Paper Women

Here is the final product if you get a minute. I am not sure I like it. But too late now! It's long so if you don't read it fine. I will only torture you a little.
See you all Saturday!

Paper Women: by Amy Wright

Charlotte deftly pushed the needle under her skin. It smoothly sunk through five layers of epidermis and when she felt the lack of tension, the vacant fluidity of blood, she pushed the clear liquid deep into her body. She bit her lip to stifle a cry and then let go. Without thinking, she placed the needle and the vial back into the kit and zipped it shut. She put the kit away, where Isaac would never find it and where it would mean the most; behind the rigid, rejected manuscripts on the large cherry wood bookshelf. No one liked to even look in that direction anymore.

Approximately thirty five minutes before going comatose with the dose she had given herself. It would be enough.

She languidly walked over to the couch and lay down on her side putting her arm under her head. With care, she smoothed her silk, black slip loose over her hips and admired the dip of her waist. She ran her hand over her breasts, her waist and hips, the deep, tender curves, and wondered what it was he didn’t want anymore.

Isabel would know soon, find her insulin kit missing. But she wouldn’t know right away it was her that took it. Not until it was too late.

She waited for Isaac who was due home any minute now. If he was late….if he disappointed her this time…

It didn’t matter this time.

But he came. And as usual, threw his jacket on the floor next to the couch and headed straight for the kitchen. Charlotte listened attentively to the clanging dishes, the opening and shutting of the microwave, the water faucet and Isaac’s low, preposterous cursing at every kitchen appliance that gave him trouble. She heard him pour two cups of coffee, stir, tap, sip.

All this took 11 minutes.

He came to her at last bringing with him a cup of coffee, coffee that would never be cool enough for her tongue. Knowing Isaac, it was sweet with sugar and cream. She took a deep breath, shaky, ready to begin. But he always unnerved her. His thick red hair, swept carelessly back behind his head. He wore makeup-a touch of mascara at the tip of his eyelashes and dark, penciled in brows all to direct probing eyes to his own; green, bright discs of exquisiteness. He was lovely, always lovely.

She had rehearsed her speech a million times in dreams that she never quite finished. It was her death diatribe.

Isaac sat into his hard oak chair, his mother’s antique trophy, and blew into his sweltering cup of coffee.

“Hello, Charlotte. How was your day?”

“I know why you want me, Isaac. You believe I am vacant. You want me because I never ask you to discuss me. I have wholly sacrificed myself for your needs. I am your personal graveyard, I believe. Strategically designed by you. Your shreds of ego shamelessly large and obese. Right here. In me. “

“Grow up, Charlotte.”

“I am grown up. You just don’t like who I am.”

“I have been here five minutes and you are already trying to hurt me.”

Charlotte moved from the couch to the floor. She lay supine, her head fuzzy and light, but still she had the mind to bend her legs just a bit at the knees so as to make her legs look longer and leaner.

“I am trying to shock you. Besides, I hate myself. You know that. Sometimes I can follow the echo of death like the bloody tracks of a wounded deer. “I hate myself comes” out of my head while I brush my hair. I am making eggs for breakfast and “I hate myself” comes out of no where. “I hate myself” before I fall asleep. “I hate myself” while I shower. Whenever I take a breath. It gets worse and worse. I don’t know where it comes from. And I believe I really do hate myself, Isaac. I can see myself dead so clearly that I ache because of it.”

“Do we have to talk about this, Charlotte?”

“No. We don’t. I can talk about something else.”

“What else do you want to talk about?”

“Your women. All women. They are foolish… incapable, helpless victims. They never fully live because they endlessly doubt themselves. I’ve never met a woman I liked. They disgust me. Almost as much as fucking you disgusts me.”

“I disgust you, Charlotte? I’ve had enough of your abuse.”

“I’m not abusing you am I? I am so sorry, Isaac. Please don’t leave.”

“I am leaving. You’re cruel. You’re drunk already and it’s not even six. It’s disgusting. I have better things to do than this.”

Isaac headed for the door, as he had many times before, but Charlotte picked herself off the floor and ran to him.

“Don’t leave Isaac. Please!”

She sunk to her knees and grabbed him around the legs then buried her face between his thighs. He paused and looked down at the top of her head.

“Charlotte, do I really disgust you?”

“No, Isaac. Never. I was lying. Don’t leave me, okay? You can’t.”

Isaac stood for a moment then began stroking Charlotte’s long, dark hair. He helped her to her feet. She was unsteady and swayed a little.

