In my twenties, single. Filthy and tatted up.
Writer, Buddhist, boozer. Posting things I like to look at including but not limited to: alternative fashion, tattoos, naked bodies and SEX, hot men in suits, gifs from my favorite movies/shows, anything Angelina Jolie, and tidbits from my Instagram/everyday life.
Johnny Depp and Winona Ryder shot by Herb Ritts for Edward Scissorhands, 1990
(Source: salveo, via winonaryders)
Insomniac. Work in progress. I love doing it so far. This is the entirety of the sixth chapter, “Butterfly.” Obviously you have no idea what’s going on but tell me, does it make you want to read more? Coz thats the point.
Rosalie can’t sleep, like always. The alcohol weighs on her, making her head swimmy, so she sits on the hotel balcony and watches another sunrise. Alexei retreated into the bathroom an hour ago and still hasn’t come out. It’s been three hours since the fiery denouement of the party and all she can think about is Nicholas James’ tongue wrapped around her tongue, his hand in her underwear probing… Waves of revulsion pulse through her body, cresting in overwhelming nausea. She gets up just in time to bend over the balcony and vomit uproariously into the bushes. It burns her nose and throat with the sting of liquor and champagne.
She’s still wearing that gorgeous dress. Her face is still smeared with ruined makeup. She’d taken off the jewelry long ago, giving it to Alexei to pocket. She’d retreated onto this balcony away from him and his discriminatory gaze.
“I can’t stand this anymore,” Rosalie whispers to herself, or perhaps to the lovely sun streaking the purple sky with orange. The fog around the great city is almost beautiful in the sunrise. She rinses her mouth with water and walks back into the room.
The bathroom door is unlocked surprisingly and the shower is running. Alexei’s back is to her and he is leaning with his palms pressed against the wall of the shower stall as the spray beats down on him.
“Alexei,” she says, raggedly. She hates the desperation in her voice immediately but there is no retracting it.
“Leave me,” he replies, though his body is motionless. His voice sounds dead.
“I can’t.” This is true. She feels so empty. She doesn’t know what she’s looking for; maybe just sleep, elusive rest that escapes her night after night.
“Leave me,” he repeats, more urgently this time, “now.”
She opens the glass shower door and steam furls out, revealing his massive naked body reddened by the hot shower stream and criss crossed with scars, puckered here and there by healed bullet wounds. He turns around, facing her fully naked and brazen, his eyes mean.
“I told you to leave me alone.”
“You need someone here with you, Alexei.”
“No, I do not. I need nothing.”
“Alexei-”
“Do not waste your words, girl. I need nothing. I feel nothing.”
“You are just a man,” Rosalie says, touching his chest, feeling the wet hair there. He meets her eyes and leans close.
“I am less than a man.”
“I don’t believe that.”
Rosalie climbs into the shower, fully dressed. The water is scathingly hot.
“Please get out,” Alexei hisses.
“I won’t.”
“Do not make me force you out.”
“Comfort me.”
“I cannot.”
“Hold me.”
“You stupid desperate girl-”
“I am!” she gasps, a sob finally escaping, “I am desperate! Please Alexei! I need this!” She laces her arms around him, presses against him, and begins to cry against his chest.
“You are weak!” he barks, but his arms go around her anyway and he pets her hair.
“Oh thank you,” she breathes, “Fuck, thank you.”
“This means nothing,” he responds.
“I know, I know.”
“I can never be anything to you. You understand that? Rosalie?”
She has no words. His hands around her, his body holding her up, everything, renders her speechless. The burn of makeup in her eyes and the hot water nearly scalding her skin is strangely satisfying. Pressing against him is an emotional pain that is also gratifying; the first man to ever worry over her, ever take care of her, is dead inside.
“I understand, Alexei.”
“You do not realize how hollow I am. How broken I am.”
“I know.” She pauses. “Please just be quiet.”
“Alright.”
They stand there for a long time, Alexei wrapped around Rosalie, with the water cascading down.
After Alexei leaves the shower, Rosalie can think of nothing better to do than to clean herself as thoroughly as possible, peeling herself out of the ruined silk dress and scrubbing her entire body with a washcloth and cheap hotel soap. She’s dealt with a lot of sleaze in her life; on private webcam chats she’s seen men jacking off as she flirts and teases them. One client ejaculated all over his laptop. Still, it was all so detached. There was a thick crystalline Internet wall between her and Them, a wall no one crossed. It was an entire different thing to use her sexuality to distract a sex trafficker while a Russian enigma deals death with his explosives. She feels utterly coated in filth.
“I am going out,” says Alexei thickly from the door as Rosalie dries off hurriedly.
“Why? Where are you going?”
“You need to work on your appearance. They will be looking for us.”
“Who?”
“The survivors of Nicholas James’ operation.”
“Okay…” Rosalie can only stare bleakly at Alexei, who is looking at the floor. Finally he meets her eyes. His remain dead even as he says stiffly, “I apologize.”
“I accept,” she replies, only because it seems to be the best thing to do.
“I will not make you do anything like that again,” he says, “that part of your life is over for now.”
“What part?”
“The part in which you use your body to manipulate people.”
It occurs to Rosalie to protest, but she finds it impossible to argue against the truth, as deeply cutting as it is.
“I hope it’s over,” she admits in a whisper.
“Hopefully by the end of this you will be a rich woman.”
“What do you mean?”
“I need to go. Work on your appearance please, Rosalie.”
He turns on his heel and goes, a mountain moving in an expensive suit.
Rosalie pulls on underwear and then gathers the hair dye, the scissors, and all the makeup into a pile. She sits on the bed for awhile with everything spread in front of her, thinking, facing the large mirror above the dresser. Finally, she gathers her long hair into a ponytail, takes up the scissors, and brutally hacks it off.
Thirty minutes later her fine dusting of freckles are covered by makeup, a small mole is penciled on above her lip, and her hair is barely chin length and colored a glossy black. It is stark and dramatic around her face, making her eyes and lips look huge. She also looks several years younger. It is amazing, how transformed she feels. How much safer, with a stronger looking facade to hide behind now. Feeling just a little pleased, she dresses herself in black jeans that are just a touch too big and a sleeveless black blouse and lays down to wait for the Russian.
She hovers in her subconscious, caught between that moment right after the “falling” feeling and before true sleep. Again Bradley is there, standing naked with his back to her, in the middle of an all white room. His palms are facing her; they’re red with blood. Suddenly a blade skewers him, the metal tip of it penetrating him all the way through, and he crumples to the ground to reveal his assailant. There stands Alexei, mostly nude save for several bands of fabric wrapped around his groin. Bloody handprints mark his chest.
Alexei reaches down and removes his sword from Bradley’s body. Rosalie is captured by the sight of her ex fiancee’s dead eyes, gazing up at the ceiling of this mysterious blank room.
“Bradley…” she whispers, unsure how to feel. Her eyes meet Alexei’s. Here, rather than being dead and emotionless, they are full of confidence and wisdom.
“Where are we?” she asks. She runs her hands over her body nervously and sees that she is nearly naked too, everything private covered by the same fabric Alexei is wearing.
“We are inside,” Alexei responds, testing the weight of his fine sword in his hand.
“Inside where?”
“Inside of you.” He wipes some blood from the sword onto his fingers and comes closer to Rosalie, his hand extended towards her lips.
“Taste it,” he says, his expression now unreadable.
“No-” she begins to protest, backing away. He follows her, slowly.
“Taste it, Rosalie. Taste your absolution.”
Her mouth feels dry, her throat, thirsty. She leans forward and licks the Russian’s finger clean. The blood is sweet.
