APARTMENT 2B

APARTMENT 2B

scrape

Tuesday, 3:25 PM

She wedged the knife deep, the blade angled just so.

To move too fast was disaster. Her hand needed to be steady, her grip patient, timing perfect. Anything less and the slender ribbon caught between thumb and blade would tear and she’d have to begin again. Find another spot. Make another careful incision. Place another small slice right and perfect.

And then coax it free with a gentle pull. Steady, slow, sure. The strip separates in one long stream leaving behind an exposed, raw, weeping body.

Or, in this case, a wall.

She dropped the strip of wallpaper to the floor.

Teetering on a small step ladder, she reached high again. Searched the top corner, feeling for that little rip she could slide the blade behind. And, once found, careful and meticulous, teased another long strip free, the orphaned wood dripping amber drops of abandoned glue.

Beer in hand, her renovation ignored, he sat near, the boyfriend. Instead of her favorite TV chefs chopping and slicing, dicing and stirring, there was some MMA fight or something, the boyfriend’s eyes no doubt hoping to catch some buxom blonde jiggling on the Jumbotron amidst the frightening roar from the crowd.

They’d met easy over a year ago. The noisy bar. The sudden argument. The vicious fight. The shouts. The scream. The beer bottle smashing against the wall behind her head. Chaos as he’d been dragged out the door, feet kicking, fists flailing. Her finding him moments later kneeling mute on the sidewalk, bloody fists punching concrete. Face red, teeth gritted. Cheeks wet with tears.

His silent primal scream breaking her heart.

Too drunk to move, she helped him stand. Too disoriented to walk, she stumbled with him to her apartment nearby. His arm wrapped around her neck, his boney bicep squeezing tight, his lips hot against her cheek, she’d fallen in love as he’d wept in a blind rage.

Two days later, she’d given this lanky stranger with the teardrop tattoo a key to her new place on Eidolon Avenue. The day after that, her paramour with the missing front tooth tossed his duffel bag in her closet. Then, stocking feet plopped on the coffee table, ankles crossed, beer in hand, TV remote nestled in his crotch, he’d sat on the couch.

There he’d stayed.

A year later, nothing had changed.

Except everything.

It’d started with her stomach.

***

“You look like a whale, yo,” he’d said a year ago, tossing a scraggly hand towel on her belly.

She laughed, the sound weak and small. “What?”

Having finished and rolled off, his back to her as he sat nude on the edge of the bed, lighting a cigarette, he turned, looking down at her. His long dark locks looked scraggly and thin as he watched, his face hidden in shadow.

“This.” He smacked her naked stomach, the soft skin quivering for the briefest of seconds in the moonlight. “Clean up. It’s like a white whale covered in fuckin’ mayo or something.”

“Oh, stop.” She tried to laugh again, but ended up with a hesitant smile instead. “It’s fine.” She grabbed the rough cloth and placed it on her tummy, the small rectangle doing nothing to cover her bulk, her forearms almost reaching to cover her tits.

“You givin’ me lip?” Still sitting near, he’d grown tense. She could feel it. Like a spiteful, living thing, his anger cornered her. Chilled her flesh. Stole her smile. Enflamed her doubts.

She shook her head.

No.

He nodded to the sticky mess on her pale flesh. “You think that shit’s cool? That fat?” Even in the dark, she could see his eyes narrow.

She knew when to keep quiet.

He turned away, untangling himself from the sheets to stand and stretch. “Waddling down the street as big as a fuckin’ house.”

“I don’t think it’s—”

“Could be bangin’ hot fuckin’ hoes left and right and I get stuck with goddamn Shamu or . . . wait, what’s the big thing?” He glanced back at her. “In the Star-something film. The fat, disgusting thing with the chains?” Thinking for a long moment, “Jammo something, something, something—” He stopped, his eyes on her. “You know.”

She paused. Felt her cheeks flush, her eyes grow wet. Tried to ignore that sinking feeling of disgust and shame inching along her flesh. “You mean Jabba the—?”

Snap of the fingers. “Yes! That’s it.” He laughed. “You’re my Jabba.”

“C’mon,” she said before swallowing the knot in her throat. She sniffed away the threat of tears.

He grew quiet, turned, stopped. Pulled close, the movement quick, abrupt. Almost shocking. “Shut it.” Bending low, nose to nose, his face pressed close to hers. “Ja-bba,” he then said, the two syllables like slaps to the skull. He stared into her eyes, fists bookending her head, his bruised knuckles sinking into the pillow.

She dared not breathe, the threat of his words warm on her lips.

“We good, Jabba?” He cocked his head. Dared her to fight back. Give him lip.

She nodded. Offered a small smile. Wanted to reach up and caress his neck, move the hair from his eyes. Trace the teardrop tattooed on his cheek. Felt the bizarre desire to have him back next to her, on top of her, inside of her, her needs not yet met.

But she chose quiet. Counted her breaths. Let the storm pass.

He pulled back and stepped away, yanking his boxers over his skinny ass and slim hips. “Clean your blubber, bitch.” Stomping from the room, he slammed the door behind him.

She exhaled. Rested her head back, her eyes on the ceiling. Stared at the rust-colored stains high above. Followed them as they stretched, like fingers, from the edges and peeked from the corners. Their reach too insistent, too deep, too strong for the tenuous dark of a moon-filled night.

Willing away her tears, she closed her eyes. Convinced herself his words were a joke. A clumsy attempt at humor. Assured herself it was his upbringing or the 40s he’d chugged or the clouds he’d blown before they’d made love. The poppers he’d slammed during.

Or the lingering suspicion he’d never known a woman as forgiving and kind and gentle as her.

Yeah, she was chunky, she thought as she looked down at her tummy. And pale. Especially in the silver light of the gentle stars.

She sighed, her belly quivering for a moment as she exhaled.

I’ll just change it, she thought.

With a grunt, she sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. She stood and padded her way to the mirror on the back of the door. She turned this way and that, her fists gripping the rolls of flesh at her sides and around her waist. Noticed the full, roundness of her tits. Paused. Wondered if losing this—she squeezed the rolls ‘round her tummy—would also mean losing this—she turned, her breasts large and lush.

But she hated the thought of his rage. His callous, unkind words. The danger in his gaze as his eyes narrowed.

If getting rid of this fat will keep me safe from the punches and slaps and smacks, from those avalanches of anger, she thought as she released her flesh, then I’ll lose it.

