Analgesia

I'm waking up in the north side of her shadow. Whoever she is. I know it's north because the belt hangs low this time of year. I can see it through the greasy glass beside the bed. It's important to pay attention to these things. Like how all the derelict dishes point to the southwest and the moss sticks on one side of the trees. Useful things to remember though at the moment, I can't even remember myself.

This head feels like a dented can of botulism. Maybe garbanzos. Definitely something flatulent because it smells in here, like sulfur springs cascading down from methane mountain after a particularly soggy spell.

Whoever she is, she moves to the breakfast bar near the kitchen. Then looks back at me, tilts her head and purrs in a smoky drawl, "Feelin' a little rough, love?"

I don't answer right away. Mostly because I'm not sure I remember how to make the talk talk sounds. She waits for a few seconds for me to answer then turns away. She's got beautiful big legs that go all the way up to her hungry purple underwear. A short wooly bull knit drapes on one shoulder, the other one shines with droplets of perspiration. She rolls her long cocoa neck and stretches her fingers down the sides of her hips.

I try and say something again, but as the sounds climb out of my throat, I cough up a lump and spit it into my hand. Whatever it is, I don't bother to look at it, I'm feeling queasy enough already. Whoever I am.

"Drink some water, it's on the side table," she says, "it’ll help with your recovery"

I contort my mouth up and down, trying to coax the elusive language again, "recover um what?" I manage to growl low, reaching for the water glass.

I sip and blink slow. She's sitting beside me suddenly. "You're safe here," she says, making eye contact.

"Rully?" I say squinting, trying to make sure she's real.

One side of her mouth curls up, "Sure baby, you're good"

And I am about to believe her, when I adjust my position and feel the skin on my abdomen crease and crackle under a green t shirt I don't remember owning. I feel the uncontrollable urge to scratch at the side of my gut but she grabs my hands before I can claw at my skin.

"Uh ah, no no, we don't want to be doing that, " she says again, soft but firm, my hands in hers, she presses them down on my thighs.

Now the itch feels overwhelming, I wrestle a hand free, and manage to pull up the shirt and look down at a large padded bandage covering the left side of my torso.

"Whazthis?" I manage to sputter between more coughing.

"Don't touch okay?" she says, “I'll take care of it” She gives my knee a squeeze and licks her lips, "It's still healing, gotta keep it clean, but if it's itching too much, we've got a couple of options."

This time, I just nod, resigned to defer treatment to my caregiver. What was she anyway? Nurse, captor, lover?

While she gets up and walks over to an aloe vera plant in the kitchen window, I sneak a feel under my shirt and rub the top of the bandage hoping it will quell the sensation, but it just makes it worse.

"Stop!" she snaps on her way back to me, pointing with a long thorny spear of succulent, "Just lie down and pull up your shirt,"

I am in no state to do anything but obey, so I tip myself over and try to lay on the pillows. She helps swing my legs up then straddles me on the bed covers, adjusting herself on my legs with the aloe vera between her teeth.

I blink the strained dry blur away from my eyes and look up at her with some tears of clarity. Her silver afro mullet crests across her head with curls that bounce like frosted bubbles of glycerine. Her eye makeup is smudged in the corners and I can just make out some piercing holes in her nose and lips where she may have worn jewelry at some point.

With the plant stem still in her mouth she peels the tape away from the surgical dressing, "Don't look," she says through her clenched smile, "This is gonna feel good," she purrs again, repositioning on top of my hips and squeezing the cool succulent slime into her hand.

I can feel her fingers trace the backwards C-shaped sutures on my side belly and coat the wound with the aloe vera juice. It stings a little at first but the soothing effect immediately follows. I moan a little, satisfied and happy that the irritation is subsiding.

I'm surprised when she makes a similar vocalization, possibly pleasing herself in the process, "How's that?", she asks, again shifting on top of me and searching my face, waiting for my reply.

"Better," I say, "But why? What have you–"

"Later love, just rest now, yeah?" she interrupts and whispers, leaning over to my ear and reaching for an open pill bottle from the bedside, "Here, I'll take one and you can take two"

She drops a tablet on her tongue to show me, and then puts two between my lips, lifting my head to drink them down with the water.

My eyelids fall and I feel her lips punctuate the dose with a kiss that pushes into me. Her hands slide up and thread through my hair. She tips to the side and whispers in my other ear, but I don't understand what she's saying. My body feels so heavy. She stretches out over me, I can smell the citrus of bergamot and the white void of rubbing alcohol. I hear sirens far away and the buzz of television a little closer.

And just before I slip into the sub-lucid pool of lizard visions, I yank my eyes open and catch the glint of something reflecting the light blue sting of streetlights on the wall. I trace the light to the window sill and a jar with a scalpel and various steely surgical tools soaking in a murky solution.

In her shadow again, she moves over me. Her mucous deposits slipping from her lips, paint me up and down like snail trails. I'm bending, writhing and flexing under her blanket of velour spells and hot breath. We ball up like a monkey knot then unravel again and again. Charge the air with ions then release in long pulses at low frequencies travelling to other antenna worlds. I'm pulling her ears, she's pushing my shoulders. We are ribbons of skin, looping a figure eight. We are Möbius. And infinity. Whoever we are.

From the Promptshop hosted by

Edith Bow

. Special thanks to

Nick Winney

for my word triad, Quaaludes, Itching and Succulent.