Page 1 of The Intimacy of Skin

Amber flames. They lured me, their heat billowing towards me with whispers of something different. Something gentle. I wanted to touch them, feel them underneath my skin to warm the ice in my heart and soul. The stranger with amber eyes looked kind, which hardly made any sense.

We stared at one another, his gaze unblinking. I was just as shameless, refusing to step towards the door. I didn’t want to stop looking.

For years, I had spent all my time looking for aggression, and I had forgotten what gentleness looked like until I saw him. Maybe it was a testament to my state of mind. Only a beaten, broken man like me could find a sense of safety in the eyes of another man no less innocent than myself.

The stranger with amber eyes drifted his gaze from top to bottom, an imperfect crease furrowing between his eyebrows.

He looked… concerned, almost. I watched as he catalogued every inch of my face, pupils flicking from one cheek to the other.

Beneath the hint of worry was a look I knew all too well.

The same hungry expression all my clients wore.

Did the stranger with amber eyes want me, or was it because I wanted him?

He was handsome, which was also odd. I noted every part of him I could, from his jet-black hair to the neatly groomed beard sitting on his chin.

He wore a long-sleeved shirt the same color as his hair.

His jeans were pristine denim, no tears or streaks of dirt like mine.

The stranger with amber eyes looked put-together and so out of place in the shitty motel lobby it made my head spin more than it already was.

What confused me the most was how not my type he was.

My clients were always older by at least twenty years, with beer guts and the stench of cigarette smoke leaking from their skin. He didn’t look like he smoked. No, I bet he smelled like the same woods I grew up around. Pine and forest, a hint of fresh earth masked by the summer rain.

We were at an impasse, neither of us moving forward.

The stranger with amber eyes squinted, the creases around his eyelids pulling together, his expression shifting between worry and lust. He cut his attention to the check-in counter, then back to me.

I watched, unable to move, as he put one foot forward, looking my way.

Something fluttered in my chest. An uncomfortable feeling.

An urge to meet him halfway, if I could.

But then Braden, another prostitute from the same street I had been on tonight, stepped away from the front counter, forcing him to stop.

He wrapped his arm around Braden’s middle, letting Braden huddle against his side.

Together, they sauntered towards the stairs, bypassing the broken elevators.

The elevators here never worked. It was their sixth time being down this week.

I watched them leave, too tired to care if I looked creepy. Amber eyes with long, black lashes looked my way one more time. The color of a campfire on a warm, summer night in the South. I felt the flutter again when he looked at me. My feet were begging to move, though screaming with exhaustion.

In the end, the stranger went up the stairs with Braden. I blamed my foggy head for the weird feeling I had when he looked at me. I was weary. Exhausted.

Sunlight scattered between buildings, forcing its rays to fall upon me as I limped along the sidewalk. Each step came with a wince, the tender skin along my ribs aching from my client’s fists. I could feel his name being etched into the skin of my ass in purple and black writing.

The thought brought a smile to my lips. When they curved just right, I hissed through my teeth. The skin was busted and bleeding, a bitter copper taste flowing onto my tongue.

I nearly tripped when my foot slid over an errant piece of trash. When I looked down, I had no choice but to look straight up and wonder if someone higher above was mocking me. A single red and gold Christmas ornament lay on the street, merely an inch away from the tip of my shoe.

I felt my heartbeat in the back of my head, pulsing in time with each pain from the knocking around my client gave me. My vision blurred, making the ornament nothing but a shaky mirage.

Only a little bit longer. Just a few more streets to walk.

I was so close to home. The glaring yellow of the sun mixing with orange in the sky reminded me of the stranger with amber eyes.

It made me wonder what it would be like to be his for the night.

I wondered if he would leave the same bruises, or if he’d leave marks the shape of his teeth.

Would he let me stare into the flames just before he hit me?

The lights were off in the house, meaning Willow hadn’t gotten up yet. My work hadn’t changed in the last eight years, but she always reacted like it was her first time seeing me like this. She’d beg and plead with me to stop, claiming I deserved better than how I was being treated.

I loved her more than anything, but I didn’t love her idea of what I deserved and what I didn’t.

