The Burning

The burning. The burning. Something glass shattered. It woke her up sometimes. Trapped in that doorway again. Pinned to the floor again. The smoke filling her lungs again. The fire getting closer again. She would cough herself awake and start patting herself down. Sometimes her paper flesh would tear against the sheets, spattering blood against 1500 threads. Mike would roll over on her and press his weight against her little frame and tell her it was okay, it’s okay, honey. Everything is just fine. Mike. Thank God for Mike.

He had been in combat. E7, so he had endured his own great deal of horrors. He had seen burns before, admittedly none as bad as hers, and he was so good with her. He held her as tenderly as he did before she had been turned into the thing she was. He still looked at her sexually and made it with her. More so than before the accident, even. He was a sweet and strategic man. She knew it was probably to help her vanity and morale, but still. It couldn’t have been easy for him and she always felt guilty during it. She was a pity fuck, and he was stuck riding it out.

She wished she had died in that fire. At least for his sake. He was an absurdly handsome man. Perfect teeth. Full head of hair. The body of an olympic swimmer. He was born indefectible and the only blemishes he owned were a smattering of shrapnel scars he wore across his thighs. He said in a way, he knew how she felt because he was scarred too. He had treated his friends for life changing wounds, and wounds that never got the chance to heal. He had said the men who were disfigured in battle were more beautiful now than when they were birthed. He said it often. Looking off in the room, as if his memories were being projected. So beautiful, he would say under his breath.

During sex, which he initiated at least once a day, he would run his hands over her thick corded webbing. The arm she couldn’t raise all the way, he would press into the bed, and the other one over her head, locking fingers. He would run his tongue over what lip she had left and then gingerly into the small space of mouth. He never broke character but she knew it had to be an act. Some sort of moral theatre. Martyring himself for the monster, never showing his hidden disgust. He could win an Oscar, she thought, but if he did that he would leave for sure. Can you imagine? A leading man walking beside a ground up mix of sinew and muscle and melted flesh on the red carpet? The ridicule. Or the praise. She couldn’t decide which would have been worse.

Even now, she didn’t know what she was going to do. She had gotten the call. It had taken her breath away, not that it was a hard thing to accomplish, the way her lungs were. She wasn’t shocked. How could she have been? She couldn’t even be mad. It was simply… just a matter of time. When she set the phone back on the receiver she felt an overwhelming sense of “finally.” Finally, Finally, finally, the charade was over. No more facade. No more guilt. She could now go find a lighthouse to lock herself up in.

She walked down the main hallway of their home, a beautiful house, a big house, filled with furniture and decor, hallways and counters without pictures, and a large pool, all of which had been paid for from his work overseas as a contractor. He had built a good life for them. Shit, even if the phone call is true, which how could it not be, he might even deserve it. Yes. He does. He does deserve it. The phone rang again, this time she answered in the kitchen. She grabbed a pen and the corner of a cable bill and wrote down an address. She did not say goodbye, she had already paid the man.

She looked at the master closet full of designer clothes. Dresses that had cost more than the car she drove in college. She had found if you were dressed in gold, people had a way of staring at you that was better. Most of the time, trying to avoid it at all costs. A monster is still a monster if she was done up to the nines, but it at least kept most people from the gasp. She grabbed the medium length blonde wig from the ball it was sitting on and placed it over her head. She put on Mike’s favorite outfit of hers, a black Galliano, and red lipstick around the half-crescent lip. She felt like a novelty blow up doll. The sort you would find at some fucked up kink store. She felt wrong, and right about it.

The address was only eleven minutes from their house and she found it easily. His truck was parked in the driveway, looking ridiculous compared to the other vehicles on the street. It was lifted at least a foot higher. Painted like the American flag with stacks sticking out from the bed like guns on a warship, which is what he called it. When traffic lights changed from red to green, black smoke would blow out of them and coat anyone within a four car radius. It was embarrassing and she always used to duck down in her seat, somehow farther than she already did, and he would hoot and holler and laugh, starred and striped titanium testicles swinging beneath the trailer hitch. She parked politely behind it.

In front of Mike's truck in the open garage was a bubblegum pink convertible with the top down. She leaned over it and looked in the backseat. There was a small guitar with flowers painted on it. There was a flower air freshener hanging from the mirror and a flower steering wheel cover. All pink. She walked up the garage step and jiggled the door handle. It was unlocked and she shut it behind her quietly.

There was the hanging weight of passion and the muffled sound of slapping skin from somewhere near the front of the house. She followed it. She hugged the corners and peered around them. The woman’s moaning was filled with life and was edging towards orgasm. The man was almost as loud, which was saying something. She had never known Mike to make

noise. There was a gap of light beyond the hallway. She leaned over the kitchen table, remaining hidden.

The glass of the walk in shower was fogged from the hot water. Steam raised over the top of it and billowed across the ceiling. Two shapes were joined together. The bigger shape was working hard from the back and running its arms over the smaller one’s hips and chest. The small pink one kept turning its head and looking back. Its moans were sure and vulgar and filled with guttural laughter.

She listened to the unmistakable spit-breathing of her husband. She watched them and placed her own hand between her legs. Her thighs were warm and she felt damp and full of heat and completely alone. In the shower his ass was pressed against the glass and her toes made marks on each side of him. Five on one side, two on the other, then three on the other, then two. Never more than three. It became more laborious. They worked together slowly and deliberately with each groove. He made a sound like a dying bull and it was finished.

The shower turned off and they talked and giggled and she was glad she couldn’t make out the words. The door opened and Mike stepped out of the pod. The water streamed from his muscles and his hair lay flat against his head. He began to dry off and tossed a fresh towel into the shower. She could no longer see her husband but she watched the blurry little pink shape

cover different parts of itself with the little pink towel.

The towel was draped over the top of the glass and the shape limped towards the opening. Taking a crooked step and then another. It reached out a foot. Then the calf and thigh. Everything in her stomach began to work its way up. She began to get hot and the room swelled. She was weak in her knees. The mistress was in complete view. The back of her head and her shoulders and her ass and her slender legs facing the wife. She looked at the naked body and began to hyperventilate. She stared and stared at the woman’s own corded webbing. The last thing she thought before she passed out was the burning. The burning. The burning. Burn. Something glass shattered.

By Eddie Black