Troubled (short, dark erotica) Page 2

  4

  Maria coughed loudly into her hand, making sure some of it entered the mouthpiece. She followed it with a sniffle, wiping her nose with a wet sound to add to the effect.

  “I think there’s something going around,” she said into the phone, her voice saggy and tired.

  “This is the fourth day in a row that you’ve called in sick,” the administrator mentioned.

  Maria coughed again, gave another wet chortle. “I could come in if you wanted,” she said. “I mean, my nose is dripping; I can’t stop coughing and sneezing; I’m too tired to think and I’m probably contagious, but if you want me…” she let that hang in the air.

  “It's okay,” they answered reluctantly. “Take the week off, get some rest. We need you in next week though.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  She put the phone down, wiped away the real snot that had dribbled from her nose during her exertions and then grinned at Markus who had watched her theatrics from across the room.

  “Good, eh?” she asked, almost ready to take a bow.

  He nodded, “Impressive.”

  A few hours later and they were both stoned, the effects hitting her more than him. He started drinking, she took a few quick pull from his bottle but it was still far to early for her. When the dope wore off she planned to start her day properly, get some good food down her, do some sit-ups, go for a run--

  “Do you want to go to the pub?” he asked her, smoke still drifting out of his mouth as he spoke.

  She stared at him for a while. She was getting lazy. She had barely moved off the sofa in over a week. Markus’s mother was still on her cruise and Maria had spent most of her free time at his house, free time that had extended from two weeks to three thanks to her lies over the phone.

  “Okay.”

  So what if she had been drinking and smoking for a few weeks? She was in a new relationship and she was enjoying herself. She was getting to know her boyfriend and herself. She was getting lazy and unhealthy, but it wasn’t anything that a few days in the gym couldn’t reverse.

  She liked joining in with Markus, liked drinking and smoking with him. The sex was amazing, better than anything she had ever had, and as she drank more and smoked more it only got better. She didn’t know if it was the drugs, if they made the sex better or if they made him better at pleasuring her, but it was heaven. Thanks to their drinking and smoking sessions, Markus had opened up to her. He read her more poetry, even created some especially for her. He told her that he was lost as a child growing up, said he struggled to fit in, struggled to mix with his peers, and that, along with his father leaving him at an early age and a diagnosis of a personality disorder, had sent him over the edge, into the abyss of recklessness. He was a true tortured soul, not a faker like Drake. He was a poet, a struggling artist.

  During one of their drunken sessions she suggested that he take a creative writing course, said he could make something of himself and his work. She knew that he could do something with his life, knew that he could be the man she really want him to be. The perfect man. She also gave him the details to some Home Learning courses and pressurized him into contacting local magazines and newspapers about journalism work. He brushed her off, doubted he was good enough or could get sober enough. She pressured him until she could pressure -- or talk, or walk, or think -- no more, until the drugs, the drink and the heavenly sex took her to another realm.

  ***

  The bass cut through her soul, rocked her heart to a new rhythm and pricked every inch of flesh inside her. She danced on the tabletop, kicking her feet madly out in front of her like some crazed Coyote Ugly reject.

  The club was packed, full of young, cheering, drunken men, all yelling at her to strip. There were women there as well, most urging her to fall, to make a fool out of herself. Markus was also there, but he didn’t look too happy, especially when she took off her top, soaked in the screams of delight from the rowdy chorus of men, and then threw it across the bar.

  She couldn’t see her admirers, couldn’t really see anything in the dim lights, not with her eyes buzzing madly around the room, throbbing to the music as if she had an extra heart at the back of her head. She was with Markus and his friend, a friend who had offered them ecstasy tablets. She had refused at first, they both had, but as the night wore on, as the party livened up and the drinks flowed, she accepted with gratitude and swallowed the pill with minor trepidation. That was a couple of hours ago, a lifetime ago, and that trepidation had gone.

  “She’s amazing!” Markus’s friend yelled, staring up at Maria, her breasts bobbing about with her movements. She looked like she was ready to take off her pants, her palms were pressed to her thighs, working her way up and down, seemingly impatient and annoyed with the material that covered them.

  Markus nodded, feigned a broad smile. He hadn’t taken any of the ecstasy but was beginning to wish he had. If nothing else, it would take away the embarrassment he was feeling towards his girlfriend. He knocked back a few more drinks instead, began to feel more alive and sedate by the time Maria finally dragged herself down from the table -- the chorus of pleading men dwindling to disappointed murmurs.

  “This is amazing!” she yelled, hugging him, throwing her sweaty body on him.

  She clung to Markus, he could feel her hot, burning skin against his. She was clammy, sticky. He was about to tell her to drink something, to hydrate herself, when she suddenly tipped over, dipping her head under the table. At first he thought she had passed about, he was about to check on her when he felt her hands grabbing at his crotch underneath the table.

