[LM] Challenge #17 - "9 Crimes" - Damien Rice
He shouldn’t be here, he knows he shouldn’t, but as he dips his head and goes inside, taking off his hat he tries to push the guilt away. A guilt that is slowly eating away at him, bit by bit. A guilt he doesn’t do anything to stop, doesn’t want to stop. On some level she understands what it’s like to have a dream and to want to do anything to achieve that dream.
Little did she know that that dream had become a nightmare from which there was no waking from.
The room was quiet at this time of the day, as it always with most of the girls in bed. A thin layer of dust and the smell of ale and sin hung heavily in the air. Sun streamed through the only window, catching specks of dust, illuminating them. It could be any normal room, but he knew it wasn’t. Far from it.
Henry yawned and rubbed the back of his neck and waited, not quite what to do or to say, or even why he was here but he couldn’t help himself. Did she know exactly just how much he was risking being here? Not just because of Lisa, whom he loved with all his heart but his status…not that he had ever given anything about his status, he didn’t care what other people thought, he just didn’t want to hurt Lisa anymore than he was doing. Did she know just how much, unconsciously she was pulling him through the darkest nights even as his other, darker half, ruined hers?
No, she wouldn’t have a clue.
He found himself a seat and sat down, taking his hat off and setting it down on the table. His eyes flicked towards the stage and he found himself drawn back to that night, that night that seemed so long ago when everything although distorted was easier. When everything was simpler, easier to focus on, when there was just one who shared his body and his thoughts and his dreams weren’t so troubled. When his hands weren’t covered with so much blood he knew they would never again be clean and he wasn’t in so much pain.
He had watched her move that night and he knew he was lost. Her gaudy movements covering feline grace that even her outfit couldn’t hide. He hadn’t shouted and hollered like the other men around him, he had simply watched each and every movements as if he was already addicted to them and he knew then that it was wrong. Then when the owner had slapped her so hard her beautiful face was alright swelling with redness he wanted so much to hurt him, to make him regret and it was only John’s hand fast on his arms, insistent, anger laced words within his ear that stopped him. When she had moved up towards him, an obvious twinkle in her eye that had very little to do with the money he could offer he knew he should have refused her more than he had, shouldn’t have given her his card but he had.
Then she had turned up on his doorstep, her back messed up but Hyde….by him and he could not refuse her treatment even though there was a lump in his throat, his hands shaking so much he hoped that she hadn’t noticed. He should have pulled away, should have stopped when she had kissed but it was addictive, heady and before long he had found himself kissing back. He managed to pull himself away before it had gotten too, but what if he hadn’t found that strength?
So here he waits, in this dusty room, waiting for her.
Pain, guilt, salvation?
No…hope, strength, a light in the darkness.