Page 30 of Dark Ugly Places

“I do,” she says, her voice small and vacant, like someone else is talking.

Jason stands abruptly. “Well, then you actually have to show up for me to fuck you.”

Her throat blisters, dry and hollow. She takes another sip of water, cold on hot. “I’m here, so what’s the problem?”

He snaps her up by the wrist, the Ambien tight in her palm, and holds her to him. The scent of alcohol is heavy on his breath.

She wrenches from him, feeling her heart race. “I’m going upstairs to take a shower.”

“Good. And don’t take forever. I have an early start.”

Upstairs, Bambi takes the Ambien. Her skin turns red and raw under the hot water as she scrubs and scrubs her body to remove the fake tan. She braces herself against the cool tile as the room spins a little, an effect of the tiny blue pill. Her head hung low, she watches the water run orangey brown past her feet. When it’s clear, she shuts the water off and steps out.

She thinks of the last time they made love. Jason has a way of being alluring, even when he’s demanding of her. And she loves him, of course. But a dark intensity had begun to form in him, as though she were a thing that he owned rather than a person to him.

This time will be different. This time, there’s a darkness waiting for her on the other side. She only has to make it from their bathroom to their large king-size bed. It’s easier knowing that the drug will whip through her veins, and like magic, she will be gone.

Cold tiles, cold floor. The fluff of her slippers. Toes emerge through, bright red, a color called Dominatrix. Bambi wipes her cold hand across the mirror, pulling the condensation this way and that. Her make-up off, face piqued with color, she forces a tiny smile, then braces herself as the room spins.

Jason switches off the TV and undresses, his frame muscular in the light. He pulls her toward the bed now, his lips on her ear. She feels him pressing against her, his body ridged and unmoving. “I want you,” he whispers, his voice so close, she can feel the moisture from his mouth, the scent of Macallan still strong on his breath. Bambi feels her body fall slack in his arms as he lifts her toward the bed and pulls open her robe. He moves between her legs, urgent, restless, intense. You used to enjoy this, she reminds herself.

But now she has the urge to slip quietly away.

There’s no sense in running from Jason, though. Not now. Maybe not ever.

13

Nicola

I can’t decide which light is worse: the crack of sunlight bouncing in from the window or the white light still on in my bathroom, hitting the mirror and stabbing me in my right eye. I cover my head with the duvet and try to block it out.

I peel back the comforter and squeeze my eyes shut. My sweaty palm smacks across my forehead, trying to cover my eyes, a pure instinct to get rid of the assaulting light. At the dresser, I fumble around for a spare packet of Imitrex. They seal each goddamned pill individually—paper with a peel-and-tear corner that, once removed, reveals a blister pack beneath. The bastards are really hard to open.

I tear it with my teeth and manage to put the pill into my mouth, the bitterness making me gag. Broken images fill my mind from the night before. A flash of the grocery store, then my own face in the mirror. What happened to me?

I amble to the bathroom, clutching my side, my one leg still dead, a sharp stab of pain in my temple. My hand flicks on the tap, and I bend over to slurp in some water and swallow down the two bitter pills, the taste metallic and chalky at the same time.

My legs buckle, my stomach lurches, and I vomit everything back into the sink, the white pills clattering against the porcelain. I blink my eyes open against the blinding light, trying desperately to see where the pills have gone, but it’s too late. The drain rattles with a deep, hollow sound as it carries the pills away from me.

I hobble back toward the medicine cabinet, searching for more Imitrex. Another packet, another tear and hack open with my teeth. I swallow at the sink and hunker down to the floor, praying I will keep them down this time. Twenty minutes is all I need for them to work.

I pry myself up, a thought fresh in my mind. Did I take my pills last night? I can’t remember. Why can’t I remember? Everything is broken images, flashes here and there, the occasional color or sound coming through.

Why is the migraine so bad?

What did I forget?

Was it something I ate?

My head presses against the cool slab of the tile floor to keep the throbbing at bay while the drug takes over. Migraine, migraine, what the hell are you? Migraine, migraine, go away soon. My stomach heaves, threatening once again to cast the contents of my stomach onto the floor, but I push it back. I roll my forehead along the tile. Migraine, migraine, migraine. Die, you horrible migraine. The light pierces my head, needle-like, stabbing. The sun is rising, meaning time is marching on. The Imitrex slowly begins to numb the pain, and I start to remember the night before.

She was here.

A stab of pain—agony in my head—and the nausea returns. Quick relief. I know how to get it. Another packet, another pill. It takes all my effort to crush it against the sink with the back of a toothbrush and gather the fine powder into a line so that I can lean down and inhale the lot with one easy uptake, the bitterness suddenly down my throat, stinging my nose.

A quick bite of pain crosses my skull before it eases. Serenity. Relief, sweet like a breath that has been too long held.

Now do you remember?