THE ROMANCE OF PAIN

“You know something you little prick,” he spat on me, though I barely registered it, “I’d love you see you recognize yourself in the mirror tomorrow morning!” His henchmen laughed out at that, one of them taunted me some more. Then I felt him come closer to me, pull my hair and hold my face up to look straight into my eyes.

“You really chose the wrong guy to mess with, the worst in fact.” He let go of my head, and took a step back, and I knew what was coming next – I just didn’t know where. I almost heard his arm whip across the air as it came and slammed into my eye. Everything went blank and dark, and all I could see was stars-

-stars, tiny shining by the million in the dark night sky. And her eyes, two diamonds with intensity to blot them all out, and for a long time, they were all I could see. She smiled, and raised her eyebrows, as if to say ‘What are you looking at?’, and I smiled back, shook my head, and finally managed to look away.

‘You see that?’ I said, pointing to a bright star in the distance, ‘I’m going to get it named after you. You can register these things these days.’

‘Oh, that? Why a star? Why not something I can actually reach out and touch?’ she said, resting her hand on my shoulder.

‘You know, if your hand went down lower, I’m sure we can find a suitable replacement.’ I smiled a mischievous smile, as she realized the implications. And she laughed in shock and surprise; she chided me, and shook me-

-shook me awake, back on to the dark alley, where his henchmen were holding my arms up, waiting for him to launch at me again.

“Tut tut, don’t you dare faint on me lover boy, not yet at least - there isn’t enough of your blood on the floor yet!”  One henchman snorted, I heard cracks as another flexed his muscles. There was no other sound from the alley.

“I hope you realize why I’m pulping you. It would be such a shame if you didn’t know. Truth be told, you’re lousy. Really lousy, and I don’t like lousy people, I really feel like hurting them. But you know what, all this showbiz tonight is not for your lousiness, it’s because I’ve decided I no longer like your face, and I think I’m going to set it right. Here’s how!”

This time it came round, his fist right at my temple, and my ears rang-

-my ears rang with her laughter, she could barely hold her glass, and I was too entranced by her face to notice much beyond. Why weren’t there more people like her, I caught myself thinking, why were the perfect ones always taken?

“Wait wait wait!” She somehow managed to say, gasping for breath. “There’s a flaw in your theory – New York Taxis couldn’t have been designed after giraffes, if anything, giraffes should inspire cranes. I think taxis were inspired by zebras.”

“In that case, the zebra would have to have jaundice or something like that, you can’t explain the yellow otherwise.” That was just too bad, I thought to myself a moment too late, after it had been said. And she just stared at me, for a good long moment, before she laughed out again. What the hell, I thought, thank god for the alcohol. She laughed, repeating ‘Jaundice’ to herself over and over, slapping the table top, and spilling her drink in the process. Seeing her glass about to fall, I stretched forward-

- stretched forward, the boot in my gut jolting me, making me cough.

“Now look here prick, this will not do. You ditching me like that, it doesn’t work, it only makes me angrier. Listen to me, and don’t faint. I hate it when I’m talking and people want to doze off. You hear me? Just focus, and let me talk. Now, where was I?” He turned to one of his men, this one was swinging a chain menacingly, but he’d been at it the entire time, and it wasn’t that threatening anymore, it was almost monotonous.

“You were saying something about stealing.” The henchman reminded him.

“Ah yes, like I was saying. Stealing is bad. Everyone said it, right from Moses to Sarbanes and Oxley. So when you stole from me, you should have thought a little bit about it. If you had, you would have guessed that I wouldn’t be too happy about it. Especially stealing a person, my person.” His emphasis on ‘My’ was spine chilling.

“So here’s your punishment. For stealing, and for coveting your neighbour’s wife.” He took the chain from his henchman’s hand, and swung it right at me.

My skin split in many places, my mouth filled with blood, and my tongue tasted-

-tasted like an exquisite wine, mysteriously warm yet playfully cool. I opened my eyes to see her smiling, looking at me for a response of some sort.

“Well, how was it?”

“I don’t know.”

“You don’t know? What’s that supposed to mean? Was it good, not good, bad, or different? What was it?"

“What lipstick are you wearing?”

She cocked her eyebrow up. “You’re thinking about my lipstick? Really? You know what, you can get lost. I’m leaving.”

She turned, and all I did was catch her and kiss her again, the same way. And she kissed me back, and I smiled.

It was like a sense of warmth filling me up-

­

-filling me up, my lungs burning, my head spinning. I heard someone shout “There’s blood in his lungs, he’s drowning-

-drowning in your love. I mean it, it’s so much more than just falling-

-falling on to the road, as my legs gave way, and the henchmen released me, my arms thrashing-

-arms thrashing all about, trying to find her from behind the blindfold. She would tease me, come touch my arm and move away silently, and I’d turn and search and feel nothing-

- feel nothing, sense nothing but a deep numbness. The pain in my lungs was receding, as was my breath.

There was a cough.

There was a smile.

And there was silence.