Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke)

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kneedles

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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Sept 27, 2012 11:45:26 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Sept 27, 2012 11:45:26 GMT -5

It was like starving. A hollowed out, empty feeling eating her from the inside out leaving nothing behind but brittle bones. Some days Tallow didn’t even know how she was still breathing, now that her innards; heart, lungs, intestines were spread out over the plains stretching far across the dust bowl and dying farmland all the way to the eastern side of district ten. She was just a carcass now, hanging up from a hook in the smoke house, drawn, bled out and sliced up, the stench of death lingering all around her. Losing the baby had left her with the physical ache; dull cramps, thick clots of blood slowly thinning, turning to a leak of watery bright red fluids like whirling petals on a rose, lettuce leaves tucked into her brassiere to soothe the soreness of her breasts at the midwives suggestion as the weeping dribble of milk began to run dry. The feeling, the hurt, seeping out of her until she was dried up. Loosing Scutcher was worse though. She’d always meant every word of what she’d said to him- that they were one person split right down the middle, about needing him, breathing him like oxygen and now that he was gone, Tallow didn’t know what she was. Aside from some half formed, warped monstrosity.

It ain’t like he’s dead, Tallow, she could tell herself firmly to coax herself out of bed, to get back into her clothes and force herself to brush her hair one hundred times like always in the morning. But in some ways it was almost worse that he was still alive- as strange as that might have seemed. Tallow was sure that the only way she would have left Scutcher was if a knife had been plunged into her chest and she’d been bled out messily into the dirt and the ease with which he’d plucked himself away from her, untangled their bones, intertwining blood vessels and knotted up nerves, hurt as badly as a knife wound.

The first letter had come shortly after he’d left, with twenty dollars slotted into the envelope. Got East staying with Lizzerd got job am send more munny. Eleven words and no explanation for Tallow, nothing about missing her or even asking about her health when it was his fucking baby that had left her like this. “Is that it?” her father had stormed, grasping the money and Tallow had to agree with him. After everything; losing the baby, after getting mixed up with Naif Malloc and Elias Poers to protect him, after nights coiled up in each other’s arms whispering feverishly, “I love you, I love you, I need you, I’ll never leave you’ after she’d given her life to keeping him safe, keeping him calm and keeping him close was that it? Eleven fucking words. Pocketing the twenty bucks, Loomis had tossed the envelope aside and Tallow had seen the return address printed carefully in a hand that wasn’t Scutcher’s messy scrawl. He must have asked Lizard, their cousin, to do it- had wanted to make sure it was right, probably in the homes that she would write back to him.

And she’s thought about it. Eleven words to match his own; You’re a fucking coward, Scutcher Tansy. I hate you…come home. But Tallow wouldn’t give him the satisfaction or the comfort of hearing from her. If he was missing her then it was his own fucking fault- he should never have gone.

Pulling on a sweater, Tallow raked her hair to one side and looked at herself closely in the mirror. Like nothing ever happened, she told herself firmly, though there were circles under her eyes and a drawn out, jaundiced pallor to her skin. Her parents had said something about not being able to run all around town anymore- too little too fucking late and anyway, she’d gotten knocked up right here at home so that little rule wouldn’t have been much use in the first place- but Tallow was just ignoring it. After fifteen years they couldn’t just start parenting her now, just start noticing she existed and expect Tallow to just go along with it. She had a little time off school and Tallow was going stir crazy with it- needed to get out and breathe in air that didn’t smell like Scutcher. She needed to get on with her life, to send the message that Tallow Tansy wasn’t down yet. Not without a fight. It would be worse now anyway- without Scutcher there was precious little left to keep her human.

Clambering out of her window to avoid the awkward questions from her parents, Tallow stepped out into the yard, the autumn rain coming and churning up the mud so that it was ankle deep again. Tallow would never understand his affinity to them but she was sure that the pigs were missing Scutcher just as much she did; they were starting grow thin, becoming quieter, despondent almost. Perhaps they already missed his voice, his touch, the steadfast fall of his feet on the mud, the dependable way his routine would always go. His clothes were still kept folded in the bureaux, his flowers grow a little limp in their old jars at his window sill waiting for him to come home. Sometimes she even missed the part of him that had been growing inside of her.

It was stupid, Tallow knew that; losing the baby had been the best thing to happen to her all things considered, but it was so tied up with Scutcher leaving her that it was the worst thing too. If she’d never have been pregnant he wouldn’t have left her, but there would have always been that chance maybe. With a baby he would never have ever gone. Tallow didn’t think much about having a baby when she’d been pregnant, just about feeling tired and sick and not enjoying cigarettes as much as she used to as well as that niggling voice in the back of her mind going, shit, shit, shit whenever she paused to think about anything but after four months it felt…strange…knowing that she wasn’t any more. Tallow had always known that there could never be a child, had looked at her life and chosen him and only him for as long as she could. Anything else would have been irresponsible and Tallow didn’t even want children in the first place. He did apparently though. There should have been an end to it all; soapy water, the lemon disinfectant she kept in her bed side table but never used for cleaning, standing at the foot of the stairs and tumbling below before anyone even realised what was happening. She’d considered it, come so close more times than she could count. But she hadn’t actually gone through with it. Not for four whole months. Maybe that said a little more about what might have happened than she meant to.

It was irrelevant now though. She’d been having a baby and now it was gone, she’d loved Scutcher and now he was gone too.

Only Tallow was left, hollowed out and empty.

