
Written while listening to Tori Amos' version of 'I'm Not In Love' from Strange Little Girls.
A Nasty Stain
By: Elizabeth Slade
You think you know her.
You think what you see is all she is. That she is all leather and heels and chains. You think she means it when she says she never falls in love. That she's a whore, a tough kinky whore who doesn't attach herself to anyone or anything. Her mother died? Oh well. The same week her cat ran away and she got kicked out of her apartment? That doesn't matter, she'll find someone new.
You're wrong.
That's not to say it's all a lie. She likes what she does, in her way. She gets off on tying people down and seeing them bleed, you know that. You've felt that. And she doesn't really attach herself to anyone anymore. But there's one falsehood in all she tells.
She does love.
Well.
She did.
She wants to love again. Really she does. But every time she sees men she sees one thing. Not eyes, not hair, not muscles, not even meat. And defintely not love.
She sees a man with black hair and sharp green eyes. Pale skin, a leather jacket. Blue jeans, hands stuffed in his pockets. A smile. A lying smile.
Every man is him.
Every man, if she gave him the chance to slip under her skin the way he did, will break the shell she managed to form after him. They will hurt her. With words, with a fist, with his body and another girl.
And this is why she gets off on hurting men.
She hurts them, they know she is strong.
She beats them before they can beat her.
She makes them bleed before they can make her cry.
Some would say that's sick.
She says it's survival.