Done.

***

“Have you eaten today?” her friend Ellie said—and, no, not Elizabeth and certainly not Beth, so Ellie it was, although lately she’d started silently referring to her as Skinny—before shoving another fistful of peanuts in her mouth.

With a shrug, she said nothing as she tore another slender strip from the napkin. Balled it up. Slipped it between her lips, feeling it grow wet against her teeth, on her tongue. Tucked it into her cheek. Enjoyed the sense of something solid in her mouth.

Then, after a moment, pulled it out and placed it on the counter.

“Okay, then, yesterday?” Skinny said as she scooped up another handful of bar nuts.

She nodded, unwilling to admit it’d been weeks since she’d eaten. Like, truly eaten. “I look better, though, right?” She stopped, her head dizzy. Took a discrete breath. “My pants don’t even fit anymore.”

“No, no, I see that. But when was your last meal?”

“I had a grape last week.” She slid another strip of napkin into her mouth.

Skinny stopped. “A grape is not a meal.”

“And a cracker.” Another swoon, this one making the room spin and forcing her to close her eyes. “A bite, a big bite, of a cracker. A Saltine. And a spoonful of mayo.”

“And three-quarters of a napkin.” Skinny pushed the bowl of nuts in front of her. “I’m telling you, here, eat. Please.”

She shook her head. Saw only salt and fat and pounds and flab. One, just one, of these and the boyfriend would be back to snarling, snapping, biting. Ripping her a new one for being fat and disgusting. His pointed “Ja-bba” like twin sucker punches in her blubbery gut.

But no, she reminded herself, she was doing good. The pounds were coming off. She now needed a belt, her shirts no longer pinched underneath her armpits or squeezed her tits and her jeans didn’t scrape the inside of her thighs when she walked.

There was no way she was going to ruin that with a salty, gross peanut. Her stomach grumbling, her mouth watering, she looked away from temptation and tore another strip from the napkin.

“Seriously?” Her fist digging in the bowl, Skinny dragged it back.

“I had a grape. Last week.” She pulled the bite of sodden napkin from her mouth feeling like, perhaps, she’d already said this. “And a cracker. A bite, a big bite. Some mayo. Just a spoon—” She stopped. Caught her breath.

“Yeah, so I heard.” Skinny snapped her fingers for the bartender. A disheveled toad of a man—small and round with a fleshy face, scruffy jowls and eyes that bulged—lumbered over. “A beer for my friend, yeah?”

She waved it away. “No, no, no. Water. With lemon.” A pause. “Half, no, a quarter, just a quarter of a slice of lemon. A small one. Please. Not too much . . . ” she said before losing the thought, the sentence drifting to a clumsy close.

With a nod, the toad shuffled away.

“And the boyfriend,” Skinny said between bites. “Is he helping?”

“He hasn’t called me Jabba in weeks.”

Peanuts in hand, her friend with the jet-black hair and ruby red lips paused. “That’s not helping, you know.” She shook her head and shoved the nuts in her mouth. “Seriously, what’s up with you?”

“What do you mean?” she said as Toad returned. He slid a spotted, stained glass half-filled with cloudy liquid in front of her.

Ew.

“Ever since you met this dude and this what’s-his-name moved in, you’re, like, not you or something, you know?” Her friend turned, the stool swiveling as she faced her.

“I know.” She focused on her water. The off color of the liquid. The pathetic lemon—a whole slice and not the quarter she’d meant to ask for—sinking in a slow-motion descent through the haze. The lingering stickiness of the glass. Its tacit refusal to release her palm when she gripped it. The remnants of someone’s lipstick staining the rim. “I just want to make him happy. That’s all. Make him happy.” She closed her eyes and took a sip. Allowed it a long moment as she swallowed. Winced, her throat tight and rough. “Is that so wrong?” A tongue ran over her teeth. The nuggets of bone wiggled in response.

“No. But yes,” Skinny said, skeletal fingers diving into cheap plastic as manicured red scraped the remaining nuts from the bowl. “He should love you as you are.”

“Jabba?” A small laugh. “I don’t think so.”

“Yeah, but what’s next?” A brief crunch, crunch, crunch as she thought. “You’ve already done the hair—”

“You like it, right?”

“Yes! How many times do I have to say it? Yes!”

“Sorry.” She ran her fingers through the shoulder-length newly blonde curls. “I’m not sure if he’s . . . He just hasn’t . . . ” A shrug. A sigh.

“Complimented you? Mentioned it?” A shrug. “Of course, he hasn’t. He’s a dick.” More peanuts rested in her palm as she thought. “But, see, brown to blonde, that’s an easy change. Harmless. That I get. Great!” Quick pause as she finished off the nuts. “And I love that you’re wearing more make-up. That, right there, that’s a good change. You’re pretty. You should play that up. Absolutely.” She stopped, wiping her fingers on her too-tight skinny jeans. “But the voice? The laugh? Forcing yourself to be quieter or something?”

“He said I was too loud. It embarrassed him.”

“But you are loud. And fun. And funny.” Snack time over, the empty bowl abandoned and pushed away, Skinny’s palms cupped her elbows. “He should love that about you, not force you to shut up and pretend to be something you’re not.”

She shrugged, her head thumping, her tongue teasing her loose teeth, the copper taste of bleeding gums coating her tongue. Her breath—carrying the scent of something rank and rotting in her guts—coming short and quick as her heart raced.

“Listen,” Skinny said, leaning in and pulling close. “This guy, the one you wouldn’t let me meet, that you still won’t let me meet, by the way, he’s not—”

She leaned back. Pulled away. “Yeah, I know.” Crossed her arms. “It’s not perfect—” She cleared her throat. Found herself afraid her one and only friend would smell her bad breath, witness her gums bleeding. “Whatever,” she said, turning away. “But who is? He’s good for me. That’s what counts. He’s making me better.”

“Okay, fine.” Skinny sat back with a glance around the bar. “It’s the ‘how’ he’s making you better that pisses me off.” A long pause as she eyed the empty snack bowl. “Why?”

“Why what?” Her heart still raced. She closed her eyes and counted backwards. Tried not to panic as her ribs clenched in her chest.

“Why’s he such an asshole? Why are you putting up with it? What’s with all the—” she gestured to the hair, the bones, the gaunt cheeks. “Well, all this shit? It’s more than a bit much, you know?”

