid of the natural ageing beauty of the building.

The centre of the room was controlled by a tight group of Models flinging their daily thoughts at one another. Snapchat syllables and twitter pronunciation lifted their conversations to the already high perception of themselves. Their heads echoed similar movements towards Mathew and Susan that shuffled into the room.

He guided her over to the fridge and pointed towards the salad. She guided her eyes around the empty fridge. The corners were empty with only the middle of the fridge occupied by food. Nothing looked that appetising but Susan's stereotype perspective of the models bent once she saw heaps of actually carb food. A clump of meat in the corner especially surprised her, but then again she didn't know who owned the food. Grabbing the plastic box of salad she dragged herself to get a fork and dig into it, desperately trying to calm the third world howls from her stomach.

The food was so hollow of nutrition she could hear her own teeth clash together. While munching on her disappointment Mathew walked her over to the crowd of models perched in the centre of the room. He opened the gates of his arms and presented to Susan his work, his pride, his produce.

"Susan these are the people that I torture every day. Ladies this is Susan." They all gave her a welcoming smile merging her with the group. A few of them fell up to 6 foot and above. All in all they were a mixed bag of heights and appearances. But one thing that Susan had noticed that was similar between them all was how straight cut their hips were. She could barely see any of the reliable and relatable curves that she grew to love over time.

As she waved innocently to them she concentrated on her food. She didn't want to be anti-social but after meeting the model upstairs she felt strangely uncomfortably even thinking about them. The model had somehow tarnished Susan's usual desire to imitate whatever brightly dressed female pranced across her screen.

With all eyes on her she left the first line of dialogue up to whichever model was bored enough to engage with her. A brunette from across the circle raised her chest prompting a simple polite question. A series of the usual conversation starters proceeded, quite frankly nothing interesting, just the tired swings from the same old worn out questions. Like what do you think of the place? What do you do yourself? And then the air thinning joke that followed suit.

While they dished out routine Mathew's smile grew with every polite word. He didn't say anything but instead enjoyed the simple dialogue between the models and Susan. Somehow it pleased him knowing that Susan was indulging in his work.

"Do you own a dog Susan?" The thinnest model said to her. She was by far the most akin to a lamp post with her head receiving all of the attention. Her ankles fell onto themselves dealing with the daily weight that floated above them. The cartilage in her nose replaced the skin on the bridge of it and the hills of her cheek bones emphasised the digs in her face. All of the models looked relatively healthy whereas she held the mantle for the generic model appearance. It almost scared Susan to chat with a walking skeleton.

"No I'm not a fan of dogs."

"O well that's a shame... pets' maybe? You that kind of lizard girl? Shit, not that I'm insulting ya, but lizards are getting really popular now. Saw one girl walking around with one around her shoulders. Fucking disgusting really but who am I to judge like ya know."

"Nope.... it's enough to mind myself. I don't have the energy or knowledge to teach a pet how to live. " Susan said as she neared the bottom of her food. The plastic muffled sound of the fork hitting the bottom actually created some excitement.

"Fair enough. Sam over here is the same as ya. I was just saying about my Fiona in fact. No matter how much food I put in front of her, she just won't eat it. I can feel her ribs every time I hug her. I'm afraid that one day I'd by accident stab her with my fingernails or something." She said with her bones now making up for the lack of tissue around her chest.

Susan finished her food and occupied herself with looking at the models. Mathew still stood beside her strangely numb about the conversation that he was listening to. Neither of them were engaging, Susan knew she wasn't interested in listening to the tall squabbles from them but she didn't know what Mathew was thinking. He seemed very eager to introduce Susan to his arena.

No one had realised but Steff was leaning up against one of the pillars behind Susan and Mathew. They weren't aware of the tattooed man that lurked behind the walls. He wasn't trying to hide himself, just trying to postpone them seeing him. Leaning against a pillar he smoked on one of those e cigarettes with a contemplative grin.

"Mathew" He shouted. Their heads turned and presented their disappointment to Steff on a platter made out of dry wall. He bowed and raised his arms leaving his smoke between his lips. Mathew raised his hand to Susan gesturing to her the five minute finger rule and an apologetic smile. Walking over, he watched Steff keep his head at chest height, shaking his hips to the drum in his knees. His fingers twirled themselves as if stirring an imaginary lamb stew. It was all very theatrical. Steff shuffled back under the lip of the arches dragging Mathew further and further into him.

As Susan watched them, she was once more subjected to the worries of the high heeled people. Another girl started to share about her own beloved dog. She was particularly young still holding onto what can be bought with an innocent raise of an eyebrow and a thigh.

Whenever Susan looked at her she saw how empty her eyes were. The movements of her neck mimicked the curiosity found in babies. Susan was picking up on all of this, but didn't find it as difficult to look at her as the other models. Perhaps it was the youth. Well her private analysis was abruptly broken up by tears from the young girl.

"It has been two weeks... two weeks and it is so... hard. I still feel like when it happened. Why did my precious Maggie have to run onto the road? Why did that car have to be driving on the road?"

"These things happen my dear, it wasn't your fault that she got out. She was an innocent little dog. Ya can't expect Maggie to know the difference between a car and a couch."

One of the older models said to her while placing her comforting hand on the young girls shoulder.

"What about that spaniel? I heard you got Maggie replaced. Does he not work for you?"

"No!! I hate that dog. The way he shits on anything he wants. I will never get Maggie back and it is not getting any easier. Ye said it would get easier. Bunch of liars ye are."

Susan didn't know what to tell her, but she was definite that she didn't want to get involved. There were enough consoling hands the girl to keep her occupied. Susan doubted very much that she would be of any help. So she took that low in the conversation to roam her view around the group eating in all the details that hung from the models.

"I don't mean it. Ye aren't liars. I just feel so stupid for letting her out of the house without her sparkle leash."

At that moment Susan was expecting to feel that familiar desire crawl up between the crevasses of her skin, but she was left lacking. The crowd of self-sufficient woman were daunting. They were all vastly different from one another even though they complied to the clean sheen that a model lathers their legs with. Looking at them made Susan feel slightly self-conscience. Their hair is what stood out the most to Susan. Locked waves, each strand of hair frozen like some piece of ice. Glacier designs and curls inflicted the scalps of the younger models.

Mathew reached his regretful destination hiding his hatred beneath the dark arches of the atrium. Steff's grin sharpened with the edges of his cigarette. He was wearing a calm Christmassy hoodie that retained the smallest amount of fashion within its wool. Underneath he was wearing a very expensive suit pants accompanied by the loyal clapping of his leather shoes pointed like the tips of knives. They stood straight, backs up, looking and praising the uncompromising beauty of Steff's knees like a pair of repurposed loyal puppies. He hadn't said a single word yet and he was already waving his hips waiting for a response from Mathew.

"What. You expecting me to dance with you. Huh? I don't really have the shoes for that right now I'm afraid. So unfortunately you are going to have to find a new dancing partner." Mathew said with his shoulders hunched like a bear trying to hide the dealings that attacked his good mood.

"I genuinely don't understand why you brought her here. After all that jazz from a couple of nights ago and you bring her right here for me. We'll all I can say is thank you."

"She is here for me.... not for you... never for you." Mathew said with guarded teeth.

"She is here for you?! But why? If not for me, my name above the door than maybe...? Maybe you brought her here to... impress? Well I would have expected something a bit more sophisticated from you. Bringing her to your work place? What did ya run out of restaurants or what? The fuck is so special about her anyways?" Steff edged his view around Mathew's shoulders trying to get that buttery look. He eyed Susan up poking his judgements into the tears of her clothes. The face that Steff made as he looked at Susan perfectly reflected a private thought. Mathew smelt the filth sliding from Steff's drooped eyelids. Imagining what he was thinking about made him sick to the abused core.

"You better stop looking Steff."

"Well what? You want me to gouge me eyes out or what like? I need to live and walk around and shit. So excuse me if my eyes just happen to look at things that make you feel uncomfortable. Besides, undressing people in yar head is fun. Of all people you should know that."

"Not her. She is not here for you. And not a single amount of stares will change that." He said as he closed in on Steff tickling his finely cut stubble hairs with carefully selected words.

"Do what you want Mathew... just remember the name of the agency and.... where you work."

"Are you seriously, genuinely threatening me? It's been a decade Steff. I have worked with you for more than ten years of my life. Don't assume that you are still a mystery to me." Mathew said with a genuinely confused face. Steff snaps a quick burst of laughter.

"Actually no... I wasn't threatening you. Ya sure it might have sounded like it, but all I _ever_ wanted was you to remember what building you work in. Because that's the great relationship between us that keeps this business going. My excellent taste with your defiant stares, it's the only thing that gets me up in the morning ya know. Whether you give her a chance to work at this place or not, I don't actually care. You think I care about some hippie girl that you're interested in? There is enough shit on my plate thank you very much." Once Steff spat out his spiel he started to slowly dance once more as if a song had just turned on inside his head. Smoke billowed up his face until it crawled beneath his eyelids, knocking his hips back a decade of jazz. His shoes screamed with euphoric joy for their beloved idol that shook the ground above them.

"Then why did you bring me over here? What is this then?" Steff read the impatient murmurs coming from Mathew's crossed arms as he asked the question.

"I was bored Mathew _and_ I wanted to see how much you liked the girl. Don't dirty the place too much this evening...." dragging his vibrating hips with him he shuffled backwards through the arches towards the exit. He walked as if on ice, and his shoes praised him for it.

"You were a dirty bag Mathew. At some point we all get fed up of smelling like shit." Mathew was glad to see Steff dance his way out of the atrium. An imaginary sense of fresh air filled the place reminding Mathew of why he was there in the first place.

Having filled his lungs with the absence of Steff, Mathew walked back to Susan. She was huddled behind the soft nature of her cardigan too uncomfortable to join in the conversation. Frustration began to build up. Her unsettled stance shifted every 30 seconds trying to find a different angle of her spine to relax on. There are only so many different ways someone can stand without repeating a few of the same postures.

Mathew tapped her on the shoulder and whispered to come his way. She simultaneously cursed him for creating the situation and thanked him for saving her from it. The models said their reserved goodbyes and shipped their judgements of Susan away for another time.
CHAPTER ELEVEN

Pouncing on hungry ideas Mathew brought Susan to a café. They ate, they shared foody words and talked about all kinds of pointless shit. It was all very pleasant stuff. None of them noticed the cafe much. There wasn't much to notice when the bulk of the interest lay between the heated bread slices on the table. Susan felt her thighs heat up with that kind of nightly stank that comes in a horny package.

With everything said and done the evening electrified itself the further they went on. The lights form the cafe came on alongside the fluorescent smiles. The sweat from their cheeky cheeks acted as the natural fog that accompanied the atmosphere of the night.

Funny drinks became the new goal for the night, tickling the convulsing underbelly of Mr Black. They needed alcohol. Having had a few drinks already they proceeded on their lubed quest to finalise the night. She was looking forward to the twisting of the limbs. Then again who wouldn't be? Mathew marched the two from destination to place collecting their ammo for later on. She rested herself in the palm of his guiding hand while her boots danced to the swish of the alcohol in her bottle.

Mr Black had stretched his skin across the lay of the land acting as the blanket for every shaded soul to rest themselves beneath, colours had somehow invaded the regions of Susan's view. Particularly purple, with fingered reach acting as the boundary for every colour to smash into. She jumped into pained puddles on the street cracking their hard earned homes from them, but her blunt and blind desires stopped her from seeing too far from Mathews grasp.

Gliding across the city they had gathered enough supplies to fuel the fire for the night. Thankfully enough it was one of those self-sufficient fires so they didn't need much to get everything going.

They reached the agency before either of them had decided where to culminate their evening. Not a single suggestion had flirted its way into the conversation of the night, so somehow they just ended up back at the modelling agency. They were too far from anyone and anything to be remotely bothered to go somewhere else.

Staring the empty agency in the face Mathew walked his tipsy legs through the doors and paused in the middle of the entrance. The place was as silent as wood, or any other inanimate object really. His shoulders hunched to a stance as he scanned the place gleaming over every wiped tile surface "Why... why is this place so clean?"

"Then why are we here? Why not your place?" Susan said with a beer in her hand pointing somewhere. His shoulders swayed from side to side banging against his skull trying to find the why to her question.

"I guess... routine brought me here."

"Well next time your place. I want to see all those pretentious paintings that I bet you just throw around your place." She said with the bottle loosening its grip within her hand. Having said what she wanted she marched in front of him with exaggerated movements trying to guide him to somewhere warm and wet. She didn't know where to go however so she turned on her heel with unknown speed. Her head danced within the spongy grasp of her skull banging with dizzying force. Before she knew it she was on the floor laughing with half eaten alcohol dripping from the side of her mouth.

He looked at her for a moment before he helped her up. He could smell her daily routine through her clothes. He forgot how someone else's sweat smelt. Susan's wasn't sour or painfully noticeable, it was sweet and reminded his nostrils of youth. Once her laughter calmed down from the almighty mountain that she had placed it on he snapped himself out of his trance and helped her up from the floor.

Holding her with one hand and holding his bottle with the other he placed his dished gaze in front of hers. Neither of them had anything to say, enough of the communication transpired through the heated sweat that dripped from both of them.

There was no light in the room apart from the faint glow from behind Steff's name and the flood of nightlife from the other world outside. It lit up Mathews few short hair that came down over his ear, like static strands of electricity. The light blue that crawled over Mathews shoulder comforted her. The dusty colour floated across the air, pulsating as if it had a source. Maroon red flashed wildly in the corner which helped light up his face. It was like an imaginary subtle rave that held itself tightly in Susan's drunk perspective. Being used to it was something that she had to embrace.

Before they kissed she guided her eyes across the bridge of his nose. It was bent slightly to the left, almost unnoticeable. His brown eyes said nothing of interest apart from the fact that they looked like wood. Susan never found his eyes attractive, it was always his strong jaw and as she ran her hand over it she felt micro earthquakes of movement in it. She hadn't noticed it before but his jaw was unruly dancing itself into a murmur, it couldn't rest and eat still without restless jerks. He hid it well, only noticeable from the position that she found herself in.

The kiss locked. He tasted her soft lips garnished by a beautiful dish of vanilla dressed and lathered in spoon-fulls of oestrogen. His testosterone spit at least tasted better than his wet chicken salad. He was warm and that's all her sailor arms cared about. With the rest of the night in one hand and fun grabbed by the other, she felt as if she was lying in bed suffocated by the joys of what she was getting herself into. Yet she was standing openly in the entrance of the agency. Well standing is a bit of a stretch. Most of her support came from Mathew's refusal to let go of her.

He ran his hands across her top, pacing himself around her waist ending in a firm grasp of her lower back. With the next drink knocking on their lips they broke off for a moment cleaning their jowls from any naughty saliva that tried to escape the ring.

"My office is upstairs."

"Bed?" she asked without a pause for thought.

"Um... no but there is a couch... its nice trust me.... really soft. Fine leather. I can't remember where I got it but I think... I... uh still have the receipt upstairs, if ya wanna check."

"I think I'm good thanks" she said with a healthy bowl full of laughter. Letting go of her he headed to the left up another set of elaborately broken stairs. She followed teasing herself to not let her fingers fall into the finely cut cracks of the steps.

Trying to keep his excitement under a professional wrap, he half galloped up the stairs and through the hall. It was dark and threw its skin as if it were a carbon copy of the hall she was in yesterday. This confused her, flinging her biological GPS from the roof. With a rather hard flick of a nearby switch, the lights came on horrifyingly fractured. Susan closed in on him, protecting herself behind his back. It wasn't fear, nope not fear, she was cold in the agency. It was a frozen place made from white and icy tiles straight from her nightmares.

He noticed a slight rise in heat behind so he turned his head to see the top of hers hovering right behind him. He smiled quietly to himself warming up his chest for what he looked forward to in the night.

He tripped over his excitement and rested his shoulder on the frame of his office door. With a loose hand he arched it around the wall and tickled the switch for lights.

Susan's non-existent fears faded away. As she straightened herself she looked around the room with curiosity. She felt the need to run and poke every hole of info with the tips of her fingers as if they were all individual fleshy bar code scanners. She knew it would be rude so she entered his office with a head straight from an owl's neck. The room was large enough to instil that "done well for himself" impression, but he didn't drip it with wealth or pretentious panda paintings that are thrown around everywhere these days. His desk was covered with nooks and gadgets collected by the human condition to hold on to sentimental things. Every photo and tiny statue had its own dusty mark on the table. Move them and move the memory or feeling they came with. As she gawped at everything Mathew entertained himself in the corner of the room tickling the possibilities of his drink and the bottle that sold horny ideas to him.

He looked at his camera that lay calmly in the corner of the room on a neat table stand. Susan felt maroon pound against her spine. Somehow it motivated her to dance. It felt good like an understated morning stretch. The usual warm blue and cautious red found themselves bored with their own company. So they called in on oblivious yellow to seep into the wood of his desk. It couldn't contain itself jumping form one piece of furniture to the next, until it landed into the grasp of the couch. It was proud of its decision. The soft almost fluffy texture dug into the pores of Susan's skin as she twisted her body with the newly found pleasure of the couch.

Mathew looked at her for that moment as he sipped on his drink. The look of her dark hair as it lay across the pumped cushions tangled its way up his nostrils. Her hair didn't smell just to clarify, it pleased him so much is that the idea of what Susan was crawled its way up his nose. Why his nose? Well his eyes were already occupied with her meaty thighs as they shifted within the confines of the couch and his ears were full of the soft hums that soothed its way from Susan's joy. Before he knew it he had his camera in hand.

Just wanted to capture her perfect pose. He didn't trust his own swallowed mind to remember. Susan looked up to see the camera lens peering down her jeans towards her face. All she saw was maroon merge against blue over Mathew's shoulders as he took a few photos. Her drink created a wall making it almost impossible for her to realize what was going on. Her framed mind filled itself with Mathew's taught arms as he caressed every button of the camera. Her thighs punched themselves to exhaustion. So to distract herself she played along curving around on the couch like a cat, posing for Mathew.

She dug her back into the side of the couch raising her lower spine towards the altered sky. Her vision blurred with every side sip she sank. Hands prayed upwards as she listened to the creek of the leather cushions conspire with the click from the camera behind her. The sound was quiet at first, only a click, then it grew with a metallic punch. Eventually the sound from the camera became a pain, so to relax herself she looked back at Mathew who was leaning on the arm of the couch with his elbows. He saw the sour look in her face. He lowered his camera to appease her and left it down on the ground. All alone, the poor, poor camera.

As he reached for another drink Susan quelled in the silence that she took for granted. She felt streams of baby blue dripping from the inside of her eyelids, yet when she touched the bottom of her eye, it was dry. It wasn't tears she was feeling run down her skin but rather pure blue comfort that tickled her eyelashes like drops of water.

The light of the room calmed itself with the gradual growth of the night. Mathew shuffled his way around the room spilling his drink into the green carpet. Susan sat up straight taking in all the colourful laughter that bounced between the two. She rolled her eyes over each stretched muscle that he flaunted in front of her. His shirt was half open teasing a few inches of skin. Susan ran her hand down through her thighs until her fingertips reached her knees. Purple exuded through the tips of her purple painted nails between her knees. She rolled the softly warm colour in and out of her fingers resting it in her palms. Restless now, hungry to swallow the purple and cover her skin with its name. She couldn't bear anymore of this teasing and fingerless fingering. Standing up she reached for Mathews drink and grabbed his wrist freezing the liquid for the night. She quickly placed the glass on his desk and ran her hand up his chest until she reached his chin.

Mathew was used to grabbing the curves that shouted sex and this time he found himself in an entirely different room than usual. He craved her wide hips, her perfect thighs that curved elegantly down to her calves. This time however all he saw was the dirt that painted across Susan's routine skin. She was clean, but she wasn't tidy. He noticed a couple of holes that tore their way into the fabric of her clothes.

One in particular taunted Mathew, hidden underneath Susan's arm. Oval in shape it dragged his fingered grasp into the confines of the hole as they kissed. With one hand roaming and stomping its way down to Susan's ass the other held itself respectfully in the hole. He felt the ruffles of thread that hung from the edges of her cardigan. The feedback from running his fingers around the edges of the clothed hole was more satisfying for him than the twisting tongue fight up above.

Now the unwrapping of the meat. They fondled around trying to pull one piece from each other. His shirt died first crying asleep beneath the lip of the desk, then her cardigan which he pulled from her holding onto the hole. Once removed he paused. Mathew felt more attached to that neglected cloth hole than the various holes that lay before him.

Susan watched him as he hesitated to throw the cardigan away. With time losing its purple paint job she unbuckled her jeans to keep the momentum going. Once he snapped out of his toasted state he joined her in the unwrapping race of skin.

He left the torn cardigan on his desk as if leaving it for later. Flashing red heated up in the corner to the tempo that Susan demanded. Purple veins pulsated between her thighs shocking a frozen face up to her. Wrapping her hands around his back she dug her fingers into grooves. Resting his rough lips on her chest he teased the skin taunting her to curl. Blue shoved its way onto the room, with red having an uncontrollable orgasm on the ceiling. The colours illuminated the room bouncing hollow thoughts around smashing against every surface in an attempt to find solid ground to stand on. To no avail, Susan's legs were as unstable as a vibrating two legged chair.

Mr Black accompanied the sweaty red and baby blue as they made the office their own. Grey was nowhere to be seen. She was left to enjoy the outside dance of nightlife, while Mr Black occupied himself with the twisting limbs on the couch.

And so the night proceeded, with a soft fight between Susan's colours and the nature that sweated itself to the beat of their African panting. While Susan's picture was coloured by relentless dark purple punches, Mathew was taunted by the various fabric torn slits in her pants. It was all he saw, it was all he felt, smelt, tasted, and it made her real to him, new wood, unlike new plastic. It was amazing as if his skin was pulled from his face. It's the contrasting highs from the lows that always leaves the deepest scars and his dug straight into his nursed skull banging on memories of unsaturated childhood.
CHAPTER TWELVE

They both lied eaten on the couch with exhausted lungs. Mathew's arm was wrapped around Susan holding her in from hitting the floor. With the plain grey blanket covering their skin, Susan awoke to the silence of the early morning. She didn't know what time it was but she guessed by the tame sound of the traffic that it was somewhere before who gives a fuck o'clock.

She rubbed her lower back up against the lay of his land. Once again, her day was free from any preconceived timeline, so she lay there for a while munching on what she felt like doing for the rest of the day. Since she was already in a new land she thought of taking the opportunity to torture the place with her curiosity.

His arm glazed over as she slipped out from under the blanket. First step of her master plan accomplished, she know found herself naked in the middle of the office. Slightly aroused by the voyeuristic air brushing around her, she slowly and gracefully looked around the room for something to tame her thighs. As she picked up her cardigan she got used to walking around nude, tickled to just wear the minimum. Just enough to keep that voyeuristic scratch going.

With the debate of clothes over she proceeded with her plan to conquer and uncover the secrets of the agency. Sliding across the damp carpet she went behind the desk and peered at the drawer full of opportunities. Treasured photos and info fondled itself inside the wooded casket of his desk.

Dancing her eyes over the buffet that was his desk she noticed a framed photo of an elderly man with what seemed to be a younger Mathew. They had their arms around each other as if bonding for the camera. Pleasant smiles begged the frame of the photo to join in the fun, quirky frame.

Picking it up she looked at their faces as if trying to uncover Mathew's childhood from their expressions. _He is definitely his father_ , she thought looking at the same mouth from both men. Mathew's smile seemed natural to an extent, almost forced by youthful ignorance, whereas the father's smile seemed deadly in comparison. He clearly wasn't in the mood to throw his smile towards the camera, which made Susan question why Mathew would even have the photo placed on his desk. Perhaps it was the only photo they had of each other.

She opened a few drawers with a quiet grasp. Many of them were just filled with irrelevant magazines and paperwork. Uninterested she moved around the room for other outlets of Mathew's life. A small cabinet to the left of the desk held a few hard copy portfolios of his work. So picking one at random she breezed through it with haste. Paper posing and plastic postures was mainly what she saw. She liked a few of the photos, primarily due to the dress that the particular model wore.

Another folder came into question. This one in particular was hidden at the back of the drawer. Hidden you know the way. It was creased and heavy with weight shifting from one end of the plastic to the next. Unbuttoning the plastic she peered into heaped contents of the folder. Sheds and shards of torn paper created the loose hair to the wild haircut that were the photos. Creased and folded with force each photo that she consecutively pulled out had a certain amount of frustration built into every print out. Pen markings and pencil stabs acted as his wild contribution to the images. Susan was halted by the images, confused, to think if this was his normal work process or not.

Each model that played in the photos were equally sharp. Each one clean and wiped without the usual folds and ruffles that came with average skin. Even the models in other photos had a degree of normality to them. But these ones were the discarded pile with clear hatred punched into the photos. It was a beautifully contrasting sight for Susan to see. The cleanest and most straight cut models left to themselves within the frames of torn and marked photos. _Why the fuck would he keep this in his desk?_ She asked herself, naturally since she is a normal human being. The best answer that she came up with was that maybe he hated throwing away anything. T'was enough for her ya know.

With the room cleaned by Susan's curious nails, she decided to move out into the rest of the agency. Why not? She is not very often in a modelling agency before the morning, and she didn't seem to notice any peering cameras around apart from one in the entrance.

Walking once more down the hallway she looked out the wall of windows at the few people that walked around. The sun was half open with its eyelids popping over the line of buildings in the distance. Every second person held a cup of coffee injecting something, something and something.

Moving to the atrium she tiptoed down the frozen stairs. She hated the feel of the cold ceramic sticking up her legs, which immediately made her regret not wearing her boots. Every step was followed by a painful reminder of her stupidity. But laziness and the fact that her adventure had already started convinced her to march onwards towards destiny and all the glorious blahs that came with.

The door opened leaving her standing in the atrium half open to the thick stank air that collected over the night. In the middle of the room perched between two tables was a woman draped in shards of black. No high heels, no casual, she was dressed to tantalise knees. Her long brown hair fell over her shoulders allowing enough space for her aged chest to shine. She was wedged somewhere in the middle of her forties.

Susan halted in herself frozen by the notion that she wasn't alone. Without thinking about it she hovered her hand over her crotch protecting whatever was left of her privacy. As she edged to leave the atrium the older woman gestured for Susan to come over. She didn't raise her head that much instead continuing with her wrapped business on the table, throwing cloth from shit to business like nobodies.

"Are you new to the agency? I don't think I've seen you before." The words were placed before Susan. Not knowing what to do she edged her way towards the fancy female.

"No... I'm not part of the agency. Why do ya think that?"

"Just curious why you are walking around here before the opening hours... half nude and all." She said with a small grin on the edges of her mouth.

"I know what you are thinking, and no I was not here last night with _Steff_." Susan said with an expression of disgust. The woman looked up from her duties and stared at her with slight surprise, as if not expecting to get that reaction out of her.

"So Mathew then. Right?" Susan took the opportunity to eat away at the image of the woman and all of her experienced curves.

"The reason that I am here doesn't have to have shit to do with men."

"True but from the way you are standing... you know half naked with a serious indication of sex, that would mean one of three things. Firstly you were with Steff... which we have already crossed from the possibilities. And secondly you'd either be here for me, but I don't necessarily like your' type... no offense. O would you look at that, two out of three. If my math is right that just leaves one possibility." the woman said as she straightened her posture with a certain motion of confidence. Her face was eased with a relaxed expression like a wet wash cloth dripping from hot boiled water, steamy yet relaxed. Susan looked at her and all she saw was aged confidence seep from the back of the woman's neck. Once again that familiar desire stabbed its way up Susan's spine and built a nest right beneath her scalp. You know, the usual feeling one gets when they talk to someone.

"By the way you don't have to try and cover yourself like that. I have worked in the business long enough to know what you'd look like naked." It didn't comfort Susan the slightest bit, but knowing that the woman works in the business painted her interest even further. As Susan loosened her arms away from her body, the older woman guarded her chest, crossed and all.

"I know Steff can make himself look like a mountain of filth, but he actually enjoys making himself look that way, he has another side that takes a few lonely drinks to see. I'm not saying he plays with puppies when he gets home but he's not all that sleeve tattoo says he is. He understands the models and treats them with enough respect. There's not much we can do about him enjoying the reaction he gets out of poking and tormenting people though. Wipe it off... He expects you to."

"So you know him well I'm assuming?" Susan knew what she was asking, knew what she was implying.

"Maybe I'm a little biased. We all are for that certain someone. " With every response that marched its way out of her gut sure stomach, Susan couldn't help but feel the need to copy and paste her. Crossing her arms and stretching her back she mimicked the same strong statue pose as the woman, and unintentionally exposed her tattoo to the all-consuming sight of the woman. Not much went passed her.

"What's with the tattoo? It's bizarre to say the least, just a collection of lines. Some sort of modern art?" Susan immediately covered the tattoo with as much sleeve as possible.

"A small hobby that's all. Not much of an artiste."

"Darling a tattoo hobby is either where you give tattoos yourself or you replace your skin with a layer of ink until you look like a piece of paper. That there is _not_ a hobby."

"It's really nothing, a bit of fun on time off. I tend to have a lot of that."

"Well it clearly means something to you and you don't seem willing to share, so I won't pry. Lord bless me I won't pry on your impressionable soul.... do you believe in any of that stuff?"

"Like religious stuff?" Susan said surprised by the question.

"Yes that kind of stuff, hail marries and blood for your belief. The stuff that gets you marching."

"No... I don't know.... I try giving it a bit of thought every so often but I always end up in the same place."

"And what place is that?"

"The kingdom of boredom." The woman pleased by Susan's answer removed herself from the table and walked around it as if stretching her tired legs. Susan rolled her eyes over the woman digesting every creak she saw and every bend she heard. Every word that flowed out encapsulated Susan. Not knowing why "her" in particular coated the encounter with that memorable scent. Being aware of your desires is one thing, indulging them is another, but being controlled by them was entirely new to Susan. Every twitch of Susan's muscles faced those of the woman as if they were their own fleshy brethren.

"The name is Josey." Susan hovered about posing the same as Josey entirely forgetting the protocols of conversation.

"And this is the part where you share your name as well, then we continue this delightful conversation onto something else, eventually going our separate ways. You, to break Mathew out of his routine and _me,_ trying to appease Steff. Or am I supposed to guess your name." Throughout her spiel Susan tried to squirm her name in but was silenced by the woman until she finished her rant. Susan noticed how she seemed to enjoy the long winded unwind of her own vocal cords, as if she was rediscovering what her voice sounded like. A luxury only age can give.

"Susan Murphy. I met Mathew at a bar."

"Wonderful but I only asked for your name. I do not wish to know how he fishes. I've been at the end of that nonsense enough in my youth." The more she spoke the more she composed herself to look like a prized statue. Naturally Susan followed suit, raising her chest to an almighty high deserving only of the highest shelf. Not wanting to leave yet she felt the need to ask questions to keep the beating heart of the conversation going.

"So what's the agency like? It's big, and has a variety of models. That's pretty much all I know so far." The woman swung her elbow onto the table in front of her. As Susan asked she couldn't help but feel the need to copy her. She didn't have a table in front of her though and she couldn't do it to the table that Josey was on, would have been strange, so she shifted on her legs as if uncomfortable in her feet. The dim light from the ceiling conditioned the mood between the two. As Susan obliviously soaked in every edged movement of Josey's body and expression, Josey did the same for Susan's eye line. She saw her eyeing her up and down and for the past while she was trying to figure out why. Munching on different possibilities as she answered and asked.

