Blood Doll (9)

            All is silent when I wake. Time seems to have both strayed and halted; I feel I am in a dreamless state in which the impulse to escape is obliterated. The heavy covers engulfing me have absorbed the heat released from my limbs. I am utterly comfortable. Somehow, though, I compel my eyelids open, sit up to take in my surroundings. Stark walls stare back at me, as does the door preventing my escape, distinguished like a burn against flawless skin.

            For a minute, my brain had successfully tricked me into believing I was not here.

The only movement audible to me is my own. No footsteps, no voices or other clamors sound. After a slight hesitation, I crawl to the foot of the bed. Mason is sprawled on his makeshift nest. A thin navy hued blanket covers half of his form. One hand rests on his stomach�"I watch as it languidly is raised and lowered with his breaths�"the other behind his head. His eyes, I notice belatedly, are open. They peer at me as mine do him; neither of us makes a move.

Slight anger pulsates at the sight of him. He who has managed to spark weighted resentment in my being in twelve hours, if that. A scowl grips my mouth. “It’s morning,” I remind him. “Let me go.”

As I feign indifference, I watch his eyes narrow. He sits up while running his hands through his disheveled hair, says, “Come here first.”

            Our expressions match. “No.”

            “Let me check your cuts, then you can go. I won’t stop you, even if you go to the police.”

            His compulsion urges me just shy of consent. “Why should I let you?”

            “I’ll tell you if you let me check them.”

            An excuse rises to the surface of my mind. I open my mouth before closing it just as quickly. “Do you promise to let me out right afterward?”

            Humor tinges his eyes, the corners of his mouth. His index finger draws an ‘X’ over his chest. “Cross my heart and hope to die.”

            Still, a moment passes where hesitancy gets the best of me. Then, breath held, I slip off the foot of the bed to land beside him. Nervousness forces my limbs to quake; I clench myself to conceal it. The bed touches my back, and I lean against it, rest my head on it.

            “Okay,” I assent. “Get it over with.”

            His hands are warm. They skim my stomach lightly, begin to peel each bandage from my flesh. The adhesives turn the places they had been slightly pink. Mason balls them up quickly, but I have already seen that the gauzes attached are heavily stained with dark brown now.

            Surrounded by the slight pink are the three slits. Each is no more than four inches long, but they are deep. Dried blood cakes itself to them, forms a miniscule outline of the marks.

            Unable to do otherwise, I stare at them, as does Mason. His thumb skims over the one on my hip. Imaginary pins prickle my skin, but I do not move.

            Mason heads into the bathroom, returns with a First-Aid Kit. “What did you use?” I inquire.

“A scalpel,” he replies. He kneels before me once more, extracts peroxide from the kit, splashes it on a white cloth. “Don’t worry. I made sure it was sterilized before I used it.”

Burning enwraps the slits as he dabs at them. My pulse pounds the heaviest where they are. Uncomfortable though it all is, it is easily ignored. “Then why are you cleaning…them?” Small dots of blood are absorbed into the cloth. Mason daubs lightly at the cuts; I am not certain as to why fresh blood rises sluggishly to the corner of one.

“I’m making sure I don’t get more than a few years in prison if you go to the cops and these are infected.”

Neither of us says a word as he gently applies new bandages. Once he has returned the First-Aid Kit, he unlocks the bedroom door and allows me to exit. From there, he hands me my boots. After a minute’s hesitancy, I sit on the couch to pull them on.

I do not object as Mason helps me shrug on my trench coat. My phone and wallet are nestled safely in my pockets when I shove my hands in them.

We exit the apartment building. Parked down the lot, in the very position it had been the night before, is my car. Though the scene is devoid of rows of vehicles and daylight has taken the place of night, I recognize this as the outside of Drac’s Lair. “You live here?”

“Yea. My apartment is right above the one where the party was.” Mason scans the lot. “Which is yours?”

Buttoning my coat to conceal the bandages, I make my way to my car. As expected, Mason follows me, even barefoot as he is. The car door opens a mere few inches before he gently pushes it closed, holds his hand against the frame to keep it shut. “Are you going to the police?”

Still facing the car, I admit, “I don’t know.”

It is not the answer he wants, nor the one he expects. He does not understand the conflict I am under. Yes, he has cut me and drunk my blood, but I had been set up; he had believed I was willing. My outrageous conniption due to this misunderstanding has left him to conclude I was on drugs, and rightly so.

Anyway, the way he had cleaned my wounds will not disappear from my mind.

“I won’t,” I finally say. “It was a misunderstanding,” I continue when he begins to speak. “Now, can I leave? My friend is likely wondering where I’ve been all night.”

Once his hand drops by his side, I slide into my car and drive away without looking back.

As I drive, I extract my phone from my pocket. Unsurprisingly, it has been overloaded with twenty-seven texts and four voicemails. All but one text is from Ang in various stages of mental-break-down-session, the one being my mother’s bidding me a good night. Ruefully, I smile at it. The voicemails, without checking, I know are Ang’s.

Despite the illegality of it, I send a quick text to Ang. Are you home? Need 2 talk 2 you.

Hardly three minutes pass before I receive a reply. Where the HELL r you? Meet me @ my house pronto.

Ang stands on her porch when I pull into her driveway. Narrowly, she misses my front bumper as she sprints around the car. Not allowing me a moment of peace, she rampages the moment my door opens.

