Possibly triggering; mildly graphic, domestic abuse, sadism, uncomfortable situations.
"Oh my god," she said, reaching for another handful of popcorn. "Bruce Willis is so fucking cool." She stuffed the kernels into her face and wiped her greasy hands on the seat.
Her eyes were wide in the blue light of the screen, so lovely, and I couldn't help it, I couldn't stop myself. "What is wrong with you?" It wasn't even a question. I pinched her arm even as the words left my lips, pinched hard enough to bruise. Her silent wince just fed the black wave that was crashing in my head, and I pinched her again. Harder. I moved from her arm down to her thighs, too bare in the miniskirt I told her to throw away. Too slutty. Too inviting. "Why do you do this shit?" I scissored my fingers together over her bare skin until it welted up, grey stripes on pale blue skin. "Why don't you ever listen to what I tell you?"
She pressed her back into the ripped theater seat and her bruised arms into the hard plastic of the partition. Her eyes were screwed down into little smudges and then the tears started. I hate it when she cries. My mother always told me I was tenderhearted. I never could stand to see a woman cry. So I leaned in closer and jabbed my bunched-up fingers into her ribcage as hard as I could until she shut up.
One of the sad sacks in the rows behind us started to choke and wheeze, and I settled back into my own seat. Fucking losers, in a budget theater in the middle of the day. Must be unemployed.
She was breathing in long, flat breaths, exhaling slow against the pain, and I wanted to fuck her right there. I wanted to bend her back over the hard plastic arm of the theater seat until it hurt, wrap one hand around her neck and clench the other in the soft white part of her upper arm. I wanted to plant my fist in her solar plexus and listen to her gasping in my ear, cut off the begging little moans by slapping her full across the face. I wanted to choke her until the bruises rose up on her neck like the ghosts of my fingers were tattooed there in purple. I love her so much .
She kept breathing slow, and I squirmed a little in my chair, adjusting. Up on the screen, Bruce Willis stepped out of the fishtailing car in slow motion, firing into the bad guy's face, point blank, effects carefully calibrated to make an audience gasp with appreciation. I can't keep my mind on the movie. It's a good one. But here in real life, I know, it's me. I'm the bad guy. No one's aiming at me, but it doesn't matter. I can't stop.
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For the IndieInk Writing Challenge this week, R.L.W. challenged me with "Point blank" and I challenged Leo with "Saraswati, 'She Who Flows.'"