“He’s . . . ” She stopped, not sure what to say. Couldn’t even remember what she’d just said. “There’s a lot of anger here.”

“And that’s why you have to starve yourself?”

“It’ll make him happy.” Eyes again on the glass, she inhaled then exhaled, careful and slow, waiting for her pulse to quiet and the moment to pass.

“It’ll make you dead.” Another long pause. “You’re different.” Skinny then said, her voice a whisper. “You’re not who you used to be.” A sigh. “I miss that girl. The one who cooked. Baked bread. The girl who could whip up the most amazing pasta dishes from whatever in the hell she found in the fridge, in the cupboards.” She smiled. “That girl would never have gone batshit crazy over some random, fucked up dude.”

With a deep breath, she turned to her friend. Ignored the look in the eyes. The way the penciled brows furrowed and the teeth gently gnawed on the bottom lip. In worry?

Who knows?

It was true, though. In the last few months she’d changed a lot.

But this diet, this not eating-thing, this was different.

Though not a skeleton, she wasn’t the chunky chub he’d loathed that night many moons ago.

This new version of her, the one she saw in the mirror, the one who all but ignored the kitchen and hadn’t cooked in months, had cheekbones. A sharp cut to the jaw. This new girl’s eyes no longer rested in puffy pools of rounded flesh. Their deep brown stood out more. And where there’d once been thick rolls of stubborn fat, loose skin now hung. True, the old girl’s tits had been full and gorgeous while hers had shrunk to rest, deflated and defeated, against her ribs.

But, ignoring that, she liked what she saw.

Yes, her head shook with the thump of an endless headache. A pain so great it made her teeth ache and blurred her vision. And, yes, Aunt Flo had disappeared as had any semblance of having to use the bathroom. The only time she visited the toilet these days was to expel an errant Saltine or a spoonful of mayonnaise by shoving three fingers down her throat.

“It’s the right thing to do,” she said. “I can’t explain it. I know it doesn’t seem like it makes sense and I know it’s confusing and looks extreme. I know that. I do.” She paused, trying to collect her thoughts. “I just feel like a different person since moving. Like, I need to be someone different here, in this new space.”

“Yeah, but a new apartment shouldn’t change you—”

“No, no, you’re right. It shouldn’t. But sometimes it does.” She turned to Skinny again. “Sometimes moving to a new place makes you someone new. Someone different.” Her head was light, the space between her eyes thumping. “Sometimes a new place forces you to take away everything you once were and fill it up with something new and, I don’t know, maybe something better.”

Skinny cleared her throat and reached for her purse. “So, you’re saying this new apartment is making you into someone new?” She clicked the faux designer bag open, her hand diving to rummage while they talked. “Some version you aren’t and have never been?”

She nodded. Her ribs felt tight, her jaw tense. The thumping in her head had become a pounding. “Yes,” she said, her voice dropping to a whisper. A brilliant universe of shining lights popped and snapped and soared through that endless expanse of quiet black that lingered in the dark behind her closed eyes. “Yes, it is,” she heard herself say. “I have to change. Everything.

“For him.”

Skinny took out a package of mints, popped one onto her palm and held it out to her. “Well, at least have a mint.”

She shook her head. “No, thank you—”

“Bullshit.” She forced it into her hand. “Sugar free, calorie free, eat it. Now.”

Knowing she’d barf it up when she got home, she slipped it between her lips.

“Thank you,” Skinny said. “Now your breath won’t smell like rotting roadkill.”

***

“So, what do you think?” She climbed down from the ladder and wiped her hands on her shirt. Long strips of wallpaper littered the floor at her feet, the half-finished work left to be done still hanging, ready to be tugged, pulled, ripped free and discarded.

The boyfriend sat nearby, beer in hand, remote in his crotch, the TV too loud.

He said nothing.

“I like it,” she said looking away from him, her eyes back on the orphaned drops of old-fashioned glue glistening in the hazy afternoon light. “It’s good. More to do, of course. Strip it all away, get back to basics, back to the bones, and start again, right?”

Again, no response, the roar of the TV crowd the only constant she could depend on.

“Well, that’s what I think, at least.” Deciding his silence was all she was going to get, she shrugged, climbed the ladder and got back to work.

A week ago, they’d talked.

“You want to what?” He’d looked at her, his voice dipping to a dangerous, low growl.

“A little renovation.” She’d taken a deep breath. Chosen not to be intimidated or scared. Reminded herself it was her apartment, not his. She was paying the rent, not him. And if she wanted to change it up, she could.

“What the fuck?” He laughed, his lips in a sneer, not a smile.

It wasn’t a kind sound, that laugh.

“It’ll be amazing,” she said. “Take away all the dirt and grime and shit? Who knows how old that wallpaper is, right? And who the hell even does wallpaper these days?” Feeling her courage waver, she looked at the floor. “So, I guess, you know, might as well peel it off and —and this is just a thought, by the way—see what’s underneath. Do something new. Take it all away and start again.”

The boyfriend hadn’t said anything then. Just sat quiet, beer in hand.

Pushing aside her fear, she’d pulled close. Risked a quick kiss on his cheek. “You’ll like it.” She placed a palm on his thigh. Felt him tense. Pulled it away, the gesture slow and careful. “Trust me.” A small smile. “You’ll like it, in the end. I promise.”

***

She sat on a folding chair in a basement, her shirt folded on her knees, her bra scrunched around her stomach. She breathed mold, mildew, dust. Focused on the single bulb hanging from a knotted cord overhead and the thick stone of the concrete walls instead of the mattress—spotted with the dry, flaking red, yellow, brown stains of who knew how many desperate, unfortunate souls—on the floor.

“Your tits suck and your ass looks like shit,” the boyfriend said a week earlier as he stood up, padding to the bathroom to take a leak.

This was long after she’d become cadaverous, existing on sips of lemon water, the occasional grape, bites of cracker, spoonfuls of mayonnaise and endless mouthfuls of wadded up paper towel.

Long after the insistent agony of starvation had become one of life’s predictable constants. The hollow, cold ache a ravenous shovel scraping, scratching, burrowing into her guts, knocking against her ribs, nudging against her spine. The burning in her throat, her nose, behind her eyes, the back of her skull. All of that by then the most familiar of friends.