"Callaghan agency, well what can I say. Built from nothing, raised by helping hands and helped by modelling bodies. This place has been part of my life since the moment I found my own libido." Josey said with a hint of music in her voice, as if speaking tired and sleepy poetry. Passively noticing this, Susan shaped her own voice to match. It was like a two way singing contest sponsored by sleeping pills.

"So... how did this place start, and how did it get so... clean and big."

"Pugh...Well my dear it all started with me, a dream and a man called Steff Callaghan. Big adventure you know, have been trying to get it made into a film for the past while. But no bites." She said with a clean smile wiping every scent of seriousness away from her lips.

"Steffan Callaghan?" Susan asked with a taste of laughter.

"Steff.... We put some money in for a nice dress and a shitty camera. Took a few photos of me and we slowly built this place to what it is now. Of course along the way there was an adventure full of people dying to get their clothes off and fling meat around for money, but we always insisted on just shooting fashion. A few magazines and shoots later we met Mathew. Young buckin and ready to press all the buttons. I'm always surprised to see how much help he is. There's just something about how he frames them, or whatever, something anyways. Magical place huh?" she said as her eyes lit up engulfing all the daily light that had herded itself into the atrium.

"So why only his name above the door?" Josey quickly replied by lifting her hand to the sky and presented a wedding ring tightly bound to her skinny finger.

"Ahh... cool top. It's got that new um... modern kinda look. " Susan said pointing towards the lump of half recognisable cloth dead on the table in front of her. It was white with different linings of grey shaded edges. Very modern shit popping straight from the corners of a prized fashion magazine.

"My new design. I design rubbish now. I think it's deserving of the finest bin but Steff says it looks nice so... it's definitely shit." She lasted on those words for a second taking the time to once more think about Susan and her half naked self. She was no more ashamed about how she was dressed in front of her, joyfully presenting her front for the audience. Josey eased her movements up from the table and straightened her back raising her eye line above Susan's forehead. She had that expression that milked the "shits getting serious" kind of moment. Susan sensed it, not looking at her, but inadvertently through imitating Josey she sensed the mood shift for a lower gear. In a way it was the rumbling seriousness in Susan's own arms which warned her what was next.

"I share something about myself and you sit still giving nothing. Now it's your turn to strip. Why have you been copying me throughout? Don't get me wrong I'm flattered in some weird way." Josey said easing into Susan's comfort zone. Her limbs loosened not knowing what to do apart from take it and leave unceremoniously. With Josey closing in a relaxed exit became less and less of a possibility.

Susan covered her crotch and chest once more as if her cover had been ripped from her skin leaving nothing but vulnerable flesh. Josey was gentle about it however tickling and caressing Susan's fleshy innocence with her revealing words. Everything she said acted as the pointed finger in the yard, highlighting the new kid's deformity.

"You attracted to me or something? Nah that's not it. Whether you know you're doing it or not, just make sure not to freak out the person you are doing it to." Josey said not expecting a response from her. Susan clenched, framed and frozen.

She leaned in closer to the half stalked girl placed against the hilt of the table, and whispered a piece of knowledge. The way she broke through Susan's border highlighted how much she meant what was about to be said. "Some people may take it the wrong way and see it as an insult. It's not a pretty position to be in."

Syllables killed themselves before they reached the tip of Susan's tongue, resulting in a limp silence. Josey left her gaze at the table and picked up her clothed bundle of work. Susan still clenched onto the skin that was left hanging from her waist, Josey took her leave. Each step reverberated between the arches and the pillars of the room, speeding up the milky thoughts that rushed through Susan's nostrils.

The atrium was left by itself to tend with the collected morning stank that flaked from the skin of both women. Josey's momentary appearance left an astounding amount of interesting imagery in Susan's thoughts. It also threw her into one of those self-reflective states. So, with what was left of her dignity, not much as it seemed, she snuck her way back up to Mathew's office.

Squeezing ever so softly on the handle of the door she peaked into the room to make sure he was still asleep. A large part of her hoped that he was still knocked out from last night. She wasn't in any particular mood to engage with anyone, especially after Josey's barrage of punched up words.

Mathew was plastered to the couch with his back facing the open room. His hair was ruffled to the extent of an empty vodka bottle.

Boot left and boot right rose themselves from the dead with the help of Susan's quiet hands. Their laces were tangled and wrapped open unable to close. Getting dressed was as difficult as one would expect with having to ponder the various sentences that came running from Josey. With boots fastened to the tracks of her feet she left a note with her number on it for Mathew to find on the desk. Nothing to rummage and nothing to do, she left him and his building with queued music drumming in the background.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN

The passage of time was riddled with romance through the following weeks. Over nights, Mathew and Susan shared bread together, it was very good bread covered by the lube of Mr Black and the oven cooked stank followed by the rubbing of sweaty thighs. Now that's good fucking bread.

Over the two weeks she shuffled across her days, tiptoeing her societal significance, afraid to shatter the ground she walked on. To be fair she didn't know how thick the ground she walked on was, she never really felt like taking a huge risk. Across her walk she was accompanied by sprinkled and popped dates with Mathew, resulting in the exchange of numbers and various liquids. He provided the bottled fun as well as his own shafted gear. In other words they were very busy exploring their new found interest in one another.

The pacing of their discoveries were well placed among Susan's weeks. But as she further trekked across her ground, he became less and less of a solid figure in her life. Yes he dragged joy with him, but as far as anything else went, well nothing else really went. She couldn't see the end of them though, still tied up to the present of their relationship, too preoccupied with other matters.

Every so often she would carry her thirteen ringed tattoo to Kevin and check up on him. Every repetitive check was followed by a dismissive wave for him to be alone. She respected him but every time she visited him he appeared to drift further and further into the walled confines of his own back garden, which unsettled her boots relentlessly. She knew it wasn't her place to control him, but she still felt the need to care for him. The vicious circle built with every visit.

Alongside everything was the illusive image of money. She had nothing coming in apart from Kevin's double green thumbed hand giving her little doses. She didn't care about money on its own, but it was the food that came with it that truly impacted her.

As the days and nightly fights of Mr Black and Grey went on so did the gradual depletion of her funds. One morning straight after another night of drinking, Susan awoke to the same comforting scent that lingered around her flat. She was still reeling in from the night previous trying to catch her eyesight that seemed to roll its way a few feet in front of her.

Food created a full stop between her ears. The larger it grew the fatter it got tearing more and more into the lining of her throat and stomach. The worst look of disappointment stabbed itself onto Susan's face as she opened the fridge. It was empty apart from a half brick of butter laughing its ripped wrapping open. The shock of her foody dreams shattering sent her staggering backwards with exhaustion. With what was left of her strength she held herself up by the counter.

It was some very dramatic shit, as if the butter had carnivorously ate every piece of helpless food in the fridge. Taking a moment to ponder her next hungry move she started to fill her empty bucket with further unnecessary problems, all in an attempt to stimulate her self-pitied underbelly. First her appearance, then the state of the flat, followed by the repetitive pounding of dwindling cash.

The filthy stain on the couch pulsated whenever she looked at it. She didn't know if it was teasing exhaustion or if it was actually happening, she didn't care much to bother figuring it out. Either way she felt like a hungry stain dragging itself from one corner of the carpet to the next.

Walking into her bedroom she hushed into the corner beside her nightstand and took out a shoe box, laced by the drawings of boredom. Dragons and bloody superheroes littered the edges of the box overlapping with the lid. Opening it her expression deepened, pushing her eyebrows further and further into her forehead. It was the expression of hopelessness with the shoe box being virtually empty apart from a few coins. There was no point in checking her bank account because that thing had been depleted of resources for the past couple of weeks. Her situation wasn't that bad, which she would figure out weeks later, but at that hung over point of time she only saw the gap in opportunity and felt nothing but her broken oesophagus. Something not even a hug could fix, and they can fix almost everything. Susan was in such a depraved hole that not even human touch could have rectified it.

The day aged alongside Susan's tortured waist. After the whole fridge incident she hovered around the flat for a while munching on the bare bones of what her next move was. The immediate knocking from money beat against her skull shaking her hair to the track of exhausted paranoia.

Calming herself down she decided to move forward and bang on that same repetitive drum that provided green papery nutrition for the past year. Kevin was targeted as the plot point, as the destination as the relief fund for her disastrous hunger pangs. She slept in until the afternoon which left a considerable crater in her stomach. Strange how hunger can make anything seem as erect as a mountain. Gathering her hopeful expectations she went to her fathers.

Parking outside the house she already smelt the taunting huff and puff pangs from his fridge, or at least she thought so. The trees and flowers shifted their hips to Susan's pinpointed vision. Emerging from the dip in the front she reached the front door of the house and entered. Once more the house was empty and void of any sign of Kevin apart from dirt covered boot prints labelled across the tiled floor. Not much thought was given to his hidden location. The nearer she got to the door of the fridge the less she acted like a manic carnivore.

Pulling out some simple bread and butter she created a masterpiece of a slice of buttered toast. She started with the edges first leaving nothing but the crunched golden middle. It stretched a smile into her jaw as she slid it down. Somehow the toast had solved every single one of her problems then and there in one glorious swallow, covering the inside of her with melted riches. It was such an overwhelmingly positive feeling she had to sit down on a nearby chair.

Once the sandwich had lost its grasp on her emotions she stood up to recalibrate herself. Looking around the kitchen she noticed a brushed trail of Kevin's possible whereabouts. With her new motive, the rubbing of money, she followed his crumbs. Half drank cup of tea crying itself cold on the counter. A plastic white bag of empty spray cans flittered against the lower cupboard. Calling his name aloud a few times confirmed he wasn't there. She already had a good idea of where he might be due to the orgy of empty cans in the corner. But before she left, her eye caught the back garden where she saw him previously. With the memory of him digging the ground playing in the back of her head, she walked her way over to the patch of mixed dirt.

The grass surrounding the spot was baron, suffering from a horrendous case of skin cancer. She saw all the blades of grass trying to run away as fast as possible, bending in the direction of the house. She stood over the spot looking at his attempt to plant a tree. A few seeds popped over the soil exposing their skin to her.

Dashing her eyes between them, she thought about how much effort he put into his garden. She remembered him pulling bags of sanded rock to and from, and his bent back over the sea of dirt. It was always a hobby for him and she always enjoyed helping out as much as possible.

She wondered if he wanted the garden to make his home beautiful, _or_ if he wanted to wall himself off from the world. The tall strongly dressed walls around the back garden framed the feared thought. Her boots angled away from each other not being able to look at Susan in her eyes. All of the joys brought by the crusted nature of the toast had entirely been washed away by that one thought.

To fill the void she marched roughly through memories as a child. From as far as she could remember, it was just her and her father.

Susan refused to succumb to a reflective flashback, but no matter how much she tried it seeped into her legs and crawled its way back up to her head from her boots. All that she ever heard as a child were loud metal crunches coming from his garage.

In the memory she walked from the house to the garage. She saw the silhouette of her father burying his hands into the gut of some stroke suffering car. Nothing happened of much importance, but she stood there on the spot looking at him ingesting all of the torn sounds that limped its way over to the young girl. She remembered a hollow feeling in her hand as if she wanted to grab onto something, and everything she held felt empty, void of all born warmth. _There should be more to a family than this?_ That one thought, one line, one coloured drawing brought her back to the bed of seeds in front of her.

Thinking about the family she wished she knew, she moved back into the house tossing her family members between all her fingers. With her thumb pulled in she had nine fingers left over demanding some sort of a memory of family, but they were ring-less and bony.

She had asked him about her mother before, but was left with a quick telling of her tragic death. The look on Kevin's face when she asked him made her dig the question into the recess of her boots, afraid that he would say it was her fault that she died giving birth. She always thought that he was hesitant because he was afraid to hurt Susan. The image that her mother was an orphan also frightened her. She knew how she died and that's all she felt like she needed to know. The same touchy button was next to Kevin's family. She knew the story, she heard the story and left it at that. One conversation is all that that topic needed, leaving Susan to fill the gaps herself. But questions didn't vanish as they usual did, that day they lingered on with polystyrene grip.

Opening the kitchen door she threw her thoughts onto the backburner unsatisfied with her conclusion. She had to go to Kevin and get some money from him. This maintained its position as the priority. As she collected her whereabouts, the corner of her eye noticed Kevin's box of meds next to the kettle and the half drank cup of tea. It was open, pulling her gaze towards today's designated pills. She didn't know his routine and which popped pill he needed on whatever day, but she did know that he didn't just leave his meds hanging about open on the counter. If she had bells stabbed to her earlobes they would've been ringing like a lunatic.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Ever since Kevin had stopped with his garage he had found various ways to fill his time. The garden being one of them and his wall being another. Susan always thought it was an odd place, a strange hobby, an obscure excuse to leave the house, but it worked for him and she couldn't complain about that. Basically it was a blank concrete wall oddly placed in the middle of some baron field outside the city. He found it one day and just decided to use it as his own. He'd spend weeks trying to get the perfect graffiti on the wall. Susan always wondered why it was there in the first place. Naturally, it's a fucking bizarre sight to behold, which is one of the main reasons why Kevin got attached to it.

The place was a far distance out form the bulky armpits of the city. As Susan pulled her car up to the side of the dirt road she saw the silhouette of her father entertaining the wall. It was a baron place still holding onto what was left of its farming heritage. In the distance one could see the hairline of the city with each rooftop marking its spot across the postcard view. There was an area of abandoned concrete smothered across a nearby field crawling its way towards Kevin. Grass from the fields tried desperately to exist over the abandoned and messy concrete.

A fair distance out into the field was a single wall, built carefully and with artistic touch. It was new and wasn't torn or abrupt in its appearance. The wall was placed on a hip of a hill in the middle of the field, with grass and the odd flower leaning up against it. Kevin was facing the wall with every inch of his movements focused on the graffiti that he was painting. Suppose it gave him a sense of youth to do it. From the side it looked as if he was wedged between the city and the rocked grip of the hilled landscape. Beside him he had a plastic bag, the same appearance as the one left in the kitchen. With the assumption that it was another bag of spray paint Susan marched forward across the field.

She wanted to look at Kevin as she lifted herself across the field, but the countless grooved bumps and deceptive clumps of the dirt demanded her attention to be locked to the ground. Her boots feared each and every next step, and loathed every crevasse they had to slide into.

Susan eventually reached the wall expecting him to say hello, but his posture refused to acknowledge anything from his surroundings. With his locked gaze on the wall she walked around letting him have his moment as she took in the graffiti with a confused face.

Each side of the wall had its own predesigned painting by the shprayed noise of the can. Susan circled around the wall without either of them saying anything. The filthy wet grass beneath her provided obstacles for her boots as she attempted to get every single angle of the wall. It was quiet, almost frightening as if Kevin was in another zone possessed by whatever drove him out into the field in the first place.

Her movements around the wall were perfectly shaped like a circle. Each step of hers dug more worry into the grass below her. This inevitably made the walk around the wall more and more difficult. Susan's face began to slowly melt once she saw the demented painting that he was working on. The first shade of the wall was one entire painting with drips of running spray paint rolling down the smoothed plastered wall.

At the centre of the picture was a hollow bald man hunched over his own spine. His body had bones subtly erupting from the folds of his skin. His body was coloured by that sickly green colour that thrives within the rejecting howls of one's stomach. The edges of the picture were inflicted by a cool shade of blue. It was deceiving to look at, the colour lured you in with a sort of shiny finish, slapping Susan across the face with its frozen fingers. His expression was hidden from view, burying his neck into his chest, taunting Susan to close in on the picture. As she closed in on the painting a purple hue from something square was clearly seen being held by the sick man. He held it tight with a grip so demanding it made his knuckles burst from his skin and crack to the air. All in order to keep that purple close to his chest. Bottom line; it was a fucking strange abstract painting and it freaked the shit out of Susan.

She had seen the wall before but had never seen the finished painting in its entirety. Only at the very instant did she realise something was up with Kevin, which drove a cool fingered stroke up the back of her neck slicing all the way around to the bridge of her nose. It made the carousel walk around the wall all the more difficult.

She went there with the intention of asking for money, but quickly threw that notion under the bus. All that was left for her to think about was that poking question; _shouldn't there be more to a family than this_? The lack of interaction from him further solidified that question. She couldn't help but look at herself and Kevin, entertaining themselves over a wall out in the middle of a baron field. This was her entire family, all her relatives that she had ever known stood there and then fixated at that pained man plastered. Thinking about this she no longer had the strength to circle the wall. The picture on the other side was still an unknown to her, but she found it difficult to care.

"How did you get out here? Long distance, you didn't drag your knees all this way." She said hiding her eyes beneath the back of his head.

"Buses and a few quiet minutes of shuffling across the roads. So what do you think?" Kevin asked while maintaining his gaze on the wall.

"Well what do you want me think about it?" she had moved herself to the side of Kevin facing the picture head on. She blocked her view of the crippled man with Kevin.

"You know that whenever I'm out here, I want to be alone. So since you refuse to follow that I would like to have your opinion. It's not like a lot of people come out here anyways, and I don't think the odd farmer would be interested much in this kind of shite." He said with a smudged laughter withholding itself across the gap of his lips. At that point he had stopped spray painting and turned around to see the face of his daughter. Her face was holding down every aspect of itself, the lips, the eyes and her cheeks in an attempt to give a visage that said nothing. Pouring her heart out that early would have been a mistake.

"I would never have taken you as a painter. Really expressive. Very dark though. It almost looks kinda evil... How long do you spend out here doing this?" she said to him.

"Weeks, I suppose. I don't know. Haven't really been timing myself every time I come out here."

"Is this all that this family is. Just us standing here behind a wall behind the city." She said abruptly cutting off his breath. She left him paused atop the hilled wall dashing his eyes from every baron corner of the field to the next.

"What do you expect me to have a couple of relatives behind my back, do ya? We've made due with just having each other for the past twenty something years, so why is it bothering ya now?"

"It has been bothering me for the past twenty years, only now I'm actually asking you and all you do like _always_ is grab my questions and fucking throw them away as if they mean nothing. Stop hiding behind your stupid wall and talk to me. Please...I'm your daughter, not... some pet you can just go to whenever ya need company." She said with one boot dug into the hill and one lip shivering from unexpected emotion. Kevin dropped his can and lowered himself a slight bit until he was level with Susan. She was expecting him to calm her down and further belittle her curiosity, but none of that happened. It was as if he was reluctant to touch her, with an expression of sorrow. All that he gave her was a face of reluctance, chewing on bones of memories. The longer he took to come up with a response the more frustrated she became, loosening the screws on her drilling words.

"It will always just be you and me, and I know that it's hard" he said being cut from her hand.

"You don't get it. What I want to know is that why have we never talked about them, leaving them to be ideas. I don't want my relatives to be ideas. What were my grandparents like? What did they do, you spent twenty years of your life with them and you can't share a single memory with me? For fuck sake what was my mother like? Why don't I know what she looked like? My entire life you have just shoved all of your family aside. Well I don't want to live with the idea of them anymore, I want to know everything about everyone." She tore the reluctant life out of his breath. Every word came punching across the line of conversation, leaving large dripping holes in his cheeks. That clicking noise he heard from her words timed his movements across the grass, shoving himself on the circled path around the wall. It looked as if he was avoiding her words. Susan followed him trying to stab further questions into him but everything that penetrated his skin was simply pulled back out by his quivering hands. Kevin knew Susan would eventually reach this point. Right there he realised he had been living in denial her entire life. Every step that he took from her somehow hurt his breathing. His heart raced to a scary pace making his lungs feel as if they were filled with bags of rocks.

"Stop moving...., please...., stop hiding behind the wall. Fucking talk to me." She said as she dug her hands into the sleeve of his warm jacket. She could barely feel his arm with the layered jacket. The tighter she grabbed the less she felt of his bones and muscle. He turned and said a few simple things.

"You know it's just... It's too painful for me to talk about my parents."

"It's been a couple of decades, how is it still painful?" she said with strong words heaving and shoving his chest, inflating his ballooned breathing even further. He knew he wasn't in any pain over his parents, just every time he brought them into the fore front of his view they reminded him of a part of his life that he preferred to have buried beneath heaps of snow.

Beneath the sharp bricked fringe of the wall he knew that what he had to do was tell Susan about her grandparents. But before he could throw out anything, she broke him off with further hooked questions.

"When was the last time you talked to someone apart from me?" she said closing in on him grabbing his eyeballs in her hands and pointing them straight at herself. His lungs heaved and whimpered desperately looking for an answer.

"I talk to people, today ... the guy at the shop where I bought the cans."

"You don't even know his name, do you?" she said stabbing a few heavily worded fingers into his chest right between his coated ribs. She was a fingernail away from poking at his heart, but he distanced himself away tripping over hilled lumps of grass. Supported against the wall, backed up against the concrete, he used every cup of air that he could possibly fit into his lungs and threw a defence straight towards her.

"I don't have to know his name. Acchh! don't fucking assume that I need them."

"Really? You don't need people? The strong soldier himself leaning on his wall. You think that slab of concrete is going to protect ya? Maybe this piece of brick is my mother.... huh have you been hiding her from me all along." She turned her look to the wall and chopped the line of communication from her father.

"I have finally met you mom. I never realised that you were this solid. Wow I really like your style, a little bit of rough rash I see, but that's nothing cream can't handle." She said with flailing arms. With all said and done she swam over to her father pressing up against his thin chest. His breathing grew heavy forcing him to grab onto the wall with his palms. Her words punched him directly in the chest snapping a few ribs as they tore through the interior of his insulated coat.

"Well I guess this wall is all that you have left." With that she thought for a moment eating away at the pupils of his eyes in search for a reply. She couldn't ever see him discussing her family to her. She knew it was the truth, for whatever truth, she ate it and spat it out in disgust. All she wanted was to know about her grandparents and her mother, but Kevin was fixated on walling up his mind that she expected him to never share. Her hollow expectations reflected back to her from the cusp of his pupils. Once more heavy punches tortured his breathing filling them with a slight tearing sound from his throat. With Susan's blind frustration she was incapable of seeing the current pain that he was in. Allowing her final words to rest she walked away towards her car.

The distance between the two grew with every one of her steps. It was silent, not only from the loud noise that shouted within her own head, but also because Kevin had collapsed behind her leaving no sound to be held. Hyperventilating back up against the wall, he watched her walk away from the lumped nature of the field. His jaw shook with force trying to find breath to form words of help, but all his lips created was the foetus of nothing. Desperately trying to get her help, he flung his arms as if trying to throw lumps of words at her. Eventually he created a noise, unknown from language, but it grabbed her attention.

She threw her head around with all of her hanging thoughts thrashing with the force of the turn. She saw him leaned up against the wall clasping for her help. Everything that she had shouted within her head, everything that she had dug up had been placed away for a later time. She knew that regardless of her anger with him, he was still the only person that she had. She loved him. She needed him. She required him.

Running to him she lifted her knees high as if trying to hover over the dirt. Grabbing his neck she held her forehead against his and whispered hushed words of comfort. They weren't as much words as cloudy noises. She saw from his purpled cheeks that it was real, real danger laughing itself under the shadow of the wall.

They held each other with a grip, a hilted and strong grip, digging red lines into each other's skin. The clear day filled its way with a new sense of wind. It came howling across the grass, shifting the bodies of green towards them. Susan sat holding the back of his neck, protecting herself against the sea of grass that awoke across the shore of mud. Her boots were deafened by the quiet hush of each body of grass smashing against each other. Moments slaughtered themselves atop the hill, leaving their bodies to disintegrate against the wall.

She felt his breathing slow down alongside her thoughts. It was the calmest slice of memory she had felt in a long time. With his breathing now at walking pace she lifted him up and placed his arm around her shoulder. Having received the nod of O.K. she moved forward towards her car. At that point she was getting tired of walking in fields, enjoying the thought of her comforting bucket of a car and getting her father home. Rest is what he needed, it's what he'll get, and it's what he wanted. All the while she pondered the idea that it might have been just some ploy to avoid her questions. But even so she didn't want to risk losing him entirely, despite his thin weak skin.

The distance of the field felt twice as long with the short pace that they were at. She saw the head of the car over the line of rocked walls. Making her way across at an angle she was against the other side of the wall. Somehow she felt a slight urge to look back and take in the other graffiti.

It was covered in heaps of white spray paint, thrashing the image of snow across the wall. There was no subject or person frolicking about in the waves of white. It was empty and only entertained itself with its own baron colour. She looked at it, burning the image into her eyelids. It was a quiet and calm image, presenting nothing but peaceful strokes. When she turned and headed towards the car all she saw were the corners of it. Somehow it threw violent pokes straight to her stomach. The tranquil image of the snow was more traumatic and vulgar than the other painting. Baffled, but it proved to be no priority. The walk made the idea of her comforting car more and more like a safe house, a quit button, and a pillow. She sped up grabbing tighter onto the lining of her father's jacket.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN

The door of the car slashed open with bangs of metal. All Susan heard was the base of the tearing and struggling metal hinges of the door alongside the heavy and exhausted breathing from her father. She placed him in the back seat of the car, angling his body in the most comfortable position possible. His lengthy knees had to be bent against the door. Once in the car she looked back checking on his breathing. He had calmed himself down from his icy and lonely mountain.

His gaze was hooked onto the ceiling of the car avoiding any eye contact with his daughter. He was awake and fine, reeling himself in from his lack of breath. She thought to herself that the best thing for him was to bring him home and suffocate his quiet elbows with a lovely woolly blanket.

There was a quiet layer of air that filled the car as she drove back to his house. The day had grown tired and lathered itself with the promises of Grey and her underappreciated shade. Evening, leaving the sun to say goodbye. The dashboard of the car was void of colour, leaving Susan to forcefully concentrate on the road. As she drove she blocked all of her thoughts from galloping out of her mouth. Her boots were too convoluted and dirty with patches of mud for them to entertain what had just happened back in the field.

She stared out onto the road n oticing the grooves of the road slowly disappear into more cared for tarmac. As she watched she tasted something between her teeth and her right cheek. Moving her tongue around she munched and fleshed her skin trying to figure out what the taste was. She felt nothing, but yet tasted bitter lemon exposing itself across the inner drum of her cheek. She didn't care that she was biting on the essence of nothing, but was rather thankful in fact, delighted that she had something to divert her focus.

Kevin shuffled in the back of the car making ruffled sounds from his light brown jacket. "You know my first ever car was sort of like this one... well less modern and a few more bumps." She was glad he was talking again. Looking back at him briefly through the rear view mirror proved that his recovery only required that of a comforting hold and warm grasp. She couldn't deny the overt sense of drama about his collapse back on the field, but not taking it seriously was too scary an option.

"One day I found a huge... relatively big problem in the steering of my car. _No bother_ I said to myself, thinking I would get it fixed within a day.....there was a bar, a girl, I got drunk. The problem was I took my parents car that night to the pub because I was too afraid to drive my own." He said with his neck plastered against the door. He saw the running orange sky across half of his vision as he threw his look up into the ceiling of the vehicle. Both of them knew that only Kevin needed to talk, it wasn't a duet. So she listened draining her singing voice through the bitter taste in her cheek.

"My baby sister had some sort of a problem that night, only three years old. She had to be brought to the hospital. I'm always afraid to think of how they felt before their car crash, worrying about their youngest child like that." That was the first time Susan had ever heard of his sister. All the hilled responses that she had waded through that day didn't make it too much of a reveal. She knew he was hiding something from her, and it was more of a relief to hear than anything else. She felt it bouncing between the skins of her knees with every word of his that painted the old torn picture.

"The only car that was available was my blue bastard. They were unaware of the problem... I didn't hear about what had happened to them until I got back home the next day. I went through an entire... fucking... night while they lay bleeding and heaving on the road across from me. Home was never the same for me again."

She knew from movies and the odd soap opera that she would have to say something comforting to ease his worries and aged problem. Perhaps, a pat on his stomach, a comforting string of generic words would ease his shivering lungs. The further she thought about helping him the more she locked her gaze onto the road and the sides of the car. It was silence that she had chosen for there was nothing of worth to say. The nothingness and filled gaps in the car between them was more comforting than a hug. It wasn't a callous touch that ran her, but rather a shocked silence. Nothing would have made that moment any more palatable, not even stabbed syllables from experienced beards in the sky would have cleared the air.

So all he did was project his memories across the ceiling of the car, while she threw her rolling thoughts into the front of the road. Don't even get started on where her boots were left at. Their laces were _so_ tangled they would have made their mother cry.

"What was her name" Susan asked as she tightened her grasp around the steering wheel. He hunched in his spot curling his limbs to protect his chest as if from unruly fingernails scratching his ribs.

"Susan... her name was Susan." He said as he placed his hand on his chest partially relieving himself from something that was locked up behind his fleshy red rib cage.

They both chewed on the silence from then on in the car. With his words she no longer felt that bitter taste within her cheek, leaving the legs of her mind to run rampant and kick down the lining of her skull. Her boots were not prepared for that as they placed whatever concentration they had left on the pedals. The car drifted along with the city and people.

The lights had come on in the streets casting bluntly shaded yellows and reds across the silhouettes of all the people that walked past. Kevin closed his eyes to relax for the rest of the floaty and cloudy ride, Susan couldn't help but look at the people that swam above the pavements.

She couldn't see them walking, only saw their upper bodies drift from one warm patch of concrete to the next. Filling her view with their faces she allowed her passive hands to drive the rest of the quiet way. Not much traffic, allowing her to lather her mind with all the people that flew past her window.

One face, long nose, dripped in hair held itself up high as it passed from one corner of the reflected glass over to the end. Another face pulled back by a rope full of blonde hair tying all her worried wrinkles behind her head. She seemed tense, with a consistent hand held up high to her neck as if protecting her voice from falling out and landing all soggy in her palm. Her eyes reflected the street lights as she turned a corner. One more face torn and worn by old work and aged experience. Susan saw the cliffs of wrinkles and grooves slide off of the man's face. He held a small box dripped with pink paint, a bow, inflicted by sparkles and colourful hooks straight for a child's joyous eye. He walked with a smile hidden beneath his sharp skin.

The more Susan drove the less she acknowledged her father in the back of the car. At that point he had entirely passed out, suffocating himself with the slight brushed beard that lay above his relieved lip. His breathing was paced, short and troubled, but relaxed and better than he was at the wall in the field.

She leaned her head gently up against the window of the car, with two hands on the wheel she stopped the car at the lights. Enthralled by the luring flashing colours of the street she merged her view into the flex of the window. More people, so many people, flashing their nude faces along the streets. They were bare, stripped from masks and clothed facial gear. They threw their voyeuristic expressions across the pavements to all the people that brushed past.

No children covered the ground, but lots of childish faces presented themselves. One walked out of a nearby deli, wrapping a wet face of drunken joy across their soft skin. She balanced herself on her sea legs, dancing uncontrollably from one wall to the next. _Drunk early_ Susan thought to herself. She was dressed with homely comfort, lacking the usual nightly attire of emphasised skin. Her red hair shouted constantly, springing from her scalp with curly jumps as if prepared to leave her bald on the street. Susan could tell from her constant head grabs that she wasn't ready to let her hair slip away just yet. The woman's youthful knees made it seem strange that this woman would be afraid of losing her hair. She clearly didn't care what anyone thought about with food stains running down her sweatpants.