But she wasn’t going to make that mistake again; it was stupid loving someone when there was always the chance that they would leave, or die, or just…fade away. Scutcher and Tallow had both suffered for it now- so she was just going to live for herself, for the moment, for…whatever fucking point there was to being here in district ten that she hadn’t quite stumbled on yet. Stabbing away at life like some dying creature gasping for air, the way that everyone did. It still didn’t taste right when she lit up her cigarette, but she forced herself to smoke it anyway, heading off in the direction of town. Not towards the community home; Swallow Anne kept giving her this look…Tallow could see it, even if maybe it was imagined, but it resembled pity and made Tallow want to claw it right off her face. All she wanted was to be who she’d been before, the irrepressible, unsinkable Tallow Tansy, all dressed up with no place to go, mouth smeared with red lipstick and some guy wanting to buy her a drink. And why the fuck shouldn’t she be?

Because Elias would kill her if he knew, because she was all broken up inside and the thought of anyone touching her right now made her shiver with revulsion. Tallow was just going to ignore it, she was good at that. Ignoring all the hurt and the sadness and the fear and wearing her face like a pretty little mask- it was what people had come to expect from her and Tallow wasn’t one to disappoint. So she headed for that bar in town, the Bloody Bucket, where all the degenerates went; the criminals and cattle rustlers, the liquored up vagabonds and jobless wife beaters, the skanks, the floozies and the fallen women. She’d fit in well there, Tallow couldn’t help but think- just a few months ago she’d been daisy fresh but dying on the inside and now she was wholly dead.

Ladies and Gentlemen may I present your Miss District Ten; the hollowed out, used up, incestuous bitch. Tallow smiles her secret smile, her makeup is flaking, lips stained the colour of blood but everybody still claps and the tears in her eyes reflect the spotlight. Making her sparkle.

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Last Edit: Sept 29, 2012 14:26:48 GMT -5 by kneedles

cyrus
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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Sept 27, 2012 19:55:37 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Sept 27, 2012 19:55:37 GMT -5

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“Be a doll and pour me ‘nother, Ollie?” Melrose Humplots hung over the bar, her tits nearly popping out of the flannel shirt that clung to the curves of her body. A flash of white revealed a grin that made most men in the bar swoon—because she still had most of them—and with a hand up above her chin, gave them the slight chance that something might just slip out into view. As Ollie unscrewed the whiskey she gave a glance at the targets occupying the Bloody Bucket that afternoon. Just the same collection of geezers,

[/color] Melrose noted, staring at the long, weather beaten faces of the gentleman sitting at tables throughout the saloon. Ain’t never gonna change. [/color]

It wasn’t as if she would curse her luck being born in District 10. There was good, salt of the earth people here, even if the earth cracked open into pieces and the flies swirled around the horse and pig shit that lined the dirt roads. Smelled like death, and half the time through the dust and heat, the people looked like it, too. Her father, a man with few hairs on his head and almost as few teeth would walk along with her to the market sometimes, pointing out how sorry their lot was. His tanned skin showed the stress fifty-some-odd years had given him in the District, but unlike so many, he never hung his head in shame. Just kept livin’, kept tryin’ to provide.[/color] Even when Melrose started her rebellious phase—when she started finding men that would give her things and take her in for nights of fun—he never clucked his tongue like the neighbors. Just left her to her own mistakes and failures. After all, with five other children to take care of, he wasn’t in the business of spending too much time on any one of them.

It had been his words that prompted her to head down this path in the first place. When they’d stood in line at the general store, and an older gentleman couldn’t even afford a bag of flower and some eggs, the rest in the store did nothing to help him along. In the light Melrose could see the hunger in his face, the sadness in the lines that revealed he’d work hard enough to live this long, so why did it matter now that things were turning out so poorly? There were mutters about it—that he should’ve known better, what things cost, that he should’ve worked harder to get what he needed—and he’d left, hanging his head in shame. Her father paid at the till and they trotted along outside. He shook his head as they walked back up the road, licking his lips and pulling at his overalls.

“It ain’t no disgrace to be poor, but it might as well be…” He muttered under his breath before letting out a sigh. It struck Melrose then, to think back at all the times that they had been so close to going hungry. She imagined her brothers taking out tesserae so that they could have more in the winter, and how many times she’d prayed that it wasn’t their names in the jar after the mutton they’d managed to pay for, or the eggs they’d needed to stretch out the weeks a little longer. Because giving then was more important than just doing nothing at all.[/color] But she’d seen the disgrace—she’d felt the heaviness in knowing that they were poor as s—t and weren’t nobody that was gonna come to their aid. They had to depend on one another to decide—only way they ever made it through—and for it, she’d do everything in her power to make sure it stayed that way.

So why was it a problem when she got nice things from older gentlemen? They were the men that treated her right, the ones that didn’t play rough when hiding the pickle or figuring out was a reverse cowboy really meant. They’d told her how pretty she was and in the moonlight sometimes she believed them—that they loved her for what she was, for her youth, and that this was something that she could use to provide. And they would shower her in trinkets, in baubles, and sometimes even jewelry of dead wives or relationships gone sour. And if she could provide, if she could get by, it weren’t disgraceful at all.[/color]

Big Ollie tipped his head before placing the glass in her hands. She gave a wink back in return before leaning back against the bar and hoisting up her chest. The smile on her face wilted as soon as Tallow’s shadow crossed the swinging doors of the saloon. A moment passed when she thought she might have up and left, and perhaps not done anything at all. The usually boisterous Melrose was anything but herself lately, but she contended that she was simply under the weather. No, there were other things on her mind then as she stopped listening to the conversations swirling around her. The collective smoke and sweat changed back to the memory of a few weeks ago, when she’d been leaving Jaspers and cut across the front of the Poers’ ranch. It was a ritual she’d done a few times before, never having bothered too much to keep a low profile on account of Elias usually being dead asleep by that point.

It was the scream that she would always remember. The shiver that went down her spine wasn’t from the night air against her glistening skin, but rather the muffled screams of a little boy in Elias’ grip. She’d watched as he debased and defiled him, he’d shoved himself inside and caused him to gag. And all the while Tallow Tansy had stood watching as though the scene were pure theatre. The agony of his expression had caused her fists to clench—she’d wanted to strike him down then and there. But I ain’t strong enough[/color] , she knew, And it ain’t my business…[/color] Or at least, it wasn’t supposed to be. This was Elias’ doing, and Tallow’s, and she was just in the wrong place at the wrong time.

