Pretty Baby (850 hits)
Category: NoneRating: 1.67 on 29 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Ballare (View user info) at 2007-09-10 03:01:25 EDT
"Pretty baby," she cooed up at me. Her weak hands fluttered up against my face, thin fingers softly patting at my cheeks. "Pretty baby," she repeated, softer, and her alcohol-reddened eyes stared beyond me, rolling up towards the ceiling. It was the very same white stucco ceiling she'd said she hated for so long until one day she'd come home stoned and leapt up on the coffee table to reach up and with her fingertips, those feeble, pale fingertips, and stroked it in one place until all the little stucco balls had fallen to the carpet around her in a dusty white halo.
I grabbed at her hands, and her fingers curled around mine, light as moths, and I brought them to my mouth and gently kissed them. I knew these hands intimately - had held them, caressed them, touched them to my lips countless times - and only once I'd clasped them firmly with my own did their anxious spidery twitching cease. Tenderly, I smiled down at her, and she tried to smile back, but her lips snarled to reveal yellowed decayed teeth and unwillingly I averted my eyes.
I couldn't look into her eyes, couldn't stand to see that dulled gaze that was once so impassioned and bright, and instead I stared at the once-white pillowcase, now patchy with discolored puke stains.
"Don't - don't leave me, will you? Not now, n-not now."
Her hooting soft voice called me back, drawing me back to her, and I nodded absently and smoothed her thinning hair.
I shook my head - never, darling, never - but in truth she had left me long ago.
She had left me many times over, in smoke and amber-coloured spirits and sharp tipped needles and the dark bruises all up and down her forearms, left me awake until six in the morning when she would stumble in and leave holes in the plaster and glass on the floor. She left me for the scent of cheap cologne on her neck and latex on her fingers and sex on her breath.
Left me disconnected, left me a broken record skipping over and over, repeating the same discordant sounds and actions and words over and over, trapped in her endless cycle.
Rarely, she would slip up - perhaps it was too much, or perhaps her thin body would simply give up, or perhaps what she had been sold was not what she'd been expecting - and she would be returned to me by wailing sirens and blue-and-red lights and I would greet her in a white sterile room that smelled of death and disinfectant.
And as I had done for as long as I can remember, I would sit with her, and fold her hands in mine and speak reassurances to her until she could return home once again and return to her toxic routine.
This time, she had returned of her own volition, coughing and choking on vomit on our doorstep, begging between burbling hacks for my strong hands to lift her and carry her and mend her, and as always, (for I could not refuse her, this shell of a woman who had once been my lover) I responded to her and I did, for the love of whatever god she may pray to, I did.
And now, she made a noise, a strangled choking noise in her throat and I again I nodded, for this was the proper noise for her to be making, and I felt her frail hands beating uselessly at my chest and I looked down to see a roughened hand tight about her soft white throat and I smiled hollowly, because this too was right, and when she fell still finally I took her hands again in mine and brought them to my lips and kissed them, gently, gently, and laid them upon her chest and stroked her hair one last time.
"Pretty baby," I murmured to her, and there were noises around me, outside the glass pane a flashing red-and-blue strobe, but I paid no attention, and repeated it to her, softly, and bent down to kiss her lifeless lips.
User Reviews
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-09-27 11:05:56 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You should post more.
Submitted by wookie (user info) at 2007-09-13 13:44:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by TheUniter (user info) at 2007-09-11 14:42:10 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by darkwulffe (user info) at 2007-09-11 03:06:55 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
excellent. I cant believe that the rating for this isnt higher...
Submitted by sir_cowman (user info) at 2007-09-11 02:23:26 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I was buzzing pretty hard when i read this, and it reminded me of a former lover and almost brought me to tears.
But thats probably the wine.
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2007-09-10 18:04:12 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2007-09-10 05:08:22 PDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2007-09-10 04:25:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I really liked this, but that might be mostly because me and a friend of mine were JUST talking about how we were so attracted to females we felt we needed to protect, possibly because of something or other that happened sometime or somewhere.