As Susan began to drive off once again she zoned in on the folds that surrounded the woman's eyes. She saw small tears of self-pitied pink dig their way into her young skin around her eyelashes. It was a sore sight to see, with hints of pain from the woman reflecting back to Susan. She didn't like pink, quickly wiping it away with a different view in favour of something that tasted a bit more baby blue.

She drove into a more housed area, with TV lights burning through the curtains of all of their sitting rooms. The familiar roads drove them both home. With the house in sight it was the only building that didn't have any lights on. It was quiet allowing the slow and sleepy brushing of the trees and plants to bring some noise to the table. But neither of them heard the tranquil murmurs of the plants.

Susan parked her car. Carrying his half-awake self-inside she wrapped her hand around his waist, making sure that she saw her fingers on the other side of his coat. What happened next? Well the front door opened and they wouldn't speak another word to each other for the next couple of days. She was surprised that she wasn't angry with him. The most important emotion she took away from it was a sense of clarity, fucking draining though.

The kitchen was dark, tiring its own eyes out trying to see the silhouetted people that entered its domain. With a quick flick of a warm yellow light, the kitchen's worries of intruders dissipated, leaving it to relax with all the happy shadows that cast across the floor.

She helped him up the stairs, dragging each of their bodies from a low centre of gravity. In front of her, in front of them, his room was left wide open.

Turning a small side lamp on, she rested him along the bed, making sure that his head hit the pillow with a soft punch. He had drowned himself to sleep, too tired to acknowledge anyone or anything that resembled anyone.

It was one of those strange moments whereby Susan forgot to think. She just stood there over him lost, not in thought, but in movement. Enveloped in her own reflection of what had just happened, her brain had rejected and ejected everything, overheated. In doing so, she looked like a shitty ghost hovering above their victim not knowing what to do.

With a considerable amount of time having passed, Susan picked her loose gaze from the blanket and walked out of the door, closing it.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN

A brown chair, lacking that kind of personality, presented its comforting cushions to Susan. Dragging the tips of her boots, she threw herself without safety, landing herself crooked.

Quiet and calm, she composed herself, binding her thighs to the almost furry texture of the cushions. It was the most enjoyable moment of the day. Looking at her boots she threw the concept of time out the window. Before she knew it Mr Black had crawled up on her, accompanied by drums signalling his tremendous entrance into her night. He banged and danced, frolicking about with his darkly shaded feathers trying to fondle her attention, but she ignored him completely, not noticing entirely that it was sleepy time.

_Next step get home_ , she thought to herself. Nearing her way up to the window she looked past all the crumbled leaves and saw her car waiting idly for her. Pressing the tip of her nose against the glass she felt that cold seatbelt grip across her chest. She didn't trust herself to drive, was the excuse she used to not get back in the car. Step backwards for her.

Flicking through her sparse contact list on her tiny black touch screen phone, she hovered her thumb over Mathew, his number, his ride home and his car. So she called for the lift, the hand, the adoring ear she quietly wished would latch onto her quivering lips.

After a few wrong turns and bleak corners Mathew reached Kevin's house where Susan was at. When he heard her voice over the phone, a few strands of that sweet sweat crawled up his nostrils, filling his chest with an inch of warmth, it all culminated to a faster pace of driving. A smelly motivation so to speak.

The area was dark causing him difficulty finding a place to park his car. He stepped out of the car and curled his jacket inwards fleeing to Kevin's house.

Now remember this place was dark. Not much was to be seen apart from bulky shafted trees flinging their buckets of leaves across the calm wind. When Mathew walked in he stepped on a tiny bed of yellow flowers crushing their frame and dirtying their mattress. He felt the slight crunch beneath his navy leathers.

The knock of the door woke Susan up from her slept state. Breaking her eyelids open with a dusty crunch she waddled over to the front door warming her armpits with the white jumper that was underneath her jacket. Hello followed by a kiss, all was good. There was slight hesitation with her sleep depraved state to leave the house, making Mathew think he was supposed to come in. Realising that she was too tired to think or move he grabbed her by the elbow and coaxed her out with a gentle whisper.

The lights from the interior of his car flashed on with harsh shades of cream. It was that kind of generic wealth with all those lights and wheels. Some really fancy shit.

Susan composed herself in the passenger side wriggling her ass until she was comfortable. He knew from her voice that she was in need of a listener, but knowing from experience he would have to ask the first question to give the impression that he was interested.

"What happened between you two? I don't think I have ever seen you like this before." he said drifting his car quietly through the damp roads back to Susan's place. She turned in her seat finding a new spot to look at outside the window.

"I think he wants to be in danger... building a little fort for himself to pass away in without anyone noticing... he has heart problems and one day it will all be very serious. I'm afraid he wants it." She said with broken breath. "Genuinely mean no offense, but he sounds like a selfish prick. If you are all he has in his life then why is he acting this way?"

"...It scares me. I don't want to be alone." She said painting her exhausted expression up against the glass of the window. Lots and lots of colourful and distracting lights taunted her boots, singing little tunes of lullabies to their loosening laces. The words slipped out of her mouth effortlessly, resting their letters on her bottom lip, making it feel heavy. It was difficult enough to keep her eyes open and now she had to work with her mouth.

"Sometimes I feel as if I'm walking on rocks when I'm around him. Sharp, sore rocks, the pointy ones... I just wish the world was made out of pillows you know. The pavements, roads and floors, everything made out of soft cushions and pillows. Maybe even a few blankets. Why not. That's what I'd like, just to wake up in the morning and every step that I take to be held up by layers and layers of fabric." Her view at that point had entirely left the vehicle and hung itself from outside the window soaking in all the insane colours that passed. Her exhausted expression had returned back to a residual smile. It was all she had left on offer really. "That's what I dream of sometimes but then I realize how unrealistic it is. Like all people would ever do would be fall over, all the time. Then travel, how is travel going to work? We would be locked away to our small communities guarded by a landscape made out of soft pillows."

"Well I like to think that we would adapt. You know, after walking on pillows for a generation I think we would get used to it. Just copy their parents from childhood on how to walk on soft ground... all would be good. Softer feet... No more of those foot callous scratcher ads on TV." He said with a drunken smile which he threw to Susan. It was possibly the first time they had looked at each other in the car. Very romantic, with hardened light dashing through the windows. He was happy to bring her home, happy to once more remind himself of the old food orgy that fondled itself on the counter in her flat. Filthy love.

"Actually that reminds me of a shoot I did once with... this girl. The whole gimmick of the shoot was about pillows, pillow fight essentially. I had only planned to waste a couple of hours on it, but we turned out to spend the entire day on the set. I mean the photos didn't turn out to be phenomenal or anything, but it was one of the best shoots I've ever taken part in. We reached the point where I joined in and started to take the phots on... like... the big blanket that was stretched out over the floor. Couldn't take a single photo you know. Shaky. Steff's idea." He said cooling down his movements until he was almost sleeping in his chair. Even though his body eased into the leathery seats of the car his eyes were plastered to the windscreen avoiding memories that appeared on the road in front. Susan angled herself to look at him. There and then she saw Mathew clearly. "How long have you known Steff? I don't know why you bother dealing with him. He seems like a pure fucking pain."

"I was young when I first met him, still cursed by wet behind the ear syndrome. Respect him. That's hard to do considering how much he likes to antagonise people. I suppose... he presented me an opportunity on a silver platter. I can't help but thank him and Josey for that." He said as he watered his eyes with private rain. She said silence. Hearing that, he turned to look at her sympathetic expression. She didn't know why she was sympathetic, but it was the only emotion that hadn't fallen asleep.

"That's it really... I don't think the people that we care about are designed to be clean... almost. The mere fact that we care about them means that we are making our selves vulnerable to difficult stuff. Hard, sore stuff, like rocks and the concrete ground we walk on every day. Maybe that's why your dream hasn't come true yet, because people care about people too much." He said with dribbles of laughter.

"Then that means I have to choose between having loved ones or a world where I can walk on pillows. Tough. I think I might just tape some cushions to my feet instead." Susan said turning her head once more to the film of surreal lights that played outside her window. Then the orchestra of shades faded as she recognised the pavement, signalling to her that her home was near. The idea of her bed excited her a slight. As her eyes slipped to exhaustion a faint clothy touch caressed up the palm of her right hand. It was her bed, she felt its ruffled pattern. She gripped her hand wrapping the folds between her fingers. It was comfort, bought warmth, temporary help, and all things she had and needed that night. Opening her eyes she saw Mathew gleefully staring down her arm as she hooked her fingers onto the elbow of his jacket. Reactionary embarrassment pulled her hand back to her chest. At least it made _him_ feel good, further unfolding the clear adoration that he held for her.

A feel good draft, happy wind flew past them as they inched into her flat. At that point she wasn't breathing air, but rather the cloth binds of her bed. Mathew stood in the flat once more. Joy for him, a frolicking sense of ecstasy, new to his range of emotions. That's pretty much why he enjoyed going to her place every time. The wet crusted counters and blackly spotted curtains accentuated Susan's nude legs. Of course he wouldn't ever tell her that. Don't think anyone would react positively to being compared to a filthy cushion. Not exactly romantic, but somehow it left a filthy smudge across the carpet under his scalp which he refused to wipe away.

The light from her room burst open allowing her to see her own legs. As she attempted to remove her boots Mathew went over to say goodnight. Struggling to remove her leathery weights, he leaned down and helped her undress. She didn't resist, making it clear from the get go that sleep was her goal and that she was too tired for the twisting of the meat. No words were said allowing his calm breath to fill the space. A soft kiss on the forehead and everything fluffy comfy with unicorns poured across her face. Nothing left to do, only home to go to.

Switching the light off, he walked out of her room and hovered for a moment in the sitting/kitchen room. It was pitch black refusing to allow noise or shadows to exist. All he thought about was the next time he would see her. Cute no?
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Hear that sound? That slow base of a noise beating it's drawn out legs to the stretch of a week. A day passed for Susan, then another, culminating in a week of forgettable fluidity. She did talk to her father once more, but the conversation was deprived and lacked any acknowledgement (maybe a little bit, but nothing worth mention). They didn't need it in the form of words, relying entirely on the curved view of their eyes to see each other's troubles. All in all it was one of those weeks built out of translucent material, signifying no spectacular fireworks.

She tried to shift her focused worries from the usual for a change of scenery, it was as simple as changing her shoes. This left only one problem for her to approach and quench. The fact that the lack of money left a genuine feeling of hunger for her to munch on, which inflated the problem within the confines of the fridge.

_What next? What next_ she said _. What are those few steps that are in front of me, but I can't see yet? How do I uncover those steps? Do I get one of those self-help books that tell me with confidence I can have bigger tits. Well maybe I like the way my tits look. So fuck you self-help book. My confidence doesn't need motivation._ She thought to herself as she fondled her belly button trying to uncover the solution to her present hunger. A job maybe? Deep down in her intestine, right above her bladder, she knew that a job would be the only solution. Plus it would tear her from her daily cardboard TV which was running out of material every day.

Now that she knew the solution all she had to do was coax the job out from under the stained couch. Goochie goochie gooo. With those enticing squeals the job came out from underneath the couch flaunting its red dress as it presented its opportunity to Susan.

She wasn't particularly excited to model for Mathew, but ground rules stapled to her forehead she felt reasonably confident with selling her body...ugh um clothes. Mathew was more than happy to accommodate her, which meant an increased amount of time to spend with her. He may have introduced the idea to her _from_ the couch, but that's beside the point.

She had an opportunity which might have just solve her hungry problem. Susan had prepped and requested the first shoot to be quiet and during the late evening, or the early night. She wanted it all to be private so she could ease herself in and stretch out her tentacles to get a good feel for the job. _Reasonable,_ thought Mathew.

With the liquid week over Susan found herself standing in front of the agency prepping to pose for fashion, horny fashion. A faint light peaked around the corner highlighting the empty secretary desk. Mathew had requested Susan to dress in easy home clothes, because he was going to give her the weapons later on. So she flung on the sloppiest clothes she could possibly dig out of her closet. Hence suicidal sweatpants and depressed sleeves with apathetic stains. Glad that she decided to do the first shoot in private she slinked through the dark halls, hiding her sloppy skin from imaginary eyes.

Mathew had told her to meet him in studio no.6 so she did. As she neared the room she saw a strong push of light slip through the gap at the bottom of the door. With no.6 stabbed into the white frames she entered the room. Mathew was standing to the right of the room leaning on a table playing with his camera, composing its buttons to exactly how he liked it. Dirty boy. They said hello and eased themselves into the night.

Handing her a dress he said "This is what you will wear tonight. Gondi's newest dress. Really new. 75% triacetate..." immediately cut off by Susan "Cool, sounds really cool, but um... what size?" "Don't worry, it will fit... and it will look beautiful."

She looked at the dress that corpsed its curves across her laid out arms. It was black, only black, with holes underneath the armpits that cut all the way down to the hip. The dress pleasured itself from revealing buckets of skin. Susan started to strip in the studio readying herself for the dress. She was slightly surprised that Mathew didn't request her to wear any makeup, but it would become clear why later in the night. She wasn't exactly an advocate of all of this voyeuristic shit, but this was her potential job, so she felt like she needed to get into the motion of it all. As well as that she enjoyed the purple bolts she would get up her inner thighs whenever she would get naked in front of Mathew.

It was a nude tennis game with gazes bouncing back between the two. He watched Susan slip her grey sweatpants down to her ankles. Her boots were next, shivering from uncertainty and having to wade out of their comfort zone. She left all of her clothes beside the table as she brushed up against Mathew, teasing him, but making it very clear that the camera would have no part in the play.

He stood their consuming her curves and dripped clothing as he stroked the few chest hairs that plagued between his shoulders. Rolling up the sleeves of his professional white shirt, he fiddled with the lighting around her. Burning white drove across the room painting its blinding poison over the pipes and onto the white sheet drooped from the ceiling. Everything and everything moved to the ecstatic nature of the lights. Susan put on her dress, sliding the black tarred sex up her waved skin. The lamps and shafts of metal shook and erupted, shaking the lights until it became a blinding interpretation of a night out, void of colour but full of all the lube that was required. She felt the cold metal behind her, but was conflicted by it. Not knowing whether she liked it or not, yet she was in the mood to find out. Comfortable to undress in front of Mathew was one thing, but she was unsure if she was ok with advertising her skin to the world. _Maybe if I stayed ignorant to who saw this stuff_? She thought to herself as she pulled the dress over her chest, fixing it to make it comfortable.

Loud bang, that loud metallic bang went straight to Susan as she positioned her legs on the white stage. It was the sound of his camera as he took a test shot. Every time she heard the sound, it came at her with a slapped wrist. Slowing the frames down until she saw everything in still images, no montage bullshit. Just lost and tormented by the blinding lights. She wasn't used to the white that white, the white that made the room seem like it had no walls. It blended them together with the sheet, making the room seem like an endless sea of depraved white. With that, the door swam away until she could no longer see the boundaries of the room. It wasn't an uncomfortable experience, just unusual, like sleeping on a water bed.

Mathew directed her where to go telling Susan to prop herself up like a doll and fire her hip towards the camera. Mathew was gentle about the whole thing, constantly asking if she was comfortable and what not. Regardless of what question he would frame with a smile, she would always say she was good. Mainly to impress, and partly because she wanted to get it over with.

That click, that annoying click, born from metallic porn videos, played itself across the entire night. Right behind the origin of the sound, the camera, was Mathew. He had a confident smile with edges of trust tearing their way up to his eyelids. Nothing extreme just that kind of look Susan would rely on. She trusted him and his soft grip. With his smile and her motivated hunger she didn't care too much to debate the situation extensively.

The night grew to a very quiet climax, it felt good, it was satisfying but sparks didn't seep out from the camera. With a few more photos left, Mathew dragged Susan around with his orchestral fingers. Growing with comfort she danced about the place, swinging the loose ends of her dress. The first half of the shoot she was balancing on top of a pair of high heels. They were cousins to a pair of Swedish knives. As the night went on she gave up on them and threw them near the table, freeing and rubbing her heels.

A few photos were enough. Mathew had taken sufficient angles of the black product for him to be satisfied with the shoot. Calling for a quick break he went to go get a drink. He hadn't told her that they were finished so she leaned on the butt of the table sipping on the plastic lips of her bottle of water. After he left the room she didn't have much to look at, which left Susan to caress the texture of her dress. It was silky with large strips of black going down the middle made from a rougher touch. Four end bits ripped to the bottom under her knee. She grabbed one and swung it around like a piece of rope.

Mathew entered the room once more with his own fizzy drink from the atrium. "How much is left to shoot? I don't wanna rush ya... just curious." She said with a puppy smile smathered across her faintly lipsticked lips. He paused for a moment dealing with a very heavy breath as he thought about what to say next.

"A few more photos, a little bit more experimental I guess. We'll just go along with it and if you want to stop, then I'll bow before you my queen." He said lowering his back and stretching his arms out like an albatross. The gesture made Susan laugh, easing her naked armpits.

Susan perched her heels once more onto the sheet of white. She raised them until she barely any connection to the earth. It was difficult enough, shaking from side to side, as she struggled to maintain balance. He looked at her for a moment and consumed all the clean edges that she portrayed. Abrupt cold images of every other shoot he had ever done harpooned into his view. All he saw was the generic bending of the back and protruding of the hip. With all of that digging its way through him he felt almost disappointed, lacking in what he had felt before for Susan. It had to be rectified.

As she fell from high arched heels, Mathew dropped his camera and rested it by his hip with his little finger hooked around the strap.

"Alright I think I have enough of you in that thing" he said as he eyed her up and down.

"How about you get back into those sweat pants... a few snaps... see what happens. The night is early anyways." Looking over at the pile of sweated bundle of cloth on the table. Susan was surprised at the gesture, shocked at the concept, intrigued by the implications. It was all very interesting shit.

He closed in on her touching her exposed shoulder with the tips of his fingers. His camera was locked into his palm refusing to give up. All she saw was the shadow that he casted on her. His walled shoulders blocked out all the professional lights.

"A few photos, that's all I'm asking, to show the real you, the essence of you"

"The real me isn't a bag of sweaty clothes, what if I don't want to show myself that way?" she said with strong arms.

"I get that, and you are far more than that, you are someone who is confident to show themselves in casual clothing. That's rare to find in this industry... Just a bit of fun, if you aren't happy with them then I will throw them out and burn them. It would mean that I would have to print them first but... you know what I mean... ill delete them... ok?" Mathew said with his eyes rested on her slowly burying the idea beneath her eyelids.

She didn't know how to feel really, first she was interested, and then the thought of her appearing that way in front of people completely swept her legs from under her. But Mathew saying that she could delete them if she saw fit convinced her to at least attempt.

Next came the strip, the gentle folding of the black seeped dress of unobtainable wealth and the cold nude walk over to her messy bundle of clothes. He prepped the lighting once more, but instead of having a clean slate of white spread across the room, he opted for a faintly purple maroon glow. It was all quiet, with the room preparing itself for the slow play of the piano. It wasn't a sad scene, rather a delicately touched scene that could only handle the faint notes from a keyboard. Any base and Susan would have been knocked to her knees, begging to stand again.

She walked over to the purple shaded sheet. It reflected the coloured light through the room, bouncing from pipe to shoulder. He held his camera with an erected grip. The pause in between each shot was longer than usual, in which he took a pondered amount of time looking at each photo, as if trying to burn the image into his head. With that Susan saw his eyes growing tired, not knowing if it was because of the darker and closer atmosphere or the fact that Mr Black was creeping up on both of them. The longer she thought about it, the more Mr Black crawled up the inside of her sweat pants. She refused to say she was tired, desperately trying to maintain her good impression.

Another click, once more the metal from the camera clashed against her ear drums. She had drowned it over the course of the night but when Mathew asked her to turn her back to the camera, the noise jumped into the fray of her mind. Annoying, full stop. All she saw was the sheet rise up to the ceiling. Striking a pose she looked for her shadow, but was left disappointed when she realised the lights had cut her shadow out of the equation.

"How about we make this a bit more playful." Mathew dropped his finger to the floor gesturing Susan to get on her knees. It was an unpleasant finger to look at, but the night was already in motion so she felt like she had to abide. Susan bent her knees and filled her palms with the soft papery texture of the sheet below her. A growl of a lion howled quietly from Susan. She crawled across the ground like a toy and Mathew was the child who had an obsession with castles made from dirt. The lights around her slowly faded into a pinker shade, changing the appearance of her silhouette. Her clothes looked sloppy but no longer looked dirty with the light covering the natural stained shades.

Her sleeve slipped up her arm letting the ringed skin of her tattoo breath into the air. A few more flashes came slamming into the shoot. The camera stretched its muscles for work, for Mathew to have some quiet pleasure. Susan fumbled around the floor, like a depraved cat, prowling for its owner that held a cup of sloppy food. She raised her hips to the piped sky, leaving a large gap beneath her stomach. She was bent, curled, torn form nothing, just malleable and horny meat. It came naturally and left Susan surprised with a side that she had never thought existed. Would ya look at that, she is learning something new about herself. What a place and time to reflect upon one self.

That bang, once more that bang and again that scratching metal slippery bang. Each clapper sound from the camera was accompanied by a flash smearing the purple and pink mixed background. The flash scared the colours away. Each bang the purple streamed itself across the sheet and under the arch that was Susan, as if trying to escape the incessant howls from the camera. Susan was oblivious to the migration of the colour, focusing her holed attention to a strange feeling that hung from her belly button.

"Hey roll up your sleeve again, I want to see that tattoo fully for the camera." He said with the camera having replaced his eyes.

She rolled up her sleeve wrapping it behind her elbow. Dragging her calves across the sheet she found new modelling poses within her. It was new and exciting, tantalising the skin of her sweatpants thighs. First she shifted about as a lion, then a cat, pretty much the same thing really. Then her animalistic movements morphed into that of some sort of sexually prepped flamingo. Now perked up bending her knees was the crux of her priorities. Along with the zoo of sex, she still felt rather strange. Rather strange indeed.

The bang once more drew her from her placed thoughts, wrapping her head around her bent knees and protruding ass. She expected herself to be confused by the whole scenario and her attire, but all she thought about was an empty desire to imitate something. Flashes of Josey came rolling in with confidence leaving Susan desperate for the chance to copy someone older and more experienced. But it was just her and Mathew.

Moments within the shoot were stabbed by loose images of Josey. Feeling this she grabbed her tattoo on her wrist with a soft fear. It was reactionary, unknown. Her face moved with it as well, leaving a sour expression sprayed from eye to eye. Mathew pulled his salivating lips from the screen of the camera and looked at Susan with an expression of confusion. She quickly adjusted and fixed her face.

Different animalistic poses taunted her, all she had left to play around with was the generic cat and the somewhat overused flamingo. Regardless of how common they were they got the bent job done and for Susan's first time they were sufficient.

That fucking bang tormented the sheet once more, shattering its metal limbs up Susan's calves. Her heels were tortured by it, leaving her to fondle the idea of ending the night. It wasn't as simple as the idea presented itself to be in her mind. It was undeniably strange making her both enjoy and emphasise what she had for curves and fear showing too much. The metallic clap from the camera grounded her fear. Each banged scrape made the shoot last even longer. All in all she pounced she beast-like across the landscape of Mathew's private photoshoot.

Then she thought about her own curves as she raised her right leg. Within the stretched thigh, sharp thoughts about Josey made their way up the inside of her sweat pants again. It was uncomfortable to say the least, leaving Susan with the lonely clap of the camera. With one last photo she stopped in her tracks and relaxed her legs to the ground. The purple stayed adamant, throwing its body of colour all over Susan's back. Mathew pulled his camera down, respecting her wishes. It was late anyways and his eyes were so filthily burnt is that he was somewhat glad she decided to end it.

He left the purple tinted light on as Susan walked over to the screen of Mathew's camera. She looked at the photos, snapping between the various poses she flung at the lens. She had no idea that her poses looked so vulnerable. The face that she advertised was entirely different to the one she stared at on the camera. It was unsettling to that side of her, but yet she was glad that she did it staring up at his ignorantly pleased expression. It was by far a confusing moment for her. On one wet hand she enjoyed exposing herself. It tickled her liberated senses, which was a fresh and exciting new feeling. And on the other hand, she felt bare and uncomfortable.

The purple laced tint of her filthy advertisement emphasised that natural feeling for privacy. In the end it was these two rather simple emotions that rubbed against one another pushing Susan into a corner as she looked at the photos of herself from top to bottom. Beneath her shaking surfaces however was a fondling desire to copy the models in the agency to improve her poses. That one desire, that one banged feeling dug its judgemental fingernails into her decision. Afraid that others would see the photos she asked Mathew to delete them.

"I'm glad you asked and all, but I really don't want these pictures to represent me. Ya know" She said with arms wrapped around her comfy clothes.

"I will, don't worry. But... why. You know what never mind. I'll just get rid of them ASAP." The words slipped out from under his upper lip with a subtle hum of hesitance. She nodded accepting his words for the gospel that they were.

And with that the shoot was over, left to scratch its own scalp for more photos of fleshy bar thighs and darkly dirty skin. It was all good, with both of them celebrating with flirty gestures and rubs. The night was over for the camera, but it lasted long between the two waiting for the climax of the night. Mr Black didn't get much action so he was delighted to see some form of sexually explicit content before him. Grey was entertaining herself outside the agency enjoying the quiet play of car lights that drove past.

With everything perfectly packed back to the packets that they came in, Mathew hid his camera within its bag.

Susan remained in her calm clothes, seeing as she had nothing else to slip into. And with that they were left to their own ticklish fun. Late in the night, she left the studio room expecting him to follow. Out in the hall Susan walked up to the window to the front of the building. The spit lights of the hall covered her neck and back. The door to the studio was left open which allowed the purple glow to slither out of the room. With each step that she took the purple faded away the slightest bit, being replaced to the quiet hums from the white walls of the hall. Then with one swift click the lights from the studio went out, draining all the electrified maroon from the pipes.

Gluing herself to the window she threw her view outside onto the pavement. A few people walked around, just enough to count with the tips of her fingers. The yellow shouts form the street lights collapsed onto Grey fading into her trampled body. It was one of those nights where legs rested with bags of blankets and comfort food to reel in from the previous night.

The clicks were gone, which allowed the subtle hums of the walls to play with her ear drums. Between it all, a base, subtly built, grew into the hall. Just a few invisibly bounced bases. They reverbed against the walls zig zagging until they reached Susan who leaned on the glass. She recoiled with discomfort at the sound. She turned around with speed to look down the hall. Mathew was walking, simply walking through the long hall unknowingly pushing the base with him. Camera bag in one hand and tired fingers huddled in the other, he moved towards Susan. The closer he got the more he saw an awkward expression from Susan. She was battling with an imaginary base sound that had crawled all the way down the hall and into her skull. It was almost like a culmination of every new sound she was subjected to through the night. Mathew closed in on Susan trying to dig into her eyes in order to see her problem, but he was left confused.

They latched onto one another, she weak from the hounding and colourless base that punched her stomach and Mathew exhausted from his shoot. She was tired resting her arms and head into his chest trying to drown out the sound. The base still existed, it grew to a subtle hollow clatter in her head. With her hands over ears trying to drag the sound out from her hairline she lost the strength in her knees. Mathew held her, keeping her afloat while simultaneously letting the base pass through him. He was unaware of it and the clap of the camera all night long, but he did his best to alleviate whatever seemed to bother her.

Grabbing onto the buttons of his shirt she closed her eyes. Dropping his camera by his foot, he wrapped his arms around her to comfort. Neither of them knew what was happening. Neither of them cared too much, enjoying the warm skin of each other's embrace. Exhaustion is what they eventually categorised it as.

Those rare moments when there is nothing to think about, where the sound of your own thoughts slept while you remained awake. They are gold, expensive to those who never experienced it, and cheap to those who use it regularly. Susan enjoyed the quiet. With that, with all of that, with the deleted photos, with Mathews warm arm, with a blanket wrapped around her, Susan carried the gentle body of her own silent thoughts out of the agency.

She cooed it, scratching its underbelly desperately trying to build a lasting connection. This bizarre pet had the sudden disappearance from the base to thank. The hall had softened to a quiet, which allowed Susan to indulge the imaginary pet that curled in her arms. Savouring the paws of her silence she walked to the car. She didn't know where she was going, passively following Mathew as he directed them to his car. She slid across the pavements as she held her ignorance between her chest. It was a furry thing with hidden black skin. Its claws were well groomed almost afraid of the fact that it had claws, knowingly cutting them to blunt.

The car door opened and before Susan registered where she was she was laid along the passenger seat. Mathew struggled to fix the seatbelt around her. Susan forgot everything she did soon after she did it.

Then the night flopped. Mr Black tried to stimulate himself, but was left dry by the lack of people that roamed the streets. Mathew and Susan drove back to her place to rest, to bed the pet that cooed and cried in her lap. All Mathew saw was Susan passed out in the car seat, exhausted from the late night, vastly different to what Susan saw. Thinking to himself that it was probably a mistake to do the shoot that late he kept one eye on her. She wasn't in any immediate danger yet he felt a tether to her that every so often forced him to look at her and the folds of her sweatpants.

Susan was now entirely focused on silence. The pet had replaced very single damn fear that she ever had. Everything had swept away and it was the most beautiful feeling she had ever felt. She couldn't think about why or how. She was just rolling in the ecstasy, it's all she needed, just a quiet moment with a beautiful pet resting in her arms.

It just happened with the random knocks of base and the building of the claps from the camera. It existed due to a mix of tiredness and overload of conflicted worries. Its simple existence is what made the pet so fucking adorable in the cusp of her closed pupils. Before she knew it she was wrapping the furry pet with a blanket from her bed.

Once again Mathew tucked her in and the usual. He was used to her nature and the unapologetic edges that formed her. Not much left to say really. She slept like a baby with one hand between her crotch and the other rubbing her pet. No innuendo intended. And Mathew slept beside her for it was too late to drive home and he wasn't finished smelling her yet. It wasn't as creepy as it sounded ok.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

The next morning Susan woke to a plastered dry taste around her lips. Driving her to the kitchen she gulped a glass of water. Mathew was passed out on the bed with his legs poking from under the blanket. She stood in the door frame of her bedroom with the glass of water attached to her lips. Watching him for a time she recalled the night previous. The latter half of the night was muddled by something, leaving her only with memories of the shoot. She remembered the new feeling of voyeurism and the more she thought about it the more it became a longing. _No fucking addiction for me_ she said to herself gliding her eyes over Mathew's chest.

The windows were clear, the sky was empty and the sun was out. Would you look at that? The sun was out spreading its creamy yellow rub along the tarmac of the people. Or maybe it was something else it was smearing, but Susan wanted to see it as something as delightful as butter. Suppose everybody prefers to see the sun that way, you know as the warm rub to heat up a cold crotch. Cold limbs are never great, so any warm touch is always a positive, and that's the way the sun appeared and will always be, according to the glazed eyes of the populous.

Resting on the lap of her windowsill she watched the people, inevitably making her TV jealous. If she was quiet enough she would have been able to hear the faint moans and shuffles from the cardboard TV. It howled _no I'm not obsolete you bitch_. Susan stayed still unable to hear the desperate slaps from her old TV.

Mathew awoke to a morning of twisted meat with Susan. Chatted for a while and discussed the idea of money. She needed a slice of food in her fridge to hold her down until it was payday, so Mathew provided a temporary handful of green in exchange for a bag of food. Through the talk, they arranged the next shoot for a couple of days ahead. He would work on the material he had shot and captured last night for the time being, while she would find some other outlet to replace the cardboard box, preferably one that doesn't have as much lip.

