Release Her

The first cut is the deepest. So says Rod Stewart...but in my experience it's not the first. It's the third...fourth...fiftieth that's deeper.

I searched for the answer to my pains...my suffering, my misery. A disarming feeling I had that nothing felt right. That my mind could not focus. My heart felt empty and my sense of calm was a distant memory. That was until I accidentally—and I want to make that very clear from the outset, that I accidentally—caught the tip of my thumb with a rather bloodthirsty and angry serrated bread knife.

I've never seen bread change colour so quickly as the crimson drip drop dropped from my thumb onto the white bread. It was a bloomer. A bloody bloomer.

Seconds before the knife bit at my thumb I had been worrying again about Timothy or the rising cost of...well, fucking everything. Then I saw red, as my skin feathered away from the connective tissues of my thumb tip.

I just watched for a while. As the red made everything...different and better.

My white pants may have showed off my thick thighs well and my wide butt, but they were a bit dull. Suddenly covered in splatters, drippings and puddles of my blood they became almost sexy.

But then reality struck as calm tranquillity descended from the top of my head down through my body. All tension dissipated like I had actually been taken to a higher astral plane.

A shiver ran down my spine and I giggled a little.

The serenity, the surrender, the near enough fucking neo-nirvana that la petite mort gives is the only comparison I could draw.

I, Shan Draper, had achieved a superior high and simultaneous release from the pressure that had been building up in my life with a fucking bread knife.

Though not actually fucking it.

Though I wonder.

The next day in the office was a little awkward as Steve, my supervisor, and Maggie, my go-to for advice, made a lot of fuss and asked if I still had sensation in my thumb. I told Maggie I could show her after work if she liked and teased Steve that he'd never ever see us.

She gave her usual excuse. Married. Not gay. Fuck knows why she thinks anything like that is important.

I treated myself to a bubble bath that night.

I shaved my legs and then my pelvis. Though it was cut-free, I did find my intrusive mind being particularly mischievous and felt certain if I had caught the sensitive skin above my labia with the razor and blood had poured as easily as it did during my time of the month, I wouldn't have been pissed off. In fact, I was a little disappointed nothing did happen.

Two more days passed without incident.

Maggie was showing off...okay, complaining that she had cut her armpit shaving last night.

I had been thinking less about the bread knife incident that day until envy grew in my heart because of Maggie's armpit cut.

She even showed me it.

Now I've never made any bones about my feelings for that woman but I had to bite my tongue from suggesting I kiss and lick it better.

I had just poured myself a large gin and tonic when Timothy texted me.

"ShanShan, we need tae talk, fuck's sake. I've said I was sorry about a million times. What else do you want?"

For you to fuck off and leave me alone, I muttered under my breath as a rather sudden and aggressive migraine developed across my head and face.

I tried closing my eyes and downing the floral and sweet liquor in one easy gulp. A flashback to all the times I had caught Timothy chatting to some girl at a bar played back like a montage of deceit. Then I saw Maggie's cute armpit cut and then my thumb. My vision went red and the thumb in my head started spraying blood all over me.

When I opened my eyes I realised I had taken the sharp little vegetable knife from my fancy block and was gently tracing its deliciously sharp blade over the back of my hand and up my forearm.

Everything felt a little hazy as I tried to focus before a sharp pain behind my eyes closed them tightly shut and I pressed the tip of the blade against my skin.

First it resisted, like it was made of rubber. But as I increased purchase, I felt a tingle, a euphoria as the knife perforated my arm and we became one for that moment. When I opened my eyes, the knife was on the countertop and my arm was seeping a generous volume of blood from the wound.

I just stood there, moaned and sighed, entranced as my migraine disappeared as fast as it came.

I then found a pair of my freshly laundered panties hanging above the bath and used the soft cotton white fabric to wrap around my wound. I went back into the kitchen, poured more gin, no tonic, and lay on my sofa with the TV on some cooking show, where a woman who I swore looked more like Maggie than I remembered from previous episodes was boning a chicken.

I felt a wave of tiredness and gin wash over me and I drifted into a hazy dream.

In it I was staring down at my arm as I lay on the sofa, unwrapping it gently like I was opening a jewellery box gift and then stared as my white panties were now a pulse-raising shocking red.

In my head it was Saturday so no need to rush, but when I checked the television my blurred vision saw a definite Monday beside the time on the news.

Shit.

I stood up and didn't even think to check my wound. I pulled my jeans on and rushed to run a brush through my long blonde hair before tying it in a pony and brushing my teeth. My reflection stared back at me from the bathroom mirror and I grinned as a stray bit of blood was still on my chin.

No time to worry about a little bit of red.