But what you want to think about this moment then, Mel?[/color] She watched as the two kissed while the boy was bleeding out on the floor. You want to say to your chillens that you saw somethin’ awful, and it weren’t your business? That you ain’t nothing but shit, and that’s all you’ll ever be, on account of how you had a chance to do somethin’ different but didn’t? ‘Cause you could walk away right now and wash your hands… or you can hitch up your skirt and do somethin’ about it.[/color] She waited until they had gone up the stairs before pressing herself against the door. Drawing her cloak around her body, rose red, her favorite of any colors, she twisted the knob, her hand shaking.

He wasn’t awake when she’d taken him in her arms, and thought that this was as close to death as she’d ever been. But in that moment she didn’t hesitate or think that there was anywhere else she could’ve been. She’d whispered to him sweetly, brushing back his hair before hoisting him up in her arms. He was a right little thing, a waif of a boy, and didn’t take much effort for a farm girl to take up. Even if Elias were the most powerful man in the district—even if he might have decided then and there that he was going to do the same thing to her, she wasn’t going to cut and run. Because when you see someone in need, you don’t just do nothin’…[/color] It weren’t no disgrace for her to be poor. She could still be wise, or beautiful… or even brave.

“Don’t think I ever seen you in here, Tansy…” Melrose hissed. She swirled around her drink and gave a little wave. “’S been a while since I seen you anywhere… you know, just all these… words goin’ around about you. After the fair and all, think you must be the most popular girl in this district…” With a snort she flipped her hair back behind her shoulder. “But golly anyone that Elias picks to win that pageant is just asking for it. Bet he asked to f—k you right afters, ‘swhat he does to all the girls. Hope you took care of yourself now…” She muttered. ~~Thinking that~~ she knew the whole truth, she wanted to get in as many digs as she could.

“There are plenty of other men much bettern’ him anyway…” Melrose motioned to the lot in the Bloody Bucket. “Course they aren’t always so interested in girls that… well, you know…” She left it at that. Let her think I know all about her brother fuckin’, or whatever, whoever, all those terrible things that she does. [/color][/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify]

kneedles

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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Sept 28, 2012 8:21:35 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Sept 28, 2012 8:21:35 GMT -5

“Umm... I’m fast asleep and I’m dreamin’. And in my dream I’m flying, so fast and so high above everything. But it aint like a bird flies; it’s like the wind has me gripped around the wrists and the ankles and I’m just bein’ pulled along- I can’t stop, can’t change direction even if I wanted to. But I don’t want to because everything below is so perfect, the grass, an’ the buildin’s, an the people down below ain’t nothin’ but ants- and it feels like I’m so much bigger than them, like I matter so much more. And then…then it’s like the wind lets go. And I’m falling, faster than anythin’ and for forever and I can feel it properly all over my body, like it can’t possibly be a dream. And I can still feel it in the second that I wake up, a shudder going all over my body. Like…for some part of me it wasn’t ever a dream at all and that’s how it feels to die.”

The game was called Fear Fixers. She’d invented it when they were children and the world had seemed impossibly big, impossibly cruel and impossible to understand, mostly to get Scutcher to talk to her about things that were bothering him. The rules were simple; you say something that made you afraid and then the other person would say how they would fix it, how they’d take away all the hurt and the pain. If they could do that, then they won, if they couldn’t and you were still afraid then you did. Tallow made sure that hers were always abstract, dreams and future hopes that would never come to fruition. Her brother didn’t have that scope and his fears were always in the here and now- he fixed her fears with words and Tallow, secretly storing up his; the teasing at school, trouble around the farm, used them to exact her revenge. No one ever found out that she was the one to burn out all those lockers at school. She always won fear fixers, but Scutcher tried valiantly every time.

“Well that’s easy. Because, in the dream, I see you flyin’ and I climb up on top of the roof of the justice buildin’ in the middle of town. And when you fall, I catch you and we go get caramel candy.”

There was nothing in the world that could scare her now that she had nothing to lose, Tallow could tell herself, like the damn liar that she’d always been. Her lip was set into a firm line as she watched Melrose- the ridiculous excuse for a human being that she was- approach her as she ordered her drink. Watery beer with a thick foamy top. Don’t think I ever seen you in here, Tansy… Melrose hissed with malice. It wasn’t really anything new; as far as Tallow could tell there had never been any love lost between the two girls, or at least Tallow had never ever liked her or thought that her life would be better for having someone like Melrose Humplots in it. Okay, so she wasn’t a picture of chastity herself, but Tallow liked to think she at least had a little more class than the walking pair of tits in front of her. There was more poison though today than Tallow thought even she could get out of the girl in front of her. It was almost amusing, Tallow thought, dipping her finger into the foamy top of her beer. “S been a while since I seen you anywhere… you know, just all these… words goin’ around about you. After the fair and all, think you must be the most popular girl in this district…”

It was just jealousy, Tallow reassured herself- like she was playing fear fixers all on her own; Melrose was pissed because Tallow had taken the crown since her mouth was too full of dick to even enter, not that she’d win if she had, Tallow was confident of that. She wore too much makeup and looked like two beach balls attached to a broomstick- if gonorrhoea had a face it would look like Melroses’ and her hair was screaming out for a deep wash. Wearing tiny shorts and tight tops, she could bounce around and pretend she was hot shit, but the fact was she was the only young girl to give half the men a second glance so they wouldn’t have cared if she was an obese, amputee, ranch hand so long as she was a girl with a hole they could stick their dick into. Flicking her hair and snorting like she’d said something cutting, Melrose thought she was hot shit alright. But you couldn’t polish a turd.

