can you hear the sound of the crawling flesh?
now can you smell the burning desire?
this place is too small to hide
all the ghosts that's kicking around inside
- deer tick
now can you smell the burning desire?
this place is too small to hide
all the ghosts that's kicking around inside
- deer tick
11th of Winter, 513AV
Pink scab peeled. Tiny drops welled from it, slid down under his chin.
Seju cradled a clay jug, squinted across the square chamber. Plaster was cracked just under the rafters. There was a carved screen with a skimpy robe flung over it. Oil lamps quivered. Piled cushions smelled of sex. They were kind of itchy as well, with the touch of other men. There was a piece of mirror, but he didn't want to look.
His fingers were sticky with dried blood.
“Seju...”
That was her again. There was a jolt of anger in him, and he yanked the jug to his lips. Tried to suck down the vinegary red, but his belly rebelled and he had to spit it out. That just made him grimace. Then grab at his cracked rib.
“Seju...”
“Yeah?”
Yida looked at him, with her painted face and that thin robe hanging off one skinny shoulder. “I don't see why you do it,” she bit her lip. They'd laughed together before, but now she was a tart. Seju rubbed his fingers together, took a shallow breath. The cushions seemed to yank at him. There'd be no avoiding her. Yida's violet eyes raked accusingly over his gashes. Seju hated her for it.
“Do what?”
“The way you're carrying on,” Yida spoke slowly. “The rumors. They're all you seem to think about, and just look at you. They nearly got you killed.”
“Yida...”
“This isn't like you,” Yida looked away. There she went again, stirring up the ghosts. The violet-eyed boy who'd left on a saique, never to return, and that other boy who'd come back gibbering.
“Don't tell me that,” Seju croaked, “D'you think I don't already know your meaning?” His knuckles grew white on the jug's handle, until he set it aside for fear of cracking it. He glared at her heatedly. Alabaster skin, with a few blue smudges on it. Jet curls that spilled down her spine. Yellow silk clung to soft swells.
And it was all gnawing away at him.
Yida kneeled by him. Anger in her gaze. Anger in her whisper. “I want you to promise me,” she gently pressed a palm against his leg, “that you'll cease this madness.” There was honey on her breath.
Seju clasped at her hand. Pinioned the warmth to him, as if it mattered. “I can't do that,” he sighed. “I just can't.”
“You won't do it for me?”
Yida was there, and she was trembling. Seju brushed his thumb across her jaw. Lightly slipped it down her arm, inadvertently tugging at her robe. He wanted her. Her face was close now. Her lips were parted.
But he couldn't have her, because he was all softness and shame, could never truly have her. He wasn't a man where it mattered. (1)
Seju skewed his jaw away from her. “Don't try to fix me,” he muttered. “Just don't.” And he stared at the cracks in the plaster. After the door slammed and the lamps went out, he kept staring at them.
(1) :
