Femme Fatale & The Gun by Kelsey Bryan Zwick
She is all legs that go-on-and on. A velvet throat that has you thinking of all the wrong ends of a back alley. In black and white you cannot see the poison of her eyes, but she has those eyes. You are already imagining the slight-of-hand at the zipper of her dress, a smile that suggests her winsome intentions. Before she even hums a name, you begin to quiver at the mouth of her possible release. In your eye she will only ever bend in a soft glow, ready, oh so ready, to get close-up.
*
The venetian blinds open and close, open and close, blinking in their voyeurism. A girl like that is always on exhibition. She could wear a paper sack, be shaved from head to toe. Something stiffens. You think it’s your gun. You want something to be wrong so that you can muster up sweat and pheromones fixing it. Of course, there is always something wrong, she’s a woman for crying out loud. Of course, you don’t want to fix that. You want to cry out loud, the way you already know the venetian blinds will cry over this one.
*
Looking up from between her legs, their endless pleasure. And just above the curve of her abdomen, there it is, winking at you, nipple. Now glistening with the wet stain of your saliva, your head full with the stiff arch of moaning, her velvet throat. Her hand on the back of your neck, gripping you hard like a gun.
*
She wakes in the slant-eye of silk sheets. With a twist of her wrist the venetian blinds open to a glaring of daylight. An eye too-wide-open. The way she’d tied you up with gasping you hadn’t noticed the scars. Her scars. Even now, in the dizzy-before-coffee-glow-of morning you couldn’t think much past the memories of nipple, anklebone-sigh. The exquisite squeeze just-below-thigh–but those scars, her scars, the way they looked now—they don’t seem possible. Before you can consider the depth of them, the texture of finger imprint, there she is again—on top of you, drawing out moans from beyond your capacity to reason. Bullet shaped moans.
*
As you pull the trigger you know you will do it again. Could only ever do it again.
*
You feel the dark warm stain absorb into the fabric of your suit. The red splatter across your freshly washed face. A fleck of blood dotting lips, the iron taste of it. You rub a smudge away from your eyes. You don’t see the body draining blood. Hypnotized with the possibility of again looking into the poison of her eyes as that glowing pleasure passes through you. Even now, in the sweat of this heat, as you pat the corpse down for imprint, you continue to water at the thought of her, as you flee the scene in a melt of wanting.
*
You look up at her, you swear you see her, but you can’t be sure. A remembered velvet intoxicates your mind. Bleary-eyed venetian blinds. In a half-swoon you stumble, unsure of where you are going. Only. Just. Wherever it is, you suspect that she’ll be there.
*
That next morning the cold heaviness of gun in your hand. You know you’d kill for her again. A little death. Le petite mort. Even just a taste. Sitting in a stupor you can’t shake—dizzy with her headiness. Your piece, you want her to love you for your piece. You begin to moan again, just for a whimper and a whiff of it. Your gun hardens with the thought, ready to beg.
*
Somehow from the smell you know it is her blood. You rush through towards it. Silk, sweat, velvet, stale smoke, through all that the scent of her blood draws you out. Makes you a little crazy with lust, it crawls through the rest of your intentions, mad as any at a siren’s call. Her breathing pulses like tinnitus in the scoop of your ears. Envisioning that late night reel of skin that plays over the attention of your gaze. Rabbid with a desire you can’t drink.
*
How to exhale? You rub your hand up against the thought of her skin, her legs that extend beyond physics, her bend: now just a wet-dream-wish. You begin to choke on the hope of attempting her inner pulse. Holding your breath at her second mouth. Your skin tenses with the thought, a bit of saliva accumulating with desire. Stiff, you hold your gun again.
*
She is on you. Mouth at the trigger-pulse of your neck. Again: that quivering. Your skin awash with want. Gripped in the thought of her thighs, impress of anklebone. Paralyzed with the thought, nipple. In your mouth. You imagine her: formed so ripe inside shape of perfect lip-suckle. Chin-stubble -bristle. The paradise-texture of it. She pulls the gun off you. You do not feel the rest of your senses drain away.Your mouth sounds of a bullet. Your voice caught somewhere you can’t name. Smoke rises from the gut of your abdomen. You stiffen. You harden.
*
You sigh but cannot sigh. Remembered moan sticks a bit, so you startle a little. Your breathing grows shallow, in the fever of your want. You wake like a soft cotton. You sleep in the curve of skin. When you make a sound, it is a moan, but it sounds like bullet. All you feel now: the imprint of her mouth, her teeth on your skin. And still, your blood rises for her.
*
You want to beg, but your mouth doesn’t move. Even if you still had a voice, you can’t remember the words. You moan, as she holds you like a gun, you moan.
*
You never realize it’s over, but there she is standing above your body. Those endless legs. You know only she could have ever gotten you this stiff, this hard up. And it shouldn’t be funny, but the little bit of the ghost in you that’s left laughs. Unheard, of course, on the ephemeral astral plane. Your body there—limp: shriveled and succored of its juices. What you wouldn’t give to be milked again. A husk of yourself, only a carcass of a dream, you eat at the delirium of.
*
You feel cold now. A splayed gun. How you still fit the shape of her hand. The range of her bullet.
*
You see it now. Finally. How: those legs really do go on. Eight of them in fact, how that coy mouth conceals her fangs. How good she is with the ropes, so quick with love knots, you forgot to recognize the web. Love bitten, until you were love stuck, spun, and sucked dry. Oh, how she sucked you dry. Still, you think, I’d do it again. As a second spider-woman enters the scene. Her legs twice as long, twice as endless. Your longing now: just as multiplied. As they begin to kiss the velvet of each other’s throats, twist of limbs more inner thigh than body. Well, you know now. Her—velvet and legs—she was always after blood. And you would always take pleasure in giving it.
Alien Buddha Press 