She couldn’t understand that clients paid extra for what I enthusiastically offered.

My body wasn’t enough—all the sex workers I knew said that.

Clients from three cities over came to Crescent Planes to use me as their personal punching bag, get off, get out, and come again in a week or so when I was healed up enough.

Some didn’t even wait that long, their urges too strong to ignore.

If there weren’t any bruises, bite marks, or blood, I didn’t want it.

The rougher, the better. On the rare occasion that a client couldn’t stomach the idea of hurting someone twenty or thirty years their junior, I not-so-politely refused service.

I needed the pain. Without it, the past would start to settle in.

Demonic hands with razor-sharp claws would start gripping the skin of my neck, digging to split it open, desperate to force my blood to spill.

Without bruises and pain to remind me, I would fall beneath the memories, and I knew I would drown.

I winced at the sight of myself in the bathroom mirror.

The fabric of my shirt stubbornly stuck to the blood that splattered my skin, audibly tearing as I ripped it away.

I watched, mesmerized, as my stomach flexed and my muscles began to tremble with exertion.

My skin was beginning to mottle with discoloration.

It was beautiful, just as it was horrifying.

The doorknob jiggled, the sound echoing through the small bathroom. I lurched forward to stop it, groaning and freezing as pain shot from my ribs down my side. I heaved and sputtered, gripping the sink counter to steady myself against the wave of pain.

Willow stood in the doorway, her eyes wide while she looked over my exposed torso. “Oh my god.” She gasped. “That’s even worse than last time.”

Through gritted teeth, I feigned a smile to try and ease her shock.

“This is why you don’t open closed doors without knocking.

” Her eyes, usually a bright and warm brown, filled with unshed tears.

Willow didn’t move. Didn’t look away from the evidence marring my skin.

“Are you gonna speak or just gawk at me?” I knew I sounded harsh.

My irritation was irrational, but I couldn’t stand seeing her worry about me.

It made my skin crawl, knowing she cared so much when she shouldn’t.

I wasn’t worth the energy. I had never been.

“Nothing I say will change anything, will it?” she whispered, finally looking into my eyes. “You’re just gonna keep doing this, aren’t you?” Black and red strands fell over her shoulders as she shook her head, shifting down and meeting at her chest.

The door stood open, an empty void after Willow backed down the hallway.

Water dripped from the shower faucet, shockingly loud in the silence she left.

A chilling breeze flowed into the bathroom from the air conditioning.

It reminded me of the cold, empty loneliness I felt at the motel earlier after my client left.

I was alone with no one and nothing but myself. Looking at my reflection, I tried to see myself through Willow’s eyes. I couldn’t recognize who I was seeing in the mirror anymore. I wasn’t even sure what I was looking for.

Something.

Anything.

A semblance of normalcy, maybe. Hollow eyes stared back at me, devoid of innocence and soul.

I thought about the past and the future.

If my past had been different, my future would have been too.

The future’s past wouldn’t be of this—a silhouette of me gripping the sink counter, covered in memories, the darkest shade of black, wondering who the hell I am.

The Crew in the mirror was scaring my best friend and worried my blissfully unaware mother until her death. If I thought about it hard enough, this Crew was terrifying me as well. It was a hazard of the job to lose oneself, but I couldn’t honestly say I knew who I was to begin with.

I was a combination of pain and pleasure, though the pleasure was seemingly nowhere to be found. I wasn’t stupid. I knew what this was doing to myself and my loved ones. I just couldn’t find the energy to care anymore. Looking for something better was more exhausting than existing the way I was.

My hair was a mess; dark brown roots clashing against the shitty bleach job I’d done myself. The client had done a number on me, covering my face in darkening bruises and a split lip. Underneath it all, I looked gaunt, almost. Soulless. Listless.

Every wince and jolt of pain while showering only reminded me of why I did what I did.

The pain grounded me, in a sense. It reminded me I was capable of feeling something other than dread and paralyzing fear.

Blood-stained water swirled around the drain, signifying the cleansing of my sins, each bruise and cut signifying another tally added to the list of infractions I wore on my body.