“What the hell, Eve? Why haven’t you been answering my texts? I’ve been freaking out, for God’s sake. It’s, like, eight o’clock in the morning. You were supposed to be back by at latest two a.m. And you’re still in your party clothes. What happened?”

“Let’s go to your room. I’ll tell you then.”

“Okay. Be quite when we get inside, though. My parents aren’t up yet. Doubt they will be for another four hours if we don’t wake them up.”

Upstairs in Ang’s bathroom, I change into more comfortable clothes. Ang is perched on her bed, cuddling an angelic teddy bear. Only now do I realize how large the bags are under her eyes, how unkempt her curly-Q hair is. Though she has donned her pink pajamas, her bed looks desolate, not slept in.

“I’ve been so worried, girly,” she states the obvious. “Dude. You could’ve, like, been killed or raped or something. And you wouldn’t answer my calls or texts. I was about to call the police. Where were you?”

Her concern warms my heart. There is a reason we are best friends.

Even so, I am unsure she can handle everything that has happened with grace, or without calling the police.

“I’m so sorry, Ang. Everything was so haywire. I lost my phone at the party. This guy helped me look for it because I was kind of…drunk, but it took hours to find. And I’d drunk too much to drive, so I slept it off in my car. I know I should have called you or something. Can you forgive me?”

“Why didn’t you use someone else’s phone to tell me?”

Applying a crushed expression, I say, “I didn’t think of that.”

Flinging her arms around me, she states, “I’m gonna kill you if you ever scare me like that again, girly. In fact, next time you go to a party, I’m going too so nothing stupid happens to you. And you better bet your butt you owe me for making me freak out so bad. But I forgive you.

“So, it wasn’t a good party?” she inquires. “Where was it? Were there any cute guys? How were you able to drink? You don’t have a fake ID, do you? Tell me all about it.” We sprawl out on her bed, Ang bouncing like the mattress is a trampoline. I stare at the stark ceiling, pressing my hands to my stomach in order to prevent my shirt from riding up. Half of me ridiculously expects Ang to rip my top up, find the bandages, and demand to know what has truly gone on.

“It was okay, I guess,” I begin. “Not much happened. The music, in my opinion, was relatively appreciable. As for the guys…There were a few cute ones, though I’m not sure you would like their Goth-i-ness. Oh, and it’s a definite ‘no’ to the fake ID.” Smirking wryly, I say, “Your outfit choice was right on; I fit right in. There were actually people more underdressed that I was. So, despite losing my phone for hours, it went fairly well.” Now that the lie is accepted, it is much easier than expected to add to it. Only a small tightness in my chest reveals my hesitancy, my lack of want to continue this lie. It can unravel at any point, but it is safer than admitting the true proceedings of the night before.

“What about this guy that helped you look for your phone?” Ang, as always, focuses on the one thing I hope to overlook.

A millisecond is frantically taken to sort my thoughts. “Nothing much happened. He was nice enough to help me.”

“Eve, you idiot. Tell me about him. What happened? What did he look like? Did you get his number? Did he get yours?” Her eyebrows rise suggestively.

“No, Miss Kinky. I didn’t get his number, nor did he get mine. Nothing happened between us.”

“If a guy actually helps you look for your phone, he’s interested. Now tell me about him. Now. Before I throw a pillow at your face.”

“Okay, okay. He’s tall. A bit over six foot, maybe. Shoulder length black hair. Very pale. Not makeup induced; it looked natural. Hazel-ish eyes, I suppose….I don’t know!”

“Goth?” she supplies.

“Yes.”

“Skinny or fat?”

“Skinny.”

“Nerdy or Hot-Stuff?”

“Hot-Stuff.”

“Piercings and/or tattoos?”

“Ear piercings definitely, but I didn’t see any tattoos.”

“Age?”

“Nineteen at the youngest, twenty-two at the oldest.”

“Ooh! Name?”

Biding my time, I lick my dry lips. “Mason.”

“Last name?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Well, that’s no good. You can’t stalk with only a first name. Think you’ll ever see him again?”

Pondering that as I bite my lip, I say, “I don’t think so. I think it was more of a chance meeting.” In my mind, it is a debate as to whether I would want to see him again, given the chance. Many things have gone on to alert my wariness and fear.

            “Whatever,” Ang dismisses. “Maybe one day you’ll run into him again and introduce me. We surely hope so, don’t we?” Before I can reply, she jolts out of bed and yells, “I want pancakes! Let’s go see what we’ve got. What time are you leaving?” Despite that she sprints down the stairs and into her space-ship-kitchen, I take my time.

            “My parents want me home at twelve, then Wonderland scheduled me to work at two, so eleven thirty?” Ang grunts her assent as she voraciously stirs pancake batter. With her unique skill, she manages to make us an entire batch of chocolate chip pancakes in less than seven minutes.

            The fork I use for my pancakes rests oddly in my hand. More often than not, when I dine, I use chopsticks; American utensils are a rarity at my house. Even with my lack of experience with the silverware, my breakfast depletes almost as quickly as Ang’s.

            Afterward, the two of us watch a movie that burns the remainder of our time together. My feet drag as I repack my things, as I make my way to my ancient car. Stationed on her front porch, Ang waves me goodbye.