Her teeth loose, her tongue, insistent and curious, pressing against the small nuggets of bone as they wobbled and wiggled, the metallic twang of blood on her tongue like a gift. A brief moment of something bright and oddly flavorful to be savored and swallowed. The noxious scent of her body’s struggle, its rot and decay, still carried on every breath and in every word she spoke.

This was long after she’d forgotten what it was like to even consider eating a plate of food, her long-ago life of baking apple pies and roasting chickens stuffed with lemon, feta and herbs a distant memory. Her days, sun-up to sundown, a battle between a body weakened by neglect and obsession and her desire to please the only man, the only real man, she’d ever had.

Now, a week after he’d said—

“Your tits suck and your ass looks like shit”

—she sat breathing the noxious scent of sharp tobacco and stale sweat as an elderly Mexican ogled her breasts, his calloused palms lifting and turning the sagging flesh before letting them drop. The wrinkled finger paused, grazing the nipple and lingering a little longer than necessary. Catching her eye, he smiled an almost toothless smile.

Deep lines creased his forehead, his small eyes cowering beneath low, dark brows. The fleshy cheeks were pock-marked and slick with sweat. His jowls jiggled when he moved. The black helmet of hair squatting on his head did not.

Tattered dollar-store flip-flops were shoved on his bare feet, the skin on the toes and the heel rough and flaking, the nails yellowed and thick. Faded gym shorts, stained yellow at the crotch, stretched over his thighs. A bargain basement designer wannabe shirt strained against his stomach.

Not once did he use the grimy stethoscope hanging around his neck.

“Seriously, what the fuck?” Down the hall, through the open door on Eidolon, the boyfriend had straddled the john a week ago, his piss splashing the water in a noisy stream. “Flat tits, flabby ass. Like fucking pancakes or something.” Shoving himself back in his boxers, he’d stumbled through the kitchen before flopping in the chair across from her.

“But look at how much weight I’ve lost,” she’d said, her words trembling.

She hated when her voice did that.

She cleared her throat. “That’s something, right?” Tried to smile.

His bony shoulders shrugged. “Yeah, and now your tits look like tires with the air let out.” He laughed and then the eyes grew narrow as he grabbed the remote, nestling it into his crotch. “Seriously, Jabba.” He watched her, shook his head, and then turned away. “Do something about it.”

Click. The roar of an MMA fight filled the room.

Five days later, like a half-remembered dream, she’d stirred, not quite awake, the voice of someone speaking close, the warmth of their breath on her cheek. Gentle and kind, insistent, reminding her of a place she’d stumbled across weeks, months, ago. Telling her, in this half-sleep, where to go, who to seek, who to speak to, this voice she knew she could trust. That would never lead her astray. A basement chop shop, it was called. Downstairs from what used to be a juice bar.

Logic and reason screamed no. Her fantasies of an hour-glass figure with hot tits and an ass worthy of its own reality show laughed as she found herself dressed and marching down the stairs and onto the sidewalk.

An hour later, a stranger, a woman hidden in the anonymous safety of the darkest of corners, was saying “seven hundred dollars” while an old man fondled her and the smell of dust and mildew and mold punched her nose and stung her eyes.

The deepness of the stranger’s voice surprised her. Very businesslike. Abrupt. And although she couldn’t see this woman, she imagined her to be younger with thick hips and square shoulders.

It was the no-nonsense way she spoke or something.

“For both?” she said to the mysterious silhouette in the corner.

A nod from the man. “Culo y tits.” His breath smelled of gin, cheddar cheese and blackened teeth.

“Seven just for tits,” came the voice from the shadows. “You want to do the ass, we’ll do it for nine. Cash. Upfront.” A pause. “No refunds. You were never here.” She cleared her throat. She heard a glass being lifted and then returning to the table. “Whatever happens, after the staples are removed a week later, is yours and yours alone.”

The rough palm returned to pawing her chest. Droopy tits lifted and then dropped to slap against her ribs. “Your boy, so, he no like, no?” The old man sighed and then grinned. “No.” A pale pink tongue slid forward to lick thin lips. “We fix.” He puckered up with a small kiss. “He like much, then, yes, I think, yes, he like.”

“We can do you tomorrow,” the voice from the dark corner said, the tone brusque. Almost impolite. Impatient.

She swallowed and closed her eyes. Ignored the creeping sense of dread elbowing its way up her throat. Refused the insidious regret squatting in her gut. Blocked out the logic and reason and common sense screaming from somewhere deep in her skull.

And, egged on by those twin devils Hope and Delusion, with a helpful nudge from her forever friend Desperation, she nodded.

***

It hurt to breathe. It hurt when her heart beat. It hurt when her eyes opened and when her eyes closed. To think of doing anything sent her into even greater anguish.

To lay flat on her back was torture, the pressure on her swollen ass cheeks agonizing. To turn over and lay on her chest was inconceivable, her new tits still burning, bleeding, weeping.

But shifting to her side was excruciating.

And the two ibuprofens they’d pressed into her palm did nothing.

She exhaled, long and slow. Tried to focus on anything but the jarring pain. Refused the sudden rushes of heat followed by bracing cold. Turned a deaf ear to the wet, sticky sobs of the sliced and stitched flesh wrapping her body.

The plastic mask they’d dug out of a dirty bin and held to her face hours ago was scratched and covered in dust. Sleep still in his eyes, the old man looked as if he’d just woken, grumbling, muttering, cursing. And she’d waited, laid flat, arms above her head, already feeling regret, as he’d screamed in Spanish, the frantic running of tiny bare feet soon following as a small girl skipped down the stairs.

Her face dirty, her clothes filthy, her hair standing on end as if she, too, had just crawled out of bed, the new stranger stood near, her back to the mattress. Her tiny hands rummaged in a second plastic bin. A moment later, she tossed one small sack of silicone on the mattress followed by a second and then, moments later, two smaller sacks next to those.

She looked away. Refused to recognize her soon-to-be new tits were smudged with dirt and covered in grime. Ignored that they’d been retrieved from yet another bin. That one of her not-quite-yet ass cheeks had a faded sticker still taped to it, the remnants of a spider web clinging to the other. That the girl was wiping everything clean with a single cleaning wipe before placing the silicone sacks back on the red-stained mattress.