In the kitchen, I found a glass of water and two over-the-counter pain medications. Willow would be off to work soon, leaving me to my own devices and her to process seeing me come home broken again.

Once upon a time, we were stupid, lost kids who found companionship in our shared loneliness.

I didn’t have a dad, and my mom worked a lot.

Willow lost her mom, and her dad was mostly aloof.

It worked. We bonded during unsupervised late nights, finding something entirely too dangerous and fucked up for a couple of kids to do.

Willow was my first true friend. The first person I came out to. She was the only reason, aside from Mom, that I graduated from high school. She knew almost all my dirty secrets, yet she chose to stay.

The tremble of her voice haunted me as I swallowed the pills.

The broken look on her face was why I never told her the real reason why I started doing sex work.

I’d never told her the reason behind the scars that littered my body, self-inflicted or otherwise.

Willow knew more about me than anyone else, but I had to keep some secrets.

It was an unspoken rule I followed as if my life depended on it.

Cool granite kissed the scratched, raw skin on the underneath of my elbows.

I let my head drop into my hands, groaning in time with another wave of pain through my head.

Rays of orange and yellow peeked through the blinds behind the kitchen sink, shining a spotlight on me.

The first touch of warmth I’d felt all night, aside from the lingering feeling of the stranger’s eyes.

Arms gingerly wrapped around my shoulders as Willow leaned down to give her version of a hug. I hated real hugs. “I love you, C. You know I do.”

“I know.”

“I just hate seeing you like this. It hurts me.”

“I know.”

“You deserve so much more. So much better.”

I stayed silent.

“They hurt you so bad, C.” Willow’s voice wobbled, tears flooding the back of her throat. “You deserve to find someone nicer. Gentler.”

I caressed her arm, giving the only affection I had the energy for. “I love you.”

She kissed the top of my head. “I love you, too.”

Willow walked away, leaving to go to her fancy work office in her fancy clothes to do something smart and valuable within society.

I was valuable too. At least, my body was.

Not in the same way as Willow, who used her smarts for something good.

I was a whiz at math, which only helped when clients tried to short-change me.

She was accepted into the world around us and was treated with respect.

Her coworkers thought of her as important to their company.

Businesses around the city loved her charm and competency when it came to proposals and investments.

Everything she swore I deserved, Willow deserved, and then some. Someone nicer. Gentle. Kind.

I didn’t do soft. I didn’t do gentle. I didn’t do kind. That was my whole thing. The prostitute on the block who loved being slapped around.

With Willow gone, I didn’t have a reason to exist around the house she bought with her hard-earned money. She let me live here, sure, but all the money I gave her was tainted and scorned.

I became a ghost. Retreating to my room, I shut the door, closed the blackout curtains, and flopped onto my bed.

Lullabies of a fiery escape from the only world I knew sang to me in the dark.

It was ridiculous—the idea that I could be anything different.

That I could have anything different. No matter what Willow said, I was a slave to my programming.

My mother didn’t notice. The world wasn’t kind. I was a blip on God’s radar in the grand scheme of things. No amount of prayers from the conservative churchgoers in my town could’ve saved me, just as I couldn’t have saved myself.

Sharp claws dug into my skin. They started at my feet, raking their way up my legs until they squeezed around my hips. I was helpless against them. I closed my eyes, letting the voice from ten years ago guide me back to the dark, murky waters I was accustomed to.

Beneath the surface, a light started blinking. It was faint, but it was there. Amber in color, the light illuminated a path for me to follow. It was treacherous, sure to end in nothing but pain.

It didn’t matter, though. I couldn’t swim anyway.

In my dreams, I drowned beneath the icy chill of the Arctic Ocean, begging for warmth with my hand outstretched to the ominous fire in the stranger’s eyes. He was just out of reach, our fingertips barely grazing before I dropped down.

Down.

Down.

Down to the depths, only to be met with the bottom of a glacier. It was unwilling to move. Stuck in one spot, doomed to chip away into tiny pieces. Much like me.

A final thought came to me moments before drifting off to death. What would have happened if I’d held the hand of the stranger with amber eyes just a bit tighter?