Black Stone Heart by Christopher J. Dwyer

City lights dance above us like dying fireflies. The night air is as sweet as a country morning, waves of a new summer throwing a warm coverlet of dew across our faces. She walks with soft steps, as if she doesn’t want to wake the dead souls hidden beneath the concrete of the sidewalk. Every few seconds our arms brush each other and the touch anesthetizes the blood swimming beneath the surface.

We’re the only bodies on the street this late at night. Jenna looks over and her eyes glimmer with a gray glow. Her fingers find mine and she pulls my hand to the air. Dimples collude in her porcelain face, and I’m afraid that a kiss will crack her skin into a thousand dusty pieces. We reach a set of red brick stairs and she’s the first one to take flight, jet black flats scampering with loud scratches across every step. I follow and take slow steps until I’m standing next to her. The front door of the building is as brown as week-old vomit. She turns the doorknob with a smile and motions for me to follow her.

“Are you tired?” She bites her lower lip.

I raise my eyebrows and wonder what she’ll look like with my cock in her mouth. “Not at all.”

She swishes the blonde locks out of her face, golden strands of hair as curled as the wings of a dead baby swan. She starts up the inner flight of stairs and I follow behind. Her ass sways in tight black jeans, a hypnotic swing that almost makes me trip over my own feet. She reaches the second floor before me and fumbles for keys in her tiny red leather purse. It takes her a few minutes to find the right one.

“I had a great time,” she says, swinging open the apartment door. She tosses her purse on a small wooden stool and flips on the living room lamp.

I nod. “Me too.” Her apartment smells like a funeral home.

She unzips her jacket, slides her thin pale arms out of the sleeves. Three koi fish are tattooed on her left arm. The ink looks fresh, as if the slimy creatures are going to jump off her skin and into the kitchen sink. Jenna lights a cigarette and offers me one. I slip it between dry lips and let her light its tip.

The rest of the apartment is dark, like she can’t afford to pay the electric bill. She turns off the living room lamp and walks into the dreary shadows where I can’t see her. The bedroom light surges on and Jenna’s leaning against the doorframe, tiny pink tongue licking her lips. My hand slithers around her waist and I pull her into me. She smells like paint thinner and chrysanthemums. I part her lips for a kiss but she turns away and hops on the bed. I close the door behind me and the noise is like a coffin slamming shut.

I kneel at the edge of the bed, watch Jenna slip off her tank-top. I place my cigarette at the edge of the nightstand and a revolver of smoke circles the moonlight seeping into the room. My jacket tossed behind me, I kick off my shoes as she unbuckles my belt. She forces me to my back, velvet sheets as smooth as fresh soap. Her kisses are sudden and sweet. The broken edges of her hair tickle my face. She pushes against my crotch with hers and I can see the supple remnants of bite marks on her neck from past suitors. I can remember when we first met and I never pictured myself with her on top of me.

Jenna likes soft-core porn and strawberry ice cream and had lived in the city only a couple years. Her mascara was as green as broccoli stems and I couldn’t help but fall in love in a matter of seconds.

She sits up and lies next to me. “Do it to me like you did with the others. I need it.”

I wince and close my eyes. “I told you before, Jenna. No.”

“Please.” Her voice is calm, like an ocean before a comet strikes its surface and sends a tidal wave across the coast.

“You don’t know what it’s like, Jenna. I was in that meeting for a reason.”

Her fingers massage the tip of my cock. “I’ve dreamed about it, Bryan. The feeling, I’ve heard it’s like a black orgasm. Like shooting fire into your veins.”

Vision fades in and out and I can finally figure out the reason why I’m here. My finger casually drifts from around her head to her panties, tip finding a small river of desire. She wants this more than anything in the world but I can’t do it for her. “No. No. Not going to fucking happen.”

Plump red lips are wrapped around the head of my cock, tongue forcing shockwaves of pleasure throughout my legs. She switches the motion to her right hand. “I want it, Bryan. Please…”

I didn’t want it to come to this. When I met her at the meeting last week, I thought she might be different. Jenna wasn’t going to be one of the women that want to take it to the next level. She was supposed to be the one that kept the passion under control, the one who knew that a mind’s craving wasn’t always good for the body.

“Jenna…” My voice trails off, like my heart stopped beating.

She takes her hand off me and jumps off the bed. Jenna fishes a small black duffel bag from under the mattress frame. She drops it in front of me and looks at me with eyes that could make a man slit his own mother’s throat. “Open it,” she says. “I bought it yesterday.”

I pull up my pants, tight erection bending under my jeans. I zip open the bag and dig a hand into its interior. A wooden handle greets me and when I pull the object out it feels comfortable in my fingers, like putting on the baseball glove I played with in little league. The butcher knife gleams in the glow of a summer moon. It’s been months since I’ve held one and I would have never dreamed that the most beautiful woman in the city would ask me to do this to her.

Jenna’s legs find their way out her panties and she lays stomach-down on the bed. She holds out her left arm, pale flesh stuck out in the open air. “Do it now, Bryan. Now.”

I take a deep breath and walk over to the nightstand, stick the cigarette into my mouth. Nicotine coats my lungs like paint on nursery walls. In the past, I always made this quick. I never wanted the motions to last. Stories bruised and blue are permanently blazed into the back of my mind, like cigarette burns on film reels.

Jenna fingers herself, pastel heart of an ass planted out into the air. Each moan startles me, makes me want to drop the knife and run out of the room. “Bryan, please,” she says, grinding her teeth.

I step on the bed and lean over her, so close that I can smell the shampoo she used this morning to wash her golden hair. Knife handle firmly in my fingers, I hold it against my back while grabbing her left arm. “I’ve waited forever for this,” she says.

Fingernails as pink as a rabbit’s mouth dig into the bedsheets. Jenna continues to rub herself and at any moment she expects to experience something that she’s only dreamed of. Her wrist is tiny, like a child’s. I grip it as hard as I can and bring the knife down. It slices through with ease and a flower of blood shoots across the room like crimson rain. Jenna lets out an apocalyptic scream and flips over, waves of blood shooting from the stump where her left hand used to be connected. The whites of her eyes dissipate into a cloud of smoldering euphoria. I toss the knife to the other side of the bed and sit at the edge of the sheets, stare at the carpeted floor. White blankets look like someone slaughtered a cow and slept with the carcass.

Jenna wriggles in a mix of pain and pleasure beside me. She grabs my side with her only hand and tries to pull me closer to her. The wound bleeds profusely across her chest and abdomen. I give her a single bloody kiss. “Thank you,” she says, lips parted wide enough that her soul could escape.

I stand up and find my t-shirt and jacket. I pick up Jenna’s cordless phone, dial 911 and throw it next to her. I slip my arms into my jacket and slam the bedroom door behind me. Jenna’s bathroom is pure white, as if she’s never used it. Cold water flushes the panic out of my face. I raise my hand to the mirror and watch it tremble. I leave Jenna’s apartment hoping that one day she’ll call me again. I hop down the stairs, stopping at the front door to zip up my jacket. The night stars shudder and smile, like they know what I’ve done.

Christopher J. Dwyer is a writer from Boston. His work has appeared in such publications as Dogmatika, Troubadour 21, Twisted Tongue Magazine, Red Fez, Colored Chalk, Gold Dust Magazine, and various fiction anthologies. He can be reached through his official website: www.christopherdwyer.com.