She ignored the old man hacking up, and then swallowing, mouthfuls of mucous before wiping his nose with his hands. Hands he hadn’t washed—in fact, was there even a sink down here?—while the little girl sat nearby eating fistfuls of sugary cereal, without milk, out of dingy, scratched Tupperware.

“Hazlo!” he said. The girl shoved another handful into her mouth and, her cheeks bulging like a cartoon chipmunk, grabbed the mask and, kneeling on the mattress, her bony thighs pressed against her shoulder, plopped it over her face.

As she lay hours later in her bed on Eidolon, she remembered it smelled like wet dirt, that mask. And moldy cardboard. And that it didn’t fit. There’d been no strap to secure it around her head, the little girl seeming not to care that the chipped plastic didn’t rest flush against her cheeks and chin, and that whatever gas was being pumped from the dented metal cylinder through the duct-taped tube wasn’t really reaching her nose. She remembered taking deeper breaths, desperate for the sedative to work, ignoring the panicked thought that it might not.

The first incision had been made while she was still awake and aware, the hurried slice under her breast long and deep. The shocking sensation of air meeting exposed flesh feeling like the coldest of winters, the sudden gush of blood staining skin like molten lava.

“Aqui! Aqui!” he’d said. The little girl had grabbed a handful of gauze and dabbed, swiped, wiped the blood away.

She’d closed her eyes, begging the sedative to work. Imagined how round and full her tits would look. How luscious they’d be. Dreamt of the boyfriend’s eyes filling with desire as she stood naked and perfect in the glow of the moon. Of him coming to her, hungry with need, as she laid back, her arms open and willing to receive his embrace, his love, his lust.

At some point, a needle stabbed her arm and then the thin flesh around her ribs, her armpits, her collar bone. The man muttered and spit as he’d shoved her new tits into place. Through the sedated chill, she could feel the flap of skin lifted, the silicon sack slid under and forced into place. There’d been staples, then. Rude and quick. And stitching. Impatient, clumsy. The fog lifting, only just, with cold ice taking a hard turn toward fire. And pain.

She remembered gasping and gritting her teeth, willing the tears away.

At some point, when they’d turned her over—hips down on the mattress, forehead resting on a crate, ass up on pillow with her new tits bandaged and resting in-between, the floor below cradling her nipples—the pain was so great it’d been muted. As if it was happening far from her. As if her body wasn’t hers. Her soul, who she was, so much more than this butchered pile of wounded flesh lying on a soiled mattress being manhandled by an irate old man while a little girl sat nearby munching cereal out of a dingy plastic bowl.

At some point she accepted that beauty was agony and this temporary misery would be worth it.

Or maybe the sedatives were kicking back in.

“You’ll bleed,” the woman from the corner told her afterward. She’d been right, of course. The woman who’d stepped into the light long enough to push her half-drugged bandaged butt out the door was thick and short. The eyes narrow slits of casual cruelty. The thin lips capped by a light dusting of dark hair, a thick mole laying claim to her rounded chin. “And the stitches will weep,” she said as she jammed ibuprofen into her hand and readied to close the door. “Keep everything clean, come back in seven days to get the staples removed and then don’t ever come back.” A brief pause as the woman’s eyes met hers. “I don’t know you.”

The door slammed shut followed by a click, click, click as the locks were bolted.

Somehow, she’d walked home. Somehow, through the drugs and the numbness and the dull, growing threat of excruciating pain, she’d found herself on familiar ground. Had looked up to see the corner dive with its flickering neon sign, and then, a moment later, the dented metal door to Eidolon. Had climbed the stairs, slow and careful, to 2B and stood alone at the bed peeling the blood-stained clothes from her weeping skin. The shirt, the sweatpants, both sodden and stained yellow and orange, green and red. The shirt, the sweatpants, ruined, refusing to release her wounds, the bandaging useless, her fingers nudging fabric from flesh, inch by painful inch.

Then the hours desperate for sleep. For rest. The hours with a pillow shoved under the small of her back, her fists gripping the sheets as she counted her breaths, long and slow. Ice packs on her boobs. Bags of frozen peas and carrots slid beneath her ass. The constant cold acknowledged and felt, though all but worthless.

And soon, minutes, perhaps hours, later, the regret.

Regret with becoming a walking skeleton.

Regret with changing natural brown to fake-ass blonde.

Regret with silencing her voice and killing her joy.

And huge, agonizing regret with laying on a blood-stained mattress in a basement a short walk from Eidolon with an old man pawing her while a young girl crunched dry cereal in a corner.

All this for a boyfriend. A cruel boyfriend. An unkind boyfriend. Someone who perhaps might not be—who probably isn’t, who probably never was—worth it.

Like an old friend, it came then. Drew close. Stood at the bed, gentle and sweet. An unseen kindness gliding from the corner and stealing from the shadows to kneel beside her. The voice unknown but familiar. A comfort offering a clear moment of sharp clarity. A whisper rising from the walls, the floor, those rust-colored fingers staining the corners high above, to surround her in a much-needed embrace.

The faint sound of its small voice parting the stabbing in her tits, slipping past the stinging agony in her backside and pushing aside the doubt, regret, fear stealing her thoughts to move close, the words warm and wet against her ear, to whisper

He can change, too.

***

She stood at the mirror. The boyfriend sat in the next room.

The TV blared the wordless screams of another crazed MMA crowd.

Finding her courage, she opened her eyes and stared at her reflection.

Even with the staples removed, she knew these wounds would never heal. She knew the round, luscious tits she’d dreamed of were never to be.

Uneven, the right sitting lower than the left. The nipples nowhere near where they should be. The scars ugly, red, weeping. Her pale flesh still carrying the jagged memory of those clumsy stitches. Twin gashes of red spanning her rib cage, reminding her forever of how desperate and lost she was.

Her ass cheeks felt heavy and wrong. As if nothing had set and nothing was secure. The twin silicone strangers shoved deep toward her hip bones, the small of her back, still jostling, shifting, finding their home. Loose and heavy. Threatening, in this nightmare world of little sleep and even less painkillers, to slip through yet more haphazard ribbons of red and plop to the floor.

He’d yet to see her undressed since the surgery, the boyfriend. Had eyed her twin monstrosities and disastrous derriere with growing suspicion and disgust. Even though she’d stayed bandaged and bound as she struggled to return to something resembling a normal life—cooking his mac & cheese, popping open his beers, making sure his laundry was clean and he had a fresh pack of smokes—he refused to change. Refused to lift a finger or offer a kind word.