“Okay Charlotte. But can you stop this endless tirade of hate and loathing? It really is getting to be a big bore.”

“Yes. But I need to ask you a question, Isaac. Just one.” Isaac headed back towards his chair.

“Drink your coffee, Charlotte.”

“Isaac, why did you do it?”

“I cannot do this right now.” He headed for the kitchen…

“You can’t answer me. You never will, will you?” He stopped.

“Drink your coffee and stop talking. Just don’t talk. You’re much prettier when you don’t talk.”

She whispered, “I know that.”

Despite her best efforts, her eyes began to fill with tears. She cried and he pretended not to see.

“Do you think I am a writer, Isaac? Do you think I am any good? My stories keep coming back to me. When they come back they are suddenly different to me. As if they have been regurgitated and turned into acidic waste. I wonder what I do wrong…”

“You’re an artist, Charlotte. More of one than anyone I know. No one sees it just yet. That’s all.”

“When Isabel and I were younger we used to pretend we were famous ice skaters. Can you believe that? And Isabel always thought I was better than her and really I was. She would wear this gaudy purple leotard that made her look like a marshmallow Peep. And I had tailored tutus from ballet class. She wasn’t very pretty, you know. And it always ended in this trite competition between the two of us. She always had to win.”

“I don’t want to talk about Isabel.”

Charlotte lay on the floor again, so relaxed she felt herself melting into the linoleum.

Isaac stared at her and felt a prick of alarm.

“Charlotte, please drink your coffee.”

“Why?”

“Because you are drunk.”

“I am not.”

“Drink it.”

“I am dizzy. It’s the strangest feeling. I often imagined myself dying on pain killers. I would take just three of four you know, not enough to kill me, but I would lie on the bed and imagine I was to die soon. And I would be overcome with euphoria until I wondered if my stomach would seize with pain. Or if I would lose my senses and go crazy. That fear consumed me and every time, I panicked. I would make myself get up and walk around. But I think it isn’t nearly that frightening now.”

“For God’s sake, Charlotte. What is the matter with you?”

“Do you remember that story I told you? When I stole Isabel’s boyfriend from her when we were juniors in high school? We went on a fieldtrip to Williamsburg and he sat with me in the back of the bus. And everyone loved Isabel so much more than me and they started throwing paper balls and calling me terrible names. But you know what the weirdest thing was? All that time he was undoing my bra, feeling me everywhere he could without being too profane. I couldn’t even feel his dirty hands. I didn’t care. Because straight across from me sat Isabel with her new boyfriend. She watched it all and I saw her smile. I saw her laugh when one of the guys called me a worthless, skinny whore. It wasn’t nice of her.”

“It wasn’t nice of you to steal her boyfriend.”

“He didn’t want her anymore. Do you think she is pretty, Isaac? Prettier than me?”

“It doesn’t matter. You know that.”

“But it does matter. You chose her over me.”

“I did not choose her over you.”

“But you did! And how can you say that? When you slept with her I am sure that I was there somewhere. I am sure that in some remote island in your mind, I flitted across. For a moment at least. But you still did it.”

“I can’t talk about this with you.”

“You never can. She’s not really that nice, you know. More than once she has been nasty. She’s a snake. She gets at me when she can. Little things, like when I wear make-up she says, ‘Uh! I could never wear make-up. It makes me feel fake.’ She ridiculously coughs and holds her nose when I wear my perfume.” It’s silly and her way of getting to me.”

Charlotte became quiet. Isaac looked over to her and saw that she was crying again. She was trembling and for a moment Isaac thought about going to her. To calm her but Charlotte was always so dramatic. But worry fingered his spine. She wouldn’t really try to kill herself. She wasn’t that strong. Still…he got up and began searching the room for anything she might have used.

“Charlotte, what is wrong with you? Something’s not right.”

“Don’t worry so much, Isaac. I feel very pleasant. Though my head spins. Do you remember my sister? You only met her once. My father didn’t like her. Did you know he thought she was too fat? He told her so. He told her not to wear skirts because people would laugh at her. Laugh and laugh. She stopped eating for a while. Even became anorexic but when she was thin like that, she just looked sad and yellow. But my father thought that she was beautiful then. Just that once. She started eating again after she got married and he stopped talking to her, really. He always talked to me. She hated me for that.”

“Charlotte, what have you done? Have you done something?” He was searching frantically now. Looking under the couch cushions and in the bureau drawers. Charlotte giggled.

“I said, don’t worry, Isaac. All I want you to do is listen right now. I had to do this.”