Heading to the groceries she did just that, headed to the groceries. Bought food and stuff to put food in. It was almost a celebratory run around the shop, showing off that she could now afford food. First she bought milk, then an assortment of bread. It was a beautiful moment deserving of being interpreted into a poem. Then that poem should be hung from all of the lamp posts on the streets to express her satisfaction with being able to buy food. If that took off then perhaps Susan could do an installation with shop bought food hanging from the ceiling. Perfect, purely creative no? Well she didn't do any of that shit. She didn't have the equipment with her, what a shame. It would have made such a beautiful installation. A grown man run by his slicked back hair would have cried in the corner, whispering the words; "Susan you have changed my life..... Thank you... thank you." She then would have bent down and held him by the neck whispering back to him. "Your welcome" some truly emotional stuff, straight from Susan's pocket of boredom. She played with the scenario walking around the store poking holes in her plastic shopping bag.

The food that night was more than food. It was a symbol of her actually being a useful member of society. Tasted like ash. The idea of it was more delicious than the actual taste, but she was hungry and the taste wouldn't have stopped her from anything at that point.

A day passed to the next. It was the inconspicuous night before her shoot the next day. It would be the first shoot that she would do during the day, under the roster of models that flaunted in the agency. She was nervous, fumbling about her flat trying to keep her busy mind from munching on the tender bones of all the possible things that might go wrong tomorrow.

One scenario in particular lingered more than usual. She thought about it long enough for it to turn from comical absurdity into reality. It was based off of a pack of dogs maliciously attacking her randomly during her shoot. It started as a joke to calm herself down, but she ended up delving into the tied and cut strings of the story unintentionally trying to make the scenario believable. A pack of nine dogs in total, each assorted like sweets from breeds to heights and swinging tongues.

What if the door to the studio was left open and I was wearing a dress made out of meat... like fashion people do wear... nah they would have to get through the secretary first and she seems to be made out of newspaper... but then maybe if they were too vicious and overpowered her and ran up to me... but where are they going to come from exactly... it's not like they are going to appear from nowhere... Shit there is a park nearby and there might be some angry dog training course on... and what if they all escape and run towards me.

Laughable really, but Susan didn't see it that way, dragging her tracks around the room widening the scenario to accommodate other possibilities. Reaching a point where she exhausted herself, she decided to relax for the night, ease into herself and all the jazz she had time to listen to.

First step to a happy evening was the attire. Knowing instinctively what to do Susan shifted towards her wardrobe to pluck a few strings of clothing. Torn jeans with a black top that drove down to the end of her arms hiding her tattoo. Darkly coveted gloves suffocated her fingers and a navy hoodie that rested on the back of her neck, pushing her black hair into a careless bundle. The thing to take away from this was that Susan really liked the colour black and she found her torn jeans more of a comfort than her sweat pants. Not because of the texture, rather the thought of it being a constant in her life. It was familiar and that was cuddlier than any possible silky texture that someone could strangle her with. Lastly, her boots which she slid up and tightened.

A she fixed them up, they squealed with joy for the rest of the night. Their laces had been tangled for the past couple of days and it was an astounding feeling to walk on known ground.

The next step in her plan was the fogging of the windows. Good material to read, perhaps a good movie to staple to her face. She was open to many things that night, enjoying the process of choice. Smoke billowed along the landscape of the flat leaving her boots to splash in their own numb puddle. Bouncing from end of the carpet to the next they helped her ADHD find a footing within the grooves of the stained carpet. Moments of deep thought were abruptly slapped with a harsh desire to dance. Her boots were more than happy to oblige. With all of her waving watery limbs time had hid itself under the smokescreen that built up in the sitting room.

The night had reached her favourite moment; the curling of her fingers and plush replacement of her skin. _Fluffy is tired now... should probably go to bed._ And with those solid words she moved to bed, curled in mattress, cuddled in blankets, moaned in thoughts, slept in bed.

It was a tranquil sleep for Susan, but was an eventful match between Mr Black and Grey. The lights were left on in the flat, creating the ring for the rough rubbing of the colours. It was a silent battle that built up over the hours of the night. Yellow from the kitchen counter lamp created the centre in the flat while Mr Black ran in through the windows in an attempt to undermine the already established course of Grey around the shades of yellow. Watching it in real time was fucking deliriously dull, _but sped up_ over time... was also dull. One would have to be a colour to appreciate the visual aspect of the fight.

The main point is that as Mr Black tried to undermine her, creep up on her short body of passive colour she remained steady holding on to the hairs of the carpet. The focus was on Mr Black and Grey, but Yellow had her own plans as well. Situated with an idea Yellow indulged the fight. The further it reached the morning the more of a holding Yellow had on the ring. Calling on her back up; the sun, as she engulfed the flat with burning eggy yellow and pushed the both Mr Black and Grey out of the ring. When all the subtle shades faded and calmed down from their pumped high horses, Yellow had taken her throne into the afternoon of the next day with Susan still asleep in bed. It's a pity the fight was silent, because it allowed Susan to sleep through her photo shoot.
CHAPTER NINETEEN

Susan slotted her phone back into her pocket as she ran along the footpaths. The chafing of her hurried boots played the repetitive soundtrack to her gallop. Having shaken her body to a wake she found herself rushing to the agency to salvage whatever was left of the shoot. Not much she thought realistically.

She was an entire hour late, leaving the various people that waited on her to fiddle with their own clothes and spit complaints around. She was dreading going to the agency. Second day on the job and already an amateur mess. Regardless of how she felt, her boots slid her across the ground as if she were skating on ice. No grip, no solid ground is how she felt for the past month. She was too distracted by her own worried abuse to wait for a taxi.

Mathew had called her several times in an attempt to get his reputation to work on time. Having had a brief and rushed conversation along a heavy breathed phone, Mathew asked everyone to stay a few more minutes. Susan was making her way, trying to keep her hair as dignified as possible. No use. Her hair was loose and silly trying to escape from her scalp with the fast pace that she created. Naturally with such an abrupt awakening she had no time and thought to change her clothes. Her jeans were half up and half down confused as to whether they should be on her or not. She still wore the tar dripped gloves from the previous night which made her phone call all the more difficult. To make matters worse, the fabrics of her clothes were skinny dipped in pools of foggy fun. Ready to sting the nostrils of anyone that gave her any attention.

Ten to fifteen minute walk if she hurried and ignored all the people that walked past. With the afternoon jog under way, sweat started to build up around her nose giving her that late night drinking look. The city was used to that type of person, with a few simple eyes throwing sympathetic eyebrows Susan's way.

She opened the glass doors of the agency expecting something horrific to scratch her back. Words maybe, an angry mob of forks and spoons, or perhaps that gang of dogs she worried about. But none of things were true. Among the river of worried sweat that ran down her face, she felt a baked sense of laughter explode in her stomach. It was more to do with the fact that she was laughing at all of the ridiculous possibilities that she had played with over the night.

Bursting into the entrance of the agency, she paused hovering for a moment trying to remember where Mathew had told her to go over the phone. But no luck, she was in such a rush she didn't remember a single word he had said. Over to her left at the secretary desk was the cardboard cut-out woman herself leaning on her desk with her hips poking out towards the wall. A red haired model six foot built with unrelenting curves demanded the secretary's attention.

Red woman turned her stretched neck to Susan to discard her within the space of a second. An eventful second none the less. The secretary stared at Susan with an apathetic lip as she fondled the sleeve of the other woman's faint blouse. No words were said. Every syllable that needed to be spit out was murmured through the leafy flutters of all three women's eyelashes. With Susan dripped in sweat, the red woman burnt judgement into Susan. The secretary pointed in the direction of Mathew's office.

Trying to unfreeze her boots from the frozen tiles, she left the two to entertain their flashing moments of extensions. Susan went forward through the agency. She suddenly began to feel a heavy weight latch onto her back. It cut into her shoulders making her twitch with shock. She turned on her heels to see what was causing the pain but when she looked behind she saw nothing. Every time she would turn her head away from the stabbing pan in her shoulders the feeling would become more prominent. Twas the only thing she thought about as she went up to Mathew's office. Eventually she would imagine the slight pain as a bag that dug its hold into her soft shoulders. The weight of the bag was fully determined by judgements that were thrown towards Susan. She would drag that bag behind her for the rest of the day, slowly filling it with every little hurtful stare or moist word aimed at herself. It wasn't the most fun bag to carry around all day. But seeing as she couldn't see it, it was rather difficult to remove it.

The straps were stabbed and hooked into each of her shoulders. All in all it was good because it meant she had her hands free to open the bag and rummage around at all the shoved stares and spicy words. As she neared the stairs to rise up to Mathew, she saw a silhouette leaning on a table through a crack in the atrium doors. Holding her seconds close to her heart she looked in and saw Steff talking to Josey. Within the quick turning motion of his neck she quickly left the spot and ran up the stairs. Holding his gaze would have been another sloppy harsh judgement to add her to her cotton bagged back, which she was not willing to fill up any further.

She saw the warped outline of Mathew's office along the wall in the distance. The door was open with a lack of sound roaming the area. The hall was lit up highlighting the sweat that rolled down Susan's nose to her bottom lip. Her heavy hoodie and warm attire didn't exactly help the situation either.

Pausing for a moment she breathed in slowly trying to compose herself. Pulling her gloves from the tips of her fingers she entered. Mathew was standing in front of his desk smearing his attention with some folder. A faint blue shirt restricted his shoulders creating a dip and gathering of excess cloth right above his hips. His hair was rougher than usual joining up with an untamed desert of stubble that sharpened and shadowed his face. Susan cleared her throat while holding her gloves above her crotch as if imitating an angelic puppy. _Make sure to widen the eyes._

"Ugh... Good you're here. Alright let's get this shoot underway." He said turning himself around and throwing the folder into the lap of the couch. Touching her elbow with a delicate finger he directed her outside.

"The makeup lab is just right around the corner. Michelle will direct you and control you. Do what she says, wear what she says, blink and brace whenever she spits... damn your sweaty." Looking at her with a surprised face and shifted his touch to the lower half of her back.

"I had to run here... well jog, I didn't want to get too sweaty. Didn't want to get a taxi... afraid that it would take longer... with traffic." Susan said expecting him to be somewhat sympathetic.

"At least we still have enough time to recover the shoot. I'll be waiting in the studio for you... alright so meet me when you are all dolled up."

He detached himself from her completely and left in the opposite direction. Susan was disoriented from his fickle touches leaving her to expect a goodbye or perhaps a good luck. Considering that her performance would reflect him, she realised that she might have let him down in some respects. Oddly enough she found it difficult to give a shit.

Turning the corner Susan was hit head on with an assault of hurried murmurs and thankful shouts. The makeup area was littered with women buzzing about the place attending to their variety of bluntly feathered models. She stood there holding her sweaty bag of bitten lips on her back staring into the room expecting someone to grab her hand and fling her into the job. A handful of models relaxed on chairs biting their own appeal as they kept to their own. Mild chatter fluttered between them all varying from their shoots to just general news and bitter gossip. It was a band of casual peeps rubbing up against the obscene and the nude.

A woman dressed by her own confident age came up to Susan holding a wipe in one hand and polite hello in the other.

"Michelle. Clean you up, wipe away the sweat and black gothic depression and all will be good. Don't worry I won't bite. I have already had my fix of meat today... the ladies are fuckers for trying to keep me to their diet. As if I give a shit. Three kids at my age and my looks are the last thing I care about." Michelle said with tinted words of laughter hanging from her pierced nose. Her brunette hair was short and abrupt creating its own partied image behind her head. She was comfortable and smooth in her movements as she drove Susan over to her chair and workstation.

"You look like someone that likes to eat a fuck tonne of meat. Which do you like best? You more of a poultry kind of girl or maybe the cow is what gets ya off. My favourite is pork. I'd feed it to my children every day if I could, don't give a shit if they get fat. Good meat is worth more than any of that shite."

"Ugh umm well, you know. I tend to just get whatever is the cheapest in the shop. I like Stuffed chicken, but mainly for the breaded stuffing." Susan was rather surprised to hear a makeup artist say she didn't really care about how she looked. It was a contradiction that almost scared Susan into thinking the job was all an elaborate hoax orchestrated by perfume brands.

Susan realised that they hadn't spoken a single word of the shoot. She hadn't had a good look at Michelle yet apart from before when she whisked her over to the chair. She didn't have much to go on apart from the constant stream of information that slipped from underneath the woman's wrinkled nose.

Susan didn't mind the rush, but her boots were in turmoil, wringing in their spot desperately trying to wrap their laces around the the new environment they found themselves in. The usual step by step desire that drove Susan was halted by a lack of sight of Michelle and the fact that Susan was too stressed with accompanying sounds to concentrate on her. In the end, it left her boots disappointed in their own separate pool of sweat.

"So I heard this is your second shoot ya? Well don't be frightened. Those nerves your feelin right now are there to help ya. Took me a while before I figured that out, but when I did ooooh, I'll tell ya I've never been frightened of nerves ever again." Michelle said leaning her mouth straight to Susan's left ear. She placed a drop of laughter behind and raised her head to work on the animal of hair that convulsed on top of Susan's head. It gave Susan a moment to dig through the translucent imaginary bag on her back. Empty enough, but that was exactly what frightened her. Enough space to fill up with more stabby sore remarks.

Michelle ran her fingers through the bulk of Susan's hair. She felt nails scratch against her scalp as she concentrated on herself in the mirror that sprawled the entire wall. Her workstation was occupied by a plethora of coloured bottles and bizarre torture devices. The brands ranged from the generically American to the pretentiously Belgian. Trying to distract herself from the scars that were building up on her scalp she attempted to pronounce one of the brands.

Curled fingers with sharpened nails tore over the left hand side of Susan's toxic red chair. Fishy eyes opened and closed with wet pupils staring directly into Susan's shoulder bag. She was one of the other models, playful one turned on by the destruction of toys. Her nails were particularly good for that. Her hair was slicked back as if stroked by water itself. Her lips protruded from her face, dangling with purple lipstick. Michelle chatted on morphing her conversation into a silent monologue.

"Susan yes? I saw you the first time you were here with Mathew a few weeks or so ago. I see he gave you an opportunity. He is _so_ kind that way you know, I'm sure you know, why wouldn't you? You are the brunt of his kindness and... Other stuff." The model pointed her flat up turned nose straight to Susan with a slither of approval lining the way she talked. Susan was confused by her. She didn't remember meeting this girl but was sure that she just forgot.

"Ya... it's my first real shoot. Kinda nervous."

Susan continued her staring contest with herself in the mirror as Michelle moved onto powder. The model was sitting on her knees wearing a long ripped dress that looked as if it was stolen from the set of an apocalyptic film where everybody sniffed cocaine. No under garments were visible leaving her carefully groomed skin to advertise the soft bumps and all.

"O shit almost forgot... my name is Abbey." She raised her finger in replacement for her hand to shake. Susan didn't notice and instead just gave a smile.

"I guess you already know who I am."

"I guess we all do."

"How do ya mean?"

"Gothy girl like you... who wouldn't know you. Small agency... small place... big people stand out more you know." Raising her chin to Susan's chest abbey changed her composition on the side of the chair. With one slow release of her fingernails she raised to the level of all the heads in the room. A few models were held in place by the perfecting hands of the makeup artists while Abbey remained in her spot with one clawed hand sleeping on the rest of Michelle's workstation. She threw her look around the room as if she didn't know what she was supposed to do ending on a quick gaze to Michelle.

"Did you talk to her about meat yet?" Abbey asked her.

"O ya I gave her the entire selection of meats. She was quiet about it though... didn't give too much away."

"Aw that's not right. Why? Are you afraid we'll judge your taste in meat? What are you a cannibal or something?" Abbey said while leaning her elbow on the table once more bending onto the ground. Her height was all over the place, with her knees unable to decide what size they would like to be at.

"Sshhh... she might actually be a cannibal." Michelle jokingly whispered as she wiped her hands in a green cloth.

"Tell me now if you are a cannibal, because we _need_ to know ya know. We don't want a meat heavy eaten girl like you chewing on all the legs, o god! There are so many legs." The words collapsed out of Abbey's mouth as if she didn't believe what she was saying herself. The weight of Susan's bag was digging red lines into her shoulders. Her quiet lips were silent for too long. She felt the need to say something, defend herself, and build a barrier between Abbey and the opening of Susan's brown cotton bag.

"No actually I don't eat that much meat..." cutting her off, Abbey said; "shit now I wouldn't believe that. What's wrong with meat? It's nutritious and lets everybody know you are a hungry, devouring... ravenous person, and who exactly doesn't want to be that?" her strung out fingers were flying across Susan's view. Everyone behind her shuffled about, prepping their legs. The constant noise from sprays sizzled through the air creating a dense fog that required squinted eyelashes to see through.

Michelle raced around the room collecting a specially laid out corpse of clothing in one of the corners. The fore front of the pile was headed by a simple pink hued white t-shirt. Susan caught the pile moving along from the corner of her mirror.

"Alright here is all the stuff that you need to wear for the shoot." Michelle said dropping all of the clothes on Susan's lap. Abbey hung around resting her eyes on different heads as they left the room. She leaned her ass against the workstation with her nude back facing the mirror. Susan looked at the pile of clothing on her lap. She was impressed by the clean sheen from the jeans underneath the top.

"Hair and makeup is done... go on get up of my chair... it wasn't made for your arse." Michelle said as she fumbled around on her desk rearranging her various dripping bottles and creams. The idea of undressing in front of a crowd of people tickled Susan's boots. Not in a good way, the kind of tickle that had sharp nailed pokes mixed in with the routine, rooting away at newly bought wounds. Susan's boots naturally weren't pleased with the idea, afraid that their ideals and cosy blanketed views would be assaulted.

"Don't worry your clothes will be fine here. You can leave them over there." Abbey said with a crispy genuineness, pointing over to a corner in the room. Susan got up from the chair while trying to maintain the state of her hair that Michelle left it in. Lengths of her hair were combed into a wave on one side, while tied to the skin on the other side sliding down behind her shoulder like tar.

Abbey grabbed the bottom edge of Susan's hoodie with subtle movements forcing her to take it off. She had closed in on her from behind, which made her space tremble from uncomfortable and nervous shivers. Susan wasn't a fan of the narrow gap between the two, but she took it for granted that that was just the nature of the models and the language they spoke.

As Susan wrapped the simply sharp t-shirt around her chest Abbey snapped her fingers into the space between the cloth and her skin. She used two fingers dragging them from the right side hill of her spine to the other. The touch, was just that kind of touch, derived from only the tips of her nails. It halted Susan in her place grabbing tighter onto the edges of her top. The room was emptying slowly with a few people roaming between the chairs.

She turned around to face Abbey who presented her with a playful smile that had one of those grins constructed from a condescending angle. Susan shifted her hips away forcing Abbey to let go of her back. The situation was new and ripe leaving her to run through all her prior softened experiences in life to find something to say, to book end the conversation. But she ended up just smiling back to her with a more intended innocent look.

"So what's your favourite meat...? I suppose if I had to choose what mine would be, it would probably chicken... I don't know... it would have to be crusted though." Susan said gripping tightly on to her jeans. She thought to herself that the best way to direct the conversation was to revert to a more ignorant and child-like state.

"That's wonderful." It was all abbey said tightening her wrapped arms around her chest. The more she moved her arms the more skin was shown through the cleanly torn tears in her dress. Her eyes dropped angling their hooks onto each and every one of Susan's curves making sure that they were noticed. She didn't allow any expressions to wiggle from her pores, if she had any. Susan was left cold shifting her feet inwards trying to leave the situation. The other side of the room seemed a lot more enticing seeing as Abbey wasn't standing over there.

"I know what Mathew's favourite meat is." Abbey said releasing one last smile. With everything she wanted to say resting within the room, Abbey left scrapping her fingers across Susan's cotton bag filling it to the top.

Susan stood there reeling her boots in from the tide of what had just happened. It sunk in with a large thundery sound. Her relationship with Mathew was undermining how the models saw her. She never expected them to open their arms to her with bowls of sweets. It was the fear of what lay before her that was the heaviest. In that one moment she finally realised what she had let herself into. Blaming her hungry stomach she continued to awkwardly undress in the room. Quick brief and roughly rapid movements were used to try to get her suffocating new jeans up to her waist.

The next few steps were a collage of passive paintings drawn by the fearful nails of her fingers. As Susan was brought to her shoot, Mathew gave her a brief description of what she was supposed to do, followed by a beautiful speech about how unique the location would be. But regardless of what anyone said to her she was left almost hollow within the legs of her navy jeans.
CHAPTER TWENTY

The spot wasn't a far distance away, the length of a quiet drive in which anything remotely noisy would have taken up Susan's entire worth of attention.

She found herself inside of a blue tinted car glazing along the roads of the city to her shoot. She huddled in the middle seat, giving her ample room to gawk at whoever dared to sit in the car. It was packed to the point of an Indian extreme. Mathew was to her left fixated on whatever drama played outside the window. He refused to share eyesight with anyone, regardless of how many attention seeking grabs he received.

Across from where Susan was sitting, a young lass with skinny jeans tight enough to stop circulation to the brain, was occupied with her own music. One would think that headphones would keep the music to a personal quiet, the reason for their invention, but this did not apply to her. Susan was sort of taken aback by how loud the music was.

Quite a few glaring inaccuracies with the reality that presented itself to Susan. Firstly, no one was interested enough to tell the woman to turn the music down. Secondly the music was loud enough to the point where the headphones might as well have been speakers. And lastly, the part that shocked Susan the most, was the music that this girl chose to blast through her ears. A delicate arrangement of angelic singers which culminated to the generic idea of a choir. One that lacked values of religion, but rather occupied itself with the mere gimmick of the genre. Beautiful singers, backed by the slightest hum from the woman that allowed the odd howls to fill the car.

Susan passively, head bent, leaned against the trust of Mathew. The small group of people entertained the seats with their constant shuffles for more leg space. Susan's eyes rolled across them as the noise of the city was slowly replaced by the rants of the choir in the car. A van followed, weighted by equipment and hurried by the dwindling daylight.

The road collapsed along as they went up against pavements titillated from faeces collective and abandoned cock wrappers. An average building rested on a few well treated walls to the right of the road ahead. Dirty mud built the building as if the walls were made from the colour brown itself. Gaps in the building convulsed with distorted proportions that rose to the roof. Vines and holly puked out from gaps hanging themselves by the neck just enough so their toes were centimetres above the wet ground. The cars pulled up opposite the building in a small parking spot.

Van doors opened creating the abrupt punctuation to the choir music that seemed to follow Susan out of the car. Immediately as she stepped out, a splash from a puddle greeted her, climbing up her heeled cream boots. _Ahh for fuck sake_ were the lyrics in Susan's head that accompanied the backup vocals of the seriously ridiculous choir music that played through the shoot. She was almost motivated to tell the girl to turn it down, but her attention was torn to more pressing matters.

Susan was directed from spot to spot with everyone making sure that the produce didn't get dirty. A group of people set up the equipment flinging metal and lights from every corner of the human imagination. This left Susan to befriend the ground that she stood on. So feckin shad ya know lich. The first spot she befriended was a clump of moss that erupted from the cracks between tar stones. It was her spot. Imagining her name carved into the tarmac made her feel connected to nature. But before she could say hello to the ground, she was moved to another spot by a demanding grip of her elbow. She knew her lowered gaze probably made her look more and more like someone in dire need of a psychological evaluation, but she didn't care, she couldn't find any heated reason to care what they thought of her.

A car pulled up a distance away. Josey came from the driver's side, stretching her old limbs from the finely trimmed leather seats. As she crossed the road she fixed a baby blue lacy scarf around her neck. Susan watched her cautiously from afar.

A group, simultaneously apathetic and enthusiastic, formed behind Mathew as he directed the equipment to their appropriate work stations. It was this crowd that allowed Josey to quietly join the shoot without anyone noticing. She slipped in behind a man exhausted from a late night with his wife; Beer was her name.

Without the need for words, a young woman moved Susan to the front of the Building with all the guns pointed straight at her forehead. Burnt lights, blue gels for that cold feel and wide angle camera lenses were the ammunition. Mathew with his hands tightening his shirt, paused to take an objective look at the area, and with a few, just a few silly seconds having passed, went over to Susan quietly. Her sight of the entire crew was hidden by his heavy chest. The choir was on a lull, everything was cleanly arranged.

"Just a smile... that's all I need." His chest inflated from the fumes that he was consuming and created a smile, a gestured smile, an example, exactly what he wanted.

Susan gave him a smile, tearing her undergarment skin to an uncomfortable angle. Sexy eyes she added to the expression that she had on sale. _Finish this shoot and leave,_ Susan thought to herself as she swung her hips into action. Then the photos started, flashing the choir to their chorus.

Looking briefly along the group Susan saw Josey standing arms crossed behind the people. Her eyes were strong with brows showing a clear interest in Susan with every slight twitch. _Bend for me_ were the words spoken by both Mathew's directing wrist and Josey's protecting look.

It was easy for Susan to guess why Josey appeared at the shoot. New talent always needs to be broken in, Susan was just unsure of the saddle that they chose to use. Lined by plastic, lacking soft leather with the bulk consisted of torn cotton. Reminded her of the bag that she dragged around stabbed to her shoulders. Luckily for her and the crew, the cameras weren't advanced enough to pick up on Susan's private self-deprecating imagination.

As the choir raised their pitch until the sounds of the traffic flattened to pancakes, yum, Susan concentrated more and more on Josey. She demanded her eye line leaving Susan to rest in the cradle of whatever hinted gestures she threw past the crowd. The lights changed and a more playful pose was in order. Mathew paced back and forth, gripping his camera, looking from corner of the building to the next to find that angle that cried shit covered beauty.

Susan had a moment to herself, turning on her heels she took a better look at the building. A burst pipe sprouted from the wall behind her, jizzing out white billowing smoke across the canvas of the fractured wall. Spotted spits of dust came from the smoke falling down like a cheap Christmas carol. It was all fucking beautiful, stroking the rough skin of its own neck trying to grow a few more inches. Filth was the cause, it was too heavy for any greenery to grow underneath. The dirty paws of the fences that surrounded the place held everything down desperately keeping anything from growing.

The realities of the shoot brought her back from the small break that she allowed herself to have. Susan was torn from her spot and placed in a new posing angle between a ripped metal fence and the residue that seeped from the pipe. Suburban winter is what Mathew was going for if anyone cares.

Susan looked over to Josey as she rested her hip on her left leg. Josey neared pushed slightly through the crowd for a better look. Josey raised her chin using the tips of her painted fingernails to emphasise the movement while making sure she made eye contact with Susan.

Without considered thought, Susan mimicked the movement that was presented to her from behind the group. Quiet and hushed body remarks were the only form of contact that kept Susan going at a somewhat professional level. Obliged to obey was how the model felt, perched between stacks of broken bricks and towers of demanding tinted lights.

She made sure that her jaw was as high and condescending as the one portrayed through the slit in the group. Josey's older fingers were graceful, dropping from her chin with a brushed sense of glamour. Susan chewed on it with her jaw, a delightful after taste she was left with. Those fingers replaced every placed and paced picture praised in her head.

The pink hue finger nails from Josey were all she saw, and indulging them made the shoot all that bit more compact. Easier to consume, even though it still tore a soft amount into the lining of her oesophagus. Not as rough as the equipment lights that shot directly through her skull whenever she looked in the direction of Mathew though. Because of this her neck was always bent away from the camera, and diverted to the puppetry strings that Josey held behind the meandering crew.

Along the trip of the photoshoot the choir tore their vocal chords further and further bleeding their cheeks until Susan lips were purple. The girl with the headphones wrapped her privacy around her music, as if she was afraid of people listening to her taste in music. Rather pointless to be honest if you have the music _that fucking loud._ It reached the point where the choir was screaming into a bucket that they held themselves, frustrated at the fact that no one could hear their bowled howls. Contradiction from the listener to the singer, which was clearly apparent to anyone who possessed the ability of hearing.

Susan's knees bent, lips stretched, and cheeks perked, with eyes placed upon the throne demanded sexual obedience. Every one of her arched bones were directed by the quiet puppetry hands behind the group. Mathew danced from one puddle to the next in full belief that it was him who gave Susan her perfect poses. In between shots Josey scanned the area darting her eyes from exhausted hips to gasping chests.

A perfect point for Susan to contemplate the very rippling ground that she stood on. As everyone shuffled around fixing various hanging threads of light, Susan was left to spin on her own. Breaking her neck from every corner of the shoot, she landed her eyes on the only person that brought comfort to her wrapping knees. Josey, back straight to the road, fiddled with her scarf to a position of maternal hierarchy.

The shoot held its spine upwards with filthy wrists. Everyone paced along the tarmac attempting to kill time. A few helpful hands were appreciated, but the bulk of the work was maintained by Mathew, Susan and Josey. Teased her shirt, pulled on it, and cracked her spine to the steep curve of the day. Susan got used to it the more she dipped her forearms into the motion of it, but she was still controlled, kept cool by the fear of the job, the now panting of the choir.

Mathew noticed Susan's broken sight with the camera and turned around to look at what was demanding her attention. There he saw Josey in a relatively similar composition as Susan. Her spine was curved, resting her ass out from any relative sense of gravity. With expectant hands before his chest he stared at her. Twas all an expression of please. Josey paused and read Mathew loud and clear. From his gesture he she could tell that he wanted her to leave. She felt slightly numb over leaving Susan to herself.

Business was the forefront of what forced Josey however. Due to this it was relatively easy to decide what to do next. Staying would have given conflict to an already "behind the hour" shoot. So she gave Susan a smile derived of confidence and threw it across the group of oblivious heads. Susan was left to herself, left to construct and contract the already stretched muscles that she had on offer for the past while. A cruel situation that she had to mend, one without any safety net from Josey.

Mathew's ignorant smile guided the patient shuffles of the crew around him. As Susan watched Josey get back in her car and drive away, the choir started to clap their hands. The claps, those claps increased in length with every slapped breath that Susan tried to squeeze through her bursting red cheeks.

Then the choir's hushed voices grew to a constant level, resistant to rest. The shoot had become an unbearable tune for Susan, yet she still ascertained a passable degree of modelling postures, flailing limbs and the like.

Her heeled boots dug into cracks dished across the ground making it difficult for her to adjust the bend in her knees. One last clap from the choir to numb the senses. It was all good no? The final slap from the high pitched choir ended the shoot. Susan's ears were ringing to the point where she was left hollow. She attempted to hear what other people were saying at the end of the shoot but she was left deaf. Susan was brought to the car held by the elbow. Smiles of congratulations and a few teeth of indifference were all she saw or felt. Then the choir silenced, exhausted by their own ripping voices and drained by the battery.

Susan didn't remember much of the trip going back to the agency. It was derived from daydreams tickled the line between lucid and uncontrollable. Most of her thoughts came with a healthy heft of fantasy.

Mathew and everyone else left the car and proceeded to pull the equipment back into the agency. Everything that happened next were the hurried steps followed after a shoot. Usually a few chatted words would be shed with the model afterwards but due to Susan's late arrival this was somewhat forgotten.

The sounds of skidded shoes and scraping equipment filled the atmosphere of the agency, reminding her that life had once more continued whether she was comfortable or not.

Balancing her headache upon her wrecked neck she walked to the makeup room, avoiding any opposing stares. She tried to maintain a masked expression across her short journey to the place. She was glad to no longer hear the tears from the choir, but was immediately disappointed with what she was left with. The distant noise from within the agency was a cold blanket filled with holes, uncomfortable and useless.

