She Sleeps Beneath Clouds of Embers
by Nik Korpon

The smell of hot pennies, taste of rubber in my mouth. Clammy hands and sweat on my forehead. A light in the corner throws wild shadows over the room. I might be in Purgatory.

I scratch my cheek, run my hand over my face and the thousand hot needles under my nose stab my brain. Softer than a breath, I feel my nose again. It’s swollen, probably broken. My head throbs. On my forearm lays a thread of dried blood.

Floral blanket, heavy drapes, muted paintings and an armoire housing a TV; this must be a hotel room. I heft myself off the bed. Soft carpet under my feet and it has to be a nice place. Definitely not motel carpet. In the armchair across the room are white squares dotted brown, leather straps with grommets and a dildo. I pad my way over, stopping in front of the mirror.

She sleeps beneath clouds of embers and in the darkness you will find light. Written in black wax, eyeliner pencil, maybe. Written by my hand.

Below the writing, I examine my face. Crescents under my eyes, the color of pomegranates and infected sores. My nose is definitely broken. A walnut under my skin next to my temple. My shirt collar holds its starched shape, tie still a textbook Half-Windsor. I check my pearly-whites and the grotesqueness of my smile makes me laugh.

The white squares in the chair are gauze. I wipe the blood from my forearm and roll down my sleeves then pick up the dildo, smell it as if I don’t really want the confirmation. Latex and copper. I stick my hand down the front of my pants, put it to my nose and smell only sweat. I open the shades hoping to get a clue of where I am. My room has a beautiful view of the side of a building. Scant light bathes the alley below. I watch for a few minutes. The faint noise of traffic and sirens. A homeless man craps in a corner and a woman gets mugged by two kids that only come up to her ribs. I’m in a city. No license plates or advertisements with phone numbers to say which one. As I draw the shades, bells chime four times. Too much sunlight for 4 a.m. and I believe I should be at work. I hope I called out.

There’s no hotel stationary, no guidebooks for the city. No plaque on the back of the door. The room is empty but for me. The sound of the hushed ocean in my ear when I pick up the phone. There’s nothing under the bed, in the nightstand drawer. Not even a Gideon Bible, and that makes me feel alone in a way I don’t quite understand. I pace the room, smacking the dildo in my palm like a beat cop with his nightstick. Check the closet, underneath spare blankets, inside pillows.

I turn on the television. Black and white and French language and I’m definitely in Purgatory. I mute the sound and watch a man flagellate himself with a cat-o-nine-tails while a woman drinks espresso, impassive, and like a visual retch, I can see it all again. The lights turning Carrie’s tears red and blue, the veins in her eyes bursting as she screams, the cops downcast gaze unable or unwilling to confirm, the fingers of smoke twisting from the pit where they found some of Megan’s body, Carrie’s fist in my eye, spitting I can still smell that whore on you. I pick up the leather straps—bondage straps, they look like—and wrap it around my neck, pull until blood kicks against the inside of my skull like concrete-filled combat boots. I let go and fall to the carpet, coughing. My shoes sit next to my face, a piece of a glass vial wedged into the sole.

Noise and the smell of cigarettes bleed through the crack beneath the door and only now does the lack of the fire emergency route map on the back of the door seem meaningful. This is an adjoining room. Ear against the carpet, I see only light flickering like a luminous heartbeat. A teakettle whistle that strikes me as disgustingly domestic. The doorknob doesn’t turn. I slam my head against the door and the pain in my nose is blinding. I fall to the bed, the smell of metal flooding my sinuses. My heart beats against something cold that’s lying on my chest. I pull a key from my breast pocket, steady myself on the armoire as I stand and unlock the door.

An ebony goddess reclines in a chair, legs with garters crossed like scissors. A sweatshirt draped over her lingerie, an orange glow at her fingertips. Lights off, the television bathes her skin in wild colors. Actors play out their pointless roles on the screen. Two minibar bottles sit next to the ashtray on the bed. She French-inhales the smoke from her cigarette and regards me with a long blink.

“White boy, you got some fucked up ideas about foreplay.”

“Where are we?”

She tips back the rest of the bottle, shakes the other and frowns when it’s empty.

“Downtown. Hilton.”

“What city?”

“Baltimore.”

“Still?”

I wipe the blood from beneath my nose, present the dildo to her.

“And this?”

Her lips curve, barely. She taps her forehead.

“Nice touch,” I say.

“I know.”

She chains another cigarette.

“She’s not here.”

She cocks her head.

“Who not here?”

“Megan.”

“The hell—”

“We still on the clock?”

My car keys swing from her finger like a pendulum. I roll my right sleeve up to my bicep and offer her my arm.

“This time,” I say, “choose someplace different.”

She sighs and gets the needle and the vial of Sleep. I sit down on the bed and she comes next to me.

“There gonna be a little pinch,” she says.

I close my eyes. Daddy’s coming, baby. Daddy’s going to find you, every piece of you. Daddy’s coming.