Steve would be pissed if I was late. We had a client thing, a sales meeting thing.

I arrived at the office with just enough time to flirt aimlessly with Maggie while I listened with glee to her weekend tales of the farmers' market and visits to her parents and her in-laws.

I really did like hearing about her life that happened when ours didn't coalesce during working hours.

She would apologise as if she was a problem or boring me but I insisted she wasn't.

We were friends and, while I wanted more, I was happy with friendship over nothing at all.

The sales meeting went as I thought it might. The powerhouse unit of me and Maggie got them signing on the dotted line after half an hour.

For a moment I felt what many would consider normal.

We went to a little café just across the road from the office and shared a cheeseboard.

"Are you okay?" she asked.

There was concern entwined with her honeyed timbre.

"I have some Dutch smoked cheese in my mouth and a lovely coffee and my favourite person right here. I'm okay," I laughed in response.

Though she smiled in response, that sense of concern was there. I knew it well. From the darkest days when Tim and I eventually split.

Maggie was a better friend than anyone deserved.

I ruined a good few blouses crying my mascara into them.

My mind drifted a little as the salty fromage slid down my throat. I felt peace come over me and a tingle in my right hand.

"Shan darling, are you sure?" she asked as lucidity came back and I felt her hand over mine.

"Erh...yeah. Of course I am, Mags!"

She knew not to push but I felt her concern wrap around me.

We had each other's backs. Always had.

I felt at peace enough to ignore the flash of red I saw across her chin like my own that morning.

The humdrum of what would have been a traditionally empty Monday evening in front of the TV was punctured by the twelve blood-red roses at my doorstep.

Fucking Timothy.

As I lifted them up and entered my house I placed them on the countertop next to the blood-stained shot glass and spent two minutes staring down before I realised I had laid the roses in the dried blood on the countertop.

A crippling pain shot through my head and I held the stems of the roses under the tap to soak them while I reached for the vegetable knife.

As my right hand gripped the handle, electricity coursed through my body and I felt a little hazy.

It was minutes later when I woke and found my left hand with tiny little cuts up each finger. Hesitation marks at the base that got progressively deeper the closer they were to the tips.

I laughed and then remembered nothing but the honeyed timbre of Maggie as I woke.

I was in bed. I think.

Looked around to check. Yes. In bed. I checked under the quilt. Not naked. Shame.

Which immediately made me scream as I noticed my blood-soaked panties had been replaced with lacy pinks.

"Welcome back, Shan," Mags smiled with that concern in her voice and on her face. Again.

"Mags... What..." I struggled for the words.

"You phoned me last night. I found you in the kitchen with an unhealthy amount of gin missing from the bottle. I guess the roses are from Tim, yes?"

"Uh, yes. Sorry."

"For what? I'm glad you had the sense to call me. Even if you were wasted when I arrived."

"Have you been here all night? Sorry, Mags." I couldn't hold back tears.

"Don't be silly, Shanny. I was worried about you."

I felt her hand slide underneath my neck and a calmness and relief blocked out everything else as we snuggled close.

"We need to talk. When you're ready," Mags whispered as I fell asleep.

I had a different dream this time. Mags was in the kitchen. She held my bread knife and whispered about "release her".

The scene changed to my bedroom and Mags muttered under her breath as she held my blood-soaked panties to the light and tsked repeatedly.

I then felt a pain between my legs and saw a knife lodged...there.

Then I woke.

It was Tuesday. I was sure of it. But why did my phone digitally mock my understanding of time with the suggestion it was Friday?

I checked under the quilt and there was no knife between my legs, but I still felt...pain, or was it really pain and not just a dull and pleasant ache...

Wait. Where were my clothes and what was that on the walls?

I turned on the bedside lamp and was shocked to see red lines that ran across the walls around the room.

I walked over to the markings and touched them. They were sticky like paint that was not quite dry yet but felt familiar.

Before I reached the bathroom I buckled over at the doorway as a sharp pain ripped through me from inside. Then I saw it. A shine of steel. Then it dropped from between my legs.

The vegetable knife.

What.

Then all went black and I woke or came to or whatever to find myself reopening the old wound on my arm and feathering the skin before plunging the knife deeper as it just barely avoided connection with the bone.

"Shanny." Maggie's voice rang in my ears but I couldn't see her.

"Release her and then—" Her voice faded out.

"Release her?" I asked the empty hallway as I reached for the bathroom door handle and pulled myself up.

I put the kettle on and remembered that the knife was still in my arm.

Funny what I... You...no, I.

Definitely I. Funny what I forget.

We always do.

Don't we.

Remember Tim. Shanny.

Remember what we saw when he kissed that girl's finger better. The one with the cut?

