Page 8 of The Sin Eater

Can’t have sex, either. It’s a pretty effective one-two punch. Fortunately, I’ve got a plan for emergency nicotine fits, at least. Geneva keeps a “secret” candy jar—so secret that anyone who’s spent any time here knows where it is—and I make sure there are always at least a couple lollipops in there. Doesn’t matter what kind: Dum-Dums, Tootsie Pops, or even the cheap-ass type that are literally flat discs of colored sugar. They don’t make the weight any lighter, but they all keep my mouth busy, which stops me from crawling out of my skin.

Likely it’s against the rules somewhere for me to try to take the edge off my suffering. Guess I’m just a rebel.

Either that or my attachment to reality is really, really tenuous.

There’s only one place where my brain will shut off, and that’s the dance floor. Which is weird, right? Like, I put theAin antisocial, but I love nothing better than to be in the middle of a crowd of sweating bodies, with a heavy beat drowning out thesound of my own thoughts. Yeah, that’s what’s next. Somewhere there’s a dance floor with my name on it.

After what I just went through, I need it.F. M. L. I might need to spend the whole weekend on the dance floor.

Sucker in my mouth, I leave the dead to their own devices, slipping out through a side door and into the dark maw that is the loading dock.

Fifteenth Street is buzzing with freaks trying to get their Friday evening started just right. My apartment is only about four blocks from the hospital. I pass it on my way to the light rail station where I use the pay phone—a first for me. I pitch my voice as low as I can manage and tell the 9-1-1 operator what I know about James Smith.

When she starts asking questions, I hang up.

Home is in one of the circa 1940 buildings built all over Seattle to deal with the influx of workers in the new aeronautics industry. I might move around a lot, but I make an effort to learn about the place I’m in.

It’s a studio apartment, a twelve-by-twelve foot room with a kitchenette separated by a pair of French doors, and a closet big enough to fit a twin mattress. The rent is ridiculous and I pay it more-or-less gladly. I couldn’t stand a roommate, so it is what it is. Plus, I need a parking spot for the car that I only drive when I’m going off the Hill and guaranteed not to drink.

A classic like Dorothy May deserves only the best.

Here’s another one of my secrets: the family trust fund. Apparently back in the day, eating sin paid well, so now I get a monthly stipend that allows me a reasonable lifestyle while making twenty bucks an hour.

It’s the least they can do. I mean, it’s one thing to be shunned by the people I grew up with, quite another to have someone I care about look at me that way. You know.

Like I’m a freak.

Ain’t nobody loves a sin eater.

Nobody.

While the older families in Bumfuck, Arkansas, knew they could call on my dad in certain situations, they didn’t love any of us. Didn’t love me, specifically, because in addition to the gift, I never bothered to act straight. I was the gay princess of WT Sampson High School and fucking proud of it.

As a result, I’ve got a pretty thick skin. Even so, trying to imagine what a guy like Damon Clemens would say if he found out? Yeah... no. Not going there.

So no, I don’t make friends, and I keep my lovers at a distance. Even someone like Damon.

Good thing he’s straight.

I crash on my antique chaise lounge—yes, I am that kind of gay—with my bottle of Jack and take stock of my life. I have to eat sin or I go crazy, or thereabouts, and I can’t tell anyone—literally. If they do find out somehow, they’ll hate me.

Those are all the rules as I know them.

Except now, apparently, a dead guy’s soul asked me to eat his sins and then made me relive his worst. At least, I hope that was his worst. Jesus.How fucked up is that?I take a long hit of Jack, the burn acting like an astringent.

Part of me wants to call home, to ask Dad what all this means. The rest of me wants to go dancing. That’s the only way I’m going to make it all make sense. If nothing else, I’ll distract myself from the crazy, at least for tonight.

The bathroom, with its miniature bathtub-and-shower combo, is to the left of the front door, and that’s where I head. If I focus on the task at hand, moving myself through space like a puppet, I won’t remember that poor woman and what happened to her.

Except when I’m standing under the stream of nearly hot water, it all comes back. She might have been twenty-five,her blue eyeshadow and thick liner matching her closer-to-god hairstyle. I went through a drag phase a while back, so I know a good hand with makeup when I see one.

She’d been living her best life until she wasn’t, and the guy who did her laughed.

Helaughed.

I grind my teeth so hard it’s surprising I don’t break one.

That’s it. Out of the shower, I towel off and reach for my bottle of Jack. A little pre-function never hurt anybody. Shoot another one straight from the bottle. The burn steadies my nerves somehow, enough for me to throw on my jeans and a shirt that’s cropped just below my nipples. The material’s silky and gold, but the bare skin is the real show. The jeans have ragged patches at the knees and another right under my right butt cheek. I’ll wrap myself in faux fur until I get into the club.