  He peeked under, saw her beaming red face smiling at him. She released his cock, took it in her mouth; hungry for his flesh, thirsty for his cum. It didn’t feel right for him, she was sloppier than usual and he didn’t like the horny stares from strangers who clearly knew what was going on. He took his time to finish but when he did, she looked like she was ready to go again.

  ***

  “I’m sick.” Maria didn’t need to put on a fake voice, she felt like hell. The comedown from the ecstasy had torn her open, this was the second day, the beginning of a new week in which she was due at work, and she still felt like shit. She had spent the previous day in bed smoking joints to soothe the pain, she hoped to do the same today, once she managed to get off work.

  “Again?” the administrator said in disbelief.

  “Yes, again,” Maria snapped. She was short tempered, not in the mood for condescension.

  “Hold on, I need to put you through to Mr Martin.”

  Ah shit. Maria gulped thickly, shook her head to herself. Edward Martin was her boss, a mean spirited prick who didn’t think anything short of coma or death was enough to stop his employees attending work. She pressed a hand to her head, dug her forefinger and thumb into her temples.

  She heard the phone change hands, heard her boss speak in a gruff tone devoid of patience. “What’s the problem this time?”

  “I’m ill,” she said hopefully. “I’ve been--”

  “Again?” he cut in.

  “Well, I--”

  “This is the second week,” he told her. “Have you been to the hospital?”

  “What? No, why--”

  “Have you seen a doctor?”

  “No, it’s just a virus.”

  “Exactly,” he said with a degree of finality. “And viruses don’t last this long. Now, unless you have a note from your doctor declaring you unable to attend work, I expect you here within the next couple of hours.”

  She felt a pang of annoyance stab at the back of her head. She couldn’t believe what he was suggesting. She was ill, or so he believed, and he wanted to drag her to work? That annoyed her, tested what little patience her comedown was allowing her. She felt her blood boiling, felt a tension headache beginning at the base of her skull.

  “I’m not coming in, I told you--”

  “I expect you here,” he repeated. “I expect--”

  “Fuck you!” Mari
a snapped, silencing her boss with her burst of anger. “You expect nothing. I’ll do whatever the hell I want. If I’m ill, I’ll stay home.”

  “How dare you talk to me like that, who do you think you are? You work for me, I’m your boss.”

  “Bollocks.” Maria spat. “I quit. Stick your job up your fucking arse.”

  She slammed the phone down, felt her face twitch as a grin tried to spread over the twisted expression of anger. That felt good, it wasn’t a wise move, she needed the money, but she could deal with that later. Now she didn’t have to worry about going to work, not whilst she was suffering through the comedown -- not ever.

  She sat back, took a joint from the bedside table and lit it.

  5

  She stopped getting much information out of Markus when they smoked and drank together, but she didn’t stop smoking or drinking. He seemed to slow things down, he also seemed to engage less and less with her, but she didn’t notice most of the time and when she did, in those brief moments of sobriety, she didn’t let the thoughts or the sobriety linger long enough to upset her.

  She started using valium every day; tried a handful of other drugs in a short space of time and took a liking to a number of them. She smoked crack and snorted coke in a nightclub toilet, noting how Markus didn’t join in on either occasion, merely stood back and watched. She was proud of him, wondering if she was getting close to moulding him, wondering if she was helping him get off the drugs like she had hoped. She just needed him to find a job, to do something with his life and her goal of moulding the perfect boyfriend would be complete.

  He didn’t join her when a mutual friend introduced her to heroin, which they smoked inside the back seat of his car with Markus standing outside looking distant and displeased. She didn’t see where Markus was when she first injected the heroin, didn’t know if he was with her or not when she tried hallucinogens and psychedelics further down the line.

  She had no job to go to so she lost all sense of ritual and time. Sometimes she would stay awake for days on end, usually with the aid of amphetamines or cocaine, and when she finally got to sleep and then awoke from her abyss into the painful grasp of sobriety, she would pop pills -- sedatives, opiates -- to send her back.

  She started spending more time at clubs and houses of strangers. She drank from morning till night, smoked throughout and popped as many pills as she could lay her hands on. She left the ecstasy as an occasional habit, but she was supplied with heavy amounts of tranquilizers from a new friend. His name was Adam, he was a fiend of Markus, or so she assumed.

  He tried it on with her one night, He had given her a handful of pills and seemed to want access to her knickers in return. She batted him away, gently at first, then lost her patience.

  “Stop or I’ll tell Markus!” she warned him.

  He gave her a creased frown. “Who the fuck is Markus?”

  “Your friend?” she explained, almost sarcastically, then, when she realized that he wasn’t responding with any recognition, she said, “I thought he was your friend. That’s how I met you, right?”