Yes. The one with the cut, who wore his Maiden Killers tee.

Remember the delight you felt as you didn't shout or scream.

Let the endorphins and dopamine of that memory give you strength to wake up.

Wait. What.

I stood in the kitchen. With remember etched below her arm wound.

I mean. My arm wound.

Don't I.

Dizziness overtook me and as I fell back I felt a warm body grab me like we had planned to do a trust fall.

Whoever they were, their breasts felt like clouds or pillows as I drifted in and out of lucidity.

I woke again. I think or we think.

Maggie stood over us, naked. Maybe. Black gloves. Smiling.

That gorgeous smile.

"Shanny? Are you there?"

"Yes." I answer because yes I am here.

"Not you, sweetie." Mags smirks with that same concern and I notice the bread knife in her left hand.

"I am Shanny," I exclaimed.

Maggie squatted down and stroked her hair then our chin.

"Are we sure?" she asked.

"Yes...Mags, you know it's me."

Her face creased.

"Who is Mags?"

Then silence.

A blanket of darkness engulfed me. Engulfed us.

Mags and I cuddled together. My mascara still made me look a million dollars. Hadn't run yet as I remembered Tim as he used the bread knife on...her.

Sadie, was it?

Yes, remember it was Sadie.

I couldn't have Mags and Tim came along and I settled. Became accustomed to his warmth...his understanding. Even when.

Oh, now I remember.

As my eyes opened, Mags was sat beside me on the floor. She held the vegetable knife in her hand and stroked the length of steel.

"Short but sweet, with a strong taste of iron. Like you, Shanny."

I reached for Mags and pulled her close, and gripped the knife so that the blade sliced through the palm of my left hand and then I pressed it against my cheek as Mags continued to hold it.

"Tim knew but abandoned me when he found a fresh young thing to exploit."

"Then we found you or you found us or whatever. It doesn't matter now. I understand."

Monday morning came quicker than I anticipated and as Mags had stayed by my side since...everything, we stopped at her house so she could freshen up.

As she showered, I thought I'd sneak a peek. I needed to piss anyway. She had turned away from me and didn't seem aware I was there. I traced down her prominent and muscular shoulder blades, down her spine to her ass and smiled.

I went to her lounge...I realised it had been some time since I had been to her house.

Or had we been there ever before?

On the mantelpiece, pride of place was what I thought would be a beautiful picture of her and her husband. Instead it was a picture of her and me.

Odd.

My mouth was dry so I went to the kitchen and saw my shot glass and bread knife. We didn't know why but we reached out to touch the bread knife and suddenly Sadie appeared in our mind.

She was naked and being chased by Tim around our house. Tim had the knife and teased her with it. Once he caught her, he held her down and as he slipped between her legs and they became one, he slit the tip of her thumb.

Then I screamed as blood sprayed everywhere and Mags stood over me in the kitchen. She pressed her finger to her lips and hushed me.

Knives were our thing. The our that was me and Tim, Shanny and Timothy.

The only release I could get that matched the lonely husk I had become.

Mags didn't want me. Tim wanted me.

Tim cut me. I cut me.

Wait.

"Did you just hush me? What aren't you telling me, Mags?"

Mags had that concerned look on her face but kissed me as she held the knife against my hand and then pressed its blade into hers.

"Release her."

My lips found hers quickly and hungrily. I returned the kiss. A new peace flowed through me. Familiar yet distant.

"You need to release her," Mags gasped as she pulled away from the kiss.

I closed my eyes, wondered if it was all a dream again, but when I opened them, she was still there sitting beside me.

"Do you know what you need to do?" she asked.

Somehow I did...or we did.

I took the knife and caressed it. Just as Tim had done to me then Sadie. Caressed us then cut us. I settled for him. He knew that.

Sadie was just some piece of trash he used.

Was she a husk? It didn't matter. I had never seen so much blood.

I pressed the knife into Maggie's arm and felt a strange pain surge through my arms and legs. I reached into the wound and pressed my fingers into her bone.

She gasped and I gasped.

Sadie was on the floor. Unconscious or unresponsive. Tim was drawing patterns on her body. Then a flash of light and I saw that damn kitchen knife as black-gloved hands drove it into the base of his spine and dragged it upwards, as blood cascaded beautifully down his back.

Although a blur, I think I understood.

"Mags. Thank you. I remember."

"Welcome back, Shanny, my love."

"Did he suffer?"

"Not nearly as much as I did when you disappeared inside yourself. You had me worried sick. And the bed was cold without you."

We held each other for what felt like a lifetime but was probably a Tuesday morning or was it Friday.

It didn't matter anymore.