The room was empty with everything left in designated and respected spots. Susan shifted her way to the back of the room to change her clothes. The mirrored wall on her left followed her to the pile of clothes. It was such a relief for Susan to rip her work clothes from her heated skin. Her skin flopped, breathed and heaved in the quiet space of the room. Jeans first, pulled to her waist covering her crotch from prying eyes. Then her boots which seemed to be annoyed at the heavy and invisible cotton bag on Susan's shoulders. The more she thought about the uncomfortable moments of the day the further the bag dug into her skin leaving nothing but red marks.

Her Boots were unsettled in reflection at what Susan had to go through. They knew from sliding up her heel that they were made for her, that they were what she needed. Her boots wouldn't have any of it, painful shoes are never allowed.

All dressed and ready to take the world on she checked her stabbed back as if making sure her bag hadn't fallen off when she wasn't looking. The thought of someone shneaky coming up and stealing her bag to gawk at all the misfortunes frightened her. It was a fine line between remembering its invisibility and acknowledging its impact. Her boots shivered knowing that it probably wasn't a great idea to rummage around in all the bitter tasting words from the day. So she didn't and instead weighted the bag briefly to get an idea of what was inside. Her back was tired from it, with the hooks digging deeper into the skin pushing blood to make an appearance. The only thing that could rectify the weight of the bag was a wrapped warm bed and a locked flat door.

Having done everything she needed to, she left towards the exit. Edging out from the room she halted with frozen shock and a stabbed expression. Dropping her hands to her side she held herself, ultimately stalled by the strong stares from the models that collected outside the room.

They lay up against the wall outside the makeup room with locked fists and teeth directed towards Susan. They frightened Susan sending shivers from the soles of her boots straight to the neck of her cotton Back bag. Abbey was one of the girls closest to the door with her hands resting up against the skin of the wall. Every so often she would have fun with the knives at the end of her fingers. She ran them up and down the wall, caressing the paint job as if it were Susan's actual skin.

All of the women's faces were littered and spread by hinged hatred. Abbey's lips however were different, enjoying the idea of playing, toying with Susan. Her smile was more akin to the fangs one would see from a canine's hungry growl. Apathy affected her nose, yet her eyebrows were well aware of the lie that her face told.

Susan was left hung and dried surrounded by the group of ravenous models, who chewed on their own legs as they occupied the hall. Most of them stood there, following the pack leader who waited with sharpened nails for a response from Susan.

Her eyes widened not knowing what to look at, direct eye contact came with those sharp stomach pokes. Before any words dared to slip out of Susan's gaping mouth, her boots drove her away from the pack of deprived and hungry women. The more she hung around the more she saw foam build up around their mouths, as if eating meat was the only language that they spoke.

Abbey followed Susan as she walked away towards the end of the hall, making sure to keep a menacing pace behind her. The more they followed the more Susan sped up, digging her boots into the stiff agency floor that she desperately wanted to leave behind.
CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

Night. Mr Black and grey spread their shades of dominance between each other once more. Susan was dressed in all black dripped clothing. Jeans rose to her hip colliding against a torn and loose belt. Her hair was loose, dropping in the soft wind that curled its intoxicated fingers through the strands. A blue chequered shirt covered the upper half of her body but allowed her nude forearms to hang with clenched fists. Her boots accompanied her down the street, providing ample space between the dirt of the footpaths and herself. Her boots ended up deciding to go out about the town but yet were confused if it was them who laced the idea together or if the thought was woven into their leathery seams by a series of unfortunate events. A sense of release essentially. Regardless, they were glad to get out of the flat into the grasp of what a social life should be.

The city hummed while it plucked a litter of drunk people from the edge of its nails. _Every fucking night_ , poor city no? Well it got used to sociable nights with the culprits eventually leaving pissed marks along the pavements. It wasn't particularly fun but it was the price it had to pay if the city wanted to grow. Growing pains, city style.

Susan neared a corner of a road, an assortment of dirty rainbow colours flashed through the thick fog of Mr Black. Mixes of maroon with toxic purple and pink splashed across the pavement reflecting into distorted puddles scattered. Her boots collapsed the puddles separating and shattering the colours as she closed in on the place.

A bouncer hovered outside the small wooden door. He was naturally tall and thickly built with a strange lack of hair. It was as if, if someone wanted to become a bouncer they would have to be subject to balding of some degree, like Russian leaders. He ticked every single box of the clichéd bouncer appearance, his parents must have been so darn proud.

He let Susan in after a bored look up and down of her clothes as if trying to scan the level of toxicity threw the folds and style of her jeans. She was sober so her style was left unharmed from his bulky gaze.

Walking down the hall she mulled over her plan for the night. _Drinking till drunking_ were the words she whispered to herself. They tickled the tips of her boots delighted by the prospect of forgetting everything that they had stepped on over the past couple of weeks. A sense of release essentially was brought on by the image of a cool drink.

There was one large staircase going down to the place. The walls were smeared by irrelevant drawings and forgotten posters from years before. Images of bands and attractions advertised the free spaces that were left on the walls. The lights from outside faded to black once she entered, leaving her in a spot of darkness. The more she stepped down to the chattered music and the talking soundtrack, the more apparent the lights became.

A couple shuffled past Susan on the staircase desperately trying to grab onto steps that seemed to appear before their feet. She had pink dyed hair stabbed back to her skull with scrapes of scalp exposing across her temples. Her hand tattooed arm wrapped around her man who tried to lift his lips from the drinking glass of the ground. He was losing saliva with every lost thought leaving him to dry like bread stamping up the stairs.

Susan made sure to give them distance, afraid of random puke that might have said hello. Then her boots landed on the last few steps of the long staircase. A door hid the fun of the night in front of her. Through the gaps of the door slithered noise and music could be heard bouncing its way up the stairs. It excited Susan to see the lights seizure themselves awake along the bottom line of the frame. With her index finger on the handle she opened the door slapping the sound of excessive drinking to her ears. Regardless of where she went the noise held onto her eardrums. It was some _very_ strong adhesive.

The front room had a handful of people spilled across the floor. One heavy built person sprawled along the frame of a waiting room styled couch to Susan's right. Three people spat words at each other in the opposite corner. A couple with hands scooped into the gaps of each other's clothes swapped tongues beneath the blanket of noise and coloured light.

With the bathrooms to the left there was only one other direction to go, straight ahead. As Susan walked through the front room she noticed a few things that she took for granted when she entered. Strings of fluorescent purple lights dropped from the ceiling with hooks. They were straight and hard to the touch. Flashing along the rainbow spectrum they threw a collage colours across everyone's faces.

Susan neared the large upside down u shaped passage into the heart of the underground building. Her boots tore from the ground with every step trying to separate from sticky puddles. Susan didn't want to think too long and hard about what exactly the puddles were.

The main room was fractured and bent around like an oval shape. Half of the entertainment was hidden around the curve of the architecture, which required people to surf the rooms. This undoubtedly left them in a puddle of their own confusion if anything else hadn't done that already. A bar presented free seats across from Susan taunting her to warm the torn material hanging from the stools. A dark skinned gothic vibe was the attire of the place. Music rang from boxes at the other side of the building hollowing the sounds which passed all the cubicles laced along the curve. It wasn't generically base music that pounded the intoxicated fun out from everyone's chest, rather it was a collection of heightened drum and base with a mix of paced rock.

The bar acted as the altar for every single soul to flock to with their sacrificed tongues ready for the cutting glass. Beside the bar on both sides were a collection of cubicles indented into the wall, which gave ample space for people to roam past. Susan noticed one to her left which provided the most amount of sound. A group of torn haired people with hats, screaming catch phrases from the top of their drunk lungs. They were young and flaunted their soft skin across the drenched table. Arms were wrapped around each other, as if marking their territory, sort of similar to pissing on something to mark scented territory.

One boy in particular danced his way from his seat into a standing position atop the cushions of the seats. His friends praised him raising their gold and metal wristed arms up to him as if worshiping his gyrating hips. The more howls he received from the tips of their fingers, the faster his hips and chest swung in the opposite direction from one another.

It was a very specific dance, which Susan assumed to have stemmed from an inside joke of the group. Making sure that his lengthy navy sliced top still protected what was left of his exposed nipples he proceeded to migrate the dance onto the top of the table. Naturally what followed were more worshipped howls from the people beneath him and the odd look thrown from people that walked past. When Susan had enough of them she moved to the bar to start similar worshipped cries within her own head.

The bar had a few stranded corpses heaving their worried expressions along the wood. It was inexplicably quiet with very few people part of the line to the bartender. Susan was surprised that the bar wasn't littered by a crowd of dry mouths. Usually they would crowd the place, removing the notion and purpose of bar stools. But with the lack of people at the bar, it left her with a nice view of half the place atop one of the stools. She was surprised, but wasn't complaining.

She fixed her ass on top of the seat trying to rearrange a few loose strands of cloth that bulked up beneath her, which felt like she was sitting on top of a bundle of shredded clothes. Tattoos stretched along the wood of the bar. Susan turned around on her seat and rested her arms on the wood. With rolled up sleeves she fingered the drawn and carved slits in the wood. In a way she admired the crude and filth driven images that laced across the bench. Pictures of caricatured sexual depictions covered the slices of bar, along with a few strung words and names. It was a collection of people's time and devotion to the idea of significance. That plank of wood on the bar contained every reason why anyone would want to leave a legacy, obviously on a much smaller and sexually driven scale.

Susan's lips dried taunting her eyes to call over the bartender. She felt the outline of the drink within the cusp of her palm. Over the day she had created the idea of drink as her saviour from her acidic problems. She knew it would only be a temporary solution.

After the bartender finished attending a beard covered man on the other end of the wooded bar he walked over to Susan. He was in the lower half of his thirties sprouting a stubble and hinged goatee as if begging for maturity to come knocking on his narrow shoulders. He wore a hoodie with a generic heavy metal band plastered along the back expressing his shtyle. Hair was cut on the sides and slicked back to the 1940's. He waddled over making sure that his pants were tightened properly as he lowered his self-esteemed eyes towards Susan.

All he did was raise his eyebrows, expectant. "rum and coke please" Susan said delighted that she was one more step to her goal, her lifelong dream of having one dirty glassed drink in the gut of a u shaped underground building. It confused her childhood friends.

He went and fumbled in the back with the clinking of glass and the slush of liquids as he tightened his back muscles to impress whatever eyes weren't staring at him from behind. She turned on her stool to grab a look at the rest of the place behind her.

The back of the joint toyed with lights. There weren't any lights in the immediate vicinity of Susan which left her to strain her eyes to gawk at people. Instead all the flashing bluntly and toxic coloured lights were summoned from the back as they bounced from cubicle to end up at the bar. The burnt purples and wasted yellow shined up against the backs of people casting shadows along the puddles of broken glass and misused drink on the floor. Now that she was turned around, face to the people, she had a better and more inconspicuous look at all of them. To her new left was another cubicle, quieter than the first she saw, but yet equally as erect. Five people in total ranging from the higher scale of youth to the middle age of parenthood.

A man built from black inked muscles sat in the middle with a few fingers hanging onto a woman beside him. His face expressed age through his wrinkle's inability to accept their own existence. His black shirt was laced by torn and hard ideals with, of course, harsh drawings to warn anyone off who didn't think he was a tough man.

The woman was on the latter half of the group's age scale. Wedged in the middle she flaunted her mouth and worded words to the group. She was clearly the extravert of the group. Short blonde hair that cut down to her neck with abrupt strands. With her sleeved forearms of tattoos she maintained a sliver of femininity through the top that she wore. It had sparkles with make shift glitter sliding down the edges of her neck. Pink flowers were the main message attributed to the piece. She was a strange character that demanded the attention of Susan. The main part that she concentrated on was the apparent age that sharpened around the edge of her eyes. Her subtle crows-feet didn't instil a negative image, rather it emphasised a superior aspect of the woman. Susan immediately started to hone in on her, running her eyes over every other aspect of this woman. That desire, that cuddly and enticing desire was poking at the back of Susan's neck again. She felt the fingered touch slowly turn into a warm palm the more she watched the older woman.

The drink arrived with a simple tap on Susan's shoulder from the barman. He gave her a polite look with a quick glance of her up and down as he walked away. Blink and you would have missed the millisecond indication that the drink was prepared with adoration and nightly longing. Susan was oblivious to him and in no mood to explore the landscape.

With that the thought of Mathew had taken a quiet backseat in her head. It wasn't his night, she wouldn't let her fun be controlled by the idea of him. Every frame of thought that she afforded to give to Mathew, was quickly accompanied by the horrendous experience of the agency. Without fully realising it, both Mathew and her newly formed disdain for the agency had become one, morphed into the same feeling through simple associations. She hadn't accepted it yet, but she had already emotionally detached herself from whatever beautiful flowers Mathew dared to give her. He was fun, was.

Next came the first sip of the night. _Fucking glorious... o my god;_ is pretty much all the vocabulary she thought of when she sipped on her rum and Coke. Her fingers tightened around the body of glass as if protecting it from spilling itself. She trusted her own ability to keep a drink, just not the flimsy glass that it came in.

The music of the place had morphed from something so foreign to Susan, to a familiar beat that knocked on her knees. Sitting out from the bar she had one hand on her left knee with the other locked around her half empty drink. All the noises fitted into the night, backup singers from youthful lips created the smooth transition between each song. Susan was comfortable, clean with the composition of her body. A finger full of sideways looks passed her every so often, tickling her libido.

Her plan for the night was driven by impulse. Nothing new. Regardless of where she looked, she seemed to end up gazing into the cubicle to her left. The blonde woman moved her arms in the pool of air in front of her as if sculpting an invisible masterpiece. Everyone waited with baited breath for the punch line from her dancing fists. Susan watched the woman's fingers as they hung from her flailing arms. Without any immediate thought she followed the woman's fingers with her own in the private of her lap. They curled and stretched between each other pointing out into a spiral shape. Susan was enjoying herself, on the path to fulfilling her empty goal for the night.

The rest of the group span the bumps and spikes of a leather necklace. Two of them were young with wrecked faces stretching for the older edge. They indulged the woman entirely, throwing their smiles onto the table with enthusiasm after every joke she spat out. The fifth one of the group hung from the edge of the cubicle with his back against Susan. From the few twisted necks he gave, she guessed he was somewhere in his early thirties. His hair was long with hints of dyed red flowing subtly through a few strands. He had lengthy brown boots with paint splashed across the straps that crawled up his legs merging with the edge of his jeans. A few inked drawings spilled his skin, but Susan took that for granted in the bar.

Then she reached the end of her drink, sending her into a reflective state as what to do next. _Get another drink? I can't just hover at that bar all night staring at people. Boring. Maybe I could go talk to someone?_ Her thoughts trailed on that track of thought all while her boots had ordered another drink. She was equally surprised and impressed that they could do it without her conscience consent. Before she took a sip from her newly christened drink, the long red headed man came over to the bar beside her.

Susan kept to herself keeping the company of her drink to a silent whisper. He signalled for a drink from the barman while taking a paced scan of everyone that hovered at the bar. She caught a few sneak peeks of his face, just out of curiosity. It was lengthy, with his nose acting as the slide for every other feature. Small eyes glinted through gaps, making it difficult to judge what exactly he was looking at. Every few seconds he scratched the cup of his neck right above his chest. His fingers were pitch black as if dipped in a bucket of black, they didn't even have design, just made from Mr Black himself. His white skinned arms clashed with his "gloved" hands which made them by far the part of him that stood out the most. His sleeveless shirt didn't help the situation either.

"What do ya think of the place?" he said leaning his shoulders into Susan's space. He was shouting against the wall of music which made her jolt an inch.

"Why is it that every time I go into a bar a guy always asks me what I think of the place? Do I not look like I belong here?" She said with a tight grip on her drink, not a hostile grip, more a protective grip as if the drink was the only thing in the world that gave her shreds of confidence.

"That's the thing... you do look like you belong here... the boots... the hair and all. But the fact that you are here alone at the bar means you have never been here before. Plus I've been spreading my shitty presence in this bar long enough to remember faces.... and your face is too fresh for the fucked battery lights and the piss stained wood of this place.... so I guess what I'm getting at is.. Why did you decide to come here?" He said resting his bent body into the stool and bench combo. His gaze was now entirely fixed on Susan. She couldn't help but notice how empty his eyes looked. A dead corpse of a man hung from his retinas, particularly his left eye which seemed to slide down his face as he spoke. Susan couldn't decide if she enjoyed his company yet or not. _A few more words and then I'll see._

"Maybe I'm waiting for someone to meet me here." Susan said with a few confident fingers attached to her drink, sucking all of its mystical powers from the edge of the glass.

"Because if you were scared enough to want a friend beside you then you'd be scared enough to have them walk in with you... and you don't seem intimidated at all." He seemed so pleased by his logic is that he attempted to pick up his newly arrived drink without looking. Well, jokes aside, he actually managed it.

"Fine. You got me. I'm here all by myself. Are you going to tell me next that a girl like me is gonna need a man like you to protect me in such a cum rubbed place like this. Then let me guess you'll lean in and brush your black hands through my hair... or maybe my cheek. I don't know." Susan took a victory sip delighted that her days of cardboard watching had some use. She was ticking all the boxes to a smooth and confident woman's conversation. Her drink tasted like sugar squeezed through the nostrils of a chocolate cow. Good... just to clarify.

"Nahh... I'm not interested in woman.... But if find a guy, then that's exactly the conversation I'd have with him." Susan relaxed her boots and took another sip of her drink, while she eased herself further and further into the gooey and blurry centre of the bar.

"So what do I owe this talk to... do ya have a friend you are trying to sell me off to?" She said with a messy laugh.

"Not unless you want me to.... I just saw you all lonely over here and thought you might have needed a friend, because I am just that... a good guy. Actually that's a lie. I was thirsty so I came up to get a drink and I saw you shuffling awkwardly beside me so I thought I might say something." He said with genuine wet lips from his beer. Susan was floored.

"Thanks." she said with a heaped humble look. They both stared at their respective drinks.

"So, I doubt you'd want to stay here and wait for another kind fella to talk about you looking lonely. Why don't ya come over to where my friends are at? Sam is the name by the way." He said standing up to leave.

"Susan." she said as she pondered the idea for a moment. The fear clawed thought of meeting new people was eradicated by the strong shouts from her boots to get one step closer to the older woman with the pink hearted glitter shirt.

"Look we need you as much you need us... there are only so many times I can laugh at the same fucking stories. Every time... every time we go out it's the same shitty jokes. Please for my sake will you join us?" With that Susan lifted her drink from the table and stood prepped for introduction. No need for words from Susan, just a confirming smile.

In the few steps that it took to reach the table the night seemed to shift into a higher gear. Lights shattered into depressed strobes from the opposite end of the building. None of them shined directly at Susan, but instead crawled their bounced and reflected bodies up her legs. Puddles appeared drowned and pummelled by the smashed dancing of shoes. The further she walked away from the landscape of the bar the more she saw of the rest of the oval shaped place. The half she was in seemed to be the loudest, covered and protected by a sheet of background base. Towards the end of the shape people amalgamated into a frenzied orgy of thrashing limbs and loosened lost expressions. Their faces and awareness faded into the mixed and confused light that shaded their motions. Sweat pooled out from the reasonably sized group wetting the nearby walls and posters. Susan could tell from the crumpled and dried edges of the paper that the posters were used to the nightly salt water boarding.

Sam introduced Susan to the table with a flick of his tar dripped fingers. The table quickly said hello and shoved their way further into the cubicle to give space to Susan. She felt uncomfortable to an extent. Meeting new people is one thing but Susan didn't enjoy intruding on a group's conversation. The cubicle was wrapped in a dried layer of drink from years of abuse. She sat at the edge of the table in the spot where Sam was originally, with him squeezed further into the rotund gut of the group.

"Crash and fucking slam... hear that slap sound ya? Well that's how he sounded when he fell. Took us a decade ta pick him back up again, but seeing his face all like... smashed and cringing was more than worth it. Funny shite like, you don't get that kind of pure comedy in real life anymore" said the blonde woman smacking her hand against the potted belly of the table. The few drinks that were still naive enough to rest on the table shook with fright as her palm connected. Her short hair flung with the velocity of her words. Half the group hung onto her story as if it was made of processed food, Susan included, with her gaze locked firmly on the woman. Sam and the bulked man that sat beside her seemed disinterested throwing their looks out the cubicle at more captivating things.

The blonde turned her look towards Susan and placed her arms around her chest resting them on what was left of the table. Glint and you could see a tiny spark fired up beneath Susan's eyelids. The hair on her arms warned the rest of her body of the indulgence that might proceed. Her knees clacked together for protection, but mostly for warmth. The natural cold numbness of her drink hadn't kicked in yet, which left her to rely on the skin of her legs. "So... Susan ya?" came from the shaking lips of the blonde. Susan nodded hiding her words at the bottom of her glass. She didn't know if the woman's quivering lips were because of anything in particular, but they seemed to set loose every time she started a sentence. The more she talked the quieter they got, yet they still maintained the unintentional attention of Susan.

"Why you staring at my lips... something on my lips?" she said without shifting a single inch of her expression. "What? No nothing wrong with them... " Susan said with knifed laughter. "Relax... I aint pressurin ya. Don't give two frilly shits what you into. I personally love tall and muscle. It's all he got aint that right?" she turned to her man on her left who was staring into blank space. When she realized that he wasn't listening she grabbed his cheek, followed by a baby intended cooing noise. "Taunting his brain, it's the only way he'd ever listen." She broke into a lost fit of laughter.

Susan watched the woman, simply watched her. Small spills from her drink coated her t-shirt along the edge of the pink hearted drawing. Her fingers moved as if detached from her hand, holding their own intentions beneath her roughly cut nails. The two people that sat in the middle of the cubed fun, were dressed in generic. Black and streaks of pink filtered through their skin, ending up being the only thing that was visible when someone looked at their faces. They threw reflected laughs onto the table in perfect timing to every single one of the older Woman's alcohol dripped words. Their drinks were empty, forcing them to sip on loyalty. Sam seemed more interested in Susan than he did for anyone else at the table. He played with the rim of his drink waiting for Susan to dive into the conversation.

"I don't think I caught your name" Susan said. The blonde paused mulling over the question as if pulling random letters to make up a name.

"Charlie... that's all ya have ta shout to me whenever ya need ta reference me... ya know like a normal name and all that shite... because I'm a normal little girl." She said with her hands praising her chin giving a sarcastic look of innocence. He man laughed shaking the foundation of his stomach against the table. "Fine pink ya? I love the sparkle.... uh I wish I could just stuff all the mouths in this place with handfuls of glitter. You know the one with all the different shiny colours, the one you can get in the pound shop down the road. Mix a bit of glue with it and away ya go.... suffocating the people with glamour and kitty beauty. Every time they'd eat or fuck, suck... imagine that shite ya? Big man over here would film it... If he knew how to work a damn camera." Sam let go of his drink and pointed his bent long nose to Charlie.

"O ya you'd be up for that I'm sure. You'd be like a fucking dog, I can just see it now." Sam said with an inkling of seriousness. Susan watched them spread tense words between the corners of the table. Sam was stable and proud of his spot, careful of his seat and cautious of his open drink. Regardless of where Susan looked, her attention was forcefully grabbed by Charlie.

Charlie leaned back in her seat after the dogged remark from Sam. Susan watched Charlie's arms fold around her chest with exaggerated expressions torn into her widely brushed face. Without realising it, Susan had leaned back into her seat and copied the same physical position as the woman. Charlie's mouth opened taking in large and quiet gulps of air under the dark colour of the place. Her man leaned forward to Sam.

"No talking about dogs." He said with paced breathing between each word as if contemplating the very essence of language before the next word. He then lifted his palm which revealed a tattoo of a dog and a name scratched lovingly underneath. The dog was silhouetted and the name was too small for Susan to read it. Besides she was more interested in the heated tension that fumed between Charlie and Sam. Sam raised his hands in playful defence, trying to relax the man's flexing muscles.

What proceeded was something Susan deemed impossible. The group had fallen asleep to their own quiet thoughts and awkward drinks. The silence from Charlie's dashing and unsettled eyes nerved Susan out the most. She almost wanted to reach over the table, fuck their drinks, and scoop the eyeballs from Charlie's sockets so she could take them with her. The thought somehow comforted her. Then the thought of how it comforted her made her feel uncomfortable. All in all she was close to being drunk.

Then without warning, Charlie broke into the table with a goofy smile, mixed with eyes stolen from a doll. _They aren't her eyes?_ Susan thought to herself, confused by the sudden change in the older woman's wrinkles.

"Ahh... fuck em... he was a good dog.... a good dog with a broken head.... do ya remember that look he would bring with him everywhere. No matter what ya did in front of him he would salivate with feckin joy." She said leaning over to her man with one hand firmly rested on his bicep. "Don't ya remember what he did to our neighbour's dog... oooh this is a goodin." Leaning back into her memory she flaunted a smile as if chewing on the bones of a pleasant childhood memory. Her man seeped out laughter, which hid underneath the sound of the background music. Susan could only tell by the slight jolt in his upper lip.

"Right out the front door with that little puppy between his teeth. Blood and shit guts spread all over our front garden. "Must have been a fight" I said. Do ya remember me sayin that ya? Vicious fucking dog. Didn't bother feedin him for a while. Didn't need to I guess." Charlie said leaning her body in with her arms under the table, firmly grabbing onto her knees. Susan sat still as the woman's chest came over the spilled wood of the table knocking against the attention of the cubicle. She was having fun with Susan taunting every possible skinned fear one could have. Uncomfortable ideas caressed Susan's stomach stabbing frightened thoughts into her alcohol drenched gut.

"Ya see, cause of that Susan, our beloved friend, our child, the love and purpose of my life was put down. Simply because he chased a puppy and actually caught the damn thing. Easier then chasing his own stump of a tail, but that's the beauty of an animals love though, am I right like? Those bastards of neighbours, feckin devils in my eyes, decided to put our baby down. Why bother feed a dead man walking I asked myself? No point wastin dog food... no one ate the dog food after he died which meant we had to throw it out anyways, but it's the principle ya? The fucking principle."

It was the thrown movements of Charlie's half eaten fingernails that created the essence of Susan's night. That innocent lathered desire that fondled Susan followed every wave of the older woman's movements. Susan's fingers mimicked the abrasive nature of Charlie's bitten toxic pink painted nails. But after she heard the story of the starved dog unfold in front of her, she calmed herself into a settled rest at the table.

Drink proved to be the appetiser for the rumbling whacked minds of the group, with phuckin plucked pills being the attraction for tickled tongues. Charlie and Sam stood up and got ready to move to the dance floor. Susan was in the mood to dance which was the extent of her thoughts as she continued to drink her rum.

For a few moments after having got up from the table she tried to balance herself on her loosening hips. Her boots seemed to fade away, with less of a connection between her and their laces. Even their existence seemed to disappear as she finished off her drink. Charlie broke out from the table with a romantic and protruding chest mimicking that of a feathered swan. Her arms raised above her head, touching at the tips with kisses from each fingertip.

Everyone dispersed slightly leaving room for Charlie to claim her attention. Susan stood close to the bar staring through the sweat fog. The silhouette of Charlie held Susan's devoted jaw. Charlie swung on her heels with splashing saliva and carved her presence in the light that flashed behind her. Susan was on the receiving end, fixated by Charlie's raised arms, careless hair, sloppy mouth, and stone legs. That little forgetful jolt that pushes someone to shake, to match the rhythm of intoxicated music, crawled across the sheets of puddles from Charlie and landed on Susan's boots. Then she danced, desperately trying to mimic the pink hearted woman.

Shifting the group closer to the dance floor, Sam rested on the side-line pacing his drink as he soaked in all of the bodies presenting on the floor. His drink was held by a strong grip while his right hand rubbed his lower neck for comfort.

People, yes that's right, people flooded into the place. Newer fresher meat hung with strange and clean clothes unknown to the scratched skin of the bar. They seemed to be driven into the place by curiosity and maintained by the lure of a large wet crowd. Before anyone could stand up the place had filled up to a choking capacity. Stools were removed and the necessary help was brought in.

Susan danced loosening the restraints that had built over her tight muscles after the past few weeks. She felt liberated, not being able to feel her tired and self-conscience joints. It all left her to enjoy the dripping wet fog and flicked whipped hair along the dance floor. This is the point that might deserve a lengthy metaphor to describe the intricate dance routine that went on. Quite frankly the night was too soaked in sweat to deserve one. So Susan just danced, unattended and unaltered by anything higher.

She felt numb, in the positive sense, with having forgotten every facet of her past few weeks. Worries of Mathew clung onto the tips of her wet laces, trying desperately to crawl their way back up to the fore front of Susan's attention. But her drink dripped eyelids couldn't see them. Her rum filled ears couldn't hear them and her ADHD legs couldn't feel them. Everything was on the full side of a glass of cheap rum for Susan.
CHAPTER TWENTY TWO

Time was dead and all that generic jazz had relocated. The point is, no one, apart from the barman, understood the concept of time as the night grew. Purple maintained its erected position of the night, spilling its drawn out shades across the reflections of all the puddles. Warm colours attempted to rise up to Purple's podium. Burnt yellow cast against faces forcing them to blink. Hinted green hit the ground from the get go, afraid to reside among the fun of all the faces above. All while the music hounded similar beats pushing everyone's heart onto the same conveyor belt. Susan couldn't see the person behind the music to give it any context. She enjoyed the idea of music simply seeping through the walls of the underground building without any apparent source. The thought went well with the stacks of drinks that built up behind her.

Descriptions of people flocked the place. They danced and stumbled from one end of the rainbow to the next. Shifting tongues and wet thighs occupied the cubicles nearest to the dance floor. The cubicles were bent and hidden behind the curved architecture. People seemed happy about their choice of seating... or maybe it was the swapping of intoxicated saliva that made them happy. Who knows?

Charlie found herself in the midst of the floor, surrounded by flashing pooled lights shining up to her face from the drenched floor. She didn't care, intentionally widening her eyelids to the burning shine from all the lights. Susan danced on the other end of the floor with a fractured gapped view of Charlie.

Every few twisted movements were followed by a quick reference look over to Charlie. Susan's surroundings didn't consist of anything else apart from the addicted gaze over to this glitter hearted older woman. One, two, three and those usual skinny taps along the lining of her neck became the only form of human contact she had that night.

Charlie's older elbows flung from the axis of her arms with shifts of movements unknown to Susan's innocence. Her popped and pilled knees bent abruptly up against her bulked man, as if instilling an erotic image within his protein cheeks. Susan couldn't tell if he was red from the heat of the place or from the colours that died on his face.

Susan said goodbye to time with a drunken handshake. Everything, pretty much everything just flowed along a transparent yet taught course for Susan. The space between the bottom of her boots and the floor grew with each new beat that hit the club. Looking through the gap between the heated bodies Susan saw Charlie as clear as broken glass. Her rough lips and chaffed exterior spread unapologetically across the stomping/dancing grounds. Charlie shoved a couple that were dancing next to her. She didn't even look at them, just a simple and delicate shove to widen the distance. Shocked by Charlie's strong handed gesture the couple left the dance floor with sour faces.

