lovejunky

The pains rise up within her once more, crippling her, folding her in half upon the toilet’s cold porcelain floor. They move through her like hot splinters, as if she were being subjected to a ghostly medical procedure that she was not fully aware of.

“I give you something for that,” Vidic says, each syllable roughly shorn from glass. He opens his coat to display the bottles and packets of pills stitched into it.

She shakes her head, sweeps her hair back from her face. For a few moments she is kneeling on a wet sidewalk, the greasy dribble of a garbage can’s leakage running next to her, the smell of Italian cooking, the sounds of boots echoing – then the tiles return and the bathroom reforms around her.

“I want whatever it was that you supplied that night,” she tells him.

Vidic’s smile disappears. “I tell you already, that was special deal. A trial run. I not have any more.”

“Bullshit, I know your type. You’d never deal out the entire supply, not even if your suppliers had told you to. Please, just give me what you have.”

She’s on her knees, pleading, and that’s all she’s ever done since the age of seven. To her father, to God, to her first pimp, to the man who had bought her for an entire year of her life, to God again and now to the dealer Vidic. There is no shame any more, it has been drained from her in the blood of self-mutilation, in the dark vomit that often greets her in the mornings.

“It was hot ride, then, yes?”

“Yes, yes, whatever.”

“And nothing else will be for you?”

“It has to be the stuff from the orgy.”

“Maybe another hit worth more than you can afford, Dalle. What you got for me?”

She almost says whatever you want but has enough self control left to stop herself, knowing how dangerous such an offer would be to a man like Vidic. “I can get you into the Shorelands Hospital’s secure storage area. They’ve got everything in there. I’ve seen it.”

“I not believe you.”

The pain is fading now as if it were the tail-light of a lover’s car disappearing into the distance.

“Fine, then someone else can help themselves. There isn’t a dealer in this city that would say no.”

“But I the only one who has what you want.”

“And I’m the only one who can get you into Shorelands. So we both have something the other is interested in. Look, either you’re going to give me the stuff or you’re not. It’s what I want but not enough to put up with your shit all night, I’ll just go elsewhere.”

She hauls herself to her high-heeled feet, swaying at the sudden rush of blood to the head, reaches for the sinks to steady herself. Someone has scrawled we’re all going to die here in either blood or lipstick on the mirror. She feels the strangeness coming again and her heartbeat begins to increase. Her breath comes in short, sharp gasps. Rain spatters her face. Someone is shouting.

“Dalle?”

She blinks and is in the bathroom once more and Vidic is holding a small hypodermic needle between his fore- and middle fingers. A man and a woman stagger into the room, the noise of the club spilling in through the open door behind them, and freeze when they see Vidic.

“Out,” the dealer snaps, lip curled like a dog’s. Dalle recognises the woman as an appareil like herself, the tattoos that roam down her arms marking her out as belonging Boa Morte’s flock, and though alcohol-blurred and drug-addled, the man does as instructed. Vidic waits until the door has closed before continuing.

“I want into the storage tonight. You do whatever you want to do with this little package but by 3am I want you at Shorelands ready for me – you got that Dalle? And if you fuck around in any way I’ll open you up from end to end.”

She nods, not really listening to what he’s saying, taking the needle from him. She looks at the murky grey liquid inside and is disappointed to find that it triggers no memories for her. There is only a vague image of the needle glinting in the party lights that dance across it, sweat-beaded bodies moving around in the background. And the sensation of some stranger’s thoughts echoing in her own head.

“Oh, and one more thing,” Vidic says, the grin returning as he grabs her by the hair and wrenches open the buttons on his jeans. “I hear you’ve got a special talent or two …”

#

The cars, matte-finished and always black, move around the streets like sharks attracted by the blood of the appareil that infuses the air, that blossoms and clouds, that sparkles in the gutters. Those who are on foot stick to the shadowed channels that lie between the glare of the neon signage which garishly illuminates the women they seek. It is as if there are two worlds here, imperfect reflections of each other, lying to one another, each imbued with a dark narrative of fear and loathing.

Dotted across the distant hillsides like lesions are the mansionhouses of the pimps who capture, claim and breed the appareil, far removed from the gritty rawness of the city that has been created for them. At the end of the main strip is a large building with pillars on either side of a set of stone steps leading up to its entrance, the carved figures that had once guarded the place now reduced to the jagged-edged victims of anonymous vandals. More neon, this time stolen from other locations across the district, spell out the words Chill Zone in variously-sized lettering.

