Vulture

December

She slips out of his damp bed. Tumbles the half-step toward the window. Her black eyes note the access points. Fire escape. Empty building half a block down. Utilitarian street lamp a ways up, pointing discretely toward the quiet north end. A sneeze of snow has all but blown over. She rather likes how the street lamp spills itself in dull yellow halos blanketing duller yellow mounds, tucked under freshly fallen angels dismissed as flakes.

Her mound of slumped things is retrieved by languid hands, a rescue mission from the imposition of mandatory temporary housing. The sentence, imposed just 30 minutes ago.

Her things have been strung out atop a ratty aquamarine velveteen chaise. No doubt his ex's. At least that's what he'd tell people. If people were to stop by.

*

She slips back into her second skin: comfy black cotton v-neck, tight black jeans, black leather boots.

Back in her own armor, she strides two swampy feet across his nappy beige plush pile, careful not to sink in. Evidently it hasn't been cleaned properly since the 1970's.

She finds herself in his apartment's second compartment. It, too, is damp, just differently damp than his bed. A shudder that cracks her spine nearly ejects tequila shots from a holding cell caught between throat and stomach.

Who lives like this?

Hopes for a decent bathroom fly out the window. There's no commode. Just a shallow off-white ceramic sink. And a new 75 watt dangling from triple looped black wire. Naturally, there's a bonus round, in the form of an unlined 10-gallon trash can. It partially contains an inside out dried out two quart zipped off Ziplock.

Someone used it. Christ.

*

He keeps talking. Retells his, "I didn't piss...," with a belly laugh.

He raises his voice in case she missed it, all the way over there in what passes for a lavatory. "I said, I didn't piss my pants..."

He is that marginal talent who finds himself hilarious. His audience doesn't. For her, he reiterates a whopper about how, recently, his last super-hot lady friend supposedly called him 'intelli-gentlemanly.'

His word. Made it up over poached egg whites while watching that old Debby classic. A well worn mix tape.

He overuses it, too, that charming moniker. Three times in one evening. This evening. Their only evening, ever. She doesn't get paid enough for twice.

It was gross enough when she spotted him sneaky preening and pecking his kiss-kiss big boy biceps, first left and then right, when he hoped she was sneaking a peek over her muscular supple shoulder. Because all his favorite porno actresses seem to dig that.

*

His behavior is offensive. But worse, he lives like this. These are choices.

Impatiently, she waits. Skyewatch has the ball. There are rules.

But sometimes. Sometimes...

*

He wasn't even a decent hump. Laid there, not talking with a point. And then he had to exaggerate interest in her nipples, like they're her only redeeming quality.

Why not indulge, taking into his hands her magnificent waist length hair, thickly chocolate swirls with an undercurrent of alizarin crimson?

Or her hips? Those greedy girls are magic. Why not take a moment to acknowledge how well the cowgirl's handled rodeo roping?

Not today, clown show. Fucker didn't even have the codes. Or the smarts to pretend he did.

*

This time last year, she was out. For Jon. Before coitus interruptus ended more than sex. Her competitor's silencer didn't make a sound.

To her, Jon wasn't a mark, or even some unlucky john. He was her Jon. Maybe in the beginning he was a commission, but not by the end. That sultry cinnamon-eyed son of a bitch set ablaze her incombustible heart.

She was out before his Stetson ringed the bedpost.

They only had the three days. Silenced memories have to last her a lifetime.

*

Thinking of those incomparable hands, Jon's investigative lips, his thirsty bloodshot eyes, the trust they earned together, in Vienna, pisses her off.

Jon was single malt, asphalt, street hockey, street cars. Racing raindrops after dark. Old school dirty dancing in back alleys, still hung over. Drug store wine and cellophaned pulp fictions from the low racks. Ice cream melting down her thighs in the dead of winter.

Not some musclebound simpleton whose cocksureness comes from getting his wee cock henpecked.

She admits it when the mirror begs the question. She took the easy way in. Through the front door.

It's hard math. Twelve months' abstinence isn't exactly her sweet spot. Gambled and lost.

*

His sink is wobbly. Higher than waist height. Her thin, tall frame helps, but only so much. She shouldn't care if she misses. Apparently he doesn't. But she takes pride in the details, in doing right things right.

In the end she risks the trash can. There's no good call.

She could kill for an espresso. Or a couple squares of two-ply to pat away drips.

Settling for wiggling the clunky knob toward cold to wash away her scent, she finds the handle sticks. Old water stays trapped. Old pipes moan. Probably the only real moaning to happen in this apartment in a decade.

*

When she returns bedside, percolating, blood stinks her hands. It's pungent in that way helping newly whelped pups gets odoriferous. Earthy and mammalian, with a freshness that speaks to something older than new life.

He smiles as if he's earned it, a second go. He's back to talking about how he didn't do some lame thing someone else lame said he did. Until he spots her hands.

A thin line of blood drips, not only from her hands, but from a sharp paring knife she keeps handy, for just this sort of thing. The compact blade was easy enough to slip in and out of her left boot.

A little merry subterfuge. She knew he couldn't take his eyes off her Glock, not where she hid it. He'd told himself he could take it, take her, if he had to. Didn't see her coming. Underestimated her in the ways she most enjoys.

Only took her a split second to slip her fingers round its handle, while he was busy checking his afterglow in a handheld bedside mirror.

He let his guard down. Failed to notice that a knife's as dangerous as a gun--up close maybe more so.

It doesn't matter now anyway. All that matters is Skyewatch. It's their call.

For now, the blood is hers. From a nick she just clipped, high up, on her inner thigh, where she does what she does when she's anxious. When she's waiting for the call. When the call is taking too long.

Sometimes she cuts simply because she can. For what it gives her. Call Sign Vulture isn't one to resist the sweet ache of release. There's no reason not to anymore. Not without Jon.

For now, the blood is hers.

***

Copyright © 03/22/2024 by Christy Munson. All rights reserved.