Susan found it difficult to hate her, which after a few composed thoughts seemed really bizarre and naive. Whenever Susan looked at Charlie all she saw were these negative knives poking from her exposed gaps, shanking anyone that came into her vicinity. Yet she couldn't help but pose herself to that exact posture that Charlie found herself in. How painfully obscure the imitation was, it didn't go unnoticed by both women. Considering all of this it appeared prefect to hate Charlie, despise her, and fear her on paper. But it wasn't that simple for Susan. It was precisely that, which made Charlie so captivating to Susan, her strongly built and roughly cut hairy legs.

Every single one of Susan's memories over the past few weeks had entirely been brushed under the carpet that night. The bought beats moved her with every shaking twitch from her drinking hand and she enjoyed it. Nothing tragic crossed her mind allowing the traffic of communal noise and group filth to fill the void of her problems. She felt good, with the only "bad" feeling being her increasingly sweaty armpits. But with a look around at all the people she reassured herself that they were in the same swimming pool of salty drinks and lubed ideas as her.

Susan pulled off an impressive move that involved control of each joint she possessed. She couldn't tell if it looked good apart from the odd look she got from smiles that danced beside her. _Who cares? I sure don't. My dance moves are just that... my dance moves. I'm just doing it for me._ She thought to herself further solidifying her stance and further lubricating her joints.

Then Charlie popped back into view through the slitted crowd. Sore red split the people, shading the bridge of their noses in dipped bloody maroon from the coloured lights above. As painful as it looked, no one felt anything. Naturally since it is very difficult to feel colour. Anyways, Charlie looked hooked with her bottom lip drooping from her face. Yet she still maintained an image of energy about her. Charlie's arms loosened acting as the backup dancers to the main event, her legs. They bounced between puddles ignoring the space of nearby people.

Susan looked sideways at her own arms and noticed how they hung from sockets without any intention. No thought came, not pondered and precise idea, just alcohol soaked reflex. Susan rested her arms like Charlie and hung them from her blue chequered shirt with quick concise forces of muscle twitchin like a mad fecker. With sleeves wrapped up to the elbow she felt a sudden sense of apathy as she swung her arms within her personal circle. All she did was drive her legs along the puddled road of shattered sharp blues and wasted drink. Her circle widened pushing nearby dancers further away from her flung arms.

Light continued to seizure across the grounds with the dance floor slowly dwindling due to a sore back from all the over excited boots. The night had reached a point where depraved stomachs controlled people. Greasy food.

Sam and Charlie's group stayed within the place and returned back to their cubicle to regroup. Few words were said, or maybe there were a lot of words said, either way Susan couldn't remember any words being spoken. She did remember the stilts she stood on however, but when she looked down all she saw were her legs broken into blurry graphics.

A few spilled marks of random drink covered her left thigh. Not knowing if it was someone's carless dance moves that caused the spill or if it was herself. She ran her hand over her thigh. She felt her soft and wet jeans and ended her fingers on a small stylised tear right above her knee. With the tips of her index and middle finger she caressed the torn edge of the rip. Among the loose thread she felt a glimpsed image of Mathew.

It forced her fingers to further dig into the loose threads. She no longer felt control of her own hand. She imagined Mathew's hand caressing her thigh to the point where he ignored her flesh and concentrated on the fabric tear above her knee. It was the sourest thing she had tasted the entire night.

With a simple tap from Sam on Susan's shoulder she snapped back up to an acceptable stance. She tilted her head to look at him, to remind herself of what he looked like. She knew him, she recognised him. His bent long nose acted as comfort for that moment. She felt safe staring at his broken bridge. The more she looked at him the less she saw of him, with her view dropping down to her chest. Then without realising it, she felt her chin in contact with her shirt and Sam's two hands on her shoulders with a worried grip.

He placed her back into the cubicle and made sure she was sitting as comfortable as possible. Susan was awake with a few crayon drawn memories. Sam looked at her directly and muttered a few words accompanied by a concerned look at her up and down. She couldn't hear his words over the deaf sounding hum in her ears. She couldn't tell if the music had stopped for the night or if it were still playing with loud intent. Then he left.

Drink had simultaneously fulfilled its purpose and betrayed Susan. She set out for the liquid to wash away any clotted thoughts, but hadn't thought about what might happen if she went too far. Over the edge with no friends to bring her home, it frightened her. She felt lonely in the cubicle with the only kind face having left her. It was difficult to form a complete thread of fear when every few seconds her view would drop to her chest and end up resting on the table. But within the moments where she had somewhat composed thoughts, she knew that it was her making, her fault that she was in that situation. Then she thought about Charlie and her abrupt broken arms and hearted t-shirt. Believe it or not but thinking about her gave Susan a slither of strength. She could feel it stab its way up her jeans and rest on her lap with dead eyes. Staring at it she knew she could get through anything.

No more drinks spilled, no more music was drummed out and people were being washed out of the place. A few loose strings of people remained to finish whatever captivating conversation they were drinking over empty glasses. Susan woke from a minute sleep to her red raw cheek. The cubicle was empty with the barman collecting drink glasses around her. He was quiet and acted if he was afraid to acknowledge her. He rolled his eyes around her afraid to make contact. She was too tired and disoriented to interact.

Sitting up straight she tried to pick up her soaked thoughts from the shit riddled ground. Mixed drinks and strings of dry saliva hung from them. _Ill clean ye tomorrow._ The next step was to test her balance. She rested her trust in her boots as she edged the side of the seat. Before getting up she took a wobbled scan around the place to make sure Sam wasn't hiding somewhere waiting. Not understanding why he hadn't come back she focused her priority on standing up. It was all well and good to desire, but the reality was vastly different. She was still drunk, still waiting for that beautiful moment where her body passes out. She knew it was going to come marching with deafening screams. All she had to do was get in a taxi before it started knocking.

Still holding onto the idea of meeting Sam she steadied onto her soaked boots. The laces dripped and dragged a trail of liquid behind them as they shuffled to the front room. The shafted hard lights that hung from the ceiling were still attached to whatever flashing colour they adored. Susan shoved them aside with loose swings that almost swung all the way around her body. On her right was the bathroom. The door was ajar held open by a large piece of shattered glass. Whatever naive ideas that Susan had left pushed her to enter the bathroom. Stepping over the glass she felt the need to be quiet and suppressed the noise of her boots.

Easily enough, the door to the men's bathroom was wide open, with screams and deep howls passing through. Nothing of interest to Susan apart from a few men stretching their testosterone pumped insecurities. She did notice however how the walls convulsed with green aged filth and the floor flooded from a nearby sink. It scared her to think what was growing in the bowl of the place. The woman's bathroom was shut further along the corridor. A trail of broken and forgotten shards of glass peppered her walk to it. They were scattered and decreased in size the closer she got to the door. At that point with her fractured thoughts she had entirely forgotten why she was there. Curiosity had taken over her movements.

With a quick and shunted shift the door opened and Charlie came out closing the door behind her. Her expression started off with surprised eyebrows trying to escape from her face. But she then quickly eased back into her routine and playful smile. The edges of her lips cut into her cheeks. She had one hand gripped onto the bottom of her t-shirt and the other quickly rested its curled fingers on Susan's right shoulder. Susan's eyes, for some strange reason, ended up concentrating on the pink fluffy heart design on Charlie's top. She tried to shift her view up an inch to look at her aged face, but found it too comforting to stare at the woven glitter heart.

Charlie muttered a few words that swiftly fell from Susan's ears on to the filth ridden floor. With a guided hand and a strangely pleased expression Charlie directed her out of the corridor and up the stairs. As they went up, Susan saw remnants of everyone's fun-saturated night along the steps. A few shoes and torn pieces of clothes painted the stairs.

Then the oxygen hit Susan and punched any trace of lucid thought into the ground, leaving nothing but black images that held for a few uncomfortable seconds. All she felt was the guided fingered grip from Charlie on her shoulder. Her roughly cut fingernails were unsettled and tightened their grip if Susan veered too far away from Charlie. People littered the outside of the building painting the walls with personal graffiti made from puke spray cans and piss dipped paint brushes.

Sam and everyone else from the temporary group of friends seemed to have disappeared, vanished from the social bucket of mixed fluids. A handful of taxis were parked on the opposite side of the road. The more Susan tried to walk to them the smaller they got and before she knew it she was on another street.

Along Susan's broken up memory she did have a few clear moments of what kind of a situation she was in. She wasn't stupid, and she never saw herself as someone who would be used. So the fact that she was being guided to who knows where made her feel all the worse. She felt as if she let herself down. Her boots shook. They were on the cusp of crying their laces into a frenzy.

The short walk had ended up at the entrance of an alleyway. The walls were dark with only a small section lit up from the street lights. Susan felt the cuddled grasp of sleep already fingering her armpits, teasing her to collapse. And with the stack of empty drinks built up behind her it proved difficult to resist.

Charlie led her behind a large cardboard box. Nothing was clear to Susan. Everything was washed out and void of characteristic. Charlie held the back of Susan's head and softly sat her down with her back up against the wall. Susan felt a thin puddle underneath her. She swam her index finger in the wet, rubbing her skin against the rock that lay beneath. Charlie looked Susan directly in her washed eyes. She seemed almost apologetic with a face carved by true tragedy. Susan didn't remember many words from that night, but when Charlie slipped a few syllables from her cracked lips, she did her best to remember them.

"You don't look well darling. Get some rest and I'll have some pancakes ready for you in the morning." She said followed by one, just one, puff of laughter. With that Susan faded. All she was left with was the intrusive feeling of her pockets being molested.
CHAPTER TWENTY THREE

Slaps from the palms of the sun pressed red marks in Susan cheeks. She felt them sharpening her cheek bones before she could see anything. Her eyes were shut tight afraid to accept her situation. Her boots took a few seconds for their leathery skin to realize what had happened last night. But when they did, they left even worse marks then the sun.

The sound of traffic was quiet, pausing and prepping for the morning to start. With the sun barely climbing over the rooftops, it could only have been five or six o'clock. Susan was awake at that point, but refused to open her eyelids. As the memories of last night slipped their underwear back on, Susan decided to ease herself into reality by the sound of the city alone.

The sound of her wet fingers splashing underneath her was calming, yet also disgusting because she didn't know exactly what they were splashing in. That realization abruptly cracked her eyes open. Pulling her hands up with jolted fear, she stared at the puddle beneath. _O thank god,_ she thought, relaxing herself back into a depressed hunch. It was just a rain puddle taunting worse notions.

She was laying in an alley way between a drenched stack of discarded cardboard boxes and a large metal bin. Her clothes held on tightly to drink infused fun from the last night. Her boots stuck out from the wall with her left knee arched to the sky. A tear in her jeans pointed directly towards her. She fixed her view on it and wrapped her eyes in the few threads that hung loose.

It was the cool grip before the thundering punch. A few seconds, half a minute to be super precise is how long it took for Susan to sink back into the normal current of human emotion. For that half minute she felt cold, empty, void of any reason to care about her frozen fingers and light pockets. It comforted her as if all her ties to life were cut.

Nothing sifted through her mind, apart from the odd car that sliced passed. The walls didn't make sense either, with their layered bricks appearing foreign to her. Everything around her was new, as if dripping with blood, wrapped in a coat of wasted placentas. Ugh. Water felt fresh to her as she dragged the tips of her fingers through the thick of the puddle as if discovering it for the first time. Bloody thick and as cold as the mouldy drink taste that collected in the seams of her drooling jowls.

Then another slap straight across her cheek, starting at the bridge of her nose and ended under her left eye. Just like the sun except this time the burnt marks came from her boots stamping and pulling her back onto their ground. Innocently created fun was great and all but her boots refused to last too long in a self-pitying fantasy. Images of Charlie and Sam flooded into her forehead slapping and clapping their hands up against the inside of her skull. It resulted in an expected headache that would cling onto her for the remainder of the day.

She stood up with hurried breathing and brushed her jeans, feeling the need to remove any perverted dust that might have collected over the night. Her hands went straight to her pockets. Her gaze was locked onto the lack of indentation. _Yup,_ no phone and no money. All that was left inside her pocket was her set of keys. They were lonely, crying their hearted rings to a clatter as she pulled them out into the air. Susan hooped the keys around two fingers and raised them to her chest. Desire started to knock on her knees but every time she looked to see what was causing her wrecked joints, she saw nothing but a haunted and tightly wrapped image of Mathew. Susan paced around the alley with every step sharpened by the events of the past few weeks.

Every three steps she would look down to her pockets, hoping that she would see some form of bulk to her jeans. She desperately wanted something to be there, and every time she looked down she was left empty. Then she decided to do some slapping of her own. The alley took the brunt of it. Flung boxes bruised by the tips of her boots. The morning silence was torn by the frustrated howls coming from Susan. She held her chest wrapping her hands until they met behind her back. Puddles erupted upwards as if trying to re-join the clouds. Saliva tore from the edges of her mouth and left as balls of spit. If possibilities allowed her, she would have ripped the bricks from the wall beside her and ate them. She was also hungry.

The knocking of a door could be heard, but all Susan saw was the wood that she rested on. It was clearly old with scratched marks of its age through oddly toxic worn blue paint. She held a few torn strands of her chequered shirt in her right palm with her thumb caressing and stretching the material. The door opened with mumbled words hidden behind the slow swing. Kevin was half dressed with his attention fully on trying to fix his shirt.

Not knowing who was at the door he spat out a fisted gesture. "Who the? At this hour?" then his sentence broke when he lifted his chin to see Susan hanging herself at the foot of the door. Her face was tired and her shoulders drooped down to her hips demanding the comforting grip of family.

He saw from the sun marks on her forearms that she had been outside the entire night. He instinctively reached for her, suffocating her with his worn arms. The comforting grasp from Kevin fulfilled her built up demand for warmth. In an instant she felt her bones evaporate and slide out of her, riding each heavy breath that resulted in dust spouting before her mouth. Her organs seemed to have disappeared underneath the folds of her weight. She felt light, almost empty and unaware of what she was doing. The tighter he gripped the further her entrails and guts seemed to distance themselves from her wrecked stomach. Then her brain and whatever organs were leftover in her body just danced their way to the exit. Her arms felt like cotton bags and her boots had forgotten their existence entirely. The relationship she had with his shoulder was all she needed. Some great breakfast as well.

Not many words were said next apart from the few spattered bits of info about what happened last night. "Stole my phone and my money and left me in an alley." He insisted on her getting some sleep. Prepped the house with warm walls and heated tea cups. He helped her walk up to her old room dragging and carrying her light weight and empty organs. He was surprised she was so light which solidified her feeling that way. _Shit maybe all of my guts did just disappear... I'll have to remind myself later to check if I still have everything._

They went up the stairs which was still covered by shades of Mr Black. Morning hadn't erected yet. They neared her room and Kevin reached out his left arm to the door. Susan could walk, she wasn't limping with a desire for pity. She just felt the need to hold onto Kevin for the trip to her room.

Her father's room was shut, barred from any rolling eyes frolicking about in the place. Kevin forced her childhood bedroom door open with a straight push without bending his elbow. Her room rested in the same foetal position as when she had left it. Her bed was made with perfect tucked corners and her pillow teased the edge of the bed, prepped to fall, and prepared to hit the ground.

Susan sat down on her bed. Her adrenaline from a lack of sleep had cooled down and she was left pulling her eyes back into their respective sockets. Kevin closed the curtains and walked towards the fringe of the door. As he waddled he realised that his belt was still only half closed. Susan fondled the edge of the bed wrapping and filling her palms with loose clumps of her pale quilt cover.

Once he fixed his worn belt he rested his attention on Susan. With one hand on the frame of the door he said; "I'll be in the garden working, cleaning really.... if you need me all you have to do is call me. If you are too tired and shocked to do that, then send me a message through telepathy. I've been training a lot lately and I think I got the hang of it."

"That's great and all, but working in the garden at this hour?" she said with heated lips. "Now that I'm up I might as well do something." the laughter slipped out from his cheeks with a slight shake to the wrinkles of his face. Hair sharpened and curved in watery forms around his scalp reminding Susan how early it was in the morning. With one stroke he drove his hand through his hair forcing it to make friends with acceptable appearances, and then he left.

The door closed and sound from the city seemed to kill itself outside her window. Tossing and distorting metal arms to the morning routine. Susan lay down on her bed and flung her limbs into whatever position. She always hated her pillow. It had a tear right up along the head of the cover, which frustrated her every second night. Of course she was never truly bothered to replace the pillow cover. She told herself it was due to her sentimental attachment to it, but the truth was she was just too lazy to do anything about it. Her boots were well aware of this as they slid from her ankles.

Tilting her head to her right she saw a scratched mark etched into the wall next to her. It was a simple drawing of herself as a child, with anorexic limbs more akin to stick art. The light blue paint from the wall tore the edges for the picture with thin penned lines re-drawing the outline. She had a happy smiling face plastered into the round head. She could only have been eight or seven when she drew it.

The drawing's limbs were sharply bent upwards. Susan reached her hand out to touch the drawing. She didn't know specifically why, apart from an incessant feeling to touch the picture as if its crudely drawn edges were the portrait of calm. Half way to her destination she halted her arm and pulled it back to the blanket.

As she lay back in her bed with her arms placed atop her chest she chipped away at thoughts that stuck to her boots like chewing gum. The drawing reminded her of Kevin's sister, her aunt, a missed lifetime. They hadn't talked about her since Kevin's health warning at the wall. It was reflex not to acknowledge the tortured and ruptured vein. It was best to let it rest and wait for the clot to do its job. Not this time, however. She saw the vein protruding from her own mattress. It was rough and frightening. To let it deal with its own pain would have torn further into the lining of the bed. With that Susan jumped the blanket and connected her legs with her boots once more.

Everything was prepped, all the words that needed to be said, all the looks and acknowledgments that needed to be shared. Yet despite this she found it difficult to move herself down to Kevin. The longer she took the more her idea of a heartfelt conversation was pulled apart and all that was left was the need for acknowledgment. _Ok if that's all I need to do, then fuck it, I'll just do the minimum. I'm tired, he is tired. It's not like we are going to have a deep conversation anyways._ With her justification neatly packed and bowed like a Christmas present she walked down the stairs and into the kitchen.

Kevin was standing at the back end of the kitchen facing the kettle. He had his ripped work shirt on. A large orange stain spread across his right thigh. Susan's plans were sliced by the noise of Kevin's pill box opening and closing. He knocked a few back without the need for water.

Kevin turned around on the spot surprised to see Susan out of her bed so fast. "Fuckin hell... please tell me you aren't walking around the house like a ghost scaring me like shite again. I thought you had passed that phase." He said jokingly holding his hand up to his chest.

"Oh it wasn't a phase... I'm still at it... except I haunt other people's houses now. They don't find it nearly as funny as you did." She said reciprocating his quiet laughter.

"I don't know how you remember it but... I _never_ laughed. Not once.... you know I still have your ghost dress costume thing upstairs. Moths were at it last year but it's... in good condition." Kevin said as he placed his pills back into the press. Susan stood at the tip of the stairs waiting patiently for the necessary words to slip out of her. To her surprise nothing came out, leaving her to entertain her cold and tried knees. She wrapped her hands around her waist as Kevin walked out the front door into the garden. "And so why can't you sleep?" he said as if expecting her to follow him out into the garden with him.

The sun woke its crusted eyes to the skin of all the plants and trees in the garden. Branches curled slowly to the purring wind. It was as if the garden was tied to the idea of slow motion, and it was so frustrated by it, is that it spent all of its time trying to turn it off, waving back and forth looking for the off switch. Naturally since everything shifted in slow movements it took a while for the branches to reach the invisible off switch. The sight of the slow floral distress relaxed Susan.

"I don't know. I mean I do know. Guess I just have stuff on my mind." she said planting her eyes in his erratic movements and jumps. He took a while to respond to her. His attention was divided between his daughter and all the plants that he raised from birth. Grabbing a brush from the wall beside the front door he walked onto the edge of the dipped oval shape path at the centre of the garden. The bizarre dip had collected an orgy of torn dead leaves and other various wasted greenery. With one hand on the stone edge he heaved his body and dropped into the deepest dip of the path. Why he felt the need to jump instead of walk an extra meter lay within his need to shock his knees. The force from landing a meter onto the ground shook aged tremors up his thighs. Refusing to acknowledge the slight pain, he acted according to the age that he wanted to be.

"You can sleep in my bed if you want. After last night you need rest. And don't bullshit me on it, you know it as much as I do that regardless of how strong you are, rest is always required... so what did you wanna talk to me about?" he said sliding his words down the hilt of his broom. The shaft was chipped and splattered by years of abused paint resulting in the brush end suffering from PTSD. Regardless of the screeching cry it made every time he scraped it across the ground he still forced it to work.

"Why do you have to be so busy while we are talking, can't you just give me a proper minute? Always giving the garden so much attention. I feel as if you aren't listening to me then. Please don't let this be like the field accident again." Susan said digging her boots into the fringe between where the grass and stone connected. Both pieces of garden felt equally as cold and wet. Her left arm was free at her side with her other hand holding onto the lip of her shirt. The brisk drink of the wink wind poured up through the gap in her top which left her impatient and fantasising about returning to bed.

"Fine, fine, so what's bothering ya?" he said raising his head. His attention was boxed and packed to mimic that of a colourful present. It was a genuine present made from very real care and worry. The more he looked at her the more he realised how bothered and stunted she felt.

Susan was expecting this moment. It was the entire reason why she got out of bed. Yet it felt like a surprise. The present was placed in front of her, lying crooked on the uneven grass. She opened the present.

"I always thought our family needed to be bigger, more... somehow. I don't really care anymore... take a break from the garden once and a while... for me?" Conversations born from the guts of hearts were far and few between for Susan and Kevin. They survived on passing words and a genuine need for each other. For that moment to come placed at the tip of her boots was new and frightening to her. Those few miserable words were as far as they would get to talking about their family.

Susan shared a few lovingly cooked seconds with him. Her eyes darted from his strange pupils to the bottom of his broom. Still holding onto the bottom of her shirt she turned and left. The front door was open allowing Susan to smoothly transition into bed. Then finally the tortured trees had reached the "off" button for the slow motion that they were trapped in. Abrupt turnings and swift shifts commenced at the tips of all the branches acting as celebration for their freedom. With that the wind sped up throwing everything around. It brushed and flung Kevin's hair from all the corners of his scalp. He had one hand placed on the broom and two feet lost among the dead leaves.
CHAPTER TWENTY FOUR

The body of an entire day had passed and decomposed. Susan slept in her room for the rest of it, breathing and consuming nothing but relaxed air. It was fresh and yet stung her throat. Mainly due to the fact that it wasn't her own bed, but she knew that she needed the change in scenery, a change in oxygen. She got up at one point to calm her stomach down from the cliff that it screamed on. Apart from that she didn't leave her room once. Ever few hours she would wake to turn in her bed and hear the shuffled sounds of Kevin being busy. The frequency of his noise was more than usual. But the desire for rest refused Susan to think about it any further.

With breakfast in mind she got up the next day, just after the morning and decided to go home. She shuffled around the house to say finishing words to Kevin before she left, but he was nowhere to be found. Assuming that he went out for personal reasons, she left with quiet footsteps, hushed goodbyes and a muffled thank you.

It was one sense of relief after another. When she entered her flat, she was welcomed by the notion that change was an illusion created to shift someone from the couch. All of her pressing worries were swept under the dark stomach of her couch. The thought of getting a new phone, food, the agency, the desire to throw herself in new pools of people, had all become secondary objectives. She had just picked her life up from an alley, and the only thing she wanted then was the warm thrashing of a shower.

Her clothes were thrown into a basket and her boots were left at the foot of the bedroom door. Light from the working day cracked through the open window in the sitting room flinging its filthy body all over the place. Food waited patiently in the fridge, dancing and rubbing silently in anticipation for Susan to abuse them with the cracked whip of her tongue. But first it was the showers turn to wash away all the collected filth from the last night.

She pranced nude from her bedroom into her bathroom. The lonely voyeurism provided a slither of comfort, tickling her inner thighs. The shower head turned on, spurting and spewing with uncontrollable excitement. Her hair dropped over her shoulders with slick exhaustion. The water made the strands darken, making her skin look paler than usual.

Heat ran down her body with over excited legs, tripping and falling over every curved obstacle that lay before the downward stream. Scratching and humming sounds from the electric shower hung from her earlobes, refusing any other sound from entering. She didn't know if it was the obnoxious sound from the shower or the water that comforted her. Hiding her hands in her bare armpits she found it difficult to create any real thought on the matter.

She spent a considerable amount of time under the shower, almost as if she was reassuring her legs that they would be able to walk again. Exiting the bathroom the idea of warm and fresh clothes became her very ambitious goal. She slid on thin layers and ended with a small white top free from any markings of use, or wear and tear. Clean and dull was the design.

She walked around her flat dangling her wet hair from her shoulders and her smooth wiped skin from her bones. Before she could appease the uncontrollable stacks of food in her fridge someone knocked on the door. It was the knock of expectation, slow and determined. Each bang built from the hope that the door would be answered for them. Susan answered the door. Having residual soap glazed across her skin made her feel clean, as if everything that stabbed her shoulders over the past few weeks had trickled away into the drain of the shower.

Mathew stood opposite her, close to the door with a strange expression. For a few split seconds she could almost see shock crawl its way up his face and cling onto the end of his eyebrows.

"Hey?!" in her head she had already broken up with Mathew. Their relationship was derived of fun, yet his very presence was a tie to the agency. Besides, she never truly felt anything great enough to make her feel like she was missing much. Over the past few days, he had played as a standby on the stage of her thoughts. Thinking about that gave Susan confidence in ending their relationship, _and_ her job.

He wore a darkly dripped overcoat, one which lined him out like a charcoal drawing, mute from any idea of infested colour. His hair was shorter than usual, cutting their own relationship with whatever stubble he had. "What? You're surprised that I'm here? After you forgot about the shoot this morning and the fact that you haven't answered your phone. Impressions have been lost Susan and expectations are being built... I told you from the very beginning to take the agency seriously, and you have done nothing but undermine my reputation. How can you expect to just run away and hide in your flat?" he said with hurried words. His shoulders hunched over Susan as he poured out whatever he had to say.

His right hand rested on the edge of the door frame. There was a small crack in the wood that split all the way up to the top. With his index finger and thumb he fingered the shattered frame, pushing and pulling splinters of wood and squeezing them into the pin cushion of his flesh.

Susan let go of her hair, ready to start the "talk" and danced her hands in front of him as if trying to orchestrate his wild emotions. "I... was mugged a small while ago... and didn't have any way to contact you... wasn't hiding. Just didn't have any way to contact ya, ok?" She said slowly, placing her words carefully and clearly. He inched away shock absorbing his face, while maintaining his grip on the wood.

"Mugged?! Where? Are you ok? Please tell me you didn't get hurt." He said with apparent worry inflicting his rapid tearing of the door frame. The more he pondered the idea, the more he rolled over the possibilities of what might have happened to Susan, the faster he tore the wood from the door.

She followed his question quickly, ready to dole out the planned answer. "Just on a night out. You know the kind of bollocks that would get your pockets emptied. Don't want to go into details. I'm fine though so don't worry about me. I have had a shower, a good night's rest, so I should be fine." He looked at her with sympathetic eyes. She could see his muscles twitch underneath his overcoat ready to reach in for a comforting hug. She knew that it would have to be now or never.

"And about the shoot. It's not that I forgot about it, I just didn't want to go."

"Fully understand... I can't." He said, swiftly cut off by Susan. "No I don't want to go anymore... no more shoots. The job is just not for me." This would be the face that she would remember the most. He flicked his eyes from a look of pillowed sympathy to a strange mechanical twist of acceptance. It was paused and long, broken up by Mathew taking glances in at the flat and all of its collected dust. The layer of old skin seemed to interest him more than the conversation that played out in front of him.

"Fine" he said with a lazy tongue. First knife removed, one more to go. Susan had her hand on the hilt ready to pull. "And I think we should stop seeing each other... I can't deny the fun we have had, but I just need time... I suppose... just time." Throughout, his grip on the wood remained as stiff as his replies.

"I don't care about you being in the agency." as he said it he ran his eyes up and down along the clean and wiped edges of Susan's physique. The window in the sitting room clattered against the wind. The rest of the flat sat silently holding its breath. Susan no longer liked the idea of voyeuristically prancing around her place.

"Yes... but I just need time to think... to rest my jaw... I feel as if have been chewing a lot of shit covered nonsense recently, and it all just needs to settle." She said settling her hair, feeling as if she had given the best explanation ever.

"That's not a reason." He said bluntly tapping his syllables with the thump of his thumbs against the doorframe. He pulled a large piece of blackened wood from its home and twisted it within his fingers at head level. No acknowledgment was given to the dissipating woodwork.

"Well it's the truth. Or maybe you just want to my dad to be the reason? Say that his health problem is the reason... that's all you want to hear isn't it?" Susan said folding her arms to protect her chest. It was more of an instinctive move rather than a calculated defence. The moment between her truth and his response was broken up into tiny shifts in where he looked. He started at her head running his eyes over her washed and swept hair. Next he rested his gaze on her neck right above her chest and arms. It was still wet with hints of soap and droplets of water roaming her skin. Then lastly he ran straight down to her knees, passing all of her unstained clothes with squeaky clean distain.

Letting go of the abused wood he dropped his handed splinters to the ground. They were all very silent when they hit the carpet. Susan tightened her arms around her chest placing a fold of her shirt between her fingers. Her patience was being pulled.

"Why do you have to be so fucking clean about it?" the words slipped from him as if riding the corpse of a soap bar. He said it tamed and with heavy purpose, quieter than everything else he had said. The words landed on Susan coated in a thick layer of threats. She gave him a smile, a very simple smile dressed in ignorance. Then she closed the door.

The door, now broken with frustration along with Mathew's nose, hung itself in the hall outside of Susan's flat. Everything was purposefully quiet, hesitant to open anything, for the fear that Mathews thinned emotional string would snap. Everyone watched Mathew from the empty seats that filled the self-conscious hallway. Yet he was alone.

With just enough motivation from his broken bones he leaned up against the wall opposite to Susan's front door. Scalp clapped against the hard as fuck wall. Having found his centre of gravity he threw it in a nearby bin, which resulted in his legs losing total emotional control over their knees. He tripped to the ground holding digging his palms into the mouldy carpet.

Once all the invisible tears were counted and sucked back in, he climbed back up to a masculine stature and concluded his walk out from the flat to his car parked outside. Fists clenched with ideas of violence reverberated between each saggy bit of his fingers. Car door banged open to an alarm that shook all the way up to Susan who sat delicately on the edge of her bed with the window open.

Her knees were attached to her chest, demanding the forming ritual of comfort and a bucket of expensive caramel ice cream. Obviously she wasn't sobbing over the fact that she broke it off with him. Her empathy forced her to consolidate with what Mathew might be going through, and hearing that loud car door bang from outside slapped her empathy levels to an almighty and creamy high.
CHAPTER TWENTY FIVE

The shouts for Mr Black to once more strut on his stage started to rise to a deafening level. Colour and yellow injected vitamin d still stood its ground however, sharpening their axes through the slitted windows, ready for the daily fight with Mr Black. Grey sat in the back hiding among the corners licking her lips excited to see the slow fight unfold. Not only was the spectacle something to enjoy, but she also looked forward to the aftermath, where she could roam the edges of the battlefield, spreading her mundane contempt. It was the evening in other words.