What words though? What were people saying about her? They had to be saying something, Tallow knew that; she hadn’t exactly collapsed in the most inconspicuous place after all, causing a scene in the district square in front of practically everyone district ten had not been a smart move. “But golly anyone that Elias picks to win that pageant is just asking for it. Bet he asked to f—k you right afters, ‘swhat he does to all the girls. Hope you took care of yourself now…”

Not like she could have prevented it though…not like…there was anything as could have been done. She hadn’t told the midwives about the punch in the gut from Elias, the pain making her stupid and silly, but Tallow knew that was it, it was too close to her losing it, had hurt so bad when it had happened. He’d killed her baby, no two ways around it. And Tallow didn’t know whether to kiss him or kill him for it. Probably never would.

Tallow tipped her head towards Melrose and sipped her drink. Then took a deeper gulp. Her daddy would have been proud to see how much drinking was helping. Everyone said Tallow looked like her father; same long nose, same robin’s egg blue eyes and sticking out ears- hers mostly hidden behind the thick curtain of her hair. It destroyed any secret hope that she might be nursing that she wasn’t a Tansy at all, switched at birth, belonging to wanderers or capitolites without meanness and pig shit running deep into her blood stream. But the drinking, the anger and the sadness was so obvious and so hereditary that she couldn’t be anything but his.

She hadn’t told anyone- the only person who would have cared was long gone- that the baby had a name. It had always had a name; from the first time she’d known about it. She called the baby Sorrow, something always there, deep in the heart of her, in the bones of how she and Scutcher had been made. And she couldn’t draw a line under it and forget about it now that it was gone. Because Sorrow always lingered. Smiling, Tallow ran a hand through her hair, giving Melrose the kind of patronising smile reserved for sheep dogs learning how to shit outside.

I’ve been to fucking hell, Melrose you ignorant bitch, Tallow thought beneath the smile, I died the night of the reaping, only to have two midwives pull me back. And then I died all over again. You think a jab about Elias Poers is gonna hurt me? You think anything you possibly say could make me afraid?

She always was the best at fear fighters.

“There are plenty of other men much bettern’ him anyway… Course they aren’t always so interested in girls that… well, you know…”

What was that supposed to mean? Tallow’s eyes narrowed a little as she looked at the other girl closely- not that she wanted to- up close and you could see every grimy pore and eyelash crusted with week old mascara. God Tallow wanted to tell her to wash her dirty disgusting face, suck on a mint or something to get the hot musky scent of dick from her mouth. She doesn’t know, nothing. She heard Scutcher whisper in her ear to soothe the nerves. Not about Sorrow, not about me an’ you. I’m here and when you fall, I’ll catch you…and we’ll go get caramel candy. All he had though were fucking words, and he wasn’t even around to say them no more.

“Well…thanks for the concern, Melrose,” said Tallow slowly, in a voice as hard and sharp as cut steel. “It’s so rare for you to have yer mouth free enough to say so much all at once- you really must care a whole bunch. Seems to me though…” she slid into a bar stool, examining her nails in a bored fashion, “like it aint none of yer fuckin’ business. So why don’t you just go find another wrinkly old cock to suck on or somethin’?” Leaning on the bar, she finished up one drink and signalled to the bar tender to pour her another one, hoping that when she turned around Melrose would have been long gone.

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Last Edit: Sept 28, 2012 9:15:19 GMT -5 by kneedles

cyrus
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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Sept 29, 2012 13:26:57 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Sept 29, 2012 13:26:57 GMT -5

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Tallow’s words rolled over Melrose’s shoulders as she took another sip of her whiskey. Sticks and stones,

[/color] she thought, ’cause ain’t anything you could say Tallow Tansy, that’ll hurt me.[/color] The curl of her lip, smudged with pink lipstick—bought for her by one of her elder suitors—ticked upward as she listened to the girl next to her. They were a measure in two sides of a different coin, perfect representations of the world of district ten. Shoveled up from the same pig shit and melted down in the furnace of long days, rough families, and few chances, they’d been borne out as a shining example. Heads, Tallow: proud, strong, ferocious and smart, striking first for herself and thinking later of the consequences. She was a small thing, slight as she was ferocious, her frame belying the power that hid underneath, tucked behind hand-me-downs and handmade make-up. A flip of the coin revealed Melrose: forward and certain, shame hidden behind a wall of make-up, with a burning want to be loved by those around her. Tall, with broad shoulders and thick legs, she was only as strong as the energy around her—strip away the layers, and there wasn’t nothing underneath.

“You think yer funny,” Melrose said this matter-of-factly as she narrowed her eyes at Tallow. If things had been different, she might have admired the rouge on her cheeks and how it blended so perfectly, or the fall of her hair over her shoulders. Might have even wanted her to teach her how to be beautiful. She stared at the girl’s beady eyes, finding her just like the rat that she was. Weren’t no way we ever gonna be nothing.[/color] “You think you’re so ripred funny, don’t you Tansy? Guess you got to have something to laugh about, I know I would if I was you… ‘course anyone so rotten on the insides ‘sgot to be s—t to ‘ryone else, nah?” Melrose clanked her glass down onto the bar top and moved a hand to her hip.