Dalle makes her way up the steps, carefully wrapping the faux fur shawl that she carries around her shoulders and arms, her stride becoming deliberately more unsteady. On either side of the doorway are two Maoris, arms crossed in front of their massive chests, their true expressions barely visible amidst the elaborate ta moko that leaves only the white glare of their eyes untouched. As she nears them someone hits her over the back of her head and she stumbles forwards, snapping the heel from one shoe and smashing into the doorway.

A survival instinct honed by many years in this place kicks in and she twists, snatching the broken heel and wielding it like a blade, ready for more blows to reign down upon her. An angered client, a jealous appareil, a rich teen just having a bit of fun, or Al Habisi changing his mind about banishing her from his flock? But when she looks up all she sees is the puzzled look of the Maoris, unmoved from their position by the door. She touches the back of her head and there is the sensation of wetness on her fingers but when she pulls them away there is nothing there. She hears shouting but it is muffled, as if she had put her hands over her ears. Then the pain and dizziness are gone – instantly and completely.

She gets to her feet, taking the other shoe off, and the door is opened for her by one of the Maori, shaking his tattooed head. Inside the massive building, rumoured by some to have once been City Hall, everything is lit by the azure glow of blue-tinted strip lights mounted on the ceilings, walls and floor. Men and women are sprawled on the staircases, propped up in doorways, strung out on the ratty mattresses that line the many hallways. The place is filled with an electro-static buzz from the lights that at times feels like the presence of a long-dead deity, that raises the hairs on the back of Dalle’s neck and along her spine.

This is where the appareil come when the chemicals that are constantly fed to them cease to work, when their exhaustion is about to overwhelm them, when their pimps have squeezed every last drop of energy from them and there’s nothing left to give. Dalle wanders the corridors until she finds a small room on the floor of which a girl in a translucent dress lies on her side, her long legs splayed awkwardly. Her eyes are open but she doesn’t respond when Dalle enters.

Dalle retrieves the needle from her pocket and in the blue light something is triggered in her mind. The smell of mint, the sensation of arms being wrapped around her, and for a split second a face appears before her. She jumps, almost dropping the needle.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the girl says. She remains in the same position but now looks up at Dalle.

Dalle realises that her shawl has slipped, exposing the fresh burn marks running down her arm where the tattoos once were. They are still an angry red from Al Habisi’s blowtorch, as if they take personal offence at his rejection several days earlier.

“None of us should,” she tells the girl.

The girl pulls herself up onto one elbow. Her skin is sunken in every place possible as if her body was trying to retreat into herself. “What’s that?”

“I don’t know,” Dalle says. “I was given it at a party last week, before …”

Her eyes drift to the scarring and she pulls the shawl up over it once more.

“What did you do?”

“I can’t remember. I don’t even know if it was even really me.”

“What do you mean?”

Dalle doesn’t answer. A striplight fizzes overhead, flickers momentarily. The red glow of Hell outside, the cold-blue of Heaven in here.

“You ever wonder what’s going to be left of yourself at the end? There are pieces of us all, all over this city. Scattered. In the johns’ pockets, in their clothes, their cars. If these little chunks keep disappearing, what’s going to be left?”

The other girl frowns, runs a finger along blood-flushed lips. “You’re fucking wasted,” she says.

“Yeah,” Dalle says and slides the needle into a vein next to her scar tissue. The liquid is cold as it goes in. “We’re all going to die here, right?”

“Of course.”

“Alone.”

The woman blinks and perhaps this is the first time she has contemplated the idea. “I suppose so.”

Dalle’s head begins to sparkle. It feels as if tiny fragments of glass are now coursing through her and there’s music, harsh, pounding music. The other appareil stands over her, touches the straps of her dress with her index fingers and it slides down her bony figure to the ground. Red and green light streams through the window to illuminate the lanugo on her arms and stomach, just one more sign of how hard her body is fighting to keep her alive. Around her other figures emerge from the murk, semi-clothed, wrapped around one another. There’s the sound of breathing in Dalle’s ears and hands moving along her flesh. A finger placed in her mouth and the face is back but too blurry to make out any features.

“… get a hit?”

The lighting flickers again and everything falls away and there is only Dalle and the girl, now naked and kneeling before her. Dalle drops the needle, struggles to her feet.

“He’s coming back,” she says. “I’m with him.”

