Cigarettes and Strawberries

Single Chapter

The first time I saw her, she was smoking cigarettes alone. I say cigarettes, plural, because they were many, one after the other, each lit in the warm embers of the previous one. I recall them being red, harsh. Bitter and likely rather expensive. It surprised me that she was by herself, neither company nor the usual inopportune assholes around. We were in the smoking area of a somewhat fancy club, and smothered EDM blasted from future bass to chill hop to trap to progressively more derivative and indistinguishable subgenres. In an absolutely uncharacteristic move, I decided to go talk to her. I felt a peculiar freshness inside my breast, like bubbly soda going down my throat and moths fluttering right behind my sternum. I'm not sure that sounds like boldness, but it worked.

Her kiss tasted like gummy candy. Strawberry. In hindsight, this should have warned me, but also maybe it shouldn't. We spent some time at the bar, where I ordered a tequila sunrise and she got some expensive and horribly bitter beer. I offered a sip of my drink, but she said she hated sweet beverages. I asked if she'd rather have vodka, but she said spirits were better suited for trolls. I didn't get the joke, but laughed anyway. Beer, then. As the dance floor burst in all the colors of the rainbow and a few extra ones, she took my hand and pulled me into the crowd to dance. Rather, it would be more accurate to say she danced and I stood swaying in place. Don't get me wrong, I don't have two left feet or anything, and I can handle myself fine on the dance floor, but she was a thing beyond, it was like she was the music. She drank it, breathed it and swam in it. She was the colors, the smoke, the sounds and the euphoria. She was in the air, sneaking between the notes, wearing the drop of the beat, tying knots with the bass. Compared to her, everyone else was just swaying in place.

Now she smelled strongly of sweet and slightly acidic strawberries, like those sugar-covered sour candies. She let out a "fuck", bought another beer and dragged me by the hand back to the smoking area. We talked about me, my job, my college classes, my favorite dishes and other bars and clubs I liked, and she smoked and drank and we did not talk about her. We kissed for a long time, and she smelled like strong cigarettes and tasted like bitter barley over strawberry gummy. Her hands moved around quite a lot, and visited all the spots I wanted them to visit, so I took it as permission to do the same. She invited me over to her house, and I gave her a meaningful look. Now she was covered in sweat and smelling like lemons. I thought to myself that it was an odd choice of perfume. In hindsight, I was probably mistaken.

Her apartment was a decrepit building in the outskirts of the city, and I honestly can't recall anything about the way we took there. It was on the top floor and stood in bizarre contrast to the rest of the building, filled with trinkets in every corner: lava lamps, colorful stones, posters of vintage foreign cartoons, piles of books, gaming consoles and covers, tiny bones and skulls from exotic animals, half-finished paintings and drawings, wood and plastic sculptures, porcelain dolls, a terrarium full of brightly colored live frogs, and countless other odds and ends. The furniture and wallpaper were a mad mix of mismatched colors and it was extremely difficult to walk around without stumbling on something. She immediately looked for a laptop covered in glistening stickers and put more EDM up. She gave me a malicious smile and asked if I wanted to sleep with her. I said yes. Lighting another cigarette, she asked if I wanted to "sleep" sleep or do something else. I looked at her with a "what the fuck do you think" face. She smiled, kissed me and explained she liked to keep mementos from her prey. "Nothing in this world comes free, you see? Neither in this one or in the other". I laughed at her use of the word prey, but joined in the game. What did she want of me? "Oh, not much. Two ounces of flesh and your childhood memories, how about that?". I said yes mistress, as you wish mistress, very solemn, and she said it is done, also very solemn, and then we laughed so much we fell to the floor. We took hours, and she took my breath and I got lost among stars and galaxies, woodlands and lakes, from colossal pyramids to mysterious circles of stones. There was searing pain when fangs of sharpened flint buried into my triceps, but also ecstasy, and I was in no condition to care for I was much too busy swimming in Atlantis. At some point I floated back from Chichén Itzá and could finally take a breath. I was in my own home, in my own bed, now soaking in my own sweat.

My arm healed well enough, in time, but lacerated muscle never completely grows back, so the hole under the scar is never going away, and I just have to live with the fact that I can no longer carry weight on that arm. My boss informed me via e-mail that he didn't appreciate employees skipping an entire month of work with no forewarning, and that I was fired. I never saw her again. Some times I wonder if it was all worth it. On one side, I can't remember the first house I lived in anymore, or the color of my late mother's hair, or anything about my first girlfriend. But I have to admit to this day I'm very fond of the smell of cigarettes. And the taste of strawberry.