Curare

“Do you know what curare is?” she asked that rainy morning, snuggling up to me with her warm body. I shook my head not even bothering to think about what it could be. I hit the cigarette against the ashtray before putting it back into my mouth.

“It’s a poison,” she explained with a charming smile, happily spinning a small vial between her fingers. The vial whirled like a tiny silver top. “It makes your muscles lose their will to live. You start to choke, and however you try, you can’t inhale. It renders you breathless. Do you know what that feels like?”

“I think so,” I replied, kissing her head gently, my lips brushing against the hair she could just as well not have. It smelled of vitamins and cigarette smoke.

“And then you lose your will to live, too. And then you fall asleep, slowly, and you never wake up. What do you think about it?”

She raised her brown, puppy, still lively eyes at me and smiled. The corners of her pale lips were stained with a bit of dried blood. God, she was so beautiful.

“I think it’s dreadful.” I turned my imagination on. “You just lie there, gasping, like a fish out of the water.”

She didn’t reply. The vial in her fingers whirled ceaselessly.

I took one last smoke and pushed the f*g into the ashtray. The night stand was already stained by a lot of dark traces left after unwiped ash and those few night when, falling asleep, mindlessly and blindly I put a still lit cigarette away. She didn’t mind. She brushed her cheek against my rough beard. The cheek caved in a little.

I pulled her closer, letting myself fall down in the sheets. She nestled her bare chest into me and I ran my hand down her beautiful waist and her full hips, and her soft thighs, and… Pulling up her chin, I dug into her lips. They tasted of vitamins and cigarette smoke.

Yesterday, when she had finished with her evening drip, we made love. She screamed so loud her lungs barely held together, pushed against me so strongly her frail arms barely held on; her lips got red for the first time in many months. And I thrust into her, time after another, incessantly, and when the tide came, I looked at her face frozen in the bliss, at her - and she rendered me breathless. She was beautiful. She was so beautiful. More intoxicating that morphine, more addictive than nicotine. She took my breath away. Like… curare.

Remembering those moments, I fell asleep with her hot body pressed hard to mine. Little did I know, when I’d wake up an hour later, she’d be lying next to me " still beautiful, even with her pale skin, frail arms and a frozen face. She’d have her bloody lips open like a fish out of the water, the vial would still be locked between her fingers, and the air would smell of vitamins and cigarette smoke.