The Weeping Blossom
By Bryan Harrison
“I desire not
to disgrace the soul. The fact that I am here certainly shows me that the soul
had need of an organ here. Shall I not assume the post?”
Emerson, "Spiritual Laws"
Din glanced over his shoulder to see if he was being
watched. He was alone. He waited until he was pretty sure that no one would see
him and then slipped quickly into the entrance of the club. The air, so humid
that it clung to his skin like sweat, was alive with the scents of sexual
commerce, the heavy jaundiced aroma of poppers and the acrid sweet tang of body
lubricants. The walls shook with booming bass, subsonic tones that humped from
the depths of the place as if some frenzied beast was rutting against the soul
of the building.
He slipped off his jacket, pressed his glasses up on his
nose and pretended to be absorbed in the video racks that lined the walls.
“Wazzup, Din?” a big, bearded man blurted as he dashed from
behind the register and onto the floor, where he quickly tossed some new
magazines onto the rack and slipped back behind the counter.
“Hey,
Tiny,” Din tried to keep the big man’s gaze but as always he looked away,
letting his eyes wander over the magazine rack. Real Teens and Hot Mama’s,
anemic looking women with unnaturally large protuberances on their chests and
even larger ones behind, rolled their tongues over glossy lips and invited
horny patrons to view any of their various gaping orifices.
“Din?”
Din gathered his nerve, adjusted his glasses again and
looked up into Tiny’s eyes. The man was glaring, pointing ‘The Finger’ in Din’s
face. Din knew ‘The Finger’. It was the last chance finger. He smiled as
innocently as was possible in this place and awaited the man’s judgment.
“I’m
gonna let you in this time, Din, but only ‘cause it’s slow. If I get one more
fuckin’ complaint, I swear dude, one more, and you’re gone for good. You could
be the last stroker on the fuckin’ planet and you won’t get back into…”
Tiny’s cell phone interrupted his speech with a sudden
squeaky rendition of Dixie. The man squinted a steely-eyed reminder to
Din and pulled the phone from his pocket.
“Yeah? Hey, dude! Wazzup? I was just gonna call. Umm hmm…”
As he spoke Tiny flicked his head towards the back room entrance and Din raced
through the thick doors that led into the bowels of the club. He paced outside
his favorite cubical until the one inside finished his business and erupted
quickly, fixing Din with an impatient scowl before he fled, covering his face
by faking a cough into the arm of his jacket.
Din didn’t care what the guy was trying to hide. He slipped
into the cubical and bolted the door shut behind. He checked his watch and then
sat quietly in the dark, listening to the humping bass and the click and slide
of heels on the dance floor beyond the dark partition.
She
was going to be on soon.
Din knew She wasn’t the one that had complained. It
must have been one of those other ‘bitches’. He shuddered as he thought this
and glanced warily over his shoulder, as if expecting a slap from an invisible
specter. He was a bad man sometimes and he knew he shouldn’t think such things
about women. He’d never use the “b” word out loud, lord no, but inside his head
he guessed it was safe enough. And anyway, they deserved it. He knew they
didn’t like him because he never asked for a private with them, only her. Even
if she had never given him one, he knew it made the others jealous. He saw the
way they glared at him while he sat in the cubical waiting for her to dance.
He checked his watch again and his breath caught, causing
his glasses to fall back down his nose. Almost eight. She would be on soon.
He’d know her music. “Like A Virgin”. It would start and she’d move into
the arena to dance for him, her long red curls dancing over her face, framing
her pout in flaming strands, her black embroidered tights wrapped tightly
around the perfect contours of her body, revealing every enticing crevasse even
before she slid out of it and crouched low before his cubicle, grinding her
hips to the music as he worked himself towards that moment of truth, put his
hand in his pocket to stroke…
“Din!”
Din almost fell from his chair at the sound of Tiny’s voice
outside the cubical.
“This is a business, asshole! Last warning!”
Din quickly slipped a few bucks into the receptacle and the
wooden slide that obscured his view to the dance floor opened with a loud snap.
He heard Tiny’s footsteps moving away and saw light flash under the door as the
man retreated to the main room.
Din looked up to see Gigi gyrating her thin body to the
engorged beat. He snorted and looked away when the thin blonde noticed him and
rolled her eyes. She turned her nude body gracefully, crouched in front of the
man at the other side of the floor and rolled her hands over her hips, flipping
her middle fingers at Din in the process. She stood again and shuffled to
another window, crouching to display herself to the man in the cubical. Din
knew the stroker would probably finish himself off at the sight. Only freaks
that liked little girls wanted to look at her tiny tits. He held his hands to
the window and raised his fingers to return Gigi’s gesture.
“Crackhead.” He whispered, mouthing the word clearly so she
could read his lips. Then he quickly glanced over his shoulder to see if anyone
had heard.
He shuddered. He knew he was a bad man sometimes and that
he should not say such things about women. He pressed back into his chair, into
the darkness of the cubical so Gigi could not see him pout. He folded his arms
and waited.
Soon she would be on the floor. He had enough money to wait
out Gigi and even another dancer if he had to. He could tolerate their rolling
eyes and the masked gestures they made at his cubical. But as it turned out he
didn’t have to.
Gigi’s music stopped suddenly
and she flashed the men one last peek before giving Din a different parting
gesture. He was too excited to return it. She made her exit then, strutting
from the stage through the thick black curtain. Just as quickly the hopping
Madonna dance mix burst from the speakers. Din sat upright, pushed his glasses
up and smoothed his hair. He had to look his best.
