Midnight Matinee

I went to bed and she was the last thing on my mind. In fact she had been all that had been on my mind since I sat down in the Cherry Room; a dive bar for down and outers who can only afford to perv on girls who charge a dollar a dance and five for a private. I stayed only for one dance as I needed my other three for a scotch and soda.

I reluctantly sat down at the bar and slid my three dollars over and received no change. My only other solitary note lay crumpled in my pocket and I knew it wouldn't be long before I handed that over too. Over to some poor harlot trying to make ends meet, same as me. Only she has a pair of tits for men to grope and for an extra four they'd have the chance to suck on them as she'd yank at their bits until they gave her a tip and left with it joining the other stains on her dirty blouse. I sat with my scotch and soda and shut the fuck up and waited for some pussy to shake it for my dollar.

Her name was April May. I didn't know if that was her real name but I could hazard a guess. She looked like an Amanda or a Jane – a small time girl who had moved to the city and for whom it had all gone horribly wrong. This was the American Dream in action.

The spot hit the stage and I turned to face it so I'd get my full dollars' worth. An old guy by the stage announced her name over the tannoy, though if he would have spoken it everyone in the bar would have heard it was that dead in there.

Cheap, kitch burlesque music that seemed to come from an 80s ghetto blaster filtered into the room as unwelcome as the closing time bell meagrely played out as her soundtrack. I sat with my scotch and water and a pitiful erection as I looked into the light fantastic. She sauntered onto the stage in an unconfident wobble as her heels rode inches too high for her frame. Her calves were far from lean or muscular but the heels gave them sufficient tone as the harsh lighting spread the shadow of her legs long across the stage behind her.

Her skirt was short but she had the presence of mind to wear one all the same which wiggled and shimmied as she threw her hips about. Her stomach was rippled and a spare tyre moved around ungracefully, but her breasts were only loosely pushed up and joyously moved and danced around with her. Her arms were long and accentuated by the lighting, with her fingertips splayed out in the light, reaching high and far as if to claw out of this nightmare.

Her face was shadowed but I knew it was her. It was no accident, no mistake. I could almost make out the tears as they fell and glistened against the rays that kept her in the spotlight. Her eyes dull and lifeless and looked out but saw no audience, no future, no past. If I looked on for a decade I'd see no sign of life. I didn't look for her; I looked at her tits which was the only redeeming thing about her and only mildly so at that.

When the music stopped I sat back at the bar and finished up my drink before the next girl came on. I heard the clicking of cheap heels edge near me and the sounds of dimes and quarters being dropped into an empty can. I finished up the dregs of ice in my glass and pulled myself from my chair and as I did I was met face to face with her: April May. She was young; too young to be in here, too young for these bastards and motherfuckers to be festering on her, too young and too pure to have her head sunk in this river of shit. Her eyes shone vacancy, I could see no life there, I tried as I stumbled and fell into them as a means to save myself from my own ends.

I placed my crumpled dollar in her can and she moved on. I turned to face her but she was gone, and I was forgotten. I looked her up and down and smelt for a scent of her which was not forthcoming. Any smell I would have greeted: her rancid perfume, the vile stench of her cunt or her dogged breath. But nothing. I dug my hands deep in my pockets and walked out of there back out into the cold night air and blew a fog from my breath as I paced away from there with the blood dripping from my hands.

I lay awake and alone on my bed in my run down room which I over paid for with cockroaches for company and overpaid bills piling up on the table. I looked up to the cracked ceiling which seemed to come down low to touch the tip of my nose. The dripping of the tap from the sink echoed out and filled the room with a deafening blow like Hiroshima as it hit the limescale white steel of the sink.

It mattered not. I looked up and saw only her, heard only the distant muffle of her eyes and how they would only cry out to me, if only they knew what I knew.

I drifted off, or maybe I didn't. Either way I was comatose from her. April May. My mind wondered, meandered through the cracks in the ceiling and my hands nestled beneath the lumpy pillow that propped up my head.