At any rate, I'm not sober, I can't sleep, and you write far better than I can.
Bitch.
----------------
It's because they're vulnerable and you are a sexual predator. When they lock people like you away the other inmates walk past you muttering "beast" under their breath and the gaurds, the gaurds will do nothing to protect you. I reccomend getting a tattoo that reads "WARNING: I HAVE AIDS! DON'T CUT ME!"
==========
Really? I was thinking it was because of the way I grew up with my sister, feeling the need to protect her from the stupid situations she put herself in. I had no idea I was an AIDS infested rapist (load off my back).
Thanks for clarifying for me, I can't afford the tattoo, so I've simply been carving said warning into my chest with my pocket knife. Hopefully my horrible scar turns out nicely.
Submitted by CandieJo (user info) at 2007-09-10 15:03:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No comment
Submitted by Brdn_Nkd (user info) at 2007-09-10 13:38:51 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by experima (user info) at 2007-09-10 12:12:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2007-09-10 03:20:58 PDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nicely done.
==================
go Ballare!
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2007-09-10 11:50:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Is the Bertinator acceptable as well?
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2007-09-10 11:47:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I ain't some kind of Luvvy, Bel-Air. You may refer to me as Berty, Mr. B, Bertros Bertros Gali, Bertanasaurus Rex, Bertomic 'Da' Bomb, Bertimore, Bertram, "Him with the face", or similar.
Kind regards
Berty 'not a rapist' Bertram
Submitted by Ballare (user info) at 2007-09-10 11:26:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Berty my dear, you always leave me the most INTERESTING reviews
Submitted by RabiedRooster (user info) at 2007-09-10 11:21:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Most pleasing
Submitted by rorrim (user info) at 2007-09-10 11:03:08 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by monkeyswithguns (user info) at 2007-09-10 10:44:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ghola (user info) at 2007-09-10 10:04:42 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by ChaosJester (user info) at 2007-09-10 09:27:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I liked this. Short, simple and to the point.
Could have been written a bit better, but that's just quibbling.
Submitted by CaptainThorns (user info) at 2007-09-10 09:00:24 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-09-10 08:43:18 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
By far too low a rating for this piece of writing.
Submitted by Fey (user info) at 2007-09-10 08:42:13 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
You're good.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2007-09-10 08:08:22 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2007-09-10 04:25:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I really liked this, but that might be mostly because me and a friend of mine were JUST talking about how we were so attracted to females we felt we needed to protect, possibly because of something or other that happened sometime or somewhere.
At any rate, I'm not sober, I can't sleep, and you write far better than I can.
Bitch.
----------------
It's because they're vulnerable and you are a sexual predator. When they lock people like you away the other inmates walk past you muttering "beast" under their breath and the gaurds, the gaurds will do nothing to protect you. I reccomend getting a tattoo that reads "WARNING: I HAVE AIDS! DON'T CUT ME!"
Submitted by orph (user info) at 2007-09-10 06:20:58 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Nicely done.
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-09-10 06:11:38 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I dont like the Surgeons mood today.
Submitted by Surgeon (user info) at 2007-09-10 06:10:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
transfusion..
Submitted by EmissionImpossible (user info) at 2007-09-10 06:04:53 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Lenny from Of Mice And Men for me.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2007-09-10 05:52:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2007-09-10 10:51:09 BST (#)
Ranking: 0
I thought it was all a bit forest gump.
Submitted by Berty (user info) at 2007-09-10 05:51:09 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I thought it was all a bit forest gump.
Submitted by DancingOtter (user info) at 2007-09-10 04:41:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Rather well written indeed.
Submitted by haikumikoo (user info) at 2007-09-10 04:25:43 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I really liked this, but that might be mostly because me and a friend of mine were JUST talking about how we were so attracted to females we felt we needed to protect, possibly because of something or other that happened sometime or somewhere.
At any rate, I'm not sober, I can't sleep, and you write far better than I can.
Bitch.