Tiny’s voice boomed from the
speakers. “Gentlemen, please welcome to the stage, the voluptuous, tantalizing,
Blossom!”
The music swelled. Blossom
burst from behind the black curtain and strode into the room. She was clad in
her red jumpsuit. The velveteen material gleamed at the curves of her body,
accentuating her smooth muscularity. She stepped quickly, gracefully onto the
stage and executed a fast pirouette, timing her spin so that she stopped on a
downbeat, catching herself on the pole that rose up the center of the floor.
She froze her body, let her head roll, flailing her fiery hair in a great arc,
and locked a pose, hips thrust forward, legs spread and bowed as if she was
about to mount the entire room. It was a perfect entrance. Din almost wept. She
was too good for this place… too good for him.
She didn’t look at him,
didn’t acknowledge his sweated brow, his enraptured gaze as he stared agape at
her, frozen at the sight of her, silently mouthing her name as she flipped
another turn and bent forward, thrusting her rear at the man in the cubicle
next to him.
“Bad.” Din whispered as
Blossom pressed her torso against the post and flexed her hips in a lewd
simulation of ‘the act’. “Bad.” He repeated to no one as she contracted and
rolled her tongue over her perfect lips.
He uttered a sharp, painful
sigh when she fell, suddenly, to the floor and tore at the sleeve of her
jumpsuit, yanking it down to expose her flesh, revealing the naked petals
tattooed on her arm, the sign that had let him know she was the one. The blood
red petals of the blossom were inked as thick as a dripping wound, its petals
parted and full, inviting.
“Bad, bad, bad.” Din
repeated, mantra-like, hands pressed against his cheeks, as if in shock, eyes
brimming with tears that he could not let fall lest she see and know his heart.
She twisted into a back flip
and landed, fanned her legs to her sides and pressed her body flat between
them. Then she pressed her thighs together so she was prone and rolled across
the floor. When she stood again the jump suit was at her waist. Her breasts
hung full, heavy on her chest, swaying in time with the thrusts of her hips as
she walked towards the window of his cubical, not looking at him, her eyes
staring out above them all, brow glistening with the sweat of her exertion. She
was not here in this place; Din knew that, she had left into the music,
departed to some other region where the smut stench of the real world would
never touch her. She despised them, him in particular. And it was good.
“Bad!” Din blurted, almost
shouted, and then shuddered, glancing over his shoulder to see if anyone had
heard. But he was alone. He had always been alone, surrounded by the music that
obscured his cries, and the flexing, gyrating girl beyond the glass, the
unattainable flower, unfolding before him, ignoring his tears in her lurid
glissade, slipping to the floor to open and press her savage red blossom
against the cubical glass as his tears fell into the darkness and his hands
left his face to press into his pockets and wrap around the handle of his
offering. He squeezed it tight; taking solace in its power, refuge in the
release it promised.
“I’m a bad man.” He moaned,
his voice trembling in pain and lust. “My love, my savior.” He cried as he
pulled on the handle working it carefully so she would not notice as he
unsheathed the blade, ran his fingers along the smooth cold steel, finding
strength in its singular purpose. He glanced over his shoulder, certain that
someone was watching.
He was alone.
_______
She was standing in the
cluster of laughing girls in the shadows at the back of the lot. He saw her
electric red hair bouncing with her laughter, her exposed throat when she threw
her head back to guffaw. She was in her black coat now, the one she always wore
when leaving, the one that hid the perfection of her body from the men who
tried to follow her into the parking lot. Men like Din.
The night breeze played in
Din’s hair and ran over his face, clearing the heat mist from his glasses. He
saw Tiny step from the back door and quickly scan the perimeter. Din pressed
back into the shadows by the dumpster and listened to Tiny chatting with the
girls. Din heard the man say his name, heard the round of laughter the mention
provoked. Then he heard the man go back into the club.
When Din peeked out from his
hiding place, she was hugging the other girls, their sighing ‘goodnights’
danced on the air like far-off music. Din stepped out of the shadows as she
started walking toward her car.
He knew where she parked. He
knew exactly how long it took her to walk across the lot. He had timed this
moment; his whole life had been building towards it. She did not notice his
approach. She, as he’d anticipated, opened the passenger door first, leaned
into the car to put her bag on the seat, pulled her CD faceplate from the
little compartment under the dashboard, stood to close the door and…
He was upon her.
She reared up quickly and
looked into his wet gaze. Finally. Her eyes widened and her mouth dropped into
a silent scream. He knew that, for the first time, she was truly seeing him. He
saw her seeing and cried out, realizing the perfection of the moment; that this
was the first time and the last time that she would know his heart.
There was no time for words.
He threw his coat to the
ground, swept the blade from under his belt and ripped into flesh, tearing
through sinew and bone, feeling the sharp impossible surge of pain and lust,
feeling the blood rush over his hands, hearing the scream that was torn from
his own chest as he wrenched the blade up his torso, his body convulsing with
the release, convulsing as he blossomed deep and red, blossomed for her, and
her alone, to see.
He didn’t fall, rather the
ground came up to greet him, to kiss him with a firm wet smack on his cheek,
and he felt the warmth of his blood against his face, tasted its hot salt on
his tongue, heard her screams fading as she fled, and voices raised in alarm,
echoing in the alley as he lingered in the wake of his offering.
He was a bad man sometimes.
He knew that. It would be better now.
He strained to glance over
his shoulder, once more before he departed, just to see if anyone was there.
But he was alone, weeping from the petals of his wound into the asphalt
indifference of the city.