The din of the Bucket was far away now, and Melrose held just on Tallow in front of her. A fire burned down into her heart when she thought about what she’d seen through the window. Perhaps it would’ve been different, had she been raised that whatever happened to the sorry s—ts around her wasn’t supposed to be her business. Yet there weren’t anyone in her family that would’ve let her get away with that. Not since she was small had her papa ever let her think only for herself. Treat ‘em like you want to be treated, Melrose, and it’ll come back to you tenfold.[/color]. They might have suffered through long winters with six children, they might have even gone hungry more than a few times, and came close to losing one another a few times, but they never gave up on one another. I ain’t no heartless witch,[/color] she had concluded when her hand had touched the cold brass knob. I ain’t no one that would leave someone to die.[/color]

“I reckon you ought to know where yah stand here…” Melrose hissed as she leaned in close. Her acrylic nails clacked against the wood of the bar. “You’re in my place now… I knows everyone here, and they knows me… and whether or not you want to insult ‘em is your business… but ain’t no one here as f—king awful as you, Tansy.” Her voice growled out the girl’s name as she held her glare. “And they don’t deserve someone like you smeerin’ em just cause theys lonely. You ought to know something about that…” She whispered then, her heart beating faster. Courage was a funny thing—she could summon enough it to get a gentleman to do what she wanted, but having to use it against someone was something else entirely. Her skin itched as she hovered over Tallow, almost shrinking back from the girl’s venomous stare.

Was she going to claw out her eyes, and rip out her tongue? That’s what witches did, wasn’t it? Melrose imagined the two of them like her favorite story from her childhood. Tallow was the scrawny and weatherbeaten witch that terrorized the little people of the two, that was mean for the sake of it and laughed at those who faced misfortunes. She was the evil witch, ugly with power and frightening to those that didn’t know better. And there was Melrose, dressed in pink chiffon and spreading love around, giving of herself like she was handing out tasty cakes to all that asked, good and sweet because that was her way. And good always triumphed over evil—that’s the way that stories ended in her youth. The evil witch would be melted down, and all of them would dance on her grave in the end.

“And none of theys d—ks taste bad, they knows how to treat a lady,” not that it was any of her f—king business in the firstplace.[/color] But as she shifted in the light, she saw her then, the ugly little witch that would hurt everyone for the sake of it. She could see the ugliness in the way her tiny hand curled around the beerglass. In the way that her jagged little teeth showed when she spoke, in the way that she even f—king breathed, not caring one damn about anyone. Because she didn’t know how awful she was—and if she did, it sure as hell didn’t matter. [/color] “But I figured you’d know all about what nasty dick tastes like…” She licked her lips, her voice hoarse as the glass in her hand trembled. “I figured Scutcher ain’t never washed his once…”

The cackle from her lips subsided as she waved for Ollie to get her another whiskey. As he moved to pour her another glass, Melrose ran a hand through her hair before bringing it down to her breast. “Tell me though… what was it like… always heard he had a big ‘un,” Melrose motioned to her crotch with a grin. “You get it all the way in or you have to stop a few times? After all the times you probably got used tah it, ‘swhat happens… trust me…” Perhaps there was a line—perhaps there was a moment when righteousness crossed over into self-fulfillment. But now, as her heart raced and she could feel the words coming up like the vomit she’d had at the fair, she couldn’t stop. Tallow needed to be shown a lesson, walking around like she owned the place. Like she didn’t give a f—k about what she’d done. [/color][/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify]

kneedles

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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Sept 29, 2012 16:13:12 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Sept 29, 2012 16:13:12 GMT -5

There was a glass in her hands and Tallow could quite easily grasp it in her fist and send it crushing into Melroses’ face, shards of it embedding into her skin as though she were encrusted with diamonds or something. It’d be an improvement and it would satisfy the hell out of Tallow to hear her scream, to watch the blood seeping from the slits in her face. She could picture it, she could hear it and practically taste the metallic tang of her cuts as vividly as though it was happening. Fuck you, fuck you, fuck you. It would be so easy too- wipe that self satisfied expression right from her face.

It wasn’t just that she was talking about the thing that no one was supposed to know about, just hearing her brother’s name was like a slap in the face. A reminder that he’d walked out on her and she had no idea…none at all what he was doing now or what he was thinking. She was still waiting too, for him to realise that what he’d done was stupid and come home to her, certain some days that he would, afraid on others that he’d never come home at all. Melrose got no right to make her think about him again, no right at all.

She was just swinging wildly, Tallow had to assume- frantically reassuring herself, making a jab at how close the Tansy kids were- and everyone knew that even if they didn’t know the whole story. Unless she knew, unless everybody knew…Tallow very nearly looked wildy around the bar, expecting every eye in the joint to be on her, but she forced herself to keep her head firmly facing forwards- looking at the dusty liquor bottles on the shelf, rainbow coloured like stain glass windows or hard candies in the general store. She was gonna need something a little stronger than beer. Melrose couldn’t know, she just couldn’t. The only person to catch them was Naif and after that they’d been real careful. And why the fuck would Naif have told, who would he have told so it got back to Melrose? After what had happened, surely he would have been smarter than that.

It still stung worse than anything though, whether she knew or not. It wasn’t like how anyone would think it was- it had never ever been about just the sex, not to Tallow. It was love, real love burning like a fire, soft as the whisper of a kiss and as wonderful as the first taste of strawberries in summer. They’d all make it real nasty if they knew, the two Tansy kids rutting like dogs in their house or something- but it wasn’t like that….well, sometimes it was but that wasn’t the point. You want someone and love them for such a long time, thinking that it’s the one thing you can’t have and then you have them, all of them, you get to kiss and touch and fuck them but it isn’t enough. It’s never enough. Won’t put the pieces of you that got separated back together. It was never just about the sex.

Might have been for Scutcher though, Tallow didn’t fucking know at this point. It had been so easy for him to just leave after all. A few weeks and she was beginning to wonder if she’d imagined his goodness, kept on forgetting all the reasons that she loved him. Or at least she could pretend that she did, pretend that she could turn off loving him like blowing out a candle, watching all the moths stop chasing after the flame.

Look at Melrose there, so pleased with herself, thinking that she had Tallow, thinking she was in anyway a match for Tallow Tansy because she had a mouth on her and had been with a few old fellers. Melrose Humplots was small time, a fucking footnote in the history of monsters that Tallow Tansy had been dealing with since she learned how to stand. She wouldn’t glass her, wouldn’t scream and shout and claw at her yet, would rather choke out than suffer the indignity of a reaction to the pathetic girl in front of her.