The girl fumbles for the needle, blinking hard as she tries to focus on it.

“You bitch. There’s nothing left. There’s nothing left!”

Her cries echo down the corridor after Dalle as she leaves the building and descends the steps. The sharks swim past her. The great, dead spirit is left behind.

#

She wanders the streets, blissful, wrestling from the grasp of the men who grab her, ignoring the offers coming from behind the tinted windows of cruising vehicles because she no longer needs them. Al Habisi’s rejection has untethered her from the place and she now drifts towards the man that had been with her ever since the night of the orgy.

With a fresh dose of the drug the thoughts and sensations that have been quickly fading are now returning to full strength, cascading around her. She hears men’s voices, threats. Puts a hand to the back of her head and comes away with blood that isn’t really hers. Something crashes behind her and there is the unmistakable musty smell of books.

The old library.

She quickens her pace as much as her bare feet will allow on the wet, cold concrete, racing past men and women that seem to appear and disappear from the neon glow as if they are apparitions. She doesn’t slow until she reaches the ruins of the old library, abused with tag art and missile damage, the windows smashed and books littering the street. Shouts emanate from within.

She hauls herself up onto a dumpster and then through the hole where a window had once been. Bookcases and shelving have been torn from the walls and upended, some assembled into piles that have been burned. She crawls around the few pieces of furniture still standing towards the source of the voices and there are three men gathered around another man laying prone before them. One of the men have their folly by the hair and shoves a gun into his throat and as he does so Dalle tastes metal, feels something clatter against her teeth. She tongues the weapon.

They bark threats at the man, threats that she seems to hear twice, then the gun is pulled from his mouth and he’s struck across the side of the head with it. Dalle falls under the impact, crumpling into the debris of torn hardcovers and plaster chunks. When she looks up the men are standing over her, quizzical expressions on their faces, the gun still looming. They suddenly turn to something behind them. Blood rolls across her cheek and into her eye. She blinks it away and the men are gone, back across the other side of the building but looking in her direction now. They kick the man in his guts then stride away and she fights to soften her breathing as they near her. They slow briefly, glancing around the fallen and burnt-out displays, then leave the building.

Once they are gone, Dalle makes her way towards their victim on hands and knees, letting the shawl drift from her shoulders and expose the marks that now defined her as less than nothing. A rejection from the place of rejection. The man is on his side, blood staining his face, blinding him in one eye.

“It’s you, isn’t it?” he asks, the words wet and unsteady like a beached fish.

“I came to be with you again,” Dalle tells him. She slides herself up next to him, lifting his damaged head into her lap. Beneath his torn t-shirt are the tattoos that proclaim his ownership to Desaille’s mob.

“From that … night … the … party?”

A smile blossoms on her face, something that is usually only mimicked in this place, that occurs in the lips and not the eyes.

“How do you do it? I … felt you …”

“Not me,” she tells him, stroking blood-soaked hair from his face. “It was one of the drugs they gave us. Something new.”

He coughs, flinches in pain, and she smells mint on his breath. Memories from that night swirl around them both, El Habisi’s clients and Desaille’s too, and their girls and boys all wrapped around one another and somewhere in there Dalle and this man becoming chemically bound to one another.

He says, “You were fading. I thought I was going to lose you. But then you … came back.”

“I know. I took some more.”

“You found me,” he says, reflecting her smile now.

His head tilts to one side, opening a gash in his neck that she hadn’t noticed before. Blood streams out. “Who were they?” she asks him.

“Just clients. They got a little bit carried away but Desaille will still collect his fee.”

“Desaille doesn’t matter anymore. You’re mine now. And I’m yours.”

She lifts her arms into his line of sight to show him the scars. “We’ll remove yours too.”

“They’ll come after us,” he says and the fear returns to his eyes, the fear that populates every appareil in the city. “They’ll come down from the hills and kill us.”

“It doesn’t matter,” she tells him. “I’ll be with you. And if they find me then you’ll be with me. We’ll live on.”

“We’re going to die in this place aren’t we?” he asks, blood bubbles forming and popping on his lips.

Dalle nods, still stroking his face. “Yes,” she tells him. “But not alone.”

- Simon Logan

Simon Logan is the author of the industrial short story collections I-O
[2002] and Nothing Is Inflammable [2006] and the fetishcore short story
collection Rohypnol Brides [2006]. You can find out all you need to know
about him at his website www.coldandalone.com.