“Do what? What is it you are doing? Have you been drinking too much again? Why don’t you drink the goddamn coffee I brought you? This is completely silly the way you are worrying me.”

“But I am fine. But you must tell me now? About Isabel? Because she never loved me, Isaac. And I wonder when you chose her if you thought she was better somehow. It’s all a lie. She’s a lie.”

“I told you. I didn’t choose her.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. Of course you chose her.”

“She was very forceful with me. You wouldn’t think it of her. But she wouldn’t slow down for anything. Charlotte, do you understand this at all?”

“You’re getting angry. But you forget you did this to me.” Isaac stood helplessly. Charlotte’s eyes were closed and she looked asleep, spread loosely across the floor.

“I let Isabel hold her and I wish now…I wish I hadn’t. Isabel was so afraid of her and I thought…I thought perhaps she just didn’t know how to hold a baby. But I think it was because she wanted that baby to be hers. Is that true Isaac?”

Isaac stood impotent in front of Charlotte.

“And Isaac, when we were at the funeral, I think about it now, you stood so close to Isabel then. And I tried not to look at you. I held my mother’s hand because you wouldn’t hold mine. And Isabel, maybe I saw her smile then too. Maybe she was happy because even then, she had you more than I did, Isaac.”

“Jesus, Charlotte.” But that was all he could say. He trembled violently.

“Emily. I miss her.” Charlotte’s sobs consumed her. For a moment it looked as though Charlotte was having seizures. She jerked. She moaned but still, she seemed coherent enough, Isaac thought. But he started looking again, looking everywhere. He knew there were no pills. She wasn’t allowed them.

“It was days later, wasn’t it? That I walked in on you and her?”

“It was a month, Charlotte. Don’t exaggerate.”

“Yes, a month. And I saw her smile then too. Her large breasts looking straight at me, chiding me, telling me how inadequate I was. She didn’t say anything at all, do you remember? Just sat there. So I had to ask her to get out of my bed. You were so frantic, Isaac. It was quite funny. But she stared at me and didn’t move. You had to jerk her up and practically dress her. I studied her body then. She was so big. So large. And me, so thin as I would think you liked.”

“Charlotte, where are the pills?”

“I don’t have any pills. You know that. I am not allowed.”

“Then what is this? What is happening with you?”

“And when she left she was laughing. Laughing at me. And you stood and let her, remember? She was so wicked. And she came to hug me, she said it was only sex. It didn’t have anything to do with our friendship. ‘Oh please be mature about this, Charlotte’ she said. You stood there with your mouth wide open not doing anything. I felt my heart would burst open right there. But you stood there in your faded blue underwear trying to cover more up while she pranced around like a porn star. You let her hurt me.”

“Charlotte, what did you expect I would do? I couldn’t do anything. Not for you or her. It was too late.”

“Would you still do it? If you could choose again?”

Isaac didn’t answer. For a minute all he could do was shudder. Emily. Isabel. It had all become so sinister. His life and Charlotte’s. If she did die, if Charlotte was dying, she might find a peace he could never give her.

“Isaac just come sit next to me for a moment. Please. I feel so cold.” Isaac came to her and he was sweating and shaking, but Charlotte couldn’t have felt this. Not now. He kissed her forehead and was stunned. She was cold. She was moist and slippery.

“Let me just tell you, Charlotte. Isabel means nothing to me. Not now. I think I went to her because the baby had died and I didn’t know what else to do. You wouldn’t talk to me anymore. And one night she came over wearing a dress just like yours, the red one with the black sash. She even smelled like you. And she asked me if I was feeling okay because you were at work, that’s all you did was work. You never had time for anyone and I was suffering day and night. Isabel took my hand and started crying; telling me that she felt it was her baby that died because you two were like sisters. And then, things just happened. I don’t love her. At the funeral it was you who abandoned me. You couldn’t look at me in the face as if I had done it, and she came and held my hand. Charlotte, please. Listen.”

Charlotte could barely lift her head. And when the knock came at the door minutes later, she was already placid in a deep impenetrable coma. Isaac left her there on the floor while he scrambled for a telephone, scrambled for the keys, scrambled for an extra minute, another chance to fix things.

And if he had heard the knock at the door, certainly he would have shut it as quickly as he opened it. Isabel stood waiting for a few minutes before she left. She had brought with her a gift for Isaac, an expensive blue shirt she had found in her favorite department store. She loved to dress him. He was beautiful. Wonderful. Perhaps the kindest man she had ever known. Charlotte had the life of a goddess. She was always the lucky one.