nekare

I managed to change the name of this in the last minute, but if I hadn't seen it, the judges of the contest would've gotten a file named 'Slutty McSlutty' 0_o God, I'm so lame. Also, the title sounds much, much better in Spanish for some strange reason.

Title Whisper In My Ear, Make Me Blush
Rating: R
Word Count: 1319
Author Notes: This is somewhat of a hasty translation of Murmúrame Al Oído, Hazme Sonrojar, so it's bound to have mistakes. Written for a short story contest held in my college. Feedback would be love, yes. :)

You feed off the moans, of the sound of your name sighed once and again with shaky voices, never the same ones, just like the hands that hold your hips or the mouths that stick to your skin. Nothing tastes better than a new conquest, a new flirtation that ends up in bed with the same ease that a pen falls to the ground when you let it drop from up above – it’s gravity, or inertia, who knows, but the discovery tastes sweet on your tongue and bitter the moment the novelty dies.

You’re never satisfied, no matter how much your blood runs through your veins salted with the adrenaline and the pheromones and those hormones that ask for more, more, more, just one more time, please?

You bite your nails while the sweat dries off on the back of the man in turn, as he watches you, half asleep, with half of his face buried on the pillow, but you can’t sleep after more than you can fly, and you simply sit in the only chair in the cheap motel room, the mere idea of going back into the sheets making you nauseous.

Didn’t you like it? he asks, that unknown person that means so little for you that he doesn’t even deserve a name, and you fake a smile and say Of course, how would I not like it, and he’s dumb enough to swallow the story, to smile at you and say When will I see you again? with his eyes half closed, and you can’t stop yourself, you laugh at him, closing your eyes, and when he finally goes to sleep you can mutter the You wish you can’t say to his face out of pity.

You open the door and you sit on the little step that goes to the floor, the bars of the balcony not letting you see the entire picture as you smoke silently with the door open, your nails painted red and your feet bare. You let the ash drop onto the motel’s sad rug, which doesn’t matter that much because who knows what other disgusting things have already been dropped on it anyway. The sky’s far too blue, as if defying the smog that advances merciless and the palms at the edge of the motel makes you imagine yourself in Miami, pink flamingoes and soft colors and smooth sand instead of the asphalt floor and the head filled with illusions.

You throw the cigarette out the balcony when you’re finished, you watch it as it falls in the dry leaves covered pool, next to something that looks like underwear. You enter the room again, but you just grab your things and get out, without even looking the man that lays sprawled on the bed, clutching at the dirty sheets in some kind of nervous tic.

The beige-colored leather of your car’s upholstery sticks to your back with the still humid sweat and the midday’s sunlight. The car is old, but not old enough to be considered vintage, and it just stays on the point of seeming to need a merciful death. There are thirteen cigarettes in your electric blue purse, which you stole from the man in the motel.

You like to think you left the empty packet for him to remember you by.

----

You move to the next man with the ease of an expert, a new bar because you have no interest whatsoever in finding a piece of your past, a tequila shot to warm yourself and then the drinks are on someone else's wallet while you laugh in all the right places without even listening to a word.

Your dress is blue; short, because you don’t beat around the bush, but your nails are still as red as they had been in the motel this morning, and the contrast is shocking with your dyed hair.

Someone murmurs silly nothings into your ear, moist breath that sounds like static, and someone else has his hand over your knee, massaging softly as you smile until it hurts. You follow one of them to the bathroom, you’re not sure which one of them, and you feel alive against then cubicle’s door, the little messages and the telephones numbers written on permanent black marker sticking to your skin.

You go home with temporary tattoos, alone, hugging yourself because there’s no one else to do it for you, lips pale pink again for all of the red stayed in another’s person’s neck.

You try watching TV, of having a spark of normaly, but you can’t focus in the images on the screen (the new 3000 vaccum cleaner, a magic juice maker machine; the news), and you go take a shower instead. You sit in a little corner of the shower stall, watching the wall as the water falls on you and takes the smell of conquest through the drain. You move your toes, your hair plastered to your face and practically not letting you see anything.

When you finally go to bed, two hours before you have to get up, your hands move on their own, as if trying to hold onto someone that isn’t there anymore.

---

You’re still alone as you wake up, as you take another shower and eat cereal way passed its expiring date with bags under your eyes.

You’re still alone as you go to work on your car that breaks down every five blocks, as you file yawning, as you have lunch in a gray cafeteria with its name half erased.

You’re still alone as you go back home, as you eat dinner with the TV on as background noise, as you lie on your bed and watch the ceiling and wish it’s weekend already, so you can wrap your arms around a new man’s neck, sigh against warm flesh and stop feeling alone all the fucking time.

(Even if it’s just for a moment.)

---

You fuck the copy guy on Wednesday, in the middle of the office and still half dressed, your stockings around your ankles and the photocopy machine digging into your back. The halogen light is bright enough for you to see every detail of the twenty-year-old boy you’re using, so you prefer to close your eyes, to concentrate on the texture of the skin underneath your hands instead of thinking of whom it belongs to.

You’re not innocent enough to think that it’s guilt. Mostly, you just don’t want to give yourself hope. According to your philosophy, things are useless after they’ve already been tried.

And deep down, you figure everyone thinks like you.

---

You keep the thousand and one souvenirs you’ve collected over the years in your closet, four cigarettes (you smoked the rest) from the man in the motel, a rusty key you found in the back pocket of the pants of the copy guy, a matchbox of a bar whose name has already left your head, an earring, an old t-shirt, a quarter of cheap perfume.

You might not remember faces, but you take a little bit of every man that goes through your life, a flash of color and scent more than memory – synesthesia in the practice.

You lock yourself in your closet every Saturday morning, still wearing your pajamas and with last night’s drinks feeling heavy on your head. The floor is cold, and you move your toes as if trying to have the less contact possible with the frozen tiles.

You put the new memorabilia on its place – a hotel pen – and you sit on your oldest coat, looking at the racks filled to the brim with stolen paraphernalia, with meetings in dark alleys and rented cars. You go through your favorites, try and remember the oldest ones, and you don’t come out until it’s time to add a new something to your collection.

In there, with your memories, you don’t feel so alone.