Heartstrings

It is three in the morning and my phone is ringing. I wake up, looking to my right at the nightstand – but the splice of metal and plastic is static. That very moment I have a flash-back to when your name appeared last on the lit-up mobile screen, seconds before I picked it up.

“Jared? I need you.” Hazy from sleep, I said:

“No, Emma. No.”

“Yes. I’m right outside your apartment building.”

“No.” I hung up and threw myself back onto the mattress. On the brink of falling asleep, some distant ring broke into my ear again. I groaned; it was the door bell ringing. It felt like aural rape, I got up, picked the phone by the door and pressed the speaker button. Immediately her voice came through:

“I need you.” 

“You don’t. You don’t need me, you need what I can’t give you anymore. Not today, not tomorrow, not ever. Good night.” Seconds after I hung up, the bell rang again. With a moan, I picked it up again:

“I nee-“

“No, you don’t.”

“F*ck sake, Jared. Please! It’s your fault I need it, you must have something left.”

I gave in, let her up and soon, she appeared. She was pallid, her hair and clothes soaking wet from early-morning rain and her eyes shined with hunger and despair.

“Take it out!” she exclaimed after dropping her coat.

“Emma... no.”

“Why not? Whenever you wanted me to give it to you, I did. Now I want some back and it’s suddenly a problem?”

“Emma,-“

“What?!” Silence. “Take it out - if you won’t, I’ll take it out of you myself.” I looked at her, once an independent being who held her head up high... Now dependent on me, though we were over for a while already – it was a painful sight. So painful, that I just gave in.

“Fine.” I went into the living room and took out from one of the cupboards a small suitcase. She sat down on a nearby chair like a patient at the doctor’s, mumbling:

“I need it, Jared... I do, I really do...” she kept on repeating those words until I said:

“Hush. You will be alright soon, Emma.” I gave in to those large eyes of hers that closed as she began to breathe deeply in and out deeply. She then slid away a part of her blouse, exposing the left side of her chest. It was even bonier than how I remembered the last time she came over with the same desire...

I didn’t want her to start making a loud scene and wake up the neighbours, so I just opened the suitcase and took out the tubes and pump. She inhaled again with her eyes still closed as she listened to the metal claws being put inside the endings of the tubes. Once they were inserted, I took off my shirt and placed one end onto the left side of my chest and pulled the other onto her chest’s still unhealed bruise.

“It’s going to sting a little bit now,” Her eyes still closed, she smiled:

“Yes, yes. Sting.” As I then pushed the claws inside our heartstring marks, she moaned deeply in pleasure. The translucent tubes within seconds turned red. I watched the corners of her mouth shiver in satisfaction as I pumped the circulation. Watching the liquid of life passing between us, I whispered:

Marke but this flea, and marke in this,
How little that which thou deny'st me is;
Me it suck'd first, and now sucks thee,
And in this flea our two bloods mingled bee.

When I looked up from the now half-empty tubes, she was watching me contently. Life seemed to have been restored to her skin, eyes and lips; she no longer resembled a walking corpse. Even her chest seemed fuller. She turned her head to the side playfully.

“Why always that Donne poem?” I squared my shoulders before saying:

“That was the last time. The last time you were here, the last time you got it from me, you hear?” She nodded and mockingly replied:

“I hear.” She got up from the chair and ruffled my hair as she passed my half-naked body. She seemed physically stronger than before, whereas my own figure seemed weakened, drained. She picked up her coat from the floor and with a victorious backward glance at me, she said: “But next time, it will be you begging for it.” I sat there for a while longer with the tools surrounding me and blood dripping from the claw endings. Then I realized that there was a blood trail running down my freshened bruise.

Ever since, I am wondering how many times these heartstring sessions have taken place already. With the vivid images of the curled corners of her smile and shared blood flow in my mind, I suddenly grab my phone and dial her number... After a while, her voice comes through:

“Yeah?” And immediately I respond, with my voice deeper than usual:

“I need you.”

-          Anna Hupcejová