The Black Jasmine

(Inspired by the Ed Gein case)

I must not look at her. I do not want to. Better to say I do not want to look at her.
No, better still: I have no desire to look at her.

My hands are in my pockets, my coat long and vampiric. With the fingers of my left hand I crush the hardness between my legs; with my right, I wash the rain from the back of my neck.
I went out because I missed it. I was not looking for anyone, but when the scent of jasmine seeps into my nostrils, my eyes follow her.

Her shoulders are magnets, moving slowly beneath the skin, and the muscles in my arm tense—hard, determined to tear it from her, curious to caress the bones, the collagen still irrigated by the life that throbs and grows.

She laughed.
Someone is with her, but I see only shadows: blurred photographs of faceless people, drowned in colour and water.
She, instead, is sharp. So clear I could scratch at each pore, blond and purple, healthy and infected. Her hair is a veil falling heavily between her shoulder blades. It is wet, stuck to damp skin.

I walk and realise I am a tongue-tip away from her neck.
She turns.
She has seen me: every part of her face is smiling except her lips.
Her pupils race along my body while my gaze stays fixed on her neck: she scratches a vein with a blue-stained index finger.
I breathe. She holds her breath. I can see it: her chest still, her shoulders low.

Her eyes have changed expression; her brows dress themselves in confusion and concern. The wet down has made a perfect slide from each brow’s tail to its tip, like two corroded pinball flippers.
She stops, legs crossed: she has reached her destination.

I pass her. I walk away.

And now I see her inside my head, still wet, stripped to the bone, immersed in blood, her hanging skin weeping sweat. Her gentle mouth, freed from her face, sewn onto a pillow of jasmine, just like Mum.