This is another piece that I used in my creative writing portfolio. Ideally, this would have been a lot more ‘descriptive’, shall we say, but a 750 word limit is, well… limiting.

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Satin, by Emma Jayne Kitchener.

A willowy caress of music swarmed about the room – the slight breathes of soothing harmonies a contrast to the mess.   The stained bed sheets, once rich with indulgent cottons, were askew after a night of pleading and humiliation. The remains of our clash – shards of glass from the vase we once chose together – were scattered about the plush carpet, showing evidence of her betrayal. Wisps of spices from the candles and sweat from our enraged bodies still hung about the air, as if making a mockery of our fickleness.
            Falls of blood-red materials were draped about the window, letting only teases of the dull autumn sun cast through. I sat beneath this window, watching my cigarette smoke twist and mutate from my swollen lips. I felt almost comforted by the clutter before me, like it was a testimony of our relationship: fiery, ornate, and intense.             Every fragment of the room I had secluded myself in had her ghost taunting it. A chair lay disturbed in the far left corner, away from me; the same chair she would sit upon and spend eternities dousing her body in expensive perfumes and studying her unspoiled skin in the imposing mirror… The same chair she would sit upon as she let alien hands roam her porcelain skin, and have the lingering traces of her expensive perfumes tasted across her body.

            I grazed a hot tongue against my dry, cracked lips, only to receive the sharp taste of iron. My arms, still blemished with a faded crimson colour, despite having scrubbed them countless times, reached out toward a black satin sheet. A sharp, hot breath caught in my throat as strands of platinum hair were released from the fabric. I coiled my shaking fingers around the curls, studying the wonderful contrast of them to the satin.            As I finally unravelled my most prized possession from the confines of the material, a disturbed passion crept over me, and I traced my lips over her perfect, cold skin.

            I kissed the tips of her fingers, smudging more blood into my stubble – whose blood, I can only guess. The few fingernails she had left still seemed impeccably manicured, and bore a colour resembling murky waters.        Her eyes were on me. Frosted, dry, lifeless eyes on me, judging my lingering kisses and caresses. I felt knots budding in my stomach as the scene around me suddenly seemed menacing. Claustrophobia set in, and I needed to be sick – I needed cold air and normality.

            I remember only fragments of my journey… I remember just instants of black suits and coffee cups and taxis, and forcing myself through bustling streets, sobbing and covered in dried blood. No one stared, no one pointed, no one noticed. Too entrapped, I presume, in their jobs and the thrill of money, as I was not too long ago.

And so I finally fell, enveloping myself in the unkempt, damp grass of a park I have walked past numerously, possessed by my own melancholy. Rolling clouds brooded above me – growling and threatening to rain.  I’m naïve, I guess – I believed that in this park, caught somewhere between the dreariness of the mist and the fragrance of the grass, I should have found my calm. Yet still her yelping voice begging for forgiveness, and flashes of her face distorting into agony as I forced a knife between her thighs, intoxicated my thudding head.          She’s nothingness now. Whatever encompassed her dry humour and desire for perfection had ceased to be – not because of me, but because of her own, whorish self. I, however, was intact – numb from the cold and blinded with hallucinations of her body writhing with his, perhaps, but here, breathing, nonetheless.

            I removed her letter from my jacket pocket – the letter I had only read once before in the blinded heat of frenzy. I moaned aloud, as I read over and over about her flourishing hatred for me and everything I embodied, and how vital it was for her to leave me for someone more passionate and stimulating.  I hated myself too. I didn’t hurt her enough. I should have mangled her entire body. I should have made her watch in the mirror when I dissected her cunt. I should have sliced her eyes until they oozed – then she may have known how it felt for me to watch her naked body contorted with his.

I didn’t hurt her enough.