“That’s one hell of a sick imagination you got there, Melrose,” she finally said in a low voice, no expression on her pretty doll face, but a fire burning behind her eyes. “I don’t know how you do things in your family...” Tipping her head she gave a robotic little giggle, barely a trace of humour to be found on her face, leaning in close to mutter in a savage voice. “I did always wonder why you liked the old boys so much…I bet your daddy’s been putting the blocks to you since before you can remember right ,Melrose? Bet you call em all Daddy like he made you and I bet you fucking loved it.”

Melrose said that Tallow was standing in her bar, but Tallow really doubted it- figured Melrose thought just because she was the only thing with tits and a dirty mouth to walk in here that she had everyone wrapped around her little finger. Un-fucking-likely, Tallow could smell the desperation dripping off her, pictured Melrose come midnight spread out on the bar top calling out ‘love me, love me’ to anyone who would listen. And assuming that anyone would was gonna put her at a significant disadvantage. No one gave a fuck about girls like Melrose…no one gave a fuck about girls like Tallow either, but at least she knew that. She’d known that since she was eight years old, meant that she could look out for herself. So Melrose said she was rotten on the inside? Probably yeah, Tallow wasn’t gonna disagree with that one.

“I don’t know where you get off thinking you can speak to me like this, pathetic little bitch. Call yourself a lady? Seventeen years old and you’re already this used up whore trolling bars for old cock…you need to get out of my face right now.” Flickering her hand, Tallow made a gesture as though trying to swat away a particularly annoying fly.

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Last Edit: Sept 29, 2012 17:05:27 GMT -5 by kneedles

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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Oct 1, 2012 1:22:14 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Oct 1, 2012 1:22:14 GMT -5

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There were few things that could get under Melrose Humplots’ skin. There had been enough chatter about the way that she dressed from the girls her age to the ladies that lined the dirt roads of the district that it barely registered anymore. The talk of sex with older gentlemen—well, who the f—ks business was that?

[/color] She had every right to make her own decisions with her body, and she wasn’t hurting nobody. A girl’s got to have fun. [/color] Some people were just jealous then that she could get a d—k in her mouth faster than they could get a loaf of bread. The old men—and some of the younger boys, too—they showered her with attention because she could see the good in them. Sometimes they were sloppy, other times sweet. But all of them gave her a rush when she had a head down between their legs or her legs up over her shoulders. And there wasn’t nothing wrong with that.[/color]

Tallow laid a finger on a nerve, though. Would have been fine enough for her to insult Melrose’s pride, but not her family. She could have said any number of things about the way she dressed or the men who she’d taken gifts from, but no one was allowed to speak about her papa. He’d never done nothing to her, and she wasn’t about to have this two timin’ trollop of a woman act like she knew something about her family. As far as she could tell, the Tansy’s weren’t nothing but pig shit—born and dying in the same breath of stink—so it was rich enough for Tallow to insinuate her father was a terrible man. Loomis ain’t no saint.[/color] She and everyone else knew that well enough. But it was in the way Tallow held her shoulders strong and grinned, as though she took pride in the way she lived, that really got Melrose’s goat. The willful ignorance burned into the pit of her stomach, and she turned to down her glass of whiskey to settle herself.

“My father is a good man—more than I can say about you or your kin,” Melrose whispered as she stared down at the bar. She moved her hand along the knots in the surface of the wood and chewed her lip. It wasn’t right for her to get too angry and lose her cool, but dammit if Tallow wasn’t a thorn in her side. She wanted to heed the words of her father—treat ‘em like you want to be treated[/color]—but the thought of Elias on top of Naif, of Tallow standing and doing nothing, of leaving the poor child to die... well, it wore down whatever it was that held her back. When Tallow tried to bat her away like some housefly, the wall came crumbling down. “You ain’t got no right to talk about anyone like that, you lousy brother f—kin’ hussy.”

Melrose turned to face Tallow and stood firm, trying not to let her broad shoulders slink downward. How could she even get up the strength to be in here? How could she not throw herself in a ditch after bein’ with a man like Elias?[/color] It turned her stomach and made her clench her fist. Sex was a beautiful thing; it wasn’t about men with boys or beatin’ on people. And the fact that she had seen evil, that she had taken Elias and kissed his neck while a boy lay bleeding at her feet—what kind of sick monster was she? Maybe her black heart was just all shriveled up and gone, transforming her into the witch she was destined to be. The very same kind that f—ked her brother and went around spewin’ hatred, that’s the kind.[/color]

“I seen you, Tallow—“ Melrose leaned in close, her eyes close to the beady little ones of Tallow. “I seen you and Elias. I seent it. You ain’t got nothing good in that heart of yours and I knows—I knows it, you ain’t got nothing worth savin’, but f—k it all if you can just walk in here and feel like no one’s gonna say nothin’ to you.” Melrose trembled some, her confidence burning brighter as the liquor trickled to her veins. A drop of sweat slipped down her brow and she licked her lips. “Talkin’ about my family when you ain’t care about nobody. Who you think you are?” She was breathless then, all of it coming out in as quick as she could muster. She took another moment to take in some air and shake her head.

Ain’t a great man that doesn’t give,[/color] her papa had once said. He liked to spout wisdom from his rocking chair, sucking on a pipe as his children gathered round him. It’s the man that gives that lives…[/color]

She wasn’t there to be anyone’s knight in shining armor, but seeing Naif down on the ground, seeing how Elias had beaten him within an inch of his life, she’d had to make a choice. The road may not have been clear and the dangers might have been many, but she wasn’t a coward. And of all things she gave—she was ready to give him a chance to survive, rather than keep herself safe from harm. Because good people care more about others than theys own future.[/color] She’d been tender to him, even staying through the night to make sure he’d pulled through. And in the morning hours she had held his hand and stroked his hair. And he whispered secrets to her that’d made Melrose cluck her tongue and cover her mouth.