  He laughed softly. “Darling, we met on the dance floor. You were wasted and grinding up against me. I took you home, tried to get into your pants and you fell asleep on my bathroom floor.”

  She couldn’t remember any of that, couldn’t remember ever being inside his house. When she thought about it, she couldn’t even remember how long she had known him.

  “Where is this boyfriend of yours then?” he asked

  She looked around, expecting him to be there. He wasn’t. The club was full of faces she recognized, faces that had blurred into one over the last couple of weeks. Markus wasn’t there.

  “I’m not sure.”

  He grinned at that, seemed to take it as an invitation. She batted him away again, more forcefully this time. She got up to leave, barged her way through the crowd and out onto the street. She couldn’t remember when she had last seen Markus, everything had been a blur.

  She gave him a ring, he answered in a sleepy and confused voice.

  “What’s wrong?” he asked her, detecting the worry in her slurred voice.

  “Where are you?” she asked.

  “Home,” he said simply.

  “Why aren't you with me?”

  He paused. “I have work tomorrow,” he said simply, “what do you want?”

  “Work?!” she almost laughed, then she realized he wasn’t joking. “I’m coming around,” she told him.

  “I don’t think that’s wise.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s after midnight,” he informed her. “Far too late. You’re drunk and I’m tired.”

  “I need to see you. I need to be with you.”

  He sighed down the line, his breath crackling into her ear. “I don’t want to see you,” he told her.

  “But you’re my boyfriend, you’re my--

  “No, I’m not,” he told her simply. “You’re too wasted to know what’s going on around you anymore. I don’t even dare think of who you were with when we were together, of what you did--”

  “How dare you say that!” she snapped. “I’ve never been anything more than faithful to you.” She tried to remember if she was telling the truth, she thought she was, she knew she loved him, or at least thought she did, but she struggled to remember anything. There were glimpses of men, many men, most of them flirting with her. She couldn’t remember doing anything with them, but how could she be sure?

  “I’m coming around,” she told him.

  6

  He didn’t look happy to see her, didn’t want to unhook the chain and let her in. He glared at her through the gap in the door, looked her up and down. He seemed disappointed.

  “Are you going to let me in?” she asked.

  Even her voice had changed, he thought to himself. It was rough, gravelly. It sounded tired and haggard. Like her face, it had aged a good decade or more.

  He still remembered when she was the clean-cut typical girl next door. She was beautiful then, wide-eyed and fresh. Now she was gaunt with black bags under her eyes, her cheeks poking through her skin as if trying to leave her face. And she stunk, she had covered herself in cheap perfume to hide the other smells, but he could smell the must on her; the smoke; the unwashed clothes and the body odor.

  He unhooked the chain, opened the door and let her in. She moved to give him a hug but he pulled back. She looked like a witch from a fairytale, he was almost afraid she would try to fatten him up and then stuff him in the oven.

  He had seen her heading this way, had seen the blackness under her eyes when it began to form; the red spots inside the whites of her eyes when they were just specks of minor sleeplessness. She hadn’t been thin when their relationship started, in fact she had been fattening up thanks to the booze and munchies from all the dope, but now she was stick-like. Too many stimulants, too many sleepless nights.

  He showed her to the living room and sat her down. She looked around, made a note of how clean the place was, how distinctly lacking in drug paraphernalia: smoking bongs, filled ashtrays. She couldn’t even see an empty can and it was the first time she had seen Markus without a drink in his hand or nearby.

  “So, long time no see,” he said, sitting on the other end of the sofa and hoping she didn’t try anything.

  She smiled softly. “It’s only been a week.”

  He seemed confused. “It’s been a lot longer than a week,” he said slowly, as if talking to a child.

  “Two weeks then.”

  He stared at her for a while, looked deep into her glassy eyes. “Maria,” he began slowly. “I haven’t see you for two months.”

  Her mouth hung open, she rolled her eyes upwards, tried to remember, tried to recollect. He certainly looked different. Healthier. He wasn’t as thin or as rough as she remembered. He has a cleaner haircut, a clean-shaven face and he was wearing a dressing gown that she had never seen him in. It was free of stains and smelt like it was fresh from the dryer.

/>   “Really?”

  He nodded, shifted forward on the sofa with a pitying smile on his face. He took her hand and sandwiched it between his. “You need to stop this,” he told her.

  “Stop what?”

  “This,” he said, looking over her body. She didn’t know what he was talking about. “The drugs, the drink, the lifestyle. It’s killing you.”

  She laughed derisively and pulled her hand from his. “You can talk,” she said. “You were the one that got me into this; you’re worse than me.”

  He nodded. “I’m sorry for that,” he said genuinely. “I did get you into it, but I’m your friend. I can help you get out of it.”