Venus Fly Trap

“If I live to the end of the story,” he says, “you owe me the rest of yours.”

I chuckle, a little drunk and a little lonely so I say, “handsome, you know how this works right?”

“Then it’s an easy wager.”

I drop my eyes to his, the kind of blue kids write songs about when they’re bored in middle school. “I’ll bite.” Poor fool. They all say crazy stuff like this when they’re strapped down.

“I’m not prefacing much about it. You’ll catch on, unless of course, you’re not as smart as I thought.”

I smile as I pull the latex glove tight over my hand. First step in the ritual, and as I flex each finger, a sense of elation wraps around my heart, constricting it as it thuds.

“There are rules in the City. Stay high, don’t make a noise. Simple…

But is it that simple? For those who are fine with waiting in the shadows until they're plucked off by the royalty who run it or to slowly starve, watch everyone they love disappear, sure it's simple. That’s why sheep are clueless all the way to the slaughter house. They don’t realize that they’re next in line.

I didn’t always live in the City. But when I arrived, I was put into line...”

I chuckle, again. His long dark hair moves with him as he looks up at me. “You really were in line.”

Despite the bruise swelling his lips, they turn up in the corner with a smirk. “It’s not lost on me,” he says, young voice smooth and unshaking, “the irony.”

“When I met the first of the royalty, he wasn’t much older than me, but he was on fire. His entire body seemed to alight with passion. No, more like insanity. A certainty that he would never be where I am. They called him King, his army of half starved, half drug-dead men with shaved heads decorated with inky black snakes coiling around their bare skulls.

Under his boot with my jaw open on the sidewalk, he pressed into me, grinding my teeth against the ground and pushing the skin of my jaw wider and wider, until I felt the tear of my smile widening.

He gave me a choice, stay where I was and live to see the sun again, or die. How simple. I could stay under his boot, or I could have him leave me on the ground bleeding from the inside out.”

“So simple. Isn’t it?”

I don’t look up from the water paling the crimson drops as they slide from the tool I favored in the last job, still sticky when I started cleaning it for him. But the pause pulls me to reality, “Sure, join or find yourself a meal for the rats whether you were dead just yet or not,” I say half heartedly as I try the handle as if it is a pair of tongs. “Been under that same boot.”

“That’s how it feels. There is always a path. There’s not always a wrong way and right way. It’s more often which way is the lesser pain of the other.” He stops, takes a breath and says, "It's not always about what door is closed and what door is open. You have to find the door. I came to a door that day, salivating at my own blood. I still remember what it looked like.”

I made my way across the room to the table, setting down several of my favorite tools and some of the more necessary ones.

“Even with my eyes closed in pain I saw that golden door ripple from the darkness, peeling away its tendrils. Eroding bars from the darkness launched across it, knocking my hands away before I could reach it. But it didn’t stop me. I slammed myself against it, reaching for the gold leaf platted slats that parted for an angel made from stained glass, blowing its trumpet so loudly that it even drowned out the pain of my teeth bending towards my lips. I remember feeling the electric pulse of bliss warm every part of my body. And there was the knob. Simple compared to the rest of it, but it didn’t even have a lock. I just had to twist it and the angel in the stained glass would be around me and the music would consume every part of who I was. I just had to get past the bars.

I contorted my shoulder, bruised my skin as the trumpet grew louder and louder. My chin made it through the bar but stuck on the other side my top teeth held me in place. I pushed. I pushed. I pushed. The pain seared as my skin tore at the corners of my mouth. But my jaw and my teeth didn’t budge. I just needed an inch, just an inch to that knob. If I could get through, I could be free of it. Free of the pain. My angel. My angel is calling to me.”

I couldn’t be sure when I started paying attention to his story. I usually let these guys moan or beg, sometimes both. It’s not much of a distraction after the first few times. This voice pierced itself through the monotony of my set up.

“I still hear it.”

“Yeah?” I say as I dry the blade with a long overused rag that had been cut smaller and smaller through sloppy cleaning.

“As soon as I made it through the door, it never stopped.”

I stop.

“I chose at that moment. I found a knob and I twisted, dropping into the street. I felt no more pain and the King was lost in the darkness. I covered myself in scarlet, letting it drip onto me like rain after a drought. And when I stood, I was the King. My jaw hung limply but my smile did widen. Through that door I disappeared, further, and further.”

His eyes are down cast, looking far away. But I look at his mouth or I should say around it, following the long white lines from the end of his lips to the middle of his cheek.

“There’s always another door.”

“Stories over,” I say and throw my knife on the metal plate next to him. “How about I recap it for you?” I flick the small knife from my pocket and press it to his scar.

“The bars are gone. The door is open forever. After you’ve done what I’ve done, it doesn’t close. “

I swing my arm back. I have never wanted this to be over. This is the part I relish. I keep smelling salts around in case it finishes fast. That and I’m lucky I have O negative blood. I can keep them fueled without finding a source until I’m done. I need this over. I need this guy gone. Driving it forward, I aim for his chest, even if I miss his heart, a lung will be fine. It would do him well to drown in his blood. With all my strength, the blade pins his shirt to his skin.

It stops.

I didn’t stop.

I look down. A scarred hand digs into my arm, trembling with force. The knife is just out of reach from its mark. I press harder, throwing my weight into, but he isn’t budging.

“Remember what I said?”