He sat, as always, stockinged feet crossed, remote nestled in his crotch, the wordless roar of his fights a jaw-clenching constant. His gaze avoiding her.

She sighed. Took a deep breath, held it, and then exhaled.

It still hurt to lay, to sit, to stand, to walk. It still hurt to live.

And that deep breath held and then released? That hurt, too.

Why’d I do this, she wondered. What the hell was I thinking?

It was there again. That knowing that nudged her away from despair and soothed her doubts. That something that spoke to her most private thoughts like the best of friends. The friend Skinny had stopped being since that day she’d refused the peanuts, ignored the tap water, and tucked the mint between her cheek and gum. An unseen thing that assured her all was well and that what she had done, was doing—

had yet to do—

was right and true. That even if it felt wrong or seemed too extreme, it was the right choice. The best choice.

And that there was more to be done.

Yes

“Yo!” the boyfriend said from the other room.

Shrugging an oversize t-shirt over her head, she padded her way to the door.

He was at the door. “Smokes,” he said as he texted on his phone.

And before she could mention the fresh pack sitting in plain sight on the coffee table he was already gone, the door slamming behind him.

***

Days passed.

Seven days. Seven nights. Of worry. Of fear. Of rushing to the window, afraid to see cop cars with lights flashing. A week of fearing that knock on the door that carries the worst of news.

A week of enduring the agony of mental anguish added to her ongoing physical pain. Of wounds still sobbing. Of silicone sacs still shifting.

Of a body that no longer felt like hers.

Days of hearing not the din of overzealous wrestling fans shaking the walls and thumping against the floor, but the dulcet tones of TV chefs caressing her as they urged, guided, encouraged. Their words polite and gentle.

Perfect soups simmering in shining pots on gleaming stoves. Succulent cuts of marbled meat searing in expertly seasoned cast iron. Chopping, dicing, slicing on perfect cutting boards resting on marble counter tops in drool-worthy dream kitchens.

She listened, watched. Missed the feel, the smell, the sights and sounds of real food. Of preparing an honest to god dinner or lunch or brunch or breakfast.

And she’d long for the days when food was a thing she did. When her mind wasn’t hostage to an irrational fear of being round, pudgy, fat, obese. She spent a long week’s worth of days careening between fear and regret. Fear of being abandoned after all she’d done. Regret over all she’d given up.

Seven days later, there he stood.

In the neighborhood dive.

With her.

They talked nose to nose, this girl and him, his arm cradling her neck. She grinned, winked, chugged the last of her beer. He raised two fingers to the bartender, the new beers quickly following. He smiled at her. She smiled back.

She was large, this stranger, her ass plump, her thighs thick. The flesh of her arms jiggled when she moved. Her tits, round and heaving, the deep cleavage spilling from her “Stay Juicy” tee to press against his chest.

His fingers toyed with the stranger’s limp brown hair. Moved it from her shoulders. Another smile.

The boyfriend then leaned in, his lips near her ear. Whispered something.

She laughed. Loud. He grinned. She laughed again, the shrill, happy, carefree sound cutting through the bar and out onto the street where she, the wounded blonde skeleton forced into silence, shame, self-inflicted agony, stood at the window, watching.

Everything she’d been, everything she’d abandoned, stood there now at the bar with the boyfriend. All she’d relinquished—the tits, the jiggling tummy, the thick thighs and brown hair, the laughing, the joy—was smiling and drinking and flirting. No pain. No wounds. No regret.

Lights, bright and joyous, popped and snapped in her head, the back of her skull warm and buzzing, the flesh tingling and hot. Someone in her head was whispering, and laughing, and shouting. Someone in her head was sobbing, and fighting to breathe, and saying words she, the broken-hearted cadaver he’d left behind, would never have the courage or strength or wisdom to say.

Through the grimy glass, at the bar, she saw her, the girl.

She saw him.

She saw them kiss.

Saw him smile.

Saw him cup her face in his hands.

Saw his tongue lick her lips.

Gently. Sweetly.

Lovingly.

And then she saw black.

***

She woke to the sound of chopping.

A girl, some stranger with limp brown hair and pudgy arms, sat in the chair facing away from her, the TV on one of her cooking shows, the words of the celebrity chef, patient and kind, forgettable background noise as she fought to remember.

Propped on her elbows, her head dizzy, her thoughts slow, she glanced toward the window. It was still day.

She’d been outside. That she remembered. Had gone to the corner store. Left with a plastic shopping bag of ibuprofen, Advil, aspirin, pain relief cream. A new roll of bandages. Some antibiotic cream. Lingered over the cookies, the snack cakes. Ached to buy a bag of chips. Was desperate to hear that rip as it tore open and the rustling of those salty, crackling beauties colliding. To eat the cookies, snack cakes, chips. To satisfy her hunger for revenge.

But she couldn’t bring herself to buy them, her fear too great, her self-loathing not yet strong enough. Left the store, yes. Paused on the sidewalk outside the local dive. Stopped as something caught her eye in the window, through the glass.

A sigh as she struggled to remember. Reached for what waited beyond the window, through the glass, at the bar, laughing, and found only a black hole of lost and forgotten memory. Snippets, yes. The whole story? No.

Her platinum hair lay in piles on the floor in front of her. She ran her hand over her scalp. Felt smooth skin and tufts of errant blonde. Felt her palm sticky, wet, cold. Brought it to her face. Blinked. Fought to see clearly, her eyes wet, her vision hazy and blurred.

Saw red staining her hand. Embedded in the lines crisscrossing her palm. Saw bits of flesh stuck to her fingers and lodged in the creases of her knuckles. What looked like scraps of skin and bits of stringy flesh trapped under her nails. Looked up and saw the brown-haired stranger sitting nearby in her boyfriend’s chair, quiet and calm, her double chin tilted to the ceiling as her head rested back.

Her forehead cool against the floor, she breathed long and deep.

What was I missing?, she thought. The light was no longer early day. It was afternoon, the sun having left noon hours ago.

Struggling to think, she closed her eyes.

He’d kissed the girl with the brown hair.

She opened her eyes.

The stranger in the bar with the annoying laugh. The stranger now sitting quiet and still in her boyfriend’s recliner. He was holding her tight. In the bar. Earlier.

She exhaled, long and slow.