“You f—kin’ trash, Tansy,” Melrose spat on the ground next to the girl’s feet and shook her head again. Courage that metabolized in her stomach crept through her, and she stood squarely on her feet. “You want to lie about your life that’s fine—but don’t sit here and act like Elias ain’t do nothin’ wrong. Naif Malloc didn’t get them cuts and scrapes and tears all by hisself—or you gonna play dumb to that, too?” Melrose scrunched up her nose as she stared down at the little girl before her. “Cause you got the mark on you now Tallow—you ain’t nothing nobody gonna want, ever.” [/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify]

kneedles

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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Oct 1, 2012 16:03:04 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Oct 1, 2012 16:03:04 GMT -5

Each breath was a shard of ice, working its way out of Tallow’s body- even if she tried her best to roll her eyes. Like it wasn’t nothing. Like Tallow didn’t immediately find herself tangled up in the memory of that night, the ghost of an ache working through her stomach as she remembered when Elias had hit her, the last traces of a scream still lingering in her ears. So Melrose thought she knew everything, Tallow had to wonder just how much she’d seen, just what she expected from Tallow. She had excuses, she had reasons and plenty of them- neat little arguments and weasel words to wriggle out of trouble like a greased up pig at the fair, all of them poised, perfect and honed to fire back at Melrose. I was frightened, I was pregnant and Elias was gonna beat on me, Naif tried to rape my brother and nobody never helped us when we were in trouble. She’s repeated them to herself enough times now, like the lines in a stage play and each time the act gets a little less convincing. After everything, Melrose is right- she does have a mark on her, she had it before but with each passing day it gets deeper and darker. Harder to hide, easier to spot, impossible to wash away.

But would she admit to it? The fuck she would. Tallow didn’t know if Melrose expected her to break down crying, admit that she was every bad thing under the sun and worse because she’d let Naif Malloc suffer and had taken her brother to bed, but she couldn’t give the trollop in front of her that satisfaction. Wouldn’t admit to it or let the porcelain mask slip from her face- they’d kept it all close and tight, between her Naif, Scutcher and Elias, a secret, a dream or something. Talking about it made it real, in the same way that catching her mother’s gaze after the midwives had left, looking right into her heavy lidded cow eyes shaped so like Scutcher’s and seeing every bit of that night, every bit of confusion and pity made having a baby and then not having a baby far realer than it might have been. “How Elias Poers conducts his affairs aint nothing to do with you,” Tallow said slowly, in a voice as thick as treacle, low and smoky as though wrapped around the exhaling from a ciggarette . Without meaning to, there was a tremble around the edges of her words, like the rumble of thunder in fat ominous storm clouds in the distance. It could mean fire, lashing out, clawed hands, bared teeth as she grasped fistfuls of Melrose’s hair. It could mean thick tears, clutching at the empty spaces that Scutcher had left inside of her. Honestly, Tallow couldn’t say either way anymore.

“Naif Malloc aint no good,” she added, slid her eyes away from Melrose- all thatfire. She’d been busy with…other things…but that didn’t mean that Tallow hadn’t thought about him, about where he was now. What Elias intended to do with him, what effect that night had suffered upon him. Sometimes it was with grim satisfaction, others with roaring guilt. “He got what was coming to him,” Tallow took up her new drink and swallowed deeply. It tasted bitter, like bones, cremated bodies and an ocean of tears- there was no trace of sweetness anywhere. Naif Malloc got what was coming to him alright; because he hurt her brother Tallow made him pay, and then Tallow got what was coming to her for doing it. It was wonderful how the world and retribution seemed to flow in these concentric circles like that- look close enough and you might be mistaken that the world had some kind of plan. As opposed to the real truth- the chaos and the hurt and atoms arbitrarily colliding like two bodies pressed together, kidding themselves that making love, fucking, whatever you want to call it is enough. Melrose couldn’t make her feel guilty or bad for what she’d done- Tallow had received her punishment when Scutcher walked out on her- leaving her with her parents, the pig shit and the ghost of memories.

“You got a problem with that? You take it up with him. Face to face, in a room by yourself…up at that farm where aint no one gonna hear you scream. I dare ya, Melrose.” Tallow snorted, in an I didn’t think so sort of way because isn’t everyone such a fucking hero in hindsight? Tallow lied all the fucking time, to anyone who would listen, for good reasons like protecting her brother, for bad reasons like landing other people in the shit just because she could- but at least she could be honest with herself. Good people were the ones who liked to kid themselves, with their morals and their rules and their fucking lessons. Scutcher lying to himself when he thought that leaving Tallow was for the best, when really he was just shit scared. Melrose lying to herself thinking that if she’d been in Tallow’s situation she wouldn’t have done the exact same thing.

Actually, she’d just wish that she was smart enough to do what Tallow had done. Bitch was dumb as a brick, probably woulda just broke down crying and let Elias do what he wanted. But that didn’t make her good, it just made her fucking stupid.

“Actually, you know what your problem is,Melrose Humplots, ” Tallow had to turn around and face her now, a finger pointed in her direction, voice getting a little louder- that ominous rumble of an approaching storm getting a little louder. “You wanna have it both ways dontcha? You wanna be the whore of district ten but only so long as everyone knows you’re doin’ it out of th’ goodness of yer heart…oh Melrose queen of the pity fuck, what a fuckin’ saint for suckin on old dick and makin all the pathetic wankers smile And you wanna sit here an’ judge me fer messin around with Elias and not sayin’ shit when he does somethin’ bad? Everybody knows he aint just some rich ranch owner…everybody knows he got skeletons. Aint stopped them askin him to judge the fair, aint stopped people laughin at his jokes and tippin their hats when he walks by.”

