blood

We were parked outside Katy’s house on a steep hill in Echo Park. It was night, and my headlights were on. We were waiting for her friend to come outside. We kissed hard and Katy bit down into my bottom lip. I felt the blood come quickly. I caught it with my tongue.

“Ouch” I said.

She held my face with both hands and licked the blood on my lip, she touched her finger to it. She took a photo of the blood on her finger. Her friend got back in the car.

“Look what she does to me,” I said.

I showed her my lip, which was wet and bleeding.

“I love that.” her friend said.

A few days later we were in bed, it was morning. One of the first mornings in my new place. The bedroom is washed in direct sunlight in the morning and it hits half the bed like a spotlight. I came back into the room from the kitchen and there was Katy in the sun, her skin against the oatmeal colored walls in the yellow sunlight was blowing my mind. I had to stop and stare at her. I stop and stare at her all the time. She tells me to shut up, she calls me an idiot.

I think this is why I’m alive. This is what I’m supposed to be doing all the time. Naked in bed on a morning that’s quiet, laying with Katy, laying on Katy. Sharing that bit of sun with her. Kissing the back of her neck and feeling her body react to my mouth. She flips onto her back and we begin fucking slowly, her head slips backwards into the pillows. I pull her body down into the middle of the bed so I can see her, I lean in to kiss her and she bites my lip hard in the same spot. I barely register it, every nerve in my body is too focused on everything else that’s happening. It doesn’t hurt. We’re kissing hard and fucking and my hands can’t stop moving. Moving to her hands into her hair, around her legs, or into her mouth. When I’m with Katy I want to be ripped in half, I want to rip her in half. It’s perfect, it’s chill.

I open my eyes and look down at her - there’s dark red blood all over her chin and mouth, blood all over her neck. Her eyes widen and she laughs, my mouth is covered with blood and I can taste it.

The blood is dripping on Katy. I grab her phone and throw it to her.

“Here, quick” I say.

I roll off, and Katy begins taking photos of herself covered in my blood. I lick my mouth, and rub it with my hands. My fingers made blood prints around her neck. I think to myself that blood dries very fast. Katy looked real good naked, covered in my blood in that sunlight. I knew I was memorizing everything about the moment.

Eventually we dress and go outside behind my house to sit at a small wooden table. She never washes the blood off. We smoke and talk for a long time, I stand up and approach her side of the table and kiss her while she’s still sitting. I can taste the iron in the blood, and the cigarettes. There’s absolutely nothing to do today but this.