Mathew sat at his desk in his office, resting his arms on the bed of the dark stained wood. The window was closed behind him, which left the room in a very palpable state of silence. Soft shoves of light from the tired sun squeezed itself through whatever gap it could find. Mathew's overcoat lay folded and retreated on the edge of the couch arm. It was sickened, pulling its folds into line, afraid that it may fall off of the safety of the dull couch.

To Mathew's left he had a cabinet wide open, letting it hang loosely on its metal hinges. His computer was turned on which allowed the natural shine of modern age to coat his face. It gave him a grey/blue sheen over the bridge of his nose. His chin sharpened, now cut, now filled by the lonely colour in the room. His left hand fondled the rim of a whiskey glass.

The idea of conforming to a cliché somehow comforted him. Perhaps he thought that if he were to follow along the lines of every other man who drank sorrow whiskey than maybe he would come out on the other end of his emotions still intact. He knew it was naive, but the more he drank the whiskey the more his idea seemed as if it were spat from the hairy lips of wisdom.

His desk was decorated with a line of unorganised printed photos. Rather good quality, roughly smaller than A4. The photos were of Susan dressed in her sweatpants. The grey from her clothes cut against the purple background of the shoot. He picked one of the photos up and fingered the edge of it with his right hand. With one sip of his drink he focused on the picture.

She was bent over facing the camera, composed by the weak and cushioned roar of a lion. Her head was raised for pride and the folds of her pants dragged behind her heels. Her hair was loose, yet clean from the original shoot. Old purple crawled up her back to the neck, aging and dying along the ridges of her spine. It was the purple that filled the edges of her curves that caught and demanded his wavering eye the most. Her hips were great to contemplate, but somehow the purple emphasised them.

A folder was placed on the edge of the desk, the rest of the photos were lovingly placed inside. It was his folder, his private folder with worn edges. If the photos stayed in there any longer they would have been turned to mulch with increasing amounts of saliva.

The edge of the door knocked. It was hinged open with Steff on the outside of the office. His shirt was rolled up to his elbows flaunting the painted tattoo canvas of his arms. The way his branched and floral tattoos broke off and hid behind layers of wrinkles pointed out his age more than usual. He presented himself on the edge of the room and dashed his eyes about the place to scan the situation. He rose them up to his chest level and hooked onto the door frame. Mathew's eyes remained in their coffin hidden behind the wall of his whiskey glass. He refused to acknowledge Steff's usual growing and dancing presence.

With the coming of the first words of the conversation, Steff had to celebrate the occasion with fractured movement and a rhythm stolen straight from a child's cartoon. He let go of the door frame and tip toed his way into the room hunching his back to whisper to his knees.

"Am I going to have to comfort you again? Fuchin ell Mathew I can't emphasise enough how exhaustin ya are when you get emotional. The last time I saw you this sad is when you lost all the photos from your first photo shoot. Remember that? Cryin like an arse." he said with hushed words trying to both, hold in uncontrollable laughter, and force it outwards. Naturally it ended up looking like he was tripping over his own words, reflecting the very broken way of how he entered the room.

"Yes, in fact I do remember that, because you were the one who helped me out of the mess. Great, now that your ego has been bolstered up a notch, maybe... Leave? It might prove to be the best decision you make today." Mathew said without moving an inch. He wouldn't allow him the satisfaction. Steff neared the desk with a brisk gallop on his heels. He scanned the area slurping in every detail through his pierced eyebrows.

"Now you know you don't actually want me to leave. If you actually wanted to be alone, then you wouldn't be in your office with the door open. I aint no fucking fool though." Steff's face tightened into a surprisingly serious expression. "So lay it on me before I get bored." Steff grabbed a nearby chair with the tips of his fingers and threw it in front of him. He was rough with it, banging its weak knees against the floor. As he sat down and settled his heavy bones Mathew took the opportunity to once more look at the spread out photos on the desk. Steff landed his view on the private gallery as well, combing and curling his eyelashes to the way they were spread out along Mathew's mahogany desk.

"Ahh... she ended it with you. I assume she aint gonna be working here anymore. Don't matter, she wasn't exactly professional about the whole thing... what like? Late for two shoots in a row, I mean damn that's as unprofessional as one can get. I'm almost impressed in a way. Soooo... why did she leave ya? Were ya too harsh on her? Was your grip on the whip too tight or did you dirty your fingers too much?" Steff said with cooled hands hanging on the edge of the desk. "Her father" Mathew said loudly making sure that everyone in the room, even Mr Justification would hear the words.

"Hmm... let me guess. The over protective father who is too scared to let their daughters show a bit of skin. They usually come with the younger models." The room had stabbed itself into a frenzied silence. Nothing moved or dared to spew noise. "Yeah... sure. Exactly that" Steff tightened his posture on the chair, rubbing his suits pants against the cheap upholstery of the seat. He let his grip of the desk go and rested his arms on his lap. That was as tame as Steff would ever get.

His view was split between checking up on Mathew behind the desk and the gallery of photos that unwittingly presented themselves half naked. Mathew looked up to reciprocate his older and more frustrating mirror. Neither of them swallowed the bullshit that they fed each other. Undoubtedly it left them starved, since all they ever said was covered in faeces from a bull.

Steff reached over the desk with one slick move of his arm and grabbed the nearest photo of Susan. In the photo he picked up she was standing, perched on her heels, praising and raising her pants to a higher level.

The purple was harsh in the photo, yet was left to a faint and hardly recognisable backdrop with Steff's analysis. The pulsating purple that slashed its own nerves along the spine of Susan, ran down to her rear and ended up as the backdrop to what he thought was the main show: her face. He concentrated on the facade that she stapled between her ears. He sensed a certain discomfort right above her eyebrows, scratched into her smooth forehead. Seeing that he accidently reflected how she looked with his own uncomfortable expression. "So what you going to do about it? Actually... do you care about her enough to do anything about it?" he asked.

Mathew raised himself in his chair and straightened his back. With the last sip of his drink he got up to get the bottle that rested on top of his cabinet. "For some reason, I can't get her out of my head. I can still feel... sounds weird but, I can still smell her, even when we aren't together. I've never met anyone like her before. Like the filthy truth that I always wanted, but never had. She is glorious Steff... and all I want is to treat her well." he said with his back turned to Steff. "I _was_ going to tell you about how I would deal with over protective fathers, but I don't think that advice applies to you anymore. If she broke it off with you, then she obviously has her reasons, and if you aren't a fuckin creep, then respect her damn decision! Then again she might be one of those girls that is testin ya. To be honest I haven't a fuckin clue like. I have only spoken to her once."

"Your just great help, thanks." Mathew said bringing his whiskey bottle back to the battlefield of the table. "Why... the feck...are you... drinking... Parking's whiskey? Out of every shitty decision that you have made in your life, this is by _far_... the worst one. Torturing yourself so much. Your making me worry about ya." Steff leaned into the table as Mathew poured the drink into his glass. He rested his arms and poured his own drink made from the finest of exaggerated sad expressions.

"It gets the job done." Without hesitation; "Shut the fuck up. Is that all you are ever going to say to yourself, huh?" Steff said slapping Mathew from across the table with a cold stare. "It's all I've ever had. The extent of my taste experience ends with this drink."

"Well then... Mathew, you are a depraved man. But... I guess, does it matter when it's the only thing you have ever tasted?" "Maybe it does matter?"

"Nah I wouldn't get too pressed on it, cause what if that's the only whiskey you'll ever have. Would you want to walk around with the knowledge that you will only ever have the worst scenario?" Steff said dropping his chin to the table. Mathew with confused lips spat out; "but its whiskey?! I can just go down to the shop and buy a new bottle. Just tell me which the best brand is and I'll get it next time."

Paused and arched to his own thoughts, Steff sat still, peeling away the layers of conversation that he stumbled his way through. Mathew frustrated at the lack of response from Steff leaned back into his chair and continued his one sided conversation with his whiskey glass. "Fuck the whiskey, you know what I think?" "What?"

"I think you are too damn involved with the agency, the models, and this job for the past decade. You got too complacent and when Susan came along, she fucked you up... Fucking hell, look at you obsessing over her like a puppy."

Mathew's face tightened. Eyebrows collapsed as if trying to substitute the lack of hair on his chin. Each end of the table presented different yet equally rough environments for both the men to fling their gathered smooth shit. From all of the abusive language and suicidal grammar that each man shot at each other, one would assume that they flourished in the shared abuse. This was true for Mathew who despite his wishes of solidarity that night, enjoyed and relished the hard bricked reminder that Steff provided, even though in his liquor drowned state of mind he didn't actually take any of it in.

Steff stood up brashly and said "If you feel the need to punch or abuse something, just remember to wear gloves... or beat something inanimate to death, that way it won't cry as much.... tape cushions to your fists if you have to." Steff said grabbing a throw cushion from the couch. With one light touch he whipped it across the room.

Mathew caught it and dug his fingers into the corners. He took a few seconds to look at the soft texturing. It was his cushion so he was well aware of how it looked, yet for the first time he actually acknowledged it and accepted its pretentious appearance. Sharp vertical dashes made from ironic ideas of a mundane nature sliced the fabric. In between each line the cushion was plagued by a faint spit of maroon. The colour shifted to red the further it went out to the edges. Mathew didn't register how long he spent soaking in the cleanly shaven corners of the cushion. When he looked up, Steff had left his office.

The only person left to talk to Mathew, was the wet rim of his half empty glass and the moist corners of his private photos sprawled across the desk. So far his drink had only provided liquid ideals, so whenever he tried to grab them and turn them into something more solid, they would slip through his fingers. It frustrated him, which made it very difficult for him to hold his glass any longer. Letting the drink go, his hands felt empty. He rubbed his palms against each other, chafing their stomachs in an attempt to create a fire between the skins, twas a need for pain. The only line of coherent thought left was the spread of hushed and whispered photos on the table.

Mathew picked up the photo with the most amount of purple that ejaculated across Susan's sweatpants. The edges of the photo were bent as if crying from the fact that it was his favourite. In it Susan was sitting on the floor. Her pants wiped across the bubbling purple surface. It wasn't her face that resonated with him the most. Her boxed face that appeared to be locked within the confines of her small strong nose, her half closed eyes and heavy breathing lips. Rather it was the strong punch from the purple background that tickled him the most, obviously it meant nothing if Susan wasn't linked to it. Otherwise he would be jizzing to anything that rocked a purple shade. Accentuated anything attached to the core of what makes one somebody is exactly why he poured out tears of need to that private photo.

Ssshhhh!! In that quiet moment, if one was _really_ fucking quiet they could have heard a click. A very smooth click, direct from the lubed mechanical joints in Mathew's head. He had to do something about her, he had to get her back. The void of it all rang his thoughts hollow. Not a very pleasant experience for anyone with a degree of self-respect. With that he set off with a plan firmly noosed around his neck.
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX

The battle was over between Mr Black and the obnoxious rainbow of colours that thrived during the day. The families of all the slaughtered shades cried, pouring their remains from the sky in the form of rain. It was thick and each inch that Mr Black waded through reminded him of all the varied lives that he slaughtered with his monotone blanket. Despite that, he still somehow found joy in it all. Squint and one could see a sharp smile through the dense cloud of black.

Mathew shifted through the curtains of rain that smashed against his overcoat. His car was parked a distance away which left a distance for him to walk. Having to wash his hair once more that day didn't bother him. What bothered him was the thick layer of pitch darkness that refused to let him see exactly where he was going. The closest street lamp was a fistful of meters away. The pavement was laced with a plethora of puddles that cracked and screamed under every heavy step from the six foot man.

The wind was minimal, tight and yet brought a sharp cool texture along with its faint blow. After a short walk, Mathew collected his frustrated thoughts and packed them back roughly into his coat pocket. Kevin's house stood firmly in front of Mathew, half hiding behind the black curtain. He opened the gate and shifted his head down to his chest in order to see exactly where the night was leading him. The oval shaped dip to the door was clean, washed by the rain, which made the stone tiles all the more difficult to manoeuvre on.

Mathew held out his right hand to reach out to the chest height ground. He dragged his palm cupped over the wet stone and fringe of grass. Mud collected in his palm. When he reached the door he wiped his hand on the bottom half of his overcoat. The rain continued to torment the drowned soil and Mathew's already soaked scalp. Before knocking he took a moment to wash his eyes with what remained at the bottom of his cheap drink. It was a smooth smudge, loss of focus that danced in front of his pupils. He felt confident however and took a few pondered seconds to wipe away any sign of how much he drank.

Standing a few feet from the face of the door he took the opportunity to look at the house. Look at it, point out every possible flaw, every conceivable connection to the man he was about to meet and greet. He wanted to form an idea of how the man would speak from all the wild flowers and the faint light visible through the window. Mathew knocked on the door, one fist and three bangs.

The door opened revealing Kevin standing on his private legs, with one hand on the door ready to close. His hair was loose, thrown back by a drag of a few fingers. His simple salmon coloured shirt appeared darkly pink by the light from the kitchen. It painted his back, shining and highlighting his white hair as if the tips were burning from the cold.

"Hello... um" Mathew said with his hands frozen from something. He didn't know if it was the weather or a slight sense of stage fright. "Get to the point its clearly late and pretty cold. I don't want my knees to start shivering like yourself." The words from Kevin came in the same packaged bundle of dry humour and proud laughter.

"Yes... I am aware of the time." Mathew stood his ground and tried to steady his arms. He dug an expectant look into Kevin. "Don't get short with me boy. I'm the one with the hand on the door, so _you_ don't have the privilege of being smart with me. This door... this fucking door is very emotional when it comes to people who don't say who they are. Its mood swings are well known... I have ta change the hinges every month." Kevin said with a distinct sense of pride. Mathew sensed hostility build up. He wasn't sure if Kevin knew him or not. All he knew is that they had never met before.

"Sorry... I really don't mean to instil hostilities. My name is Mathew Hughes."

"Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue." Mathew quickly sliced his reply into the conversation. "I think you know who I am."

"I never said I didn't, although I don't know why you are here so late at night. Susan isn't here if that's who ya are looking for." Kevin said tightening his grip on the door. His words were quieter and more paced than previously. Mathew removed his hands from his pockets and let them hang under the outside faucet. "Don't worry... I'm not looking for Susan." He said breaking his gaze from Kevin's stern and now stiff face. He took the moment to drag his attention across the inside of the house. He looked at everything on offer through the gap in the door. The rustic kitchen table poked out into view.

"You seem to be looking for a lot of other things" Kevin said narrowing the door and closing the gap with his body. "It's raining"

"And yet you chose to come here at this time. Rain isn't a good enough reason to let you in." His words created a crudely built wall blocking any attempt to get in.

The garden shifted under the stomach of Mr Black. That tree, that towering tree that fondled itself on the idea of how alpha its branches were, did just that. A few snaps of crackled and brushed sounds popped in Mathew's eardrum. "You must have spent quite a large amount of time working on your garden. I'm not even going to pretend to know how long it might have taken to build that pathway." Mathew threw those words back into the conversation, desperately trying to gain a good vantage point. The fact that Kevin still entertained him was a good sign.

"If you are not here for Susan, then why in the name of all that is fuck are you doing here at my house at this hour in this weather?" Kevin asked aggressively. "I can see why she is scared of you..." Mathew was immediately cut off by Kevin and a nose full of confusion. He sniffed and snorted with disbelief and disgust. "Scared of me?!?"

"Whenever I hear about you, it's always about how you bury your head in your garden... she described in a way, quite poetically actually... something like... you do it so much is that she can see dirt marks around your neck every time she visits. I took it that she wasn't speaking literally." Mathew said with a new found sense of confidence within the ring of the conversation.

Two things happened next. First Mathew rested his eyes on the lining of Kevin's neck. Secondly he rose is arm to hip height and angled it like a slide. He kept it still, letting all the collected rain pour down his arm onto Kevin's floor. The water dripped and splashed across the tiles, sheds of wet landed on his nightly shoes. Kevin straightened his neck and sharpened his curiosity directly at Mathew. His drenched hair cried from the incessant down pour, which unfortunately made his scalp weep even more. It was a never ending circle of wet abuse.

Kevin backed away with a few paced steps and brought the bi-polar door with him. Mathew could smell an intense punch of warmth shove its way up his nostrils as he walked inside the house. He couldn't tell if he was happier to continue the conversation or escape the cold. Cleaning his boots with a few cute shakes he walked into the house and ended up in the middle of the kitchen. Kevin closed the door refusing Mr Black to spread his wealth even further than usual.

Mathew held a moment right beneath his tongue, trying not to say anything before he soaked in every interesting facet of the place. He stood next to the table holding and rubbing his hands with each frozen palm.

The kitchen merged with an open area that had a few loosely thrown stools and armchairs. A table hid underneath the window to the front garden. A faint and inconspicuous lamp merged with the simplistic wall behind it. Looking directly at the lamp rendered the idea that it was weak and barely capable of lighting anything. But it lit up the entire lower half of the house without any help from other lighted sources. A book and a half drank cup of tea yawned with impatience on the large table.

"Liking the rustic feel to it all. I would say "nice place" and all the other pleasantries that come to instinct, but you seem like the kind of man who doesn't like to waste time."

"What do you call this? Feck mate if you don't explain your statement now then I'm going to regret letting you in." Kevin said throwing his arms out presenting the very situation that they found themselves in. His fingers shook a little, wringing and dancing at the tips from a strong need for rest. Mathew saw from his wasted eyes that he needed sleep, or something equivalent to cutting brain cells in half. He was clearly neck deep in something before he had opened the door. Mathew blamed Kevin's frustrated attitude to that possibility. The word plan was used very loosely with Mathew. It was more an alcohol dripped need that resulted in a pinpointed idea of the problem. As for what he did was entirely left up to the turning tides of emotions that late night.

Mathew played with the distance that they had together. He knew that Kevin for as much a reason as anyone else would want to maintain a comfortable stance against a tall and young stranger. So he grabbed the distance that formed between them. He wrapped his dripped fingers around the very loose line and started to reel it in towards himself. After every few tugs he would throw the line over his shoulder so that it wouldn't get in the way. Quite difficult considering his hands were controlled by the notions of an empty whiskey glass.

"Now is a good a time as any to start regretting." Mathew whispered from the skin of his lips. Pulling harder on the line, he walked closer. The distance of the line shortened alongside Kevin's breath. Mathew saw ringing shakes dance between Kevin's fingers as if he was trying to telepathically send an emergency message.

" _I don't mean to instil hostilities_. Deceptive little lad huh? Get out of my house." Kevin said stabbing his feet to the floor. Mathew moved in closer to him, blocking most of his view of the kitchen. It was the distance that no longer existed which punched regret into Kevin's chest. It was tough and brisk, quickly dancing to and from his ribs with snapping fists. Their shadows merged with the narrowing gap between the two. Naturally it pissed off Kevin's shadow who now stood with crossed arms afraid that they would be forced to submit.

"I'm going to say my bit and you are going to take it in like the proud and caring father that you are... understood." Mathew said raising his clenched fists into the conversation. They remained at the side of his coat, yet suddenly became highlighted to Kevin. "Leave now!" With that Mathew let go of the line, false comfort more than anything. A few steps backward into the landscape of the kitchen. When he turned around he saw the cup of tea, which had fully frozen with impatience.

"One night. Some night ago. Late anyways. Susan called me to pick her up from here. Her voice was unusual, _which_ I should have taken as the first sign. When I saw her she was crippled from something. I don't know what exactly. Even though she wanted comfort, she was pretty tight lipped about it... I held her the entire night. Do you know what it's like to hold someone who is fundamentally afraid? Afraid of you." Mathew stood firm and let his soaked arms hang. That's how his arms advertised themselves anyways. Each curled muscle in his forearms tightened and flaunted their capabilities. Kevin's ribs weakened from all of the abusive words. They acted as punches striking against the very bones that hovered near his warm gooey candy caramelised heart.

"Susan can't be afraid of me! I raised her. I gave her shelter, love, fucking heat! I have done nothing but treat her with care! She is my daughter, a part of me... she _cannot_ be afraid of me." Kevin said opening the front door and flexing his jaw to the constant bang of fear that broke his bones. Rain cried its way into the fray of the scene, demanding and throwing tantrums to once more play a part amongst the two men. Unfortunately the only source that had any form of a background base was Kevin's chest. Which only he heard.

"You know she had a good stable job at my agency. More than anything else she had when I wasn't in her life... did she tell you about that job? At all?" Kevin stood silent trying to juggle the incessant boxing match between his ribs and the information that he received. Mathew could tell from his washed face that he was confused by what he had told him. He pondered it, whether it was true or made from fabricated fabrics.

"I have been towing my point all night. Desperately want to know why she is scared of you?" Mathew said once more digging his thumbs into the loose line between them. Narrowing the distance he teased very simple ideas. Simplistic thoughts of velvet violence. Like the face of a chef's knife. It's all about the possibilities. Kevin stood torn at his door, unable to throw guarded words from his usual bucket of insults and curses.

"Every time she visits she expects to see you hanging stiff from the ceiling." The words tumbled out from Mathew's lips. The distance had now fully disappeared between them. He stood above Kevin with his face plastered and carved into his comfort zone. Light had refused Mr Black to take over much of the house, but at that moment he frolicked about on both of their faces. The door was still open, which allowed a punch of air to crawl up Kevin's spine. It messed with his hair and froze his eyes into a position of turmoil. It was the entire play of ingesting the information that Mathew presented, and the process of trying to separate fact from friction. In turn heavy punches on his chest made his ribs twist and bend to each heavy breath that he tried to squeeze in.

"And because of that she thinks it's right... healthy to cut all of her ties just so she can calm you down from the noose." Each, each and every syllable, each one created from Mathew's grinding teeth stabbed holes right between Kevin's yawning ribs. His eyes widened in rhythm to his breathing. Mathew expected a reply, but rolled with the stared silence that he got instead. Kevin's legs weakened alongside every one of his exhausted crippled bones. His grip of the door had fallen to his side and the reality of his health problem filled his palms. His heart ached trying to run away from the heart attack that came next.

Mathew placed his hand on Kevin's shoulder and dug his fingers into the loose folds of his top. "There is something wrong with you Kevin, something lacking... I'm just glad that Susan turned out as well as she did." The words acted as the last few pokes through his ribs. They were carried through a faint series of taps that Mathew played on his shoulder. Mathew's face was sculpted by the very ideologies of success. Wind sharpened through the open door and carved a slight smile into his cheeks. The collected mulch of his drink framed the award and coated the winning medal with its own golden shade of vomit.

Sound from the scratching branches filled the soundtrack, which accompanied Kevin's bending knees. His heart plagued his muscles, sending sharp knifed hellos' through his very tendons. The ground fell beneath him and was replaced with a cushion and blanket lined floor. His joints morphed into balls of collected cotton.

Kevin grabbed onto Mathew's coat and held onto it with a few hanging fingers. Mathew backed off almost in disgust at what he was seeing. His joints spread and spilled across the floor, leaving no option but for Kevin to lay silently. Mathew took a few steps backwards and filled his mouth with the fresh air that seeped in from outside.

The scene was presented upon a very fine platter held by the exact consistent hands of Mr Black. Dramatic weather tormented its own nature, thrashing and turning in abuse. Mathew stood tall holding his high shoulders. He was coated with the warmth from inside the house and frightened by the rain outside. He shook from every aspect of the human spectrum as if being flung by some demented pill. Kevin sprawled along the line of wet that poured its way in from the outside. His arms turned tangled and twisted against time's attack on his chest. Life was still in him. Mathew saw this as he held the moment in his hand as if it were a very physical decision. It only had two edges, yet it was sharp and cut into the safety of his thumbs.

His eyes travelled through an entire continent of thought, trying to find the one place that they felt safe in, that felt like home. With that he took one last look around the house and walked over the rotting bundle of consequences that lay heaped on the wet floor. He closed the door and once more joined the large shower that continued to cry outside. All in all he made sure not to slam the door, gentle was the way he felt. So he inched it closed like a whisper saying goodbye.

Mr Black covered him which made it look as if his coat was made from the very skin of Black. _Walk home._ That's all he had to do. It wasn't necessarily difficult to walk to his car, yet he found it unbearably hard to move from the spot. The sky continued to pour its salty waste along the edges of his shoulders. Directly from the front door he took out his phone. With his nose lit up from a hushed sea blue he pulled the phone up to his ear. "I need an ambulance."
CHAPTER TWENTY SEVEN

Each advertised expression that roamed the hospital had craved eyes. Each word was punctuated by a heavy and exhausted breath. So...huh...how.....huh....are....huh....you.....huh...today.....huh....? It was a frustrating dance for anyone that entered the place or simply wanted information. For the staff however it quickly turned into a game to see how long they could hold a sentence without motivating the victim to ditch the conversation in a flurry of annoyed dust. It provided a substitute for the lack of entertainment in the hospital.

Everything that proceeded was within the middle of the night. The doors exploded to their sides, pushing and forcing against one another with a lack of sound. Susan came marching through with arms heavy and locked to attack. Her hair dashed from shoulder to shoulder trying to find something to rest on. Her rain coat ruffled and creased with each leap she took through the hall. Eyes sharpened themselves, desperately trying to wipe away any liquefied fear that collected under her lashes. Her boots were angry at the fact that their leathery skin was wet. She held her car keys in her left hand as she broke through the halls and any door that posed to be an obstacle.

Susan's skin folded over itself, creasing over every previous crease. She saw the door number that they told her to go to. Within that room lay all the worries about Kevin that she had built up over her night of broken sleep. A few feet away from the room the door opened with the doctor walking out. His chin was buried in his chest, not from a bundle of sympathetic sorrow, but from solid concentration on his clipboard. She hurried up to him and lay herself upon his verdict, his proof of words and his strong eye line.

As he spoke his face melted into the curves of his skull, as if acid dripped from his scalp and peeled his skin down to his lips. Susan washed her eyes to wipe away the exhaustion that she saw crawl all over his face. She knew that everything he said was vital. But for the most part all the technical jargon ended on the butt of the floor like a raw and wasted organ. The more she looked at him the more his eye sockets seemed to engulf what was left of his pupils. Pulling herself away from his face she grabbed onto the bottom edge of her jacket to try and concentrate. It was a fierce grip born from worry.

"...recovering..." and "will live...." Were the few words said that Susan picked up on. They were conveniently positive which made her feel guilty about not being able to ingest whatever else he had to say. He left her with a quiet smile and a subtle touch of her shoulder and walked off with his job between his arms. It took her a moment to realise she was left by herself outside the room.

Everything that happened next, came along the curved spine of a very long breath. It was warm and painted the inside of her cheeks with a cool orange. A hard grip around the door handle followed by a breezed push to the inside of the room. She was immediately greeted by a window and the cramped nature of the boxed room. The corners were tight and dank as if straight from an architect's catalogue of cardboard cut outs. A beautiful image of branched trees and the bare belly button of a car park peered through the frames of the window. A sharp light from the ceiling dove down into head level smacking everything on offer with its brightly yellow syringe. Instead of the light providing some essence of visibility all it produced were shadows.

Then that one stretched breath ended on the tip of Susan's tongue. Without a thought the next gulp of hard boiled air stormed through her throat punching every inch of her oesophagus. Kevin lay along the edge of his bed with one leg sticking out towards the window as if trying to escape onto the tree branch. He was awake and held his view in his lap with squinted eyes.

Susan wanted his attention, wanted him to rise up and hug her, but she knew it was her responsibility. Each heaved lung that she punched was accompanied by a few steps forward. His eyes were frozen like carefully crafted balls of snow afraid to melt. With a slow creak of his neck he turned to see Susan inching her way to the scene of the crime. Without hesitation he reached out his hand to hold her. Backs bent as Susan curved herself over a nearby chair to hug him. Their arms suffocated every feared thought.

His snowballed eyes began to heat up, with wet slowly separating itself from his pupils. He refused his cheeks to give home to streams, desperately trying to freeze every emotion that attempted to slide from his snowy look. Susan couldn't feel the gap between them anymore and pressed herself up against the burnt meat of his chest.

"I should have told you earlier." He said along the icy edges of his tongue. Susan sat down on the chair next to the bed and kept contact with her left hand. She held his palm tight and refused to let any distance build up between them again. Hear that sound? That pushed fight from Susan's lungs and that heaved cry from her throat. It was another long breath for fear of saying anything. It was a strong desire to not break up Kevin's thought, his line of words, his straight story made from very convoluted bends.

"I...should have spoken up." His words were carried over another boat of Susan's heavy handed breath. His wrinkled knuckles shook a series of aged releases up her arm. They tortured the faint arm hair that poked and stabbed its way up to her neck. It was like an interconnected railway of nerves, with each one collapsing and jolting in preparation for a crash.

"Im....im so sorry" Kevin said. They were the few words that came along another one of Susan's stapled breaths. They had come so few in numbers is that they turned into a physical celebration every time she took another gulp of air in through her wounded skin. Kevin prepped and smoothed his muscles which resulted in a quick shift of his posture. Susan didn't notice and instead ran her head through various courses of possibilities. And then her breath ended on a cold note. "Your mother."

Kevin's wrinkles refused to exist, his face and brows were still inflicted by naivety. He was in his early thirties marching through a memory. His eyes were sharp and cut everything that was thrown at them. A large winter jacket covered his elbows and narrowed the amount of skin on show around his neck. Woolly coated warmth and furred skin lined every inch of his body, and not only from the fur lining from his brown jacket. He didn't carry much apart from a few pocket full of essentials. The usual, bottled water and wrapped meat. In his left hand he held a simplistic compass with red edges. It pointed in whatever direction lead to the loneliest corner. This was the only adventure of his that he had never told to Susan.

Branches covered in the remains of snow, scattered hard worries along the wet muddy ground. The forest was vast and threw its lengthy arms across the very skin of the place. Neither the forest nor Kevin saw the edges of the snowy landscape. A brisk and soft whisper of snow falling added movement to the image alongside the slow steps of Kevin. His breath solidified and broke in front of his view, which gave an extra cold filter. The trees stretched their anorexic nature towards their short height. Short enough to give him the feeling of being surrounded by stiff corpses hung.

His walk was long and forced him to make friends with crunched snow that he marched over. The subdued sound acted as the one sided partner for him to wrap a conversation around. He didn't know for how long he was walking, but kept the time paced by hungry punches. Every slight conversation that he had with the deep snow was accompanied by a smooth rhythm, by a beat derived from his cold breath. The only thing that followed behind him was the reason he went out there.

Then came the crunched step that halted him to the grip of the grooved ground. It was loud and resonated through the fur that captivated his neck. A lump, a bag shaped bundle of something lay still in front of him. It was dark and stiff from any sound that he expected to hear. With the objective firmly scratched into his compass he set off towards it for curiosities sake.

Step built upon step that he threw in front of himself. The snow flowed over each crevasse and tree roots. Bumpy and groovy like waves of filth leading to land. It was as if the ground tried to hide its rough and steep nature by covering its skin with a clean sheen of snow. But none of that mattered to Kevin as he closed in on the strange sight.

Then his breath ended, leaving him with nothing but loose lungs dangling inside of him. In front of him lay a woman curled and curved spine like a shrivelled organ purple from the cold. Her arms were wrapped inwards to her lower stomach, hiding something from the voyeuristic stare of the forest. Short black hair teased her face, showing inches of her features at any one time. She wasn't dressed to the idea of warmth, with her legs torn, leaving nothing but skin to contact the ice. Her left foot trapped and bent over a nearby root that rose from the deceptively filthy ground. With her other leg tied to her stomach she lay silently with her body frozen to death.

