Amanda woke up to darkness and a horrible feeling in her stomach. The
clock next to her bed glowed 3 a.m. as she rushed to the bathroom where she
proceeded to empty her entire stomach into a porcelain bowl. She strained to do
so leaving her eyes red and watered, her face covered with tiny red spots from
busted blood vessels.
Some of what came up go in her
hair. She should have seen this coming. Why did she have the last
something-with-cream? She usually stuck to the rule to stop drinking when
you’re drunk. It was her way of not following in her father’s footsteps. His
side of the family was riddled with boozers but her mother’s wasn't, so she
assumed she had a 50/50 shot of inheriting the gene.
Amanda flushed and filled a glass of water. While drinking it down, she
realized that she had some remains on her shirt as well and figured a shower
was the best thing for her.
She turned the water on, found the right temperature, and stepped into a
hot rain that blanketed her body. She felt some of the tension slip away.
What had she done earlier? She should have known going to her brother’s
was a bad idea. She should have had him drop off the keys at her work so it
would be a shorter meeting and they would have no time to dwell on family
issues. She didn't even want to go to the bar, but after that conversation, she
knew she needed a drink. And she never planned on having several of them with
people she hadn't seen in ages, but here she was washing out regret the night
before her trip to Seattle.
After cleaning her hair, she lay down in the tub and turned up the water
temperature with her foot. The tub began to steam as the water gently splashed
down on her stomach.
She needed to get out of Portland and this trip was just the thing. She
felt terrible; about her stomach, her head and her life. After another minute
she wiped snot from her nostrils and leaned forward with her hands on her head
and, while sitting, let the hot rain wash down over her back.
She cried a lifetime worth of tears and it was hard to tell where the
shower water ended and they began as she tasted the human salt on her lips. Amanda
wanted to shed her skin and let it slip away down the drain. Through the pipes
and sewers with the rest of the crud. Eaten whole and digested by the city.
Then filtered, washed, disinfected, and released to the river where she will
float away to the ocean. She was good at slipping away from her problems, like
some sort of escape artist. She never really ran from her problems as much as
she just chose to ignore them and had been doing so all her life.
She ran her hands up and down a week’s worth of stubble on her legs. Fall
and winter months allowed for this kind of growth. She hadn't planned on
shaving, but right then, she felt the need to make herself feel beautiful. So
she grabbed the shaving cream and razor from the caddy and proceeded to shave
her legs as smooth as the day she was born. Each stroke of the razor against
her lower legs and thighs was making her feel better. It wasn't shedding her
skin, but it was the next best thing. She even shaved the part of her body that
she had no reason to shave since she was with her ex. Most days she was busy,
tired and had no time to feel like a woman, but now she was feeling more
feminine than she had in a long time, it was technically the start of her
vacation after all.
Amanda rinsed, stepped out, dried off and rubbed lotion on the now bare
skin of her legs. She crawled into bed and felt her silky thighs, it had also been a while
since she had felt sexy about herself and she let her fingers wander. Ten
minutes later she fell asleep with a smile on her face, though she wished she had
someone to share the moment with. Her last thought was of the bartender with
her messy hair.
No comments:
Post a Comment