Something caught my eye as a gust of wind slammed the window pains and sent shudders through the rickety glass panels. I looked over and saw nothing but a wave from the curtain from the backdraft of the wind. I lowered my head and caught a glimpse of her, sitting on my sole wooden chair. She was facing me and sat with her legs uncrossed and her arms by her side, looking at me with no expectancy or urgency; but the opposite, content to watch me in my stirrings in the stillness of the night.

Her face was in the shadows but I knew that it was her. Her expressionless face showed no emotion and gave me no sign of life and I had nothing for her in return. A moment lingered, shared amongst strangers uncomfortable in each other's presence.

She leaned forward and kept her placid motion going and stood gently, delicately by the light of the fractured moonlight. Her eyes locked with mine but she looked upon me not at me. It was all she could muster and I forgave it for her sins. She stepped lightly towards the bed and stopped before me, her sad face illuminated to me for the first time. She had been pretty once no doubt, in a small town, mid-western kind of way. But not here in the city. Not now. Not here.

I followed her arms as they pulled down her high riding dress which revealed no knickers and her sex like a crooked, quivering smile. I followed her hands as they freed her stomach from her top which ruffled her hair as it lifted above her head. Her bra, cheap and dull in colour hid her meagre breasts within. Her fingers fiddling with the strap behind her and released them as it snapped apart and freed them as they fell before me with no pride or dignity.

She looked down on them with a screaming self-consciousness, as if in repulsion to the pathetic sight below her as she looked down to the floor.

My angel, my sweet sweet broken angel. Bruised and broken before me she stood, in all her mercy and gentleness, so tentatively come for me, for my sins, and how to wash them all away.

She knelt on the bed before me and her legs fell outside of mine and stood before me. She pulled down my briefs past my knees and ankles and left me naked, stranded and vulnerable before her. I had nowhere to hide. Nowhere to run. My towering erection rose between us and made no attempts at shame as it pulsed and throbbed for her, a mound of sticky rewards already glistening in the evening light. She leant forward and grabbed it with her right hand, taking it between the fingers and accommodating it as she rubbed it gently from the base until it vanished from her hand and down again in slow, concentric movements.

She moaned awkwardly as her eyes recoiled and her head arched back, revealing the full view of her chest and her average breasts as they swayed with no unison to her rhythm. I looked down at her gaping snatch as it longed to be touched by love, longed to feel the touch of a gentle caress, but instead only enduring the fucking of strangers who accommodated no feeling nor pleasure for her pussy, that her pussy did not reciprocate.

Her strokes became more enraptured and this in turn was highlighted by her movements of enraptured revelry. I felt the overpowering urge to take a kiss from her lips and helped myself with no asking – grabbing a handful of her hair and bringing her mouth on top of mine and forced my tongue into her mouth, tasting the vile, stale taste of a hundred other men's cum fresh on her breath. I felt nauseated by the taste and the smell made me gag as I threw her head back. She moved down over my chest and took me in her mouth, sucking me frantically, working me with her hands as she went.

I fought to get her off me, but my dick was sunk deep within her mouth with no sign of relenting. She had me right where she wanted me. I was building ready to blow and her mouth poised to take my greed in a moment of shared lust and bodily connection. I grabbed at her hair and yanked at it but only succeeded in ripping out a handful of died roots and split ends. I was beyond help and in no position to share this moment with her, in a final act of contrition I threw us over and we spilled in a heap on top of each other, only with me assuming the position. She struggled desperately beneath me as she fought off another act of degradation. I pinned her down by her throat and showed little concern over her as she scratched at my chest for air. My free hand grabbed her wrist and bent back her arm viscously as it snapped like a twig under a car wheel as I released my poison over her face as she gasped for life.

I shook as I spasmed and erupted and woke with a start, my head lifting up off the pillow as I emptied myself over my sheets. I looked about me, I saw nothing but the sweat and cum soaked sheets around me. I looked to the chair and nothing but some loose change and keys. I collapsed my head back on my pillow and looked up again at the ceiling and thought of her. April May. Saviour of my soul.