Kevin neared the paused scene with slow steps of warning. "Hello?" the words came from his heated lips with very little expectation. He was a considerable amount of feet away from the body, which left him to think about going further up to the woman. Another breath filled his lungs creasing his skin to move in and inspect her crashed limbs like the good boy that he was.

Her skin was crisp, raw and innocent from any explanation of a knifed nature. It was a natural thought that occurred to him. Just had to cross it from his list of possibilities. She had a small floral dress, with a loosely wrapped shirt covering the rest of her body. The closer he neared her the more her face became clear. It was soft with hilled features guided over shut eyes. Splitting the moment in his head, he heard a childish cry. A hushed squeal coming from the bundle of cloth that she held right over her womb. The idea came and planted itself firmly in Kevin the instant he heard the baby.

Kevin eased in and kneeled his heavy shoulders into the soft stomach of the snow. He gave a brisk scan of her pockets for a source of identity but was left stiff. He pulled the woman's arm away from the hidden bundle with as much respect as he could shovel together. He lifted the wrapped jacket up and held it firmly to the exposure of his chest.

With quiet fingers he unwrapped the clothing from the unmarked skin that lay within. Between his arms, tied together by the heated lengths of her jacket was a child, no older than a couple of months. The child's eye was torn from nothing, coloured by its own purple healthy guts. The baby cooed showing Kevin how healthy and safe the baby was kept. She had thin strands of hair escaping from her scalp. Every breath that Kevin tried to force back down his throat was halted and held by the fear of what happened. The jacket had edges of warm and thick leather.

His eyes watered to the bizarre situation that he found himself in. All in all he tore his sight from the baby and landed his attention back on the woman that lay curled midst the snow. The snow continued to fall along the planar image of the scene. Time had, as usual, fondled itself to a very calm pause. He fed the child with his collected and packed snacks, and Kevin was heated by whatever she gave in return. A moment, just a very simple moment for him to think about her mother again. Holding the child to the warmth of himself he looked at the mother. Frozen stabs crawled up the inside of his nose as he shifted his attention to her. She was curled and curved in the same position as if she was still holding her child. It was not a sight that he wished to accept. Among everything that he had ever waded through, seeing her huddled to protect something that she no longer had, tortured him the most. She would be forever frozen in the snow protecting a child that she no longer had. Each glimpse at what he saw would always be sponsored by a quick shank of guilt in his fleshy fatty side.

Between the snow, cornered by a lack of food and strength he made the decision to bring the child back home to safety. The trek back was spotted with captivated ideas of how he would treat the situation. But every time he went over his options they would pin themselves to the impulsive snow that fleeted before his view. The more it snowed the more he was blinded by the ethical decisions that should have been considered.

It left him with a clear pinpointed desire, and a pending goal to go back for the mother. She would always come back into the situation eventually. So he scraped her location into the form of notes and slotted it tightly into his pocket.

Kevin fastened the baby to his chest. His head slowly and gradually spun from his neck. Nothing danced for him. The trees refused to play the part they were given in the play. Everything halted in frustration at the expectation that Kevin held up to nature. What did he expect? Dirt to rise up and clean him from all consequences. The child was the only one with a wiped mind.

Susan sat in her chair subdued by the silence of the hospital. Each and every aspect of her face was suspended in a tight grip of her skin. It held itself as if the hands she had crafted and worn over her entire life had pulled the skin from her face, leaving her with nothing but bloody flesh to warm her nose. Her boots had stretched their very leathery nature up around her legs. She felt them crawl and try to grasp all the way up to her crotch, but they were left short with a lack of material to pull all the way. With that she could no longer feel the difference between her boots and legs anymore. The daily process and notion of tying her laces had become a myth, a fantasy reserved to the very privileged.

Naturally, her eyes were frozen over, locked to a very specific groove in Kevin's blanket. The only contact they had between each other was the fact that they still held each other's hands. Other than that, eye contact had entirely snapped in half and the conversation had turned into a one sided story. The light from inside the room had painted the walls with a rough coat of black, as if the brush had been made from scrapes of metal.

"Went back... I couldn't find her.......I should have told you about your mother." I should have was the sponsored phrase of the night from Kevin, decorated by flashing and stinging lights straight from the bucket of knockoff fireworks. Then came a sentence from Susan's heaving lungs. With everything exhaled, it came in the form of a stretched out breath, teasing the tip of her tongue as it seeped out. She prepped her nostrils to flare as she said... something, but was left chilled by a lack of vocabulary on offer. Her language had tossed itself into a box, tearing every limb that it possessed. It left her with a chopped up internal language derived from chunks of thrashed and conflicting emotions.

Among all of the turmoil, her focus hovered and circled on one very particular feeling. Surprisingly, it came in the shape of a square. Not sure why to be honest, but that's what she saw. Between each edge of the square were singular stabs that she felt, born from the feelings of relief, fear and anger.

Susan lifted her head up from the spotted curve in his blanket and rested her ripped eyes on Kevin. He was pulled and sour as if every single one of his features had been individually chopped off. Yet he still maintained a level of dignity about his escaping weakness. He dragged his features back into the strength of his face, as if his nose was in denial over how its nostrils opened up.

One might assume that a need for a worded discussion was desperately required to round off the situation that they had opened up between each other. But words lacked the ability to colour in anything. Susan shook a slight, a slight shaken inch shedding all the collected rain water from the plastic grooves of her jacket. It dripped into her lap and created a small perfectly round puddle on the inside of her thigh. Strangely, or maybe perfectly, but Susan suddenly felt the need to sing to herself. Sing straight to the grasp of her lonely ear, and curve her lobe with notes direct from her bucket of personals. Her own quiet and silent song. It would be the voice that she had kept over her entire life, and just then she wanted to hear it swing past the cusp of her foggy head.

Light from the room flashed separating her experience into edible sections and before she knew it she was swimming in the epicentre of the night.

Kevin had fallen asleep under the frozen blanket of his bed. He was silent and still like a corpse that had just released every inch of its purpose in own crippling go. Just like a child. Susan still held onto him with her left hand and rested her shocked spine on her chair. She directed herself to stare out into the rest of the room. With the door closed to her right, it gave the room a sense of solitary and helpless loneliness. She was engulfed in what she had just heard, just learnt, what she had just ate. Big fucking meal to digest no?

People acted as people do and shifted one by one past the door outside with shuffled and squeaked shoes. The sun was fondling itself awake with morning wood.

When Susan looked around she spotted things that didn't belong. She knew they were just pretending to reside within the hospital to spy on her. She felt uncomfortable with them watching. The leader of the anti-privacy group was the sink who edged its eyesight from the open bathroom in front of Susan. It watched her and had the audacity to stand its ground even when Susan stared back. Unnerved she dragged the tips of her fingers over her eye to wipe away a few sneaky tears.

She was tired, exhausted to the point where she was stuck on the process of spelling out the word "exhaustion". She was stuck on what came after the letter "s". Her eyes carved a new home for themselves in the bed of her cheek bones. But somehow they weren't able to actually succumb to sleep. It was a torturous dance between the need for sleep and need to process things, whereby both of them wore shoes two sizes too big. Awkward shuffle amongst angsty knees was the craze.

Susan looked at Kevin for the first time in a while. She still held his hand, refusing to let go of his skin. It was a mixed oil that creased and spread over his skin that stopped her from letting go. But sleep depravity blocked her from chewing any further on the bones of how she felt. It was an entire mess of culminated and hidden feelings, which resulted in them all tripping over one another in a magnificent straight line. Legs flew and flesh was exposed but nothing was said or heard.

Then her grip of Kevin tightened with sudden force. With her other hand fitted between her thighs she sat silently as the door to the room opened. The concept of sound had killed itself and strewed its collage of guts across the plastic floor. She turned her head to catch whoever walked in and ended up giving it to them. In walked a woman, tiptoeing the line of youth and experience. Short black hair torn down her head lining up with her cheek bones. Her legs were bare, with a short floral skirt frolicking about her waist covered in snow. She wore a plane top wrinkled and folded by wear and tear. Her face was soft, and each feature of hers stayed calm and steady as if helping each other to hold in whatever locked muscles twitched beneath. With hands rested next to her sides she tiptoed in with grace and glory. The kind of graciousness that Susan would have licked up from the floor.

Susan was naturally still and timid with her movements. Every inch of her impulsive skin desperately tried to move, but was left with nothing but small seizures cascading up her arms. Tiny slits of snow cornered themselves in the many creases of the older woman's clothing. Whatever didn't have a strong enough grip fell to the floor with slow glory. It resulted in a trail of wet white on top of the already dull grey floor. She played in the puddles that she created. Splash splash all the way pushing the water further and further to Susan's boots.

It was this moment that Susan took to pause and attempt to bring some life back into her forehead. The problem was; she was awake. So what in the gosh darn world was she supposed to do? Play along like a good girl was pretty much her only option. Looking at the woman she knew exactly who she was. Strangely enough it wasn't through top level thought, rather she knew the woman through the quick punches she received in her light blue cheeks. Instinctively sore.

Light within the room took a very deep back seat in the play. Susan just sat, watching and scanning the new found skin that the woman presented to her. Then she moved in a few feet closer dragging her friendly icy puddle with her. Just enough for both of them to see each other's faces with confidence. The woman's eyes were worn and drawn out by the torture of cold. Susan was locked to her chair, afraid to shift her thighs out into the open world of the room. Vast world and all that frilly bollocks you know.

One stood with a straight back and the other sat curved on the chair. This was the most unnerving twitch for Susan. Then the play started itself back up again with the frozen woman singing her role into a coma. She raised her right hand slowly and gradually from her side and held it firmly at shoulder level in front of Susan. Water dripped and slipped down her arm hitting the floor with silly slaps. Susan without halted thought let go of Kevin with her left hand. With gradual lift she brought it up to mirror the woman. With a slight shake they waved at each other. Each of Susan's fingers were tied to the reflected fingers from the woman.

The image was composed of each of them waving to each other with dashes of melted snow trailing around the room. Then the frozen woman stopped and pulled her hand back down to her waist. With a brisk smile she left Susan by herself with her hand raised to fluffy clouds. The woman inched her way back out of the room maintaining eye contact throughout. The instant Susan dropped her hand the woman had fully left the room. All that remained was the trail of wet snow that followed her out of the hospital. The room gave nothing to Susan anymore. A one sided relationship that ate away at her health.

Susan got up from her chair and steadied her body back up to a reasonable straight. Back sharp and knees unknown to bending was an unusual feeling for Susan that night. But it was very welcome. She slipped through the puddles of melted snow and tore them apart with the very hard bottom of her black boots. Grabbing hold of the doorframe she swung herself to peak outside of the room into the halls of the hospital. The place had coloured itself by the epileptic hand of a child. Crayoned blue swatted the corners and ripped red to a scream across all the empty counter tops. No one entered or exited the place. It was as if it was specifically built for Susan and the woman to play in. A sandbox decorated and filled by the curious hands of a child.

The woman taunted her heels and skipped down the hall of the hospital. Susan followed with her knees hooked into the oblivious joy that the woman sold. It was surprisingly easy for her to follow. As she tripped along she found herself fitting her walked steps into the same location where the woman had walked. She wanted her boots, her steps to be exactly the same as the ones the woman left behind. It was a strong desire, carving and etching its need to exist with every step that Susan put forward. Progress among the plastic landscape of the clinical floors.

The woman turned on her legs and proceeded to walk backwards as she caressed the colour from all of the nearby clear glass windows. She looked directly at Susan and pulled her towards her with demanding flicking index fingers. It was a playful look almost as if she was longing to play with a new found friend.

Every dash forward from Susan was followed by a loss of sight of the cold woman. She would hide behind the corners of halls and pop back out with a flurry of shocked snow to frighten the new play mate that she had found. Susan was torn through thought, with coherence hiding itself from the fear of the late night. What did that leave Susan with? Well an innate feeling to play hide and seek with a frozen woman that pranced around the conveniently empty disco hospital. She had never felt so much fun in her entire life.

The front door to the hospital was insight, along with a slight worry of entering into the city at night. Automatic doors opened and both of them shifted out of the building with their eye sight hooked on to each other. Most of the melting snow from the woman's clothes had slipped from the grooves of her floral attire. She wasn't perfectly dry, but she had walked long enough to shake whatever prominent wet had collected among the creases. Every attempt to spit words out from her drooping lips were abrupted by a sharp intake of air.

The outside of the city was faint and lacked the fear of hostilities. A few seconds out of the hospital were shown through a flash void of colour. But the more Susan eased herself into the pavements that she hovered over, the more the colours came back into her focus. The woman's dress flushed and danced its loose limbs through the soft breeze of the night. She decorated her walk with randomly drawn shifts of dance and loosely carved smiles.

Along the march, both women twisted and curved their walking path through dark shady streets and damp roads. Susan spent most of her attention trying to keep up with and copy the movements of the frozen tour guide that dashed ambiguous joints. Across their trek the woman occasionally dropped expressions of joy mixed with a tint of icy purple. Impossible for Susan to consciously know what she was implying through her twitching nose. But it didn't matter to her, for the coloured and silent conversation between them was more interesting than anything.

In turn every face that the woman showed was subsequently hoovered up by Susan's flaring nostrils and lifelong intent. Within her sleep depraved and shell shocked state she couldn't tell if it was a desperate need or curiosity that drove her to follow the woman. Every thought was commandeered by the taught strings of Susan's jizzing emotions. All over the place, feckin messy.

The city drove itself to a slow sleep alongside the track that both women created for themselves. The snowed woman lay the ground work with simple shafts of metal and wood, just like a train track. Susan fitted her boots into everything that the woman left behind, she found herself reconstructing the track as they went along. The dirt covered wood used originally was replaced by finely sliced planks. The function remained, yet after Susan walked over her section of the continuous track she would find it in a new clean shade, a new more streamlined version.

Then suddenly Susan looked down at the track she thought she was re-digging into the ground and realised she was tripping herself confidently across the footpath. There was no metal, no wood to recut, to realign. Everything was just a flat grey, which in turn slapped a harsh red raw slap across her cheek. She jolted with heated skin underneath her drowning eye.

Looking up from the ground she held her right hand to her cheek and caressed it as if her fingers were made from plasters and soothing kisses. The horizon was selective, with very few people roaming the land of night lights. The few that did were dressed to the attire of pillows and rested their moody necks along the edge of the streets trying to make their beds. Few turned their heads to see the isolated girl making her way so late. Their eyes stabbed very aggressive apathy to whomever they looked at. Susan let go of her cheek and nailed her arms to her sides. The street came to a close with all of the homeless people left to deal with their own entertainment.

Susan moved forward now left by herself in the middle of the city without any clear and direct line of sight to the frozen woman. Fear slowly began to replace every impulsive feeling and the desire that had dragged her out there in the first place. It left her cold and shivering from all of the corrosive scenarios that she concocted. Thankfully the rain had stopped a few hours back or else her rain jacket would have turned into a one man marching band.

The end of the road came with an anti-climax and left Susan with false hopes in the middle of the dark city. She turned her neck with large gaps of movement trying to find the woman, trying to find something that might provide a slither of comfort. Her neck ached, taking in every scary corner of the city that she was stranded in. Unknown and bizarre were the names of the streets that she found herself wedged between. Grabbing onto her rain coat she shook her ankles and wrists to the same rhythm of a collapsing lung.

Then exactly when she completed her full scoped circle, Susan ended up face to face with the woman once more. Less of a distance between them now. She saw her face clearly, and with crisp chills. The woman no longer looked wet, yet she still held onto the whole frozen floral dress that she had dragged with her all night. Her skin appeared paler than when Susan had seen her first. The woman presented a smile to her with hands reached out decorated in cutesy piles of snow.

It was then and there when she read every inch of the woman's face that she thought about where she was actually going. Where this woman was leading her. Well she could have either made the pavement her friend for the night, or she could have indulged the situation. Her history and tendencies decided for her.

A collection of light accounted their marvellous journeys along the fantastical city. The city for some strange reason hid every inch of filth just so Susan's private play could finish. With Susan's exhausted mind, the city had compressed itself within her memory. It made the place, the roads and buildings all seem smaller and peculiarly closer to one another. Before she could stretch out her map she was on the outskirts of the city with the fridge woman acting as her guide. Grass was visible as a prominent cast member of the play that shifted its wrecked legs further out into the wilderness. Filthy fields made Susan's view as she walked with small stretched roads along a defined path.

The hairline of the city receded with distinct depression. Her boots composed themselves holding their laces above ground afraid to mingle with the dirt of the roads. Naturally they found it difficult to enjoy a single step along the web of rural roads. Susan on the other hand found herself locked behind the constant shifting gaze of the woman. She flung from side to side on the road with waving wrists and broken fingers, straight from the performance of a ballerina with Parkinson's. It was cold.

The more she walked the less predominant Mr Black was. He stretched himself along his own daily corpse and flung his guts into the sky. It resulted in dripped reds and explosive oranges, all from the acidic innards of Mr Black himself. Grey found a way into the play of all the colours herself. With his demise marching forward she created the opportunity to outline his sprawled guts.

The day started up to an eruptive clap, leaving Susan and the woman to drift through the roads. It was the morning. She turned on her heels in the dirt and shook her view back to the city that she had left behind. It no longer frightened her to follow, to move forward. With that they climbed and proceeded through a series of fields and heaped blocking walls. The more Susan heaved herself over the strewn mossy stones, the less she cared about the city or anything that didn't occupy itself in the palms of the woman.

The field thinned itself to a flat and destroyed grooves so her boots wouldn't get lost along the muddy grass. The woman dragged herself up a hill that seemed to shake the sound of harsh water through its long grass. In a moment of exhaustion Susan looked down at the grass. Touching their heads with her right hand she found them moist and loose, yet tight lipped about where they were leading her.

The woman circled her own attractive knees and looked back to Susan. With a whip of her wrist she leashed Susan towards her embrace. A sudden force was felt through Susan's indulgent arms, shaking harsh bangs up to her chest. As uncomfortable as it was, it felt like it came from her jacket, a third party source. Maybe even her own elbows, but she liked the idea that the woman had cool powers.

The sound of the sea thrashed and slaughtered its genitals in constant flows of pain as it hit up against the hard wall of the cliff. Susan saw the water spread its flabby skin across the horizon of the sea. Standing atop a cliff she held onto her rain coat, held onto whatever plastic reminded her of the city. The frozen woman stood tall with her back knifed upwards at the very tip of the cliff, teasing her heels with danger. Her smile animated her limbs, with every twitch that she tried to hide shaking her wrists to a silly dance.

No rain and not a single rupture of clouds covered whatever was happening on that cliff. Everything was clear and crisp, gracefully stepping away so Susan could see her situation with newly obtained eyes.

The cliff was sharp and cut itself off from the sea with an abrupt slice. The bottom of the cliff naturally gave company to all the foreign water. It was as if the sea was desperately trying to merge and become part of the land. It no longer enjoyed the bowl that it had spent its entire life thrashing and spilling around in.

Both women stood atop the cliff sharing each frozen features that they held with their worn and tired eyes. Staring directly at each other with empty expectations. _Maybe I should say something?_ It was the kind of silence that motivated thoughts to flood. But nothing was said for Susan to listen to. The sound of the sea hushed every attempt that she gave to say something. The grass flew along the soft spitting of the wind, shaking their tiny and insignificant bodies to sea sickness.

The woman quietened her elbows and rested her arms along her waist. Her face was calm, with her nose and lips scratched open to breathe whatever fresh air from the sea seeped in. All Susan looked at was the face that lay before her. She stared at it as if she was holding the woman's expression in her hands. The woman's visage was cold and shook with slight exhausted nerves sending fearful worries up to Susan, resulting in her own face coiling from possibilities that teased themselves atop the cliff.

The woman's frozen fingers broke from her side and rose up to her chest level. The frozen mistress looked directly at her daughter and begged for her to join, to follow her off of the cliff. Susan's hands shook as if cubes of ice formed between the joints. Clunky and cold she stood there eating her own expression. It was bitter and numb, not something she wanted to chew on every morning.

The woman's fingers bent to the way of a beckoning. She kept her eyes steady and only showed confidence in what she was asking. Her clothes forfeited their control to the wind and all the slushing feelings that ran through both of them. Susan could tell from digging into the woman's eyes that she wasn't empty, she wasn't advertising a flat end to their long trek.

With that, the woman halted her hand and stepped backwards off of the cliff. Every step that she took was sliced by seconds with the last one frozen. Susan jolted forward with her eyes jumping from their sockets. The woman fell from the grass and disappeared into the white ruffled blanket of the sea and rocks. No sound to signify the merge, the hard and cold loss that Susan never even knew about until that night.

She grabbed onto the hair of grass lining the edge of the cliff and held her body tight to fear. She felt the cold presence left by the woman along all the moist grass. Breath seeped and tore through her gaping mouth with oxygen made out of coarse sandpaper. She needed to breath but every time she made her lungs vulnerable she would subject her throat to a rough meal.

Nothing from her environment dared to enter the stage that Susan howled upon. Curled and laying among the bed of grass she hung onto the safe edge of the cliff, crying and demanding for it to give her mother back. The cliff refused, in turn heightening its choir of rocked and wet singers that abused themselves beneath.

Susan's knees shrivelled within her jeans and spun their way up to her chest as if trying to knock her own teeth out fighting the hard fight of denial. But they constricted her and halted any tiny hint of air into her chest. Much of her time over the past few weeks had been framed by refrained eyes reluctant to wash themselves. They were adamant to keep the dirt that collected at their red raw edges. But no matter how tight they shut, then and there they couldn't hold all the stale water from years of collected gutters. Susan cried, simply shed a wealth of tears, and gave herself company with all the relieved water that escaped her rotting skin. They had become her friends, the few friends that warmed her chest as they dripped down from her red raw cheeks.

Over the stretched past few hours, she had followed this woman through a torn city of mixed night lights. Susan had fitted herself into each step left behind by the woman. Every clunking and heavy lift of her boots were desperate to fit into the icy footprints left behind on the pavements. It was a dance of childish desire that dressed Susan throughout her entire life. Something that refused to die, for it was intrinsically weaved into her skin.

Raising her head she looked out towards the sea mimicking the water with her moving tears. Inching her hands passed the grass she rested them on the exact edged slice of the cliff that separated the vertical from the safety. Dragging her legs through the grass she landed her head on the edge and threw her gaze over. _I can still see a few more footsteps to fill down there. Maybe she is still alive? I could try to climb down. Get help?_ Her boots excited themselves to the possibilities, throwing their laces into erratic hoops. The tips of her fingers taunted the idea of saying goodbye to the land. It was her nature that tempted her to follow and of course it would have fitted perfectly into the puzzle that she had been trying to build over her entire life.

With the corners of her eyes depleted of liquid Susan shook atop the cliff. In that very moment she fought the idea of following her mother off the cliff. Every bone in her chest evicted their innards making her feel hollow. She felt her guts spill from her stomach, but when she pulled up her jacket her skin was washed of anything. Every breath that she needed was replaced by a well-deserved scream, a tear of her throat, a perfect release. With that the play halted and rested its tired legs backstage. It allowed all the players to watch Susan curl her stomach and chest across the corpse of grass. "Quiet ssshhhh" they said hushing the sea, rocks and wind from undermining Susan's performance.
CHAPTER TWENTY EIGHT

The day had worn itself to an exhausted midday nap. Susan lay atop the cliff with dipped arms and stretched guts. She could no longer smell or hear the sea that played with itself at the bottom of the cliff. Grass formed around her throwing their small torsos to surround her shoulders for comfort. With the sun out everything had dried up, melted away into the ground. All the ice and water that culminated over the night had evaporated away from Susan. It left her skin taught and cracking under the sky. Her rain coat was left redundant and sour.

Standing up from the grass she brushed her muscles against the increasing wind that toiled on the cliff. A rock wall of mossy lime stone lined its way along the edge of a nearby field close to the cliff edge. Without intentional thought she moved to the wall in search of support, the rocky kind. She sat on top of a large comfortably arse shaped stone and relaxed her spine within the confines of her rain coat.

The place and neighbouring fields were empty and void of anything that dared to breathe. Susan turned her head around, taking in everything as she rested her hands between her thighs as they cooled down from the extreme pulsating excitement from the night. Curling her fingers she embedded them into her thighs for the knowledge that they were the one place that refused to let go. They were her thighs, her fingers, her legs, hers to maintain, hers to throw off of the cliff.

Thinking about her mother was, naturally, the only thing she thought about. It was surprisingly hard to get away from the image of her frozen mother. But once she did, Susan entered into a rush of overwhelming coloured thought of what she must have been like, and all the other curious wrappings that packaged her mother's fate.

She knew that the extent of her relationship with her mother was limited to the play that convulsed over the night. It was the only conclusion she came to. Didn't necessarily make her feel better, but at least being aware of it was miles ahead of where she was before she found out.

Sitting on the wall Susan was frightened by the idea that somebody may walk past inadvertently disrupting her need for solitude. After completing another full scan of her surroundings she wriggled her back to a comfy pose and wrapped her arms around herself. The tips of her fingers reached around to the curve of her spine and played with opposing fingers from the other hand that did the same. Squeezing her arms into her meat she pushed all the air out of her lungs as she tightened her hug to a constricting strength. Her ribs cracked and heaved with pressure under the force of her amending arms. Her skeleton collapsed under the weight and soothed into an amalgamated mess of bloody guts. Slush bucket of bleeding red and ticklish purple, all held in by her rain coat.

Maybe it was the pressure from her own hug, or the heat that stung her cheeks, but she felt calm, empty and ignorant to any external harm. Her thoughts found it difficult to find any ground to stand on, instead floating away on every breath that slipped out. Smiling and sharpening her cheeks with an old release she wiped away the wind that brushed against her lips. It was a strange joy that she hadn't felt before, one she was not willing to share with any other living sole.

Susan rested her broken body up against the side of the elevator in her flat building. It was her rightful turn to rest her cheeks, her turn to calm down the sides of her faces that ached. It was a well-deserved healthy selfishness. With that she held her back straight and clung onto the half broken metal bar that circled the inside of the lift. She wasn't unknown to the feeling of needing the warmth of her bed, yet the desire had never felt so demanding.

The door opened. The hall to her flat was cracked into a series of bends and twerks of architectural design. Dragging her boots along the burnt brown carpet she entered into the hallway to her front door. Her spine jolted with instant fear that dove its nails into the skin of her neck.

A trail of dried up liquid shattered erratically along the carpet, leaving nothing but stained splashes of very heavy black. It looked as if the drink was pushing into the soggy floor. Susan began to imagine the drink dripping through to the bottom floor like acid. She tiptoed over the drink and few cans of beer that splashed along the brown carpet.

The place was silent and desperate for the usual clang of outside city noise. But the further Susan got to her front door the less she heard. Her front door was broken from the lock, cracked with something heavy and determined. The wood was violently torn from the door and left in spread splinters on the floor dancing their tiny shaking booty in the puddles of drink. Fear stabbed her spine erecting jabs of adrenaline for the next problem that seemed to frolic in the safety of her home. Whoever broke in seemed to be driven by drunken determination as if attempting to break into a century old ruin to uncover a dirt smothered artefact.

With a lack of nerves she touched the centre of the door and pushed it gently open. The place was untouched, clean from any violence, yet covered by the generic tips of thieves. It had that scent thieves leave behind, yet nothing was stolen. Perplexed by the situation she forced herself into her home. Susan stood heavy and confronted as she stared at the wet sack that rested his head on her couch. Mathew was sleeping on the couch, fully black jacketed, with wet hair dripping over his scalp. Her fear did not disappear.

He was perfectly huddled into a foetal position with his legs tucked up to his chest fast asleep. She was held by her own shock, assessing the trail of drink that ended at the foot of the couch with an empty whiskey bottle. Closed eyes and exhausted nostrils stopped him from picking up on anyone that broke into his slumber.

The stain that held its ground on the furniture ever since the existence of the couch had to share its company with Mathew. His face fitted precisely into the stained head shape on the couch cushion. It was a worn down stain made from years of abuse that reflected Mathew as he rested himself into the grasp of the cushions filth. His nose was pressed up against the brown stain, leaving only one path for oxygen to seep through. In order to breath he had suffocate his own lungs in dusty air. With all of the windows closed Susan felt it was the perfect time to rest her head. But with the whole front door broken in thing, and the fat fact that Mathew lay passed out on the couch, she felt the need to freshen her flat up a bit first. _Perhaps orange scented or just general fruit. Fuck ya that would smell good. Ya this place stinks, I'll definitely need to freshen this place up before I get some rest._

Closing the door she walked over to the kitchen and perused what metal features were on offer. Susan browsed the sparse catalogue of utensils. But she knew exactly what she was looking for. With her wrecked and shaking hand she picked up a recently cleaned chef's knife. Sharp and flat like a fin. Perfect for the meat that she needed to cut, fat mainly.

Grabbing a nice wooden armless chair she pulled over to Mathew making sure to not wake him. Poor lad needs his sleep like. Having pushed the coffee table away and pulled the chair up to face him she sat down relaxing her arse on the wood.

Mathew's coal black overcoat dripped over his hips dropping to the floor with loose ends. He was sharp to look at with his stubble clawing its way around his chin. Susan rested herself into the chair holding the kitchen knife with both hands between her thighs. She ran her eyes over him counting and collecting all the memories that he seemed to be a part of. Quite a few, considering the fact that most of them were laced with sweet pleasantries. Susan almost choked on the sweet taste that collapsed on her tongue. Nah, she was in the mood for something savoury.

He was still asleep, molesting his cute intakes of breath every couple of seconds. He couldn't help it no? It was his nature to breathe like a normal human being. Taught from the moment he fell his way into life.

Susan relaxed back into the chair, resting her spine, and holding the knife firmly with both hands. She held the metal between her thighs heating up the purple handle until it melted. The knife was at an erected angle to the sky as she held it. Perfect for the grasping natural that comes with strength. It was her gun, her tool to control, her depraved weapon wishing it were something a bit softer. Like a cushion. In that moment she pondered the idea of a knife wishing to be a cushion. Sitting quietly in her flat she farted out an unexpected laugh at the idea.

_Poor delusional knife_. She thought to herself. The damn thing is made out of metal. _There probably isn't a single person that would want to rest their head on a knife. Stupid dream, it's not like you are just going to turn into something softer the moment you wish for it._ She held the conversation in her head, diverting her attention from Mathew. The knife wept desperately into the cusp of Susan's caring thighs. Her laughing perspective of the idea had shifted to a hard angle of empathy. For that moment she felt sorry for the knife, for the empty chase that the metal found itself in, for the non-existent finish line that dangled its reward for winning an infinite race. Susan couldn't help but see her own depraved reflection in the sheen metal of the knife. The only thing she wanted more than the comfort of her own pillow was to see her mother through her own memories rather than those of Kevin. But like the knife she knew it was a futile race that surely ended at the edge of a cliff. She couldn't help but feel like a depraved puppy chasing its own tail.

Having snapped back into the reality of the situation she faced Mathew straight on. He, oblivious and asleep to what he wanted, to what he broke in for, and Susan tired from consuming the wealth of information that was shovelled down her gullet over the past few weeks. She held her knife tightly in her right and woke him up with her left hand. "Hey." Susan said as he broke his eyes open from his slumber. He was still yet jolted to the realisation of existence on top of the stained couch. He was frozen and unable to hold what he demanded so hardly for, spilling words out of his mouth through mumbled tongue shifts. Susan dug her eyes directly into his pupils and said the strongest words that had ever slipped out of her lips. "Leave...now."
