Kerosene Wild
I sing the body electric
- Walt Whitman
That night, Elide dreamed.
Burn down the house. Kerosene and the flame. Burn down the house.
Why could she taste fire on her tongue?
When had she ever forgotten?
Everything this everything this everything this kerosene wild.
Everywhere flames.
Blood on her boots. Blood on her jeans. Blood on her face.
Blood on her tongue
There’s blood on my tongue.
Burn down the house.
Fire.
Screaming and screaming and screaming. The howl. Vicious and wild. The howl. Screaming and screaming and screaming. Terror and elation and burn down the house. Kerosene and the flame.
Elide.
Screaming and screaming.
And screaming.
Elide.
At last.
Blood on her tongue. Iron and the dripping teeth. Drown the world in red and what emerges might come out clean.
Elide woke up, memories burning through her body. Everything. She remembered everything.
She had never wanted to.
+
That night, Elide stopped trying to sleep. She – she couldn’t get the taste of flame off her tongue. Leaving Lorcan to whatever dreams held him in peace and quiet, Elide slipped out of bed and wandered the 2 am world.
Following her feet, she found a balcony overlooking the sea. Quiet here – it was so quiet here. Elide reveled in it.
But she couldn’t get the taste of blood off her tongue.
Settling onto the stone railing, Elide let her feet dangle over the smooth water, those shifting patterns, that dull roar. A tension she forgot that she carried unwound from her spine. In its absence, the memories flooded in.
Too many night like this – god how many nights had she lived, just like this. Nightmares tearing through her body – her uncle, that house, those flames. The memories … Elide bowed her head beneath the weight of them. But nights like this didn’t used to end like this.
Elide didn’t lift her head.
Nights like this … how when she was seventeen, she’d stumble the two blocks to Asterin’s house, throwing rocks at Manon’s window until the other girl woke up and helped her crawl through the broken screen, until she curled tight in Manon’s bed and breathed in her scent, that mint and madness, until sleep came and the shaking stopped.
When she was nineteen and she’d wake up screaming, biting through her tongue to bite down the sound, and Manon would cross the Rubicon of their dorm room floor, wrapping her body around Elide’s until sleep came and the shaking stopped.
When she was twenty-three and Manon abandoned a date in the middle of dinner because Elide thought she saw her uncle Vernon, just thought, and the panic wiped through her, annihilation. And Manon came and sat beside her on the bathroom floor in that old, shitty apartment and held her until the shaking stopped.
Nights like this … when they were teenagers and Asterin would text her, hey heads up Tennessee is hanging out with Manon tonight. So when the nightmares came, Elide would curl in her own bed, at least spared the sight of Manon curled around her high school girlfriend.
When they were in college and Manon would disappear on one-night stands, returning the next morning with a wink and a grin, cocky and brash and so fucking beautiful. And Elide understood, with utter certainty, that she loved Manon. And Elide knew, with every fiber and muscle and bone, that she had to burn that love clean out of her body. There was no surviving a heartbreak like this.
When she was 23 and 24 and 25 and 26 and 27 and now, and she couldn’t slice Manon out of her life, couldn’t make herself want to try, couldn’t bear the agony of that loss. Even as Manon brought woman after woman back to her home. Even as Manon looked at Elide, sometimes, in the darkling night, with wildfire in her eyes. Even as Manon turned – in the end she always turned – and took another woman’s hand in her own.
There is no surviving a heartbreak like that.
+
That morning, Elide fucked Lorcan hard. Climbed on top and took him deep and fast and rough. It nearly hurt and the pain felt like something burning clean. She didn’t want to think about anything. She wanted to whiteout.
Lorcan bucked into her, muscles shifting under her palms, jerking her body with every thrust.
Faster she hissed harder, fuck it Lorcan harder.
Grabbing the headboard, Elide rode them into oblivion, her skin damp with sweat and their bodies reeking of sex. She didn’t care that her core would be sore for hours, that her hips would be bruised by his grip for days – she ached for the thin edge of agony, she needed to lose her mind.
When Lorcan came inside her, he snapped over the edge and thrust into her hard, gasping her name over and over, Elide … Elide.
As their breathing slowed, Elide pulled herself off him and stumbled into the bathroom, turning the shower on as hot as it could go. There was no facing another human being in this state. Under the pounding water, Elide pressed her overheated forehead against the cool tile. She’d be feeling that particular fuck all day, her muscles trembling with the aftershocks.
But an ache remained. Elide could still taste kerosene on her tongue and an ache remained.