By Michael Tyler
I'm lying on a firm double mattress, on dull white sheets, a dark green patterned duvet pulled to my waist. It is three in the morning, I have not slept, and as she lays there beside me I stroke her neck, believe I see a welcoming smile, I fancy she is willing me to murder.
#
Five months earlier;
we both attend a film festival popular with people in search of empty seats in darkened rooms.
She sits three seats down and two across and as she removes her jacket I spy on her shoulder a tattoo.
“Lucifer?”
She turns and grins ... nothing friendly, something mechanical, as if to grin at a stranger's voice is preconceived.
A noticeable pause, and then
“I prefer Bealzabub.”
I have nothing more. I almost lose all and the fear comes over me as I silently twist, but she rescues me with a smile, an 'honest to God' smile. She turns to the screen as the curtains part.
We sit silent throughout. We sit in our own seats in our own rows but as we leave we turn down the same corridor, make way down the same stairs to sit at the same bright orange booth.
I order fries and a hotdog and she mentions Freud, I reply 'Pavlov' and she fires back 'ding ding' and I am forever one step behind although she will rarely let on.
#
Simply a kiss, a closed lip kiss that surprises me one morning.
A closed lipped 'out the door' kiss that speaks of intimacy, of 'I need you' or - perhaps more frightening - 'you need me too'.
#
She lies next to me, the mattress shifts, her face on my shoulder, her hair in my mouth, I flick it away.
I lean and plant a kiss, a wet sloppy kiss she'll be sure to wipe.
She scrunches her face and with eyes closed whispers "You know what they say hun" - god I love it when she calls me hun - “when you dance with the devil ...” she giggles and squeezes my hand.
I know the rest, when you dance with the devil you wait for the song to stop.
- - -
Michael Tyler writes from a shack on a cliff overlooking the ocean just south of the edge of the world. Michael has been fortunate enough to have been published in several literary magazines and continues to plan for a short story collection to be published some time before the Andromeda Galaxy collides with ours and the lights go out for good ...