He’d reached around, her boyfriend, his hand cradling her fat ass as he smiled. As they laughed.

Pushing against the floor, she rose to her knees.

Their lips touched, his tongue slipping past the whore’s lips to her teeth, her tongue.

She shook her head.

Exhaled, long and slow.

Earlier, the door closed and locked behind her, she’d come home. Her various wounds, rips and tears forgotten, the clumsy gashes still weeping but ignored, she’d tossed the ibuprofen, Advil, aspirin, pain relief cream, bandages, antibiotic cream aside, feeling only anger and heartbreak.

Rage.

Cold as ice and solid as stone, it was a living thing, this rage. An immense glacier of teeming vitriol. A slow, inescapable ice flow of revenge. Calculated. Patient. Inevitable.

LETTER FROM UFC

she texted.

TICKETS?

the next text said, playing on her cheating, lazy ass boyfriend’s dreams of getting a freebie to one of his beloved fights where, of course, he was sure he’d end up banging the jiggling Jumbotron blonde.

Then she’d stood, walked to the kitchen.

From under the sink out came her beloved cast iron skillet. She placed it on the stove.

From the drawer she took out the chef’s knife and the knife sharpener.

Slow and easy, she pulled the blade again and again, honing the edge, the movement repetitive and therapeutic. Her eyes transfixed by the gleam of the metal, the gentle scrape of the knife against the polished stone a symphony of movement, of sound, calming her heart. This everyday ritual she cherished and missed becoming, in this cold moment of dangerous clarity, the most personal and precious of prayers.

She heard footsteps creep up the stairs. Not the thud of boots racing, two at a time, or the familiar, ominous pounding of heavy feet hitting wood and stomping to the door. These footsteps, this creeping, spoke of guilt, of regret. Of hope. Of begging to be welcomed back into the arms of the only woman who gave everything, who still would have given anything—who had given everything—to love him.

The key slid into the lock.

Her hand paused, resting the knife on the counter, releasing the handle.

The door opened.

She turned.

In the whore came.

Down the whore went, skillet meeting skull.

There was nothing but silence as she stood over the stranger, cast iron in hand. No one screamed in her head. No one spoke, or whispered, or yelled. No one laughed, or giggled, or wept.

In her head, in her world, in this small patch of hell she called Eidolon, there was only silence.

And in this silence, she didn’t hear metal splintering and smashing bone. Or whatever words the surprise victim tried to say as she lay stunned and bleeding, fingers balled into useless fists.

Straddling her boyfriend’s paramour, confusion crystallizing into memory, her body numb, the heavy cast iron felt light. A weightless nothing she could lift and then let fall as the whore’s head, in this silence, went from firm to not, her flabby harms no longer reaching, her thick legs no longer kicking.

Her lips no longer kissing.

Her chest no longer rising.

Her fleshy fists harmless, her feet twitching once, twice and then growing quiet.

The accidental corpse’s pale face buried under bloodied bruises, shattered bone, and torn skin.

Still wrapped in quiet, her world laying mute and still in the deepest of oceans, she dragged the slut by her ankles from the kitchen, the collapsed skull leaving a shining slick in its wake.

In this quiet, she lifted the surprisingly still living body into her boyfriend’s chair, the forehead, wet and sticky, bright red drool slipping from swollen lips to wander down her chest.

Pausing, she leaned her head against the woman’s shoulder.

And for the briefest of moments, she held the whore close, breathing deeply, the memory of her boyfriend kissing this cheek that wasn’t hers, and nibbling these lips that weren’t hers, his hand resting on this plump ass that wasn’t hers, peeking from the cold like the muted flicker of a dying flame before retreating once more into ice.

The stranger seated, the hug relinquished and released, the mangled memory of the head tipped back, she turned the TV up.

Knife in hand, the woman’s grungy blouse pushed to the chin, she kneeled.

She listened.

He can change, too.

She’s me, she thought, looking at the wispy brown hair and the mangled remnants of what had been a somewhat pretty face.

What makes her different? 

I don’t know.

No?

No.

Then find out.

How?

Start with what you see.

Yes.

And then go beneath.

***

“Slide your fingers under the skin,” the pleasantly plump goddess from East Hampton was saying as she splayed a chicken breast on the cutting board. “Loosen it, carefully, from the flesh . . . ”

Wedging the point of the knife into the woman’s neck, below the chin, she drew the blade down. Watched the blood slip free, pool in her impressive cleavage before spilling over to run and ripple between the folds of her tummy.

Starting with what she could see, she sliced down and then across. Slid the knife under, between flesh and muscle. Sawed the blade in long, easy strokes. Fingers clutched slippery pale, her nails digging, stained with red as she tugged sinewy flaps free to expose glistening meat stretched over bone.

Stripping the skin, the stranger’s front soon opened like the pages of a book, one telling a tale of ribs and lungs, spleen and intestine, heart and blood, she searched for what made her different, better. One that singled her out as more deserving of his attention, his kisses, his love and affection. This, this slicing, this sawing, this tugging and excavating, this peeling back the skin and diving underneath, this made sense. First, she’d find the answer and then . . .

What?

Kneeling between the stranger’s legs, she bowed, resting her forehead on her wide thighs.

This woman, this girlfriend, she’s not the problem, she thought. She’s not the one who abandoned who she was. Who forgot everything she wanted to be.

She’s not the one with the weeping gashes in her tits and the puss leaking from the stitches in her ass and the pain like a fucking vice squeezing all rational thought from her head.

Eyes closed, she steadied her breath. Focused on the feeling of making a fist. Fingers clenched, released, clenched, released. Her heart quieting, her breath quieting, the vice loosening but not yet releasing—

“Holding it firmly, guide the knife along the bone,” another was saying from the dark as she knelt, her forehead still on the stranger’s thigh, near her knees. She stirred, listened, knew this voice. Knew time had passed. That she’d fallen to black, minutes, maybe hours, passing, the large woman with a riot of blonde hair teased into a spiky mohawk her clarion call back to reality. “Just nice even slices, one after the other. Let the knife do the work for you.”

Her eyes opened. She lifted her head.

The blood no longer ran. Her boyfriend’s girlfriend still didn’t breathe.

The head tipped against the back of the chair, one side of the skull much lower than the other. The face still unrecognizable under the red, yellow, blue, black bruises and patches of scraped, broken, swollen skin riddled with pools of congealed blood.

