Implode [edited version]

o5 implosion

                                                   [ o5 implosion ]

                                                   Leslie MacManus

There are certain kinds of people in the world who possess a form of beauty that one could only describe as painful. The kind of painful that people wanted to feel, that wrench in your gut of something so unattainable you can’t help but want it. That was exactly how most people felt about Leslie, only people didn’t have to work hard for her to show it off to them. She had a measure of pride in her beautiful disposition that she used at every chance.

As of now, it was getting her nowhere in the clearing the boredom that weighed over her like an overcast day. She leaned precariously back over the edge of the railing of the emergency stairs, black hair cascading down towards the ground. Blue eyes gazed, uninterested, towards the muddy looking dark sky above her and soft pink lips parted with a sigh.

A jumble of noise carried up to her, knocking her boredom off its tracks and piquing her interest. Righting herself, she peered down into the alley and was pleasantly surprised to find an answer to her silent pleas of something to do.

The figure beneath her was that of a man—he could have very well been someone of her age, but she felt as though he was older than he looked—stumbling through the alley. His hair was tousled, the curls in an array, and his eyes were red. He didn’t seem entirely put together, and she guessed he might be high or drunk or maybe both. She liked those kinds of options, to be honest.

If he would be willing to share what he was on, then her evening would certainly be looking up from just a boring session of gazing at the sky.

“Hey there, sugar,” she called down to her newfound entertainment, “How about you come on up here?”

In light of this question, one would think that it was a fairly stupid idea to invite a stranger up to your room. In this sense, you could also gauge that Leslie wasn’t exactly the smartest of beauties, if she held any sort of intelligence. She wasn’t known for her smarts; she was simply the beautiful girl that would spread her legs for a good time.

The answer to her suggestion—or maybe it could be called a request—was a slow spreading smirk that had just the barest of a double meaning to it. There was something dark lurking in the harmless expression, which Leslie could neither decipher nor notice, and could very well have been her undoing.

She tucked her hair back behind her ear as her guest made his way up the fire escape. There was a sort of lethargic note to his movements and, when he got close enough, his eyes were redder than she’d initially thought. Or maybe it was the golden flecks in his irises that made the red stand out more. A short pang of something she had no name for shot through her, but disappeared as quickly as it had appeared.

“You’re Leslie, right,” the stranger inquired, although he sounded a little more like he knew.

“Yeah,” she replied, unfazed by his question, but slightly curious, “Were you looking for me?”

His answer was a nod, and she thought she heard him mutter something about it making things “easier”. She didn’t know what to think of that comment, so she didn’t think of it at all. Instead, she turned her sights back on her guest, and the exquisite sculpting of his form. It was as though he’d been chiseled from marble and made flesh and blood through sorcery.

She continued to put on her airs of sex appeal, not that that was entirely difficult for her, and plopped down on the spring mattress of her bed. She watched as the stranger circled her room for her moment, a shudder rippling through her spine like a warning. There was a predatory edge to the way he walked, the swift observance in his eyes. She didn’t see what could have been so compelling about her room.