Slide your fingers beneath the skin

she remembered hearing.

Rising, she saw again the open book before her, the breasts hanging useless near the corpse’s armpits. Watched the blood still seeping slow.

Slid her fingers to the book’s spine.

The blood was cold and thick, the muscle slippery, the ribs firm. She angled her hand, reached further, deeper, her fingers spreading, bending, searching. Her curiosity insistent and eager to

loosen it from the bone

as more remembered words urged her to do.

Moving faster, she worked her hand deeper. The tips of her fingers dug into the muscle, moving aside coiled intestine, tearing through the thickness, poking between the ribs. Her wrist knocking between bone, giving her more room to move and hunt and find.

There it sat.

Cold. Wet. Quiet and still. Dead. No longer beating.

She took her hand out. Watched the gaping innards nestle lifeless into their remembered niches, habit outliving death, the muscle beneath still gleaming and fresh.

You’re different, Skinny had said so long ago.

“But I’m not.” She winced. “I still don’t know what made you better than me,” she said to the body. She feared she’d cry, hating that it made her eyes puffy and red. “What made him choose you over me.” She turned away from the woman. From what silence had made her do. Looked down at her twin monstrosities. Clutched a lock of her hated blonde in her blood-drenched fist.

You’re not who you used to be.

“Who is that?” she said, the sudden tears turning to sobs. “I don’t know anymore.”

You’re saying this new apartment is making you into someone new?

“I don’t know—”

Some version you aren’t and have never been?

“No, no, no.” She gripped the blonde harder. “This isn’t me.” Looked at the dead woman’s limp brown. Pulled the blonde. Felt it rip from her scalp.

A little renovation, she heard herself say from the past.

She looked at the lock of hair in her fist. Hers used to be brown. Yes.

Reached up. Gripped a second lock.

It’ll be amazing, this past version of her said.

Pulled again. Felt it tear free. Dropped the blonde to the floor. Grabbed the knife.

Raised it to her scalp.

He should love you as you are, Skinny said a lifetime ago.

She shook her head. Squeezed her eyes closed. “No, no, no.” Gripped and sawed her hair. “He doesn’t. He wanted brown.” Pulled and parted and sliced. “He chose brown.” Chopped the platinum free, letting it fall to her shoulders. “That’s an answer right there. Brown not blonde.” Hair fluttered to land at her knees, peroxide strands littering the stranger’s wide knees and pudgy feet.

Soon her palm raced over a bare scalp, fingertips discovering jagged and peeling nicks she never felt. Slick, bleeding cuts she failed to notice. The blade returned, the spit in her hand wetting the remaining tufts as she shaved close.

Leaving the dead girlfriend and her crumpled skull and gaping pages and the bloody white of her ribs, she stomped into the bathroom, chef’s knife in hand.

What’s next? her friend said from the local dive too many days ago.

She pulled the oversize t-shirt up and over her head. Let it drop to the floor behind her. Looked at her misshapen tits. The glaring red of the glistening scars. The off-kilter, useless nipples. Thought of the plump bone-white breasts of the paramour sitting in her boyfriend’s chair.

You’ve already done the hair.

She breathed deep. Wanted to laugh. Stopped herself.

Start with what you see.

Gritting her teeth, she ran her red-stained hands over the painful mounds, still too tender to the touch.

Might as well peel it off, the girl she used to be said from the past.

Noticed the bruises still lingering. The blue and black and red rooted deep where she felt her body still weeping.

See what’s underneath.

Winced at the now dead, numb nubs of useless flesh sitting awkward and askew.

Take it all away.

Wanted to rip the silicone mistakes out, throw them away and, this monster she’d become cast off and forgotten, find out who she really was, who she used to be, and—

Start again.

Yes, she thought.

Trust me.

“You’ll like it in the end,” she said to the woman in the mirror as she lifted the blade.

***

She’d made a mistake somewhere, the blood pumping much too fast. A gouging that ran too deep. A slicing that cut too close and too dangerous. A wound she could see—even in the dim fog of a gathering haze—but no longer feel.

The ice that had been her anger, this living, inescapable thing, had now become her body. Her hands numb, her feet cold. Her flesh impervious to the cuts and slices and nicks and sawing. Her fingers no longer feeling the knife gripped in her fist.

You’re pretty, her friend said as they’d sat at the bar too long ago.

“I will be,” she said to the bloodied stranger in the mirror. She smiled a crooked smile. Noticed her eyes seemed too large, the pupils too round, the white too white. Drawing closer to the mirror, desperate to see something no longer there, her head swooned.

Her forehead rested against the glass, smearing it red.

On the floor below, the twin sacks of silicone sat. The trail of clumsy gashes followed, the wounds opened easy and quick, she’d ripped them out. Her fingers slipping

beneath the skin

to find and tug and pull the mistakes free.

Had she the strength, she’d nudge them with her foot. Move them away, toward the toilet. Push them out of sight, forgetting them forever.

But she couldn’t, the lake of blood sloshing around her feet slippery and wet. Her legs there and seen, but not there and felt.

And she still wasn’t who she was supposed to be.

She needed to go further. Recapture her essence. Her truth. Get rid of everything that wasn’t real. Everything she’d become. Find out what could make her different, better, than the other girl, the new girl, the dead girl.

Somewhere someone was laughing.

Dead girl, indeed.

That unseen thing from before returned. Slipped behind her, its silent voice promising, again, that all was well and that what she’d done, was doing—

had yet to do—

was right and true. That even if it felt wrong or seemed too extreme, even if somewhere her logic and reason were screaming to stop and think and reconsider, it was the right choice. The best choice. And that there was more to be done.

Yes

Lifting her fist to the top of her scalp, her world a chaos of snapping, popping lights and buzzing flashes, of someone still laughing, and whispering, and saying words she’d never have the courage to say, the unseen thing waited behind her. Urging her, assuring her through her tears, to continue.

To come home.

Reaching to the top of her shaved head, the first cut was made.

She wedged the knife deep, the blade angled just so.

To move too fast was disaster. Her hand needed to be steady, her grip patient, timing perfect. Anything less and the slender ribbon caught between thumb and blade would tear. And she’d have to begin again. Find another spot. Make another careful incision. Place another small slice right and perfect.

And then coax it free with a gentle pull. Steady, slow, sure. The strip separating in one long stream leaving behind an exposed, raw, weeping body.