Tallow honestly had no idea what Melrose thought she was getting out of being with Elias Poers, what that night with Naif Malloc had been about. Poor dumb bitch probably thinks I’m just plain pure evil, like a villain in a story book. Makes it easier for her to be the good pretty princess or some shit. In those stories everything is just light or darkness, no room in between, no messy decisions or people doing the wrong things for the right reasons. I’m a witch in a story book right? Like the kind that daddies read to their little girls. I ride on a broomstick and do bad things to good people because I like it and it’s up to her, dressed up in a pretty pink ball gown and waving a sparkly wand to beat me.

I used to love those stories too. I imagined myself, just like Melrose did, fighting off all the bad things in the world with a wave of my magic wand.

Then my daddy lost his leg, stopped reading stories and started beating the shit out of my brother.

Pretty quickly after that, I forgot all about the stories and grew the fuck up.

“ And Guess what Melrose…we all do shit like that…that’s life.”

Tallow knew that well enough, sealed up away on the Tansy farm. The neighbours had seen them starving, day in day out, had seen what happened to Scutcher on a daily basis.“You think people don’t see shit every day and just sit on it?” she continued, quietly bitter now, as though simply resigned to it. “For fear or because it just aint smart to do something….said you seen us, didn’t ya Melrose? Seen what Elias did to Naif, right? And I bet you was just disgusted wasn’t you? Not enough to burst in and make him stop…didn’t see you turnin’ up like the fuckin hero, pure as the driven snow like you think you are.But you’re still sittin here chewing me out when you coulda stopped it just as same as I could.”

Tallow liked to think she was doing the girl in front of her a service right now. Seventeen was too old to be believing in heroes and villains, in good and bad when there was nothing but chaos in startling shades of grey. It was a realisation that Tallow had desperately needed, finally feeling the weight of what happened Naif starting to slip. What the fuck else could I have done? And why the fuck shouldn’t I have done it? He fucked with my brother…he fucked with me. There’s no good and evil, only chaos, action and retribution. The only difference was that ‘good’ people made more of an effort to lie to themselves about it.

“Can’t have it both ways Melrose. You and I both know you aint no better than me.”

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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Oct 1, 2012 23:20:14 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Oct 1, 2012 23:20:14 GMT -5

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The wicked a man do, well, that live on,

[/color] Her father sucked in on his pipe, smelling of ash and apple cores, before exhaling a few smoke rings. She was at his feet then, no more than ten, her brothers all gathered around the table while she played with an old ragdoll at their feet. When her papa spoke it was in musings, letting the rest of them know tidbits to savor for all their lives. She looked up to him, the wise, knowing, good man that put his family first and everything else behind him. It wasn’t that he was unlike anyone else, Melrose came to realize, but that there was a good plenty of people that would do the right thing, if they was given the chance. But you got to be sure of where you stand. Cause if you on shifting ground you ain’t never getting’ nowhar… just a face full of mud and nothin’ to show for it.[/color]

Maybe she wasn’t as smart as Tallow, or as cunning as the rest of the girls that had been good at book learning. She’d never leapt to the front of the class in school and she sure as hell didn’t find havin’ to read anything important—who the f—k reads anyway[/color]—but she had common sense. And that was more than a whole heck of a lot than some folk. She had a decency—maybe not in the way people saw her—but she had a foot planted firmly on the ground to help those in need. She wanted to have a big heart, she wanted to fill it up with love so desperately it hurt. Least of all she wanted was to see someone hurt and to let evil triumph over good. The subtle sting of Tallow’s barbs cut into her though, with the talk that made her think, that life wasn’t just the black and white little pictures that hung on the walls of the Blood Bucket.

No, things is real. Things is in color,[/color] She speculated as she stared at Tallow, her face hard and full of power. Melrose looked again to see a girl that had grown in district ten, hatched from fire and smouldered in the sun. She walked the same streets as Tallow but the wear and tear did something different, it cut into her and made her jagged. It steeled her and had dried out her soul like stalk of corn left out in the sun too long. Touch her and she might break to pieces, though—if she found the right spot. Because for all that huffing and puffing folks like that, folks that talked of how hard life had made them and the tough decisions they had were altogether brittle. Cause they had to crack, unless they’d been sealed up tight and lost all the little slivers of humanity they had left.

“Naif Malloc ain’t do nothing,” Melrose whispered back. The flash of the boy’s broken face came back to her and she clucked her tongue. His nose bled and his mouth dripped. Bruises lined his back and undersides, marking the fury that Elias had over him. And the whimpers he had, like a broken little bird, ready for his neck to be snapped to take away the pain—it dug into her heart that anyone could do any such thing. “Ain’t nothing deserves that. And you know it. He got his rights—but people like you don’t know nothin’ about what that means. ‘Cause all you ever learned was to take for yourself, ain’t it? All you ever learned was what was good for Tallow—fucking—Tansy.” She shivered as she shook her head.

The finger pointing—the blame, as it came, that she was nothing but a pity f—k for old men—made her head spin. She clenched and unclenched her fist, stopping every so often to brush away a few strands of hair from her face. They loved her[/color], Melrose contended Because she liked to make them feel good.[/color] There wasn’t nothing wrong with exploring her body in that she felt the urge. She’d been a heavy little dumpling when she became a woman, and her mother, a stout woman with big tits and a bigger appetite taught her there was nothing shameful about her body. The drop of blood was something to be praised, meant she could give of herself when she decided she was ready. And when she watched her brothers and the way they looked at ladies, she knew with her whole heart she wanted to be adored the same way.

The prettiest little thing she ever saw was Dolly two-bits. With her hair big as she ever saw, curled and tufted out to the sky, tits that spilled out of her corset and enough make-up to repaint the entire district, Melrose found the image of beauty in her mind. Because as an average little girl, there was nothing more beautiful than the mask she could paint upon herself.[/color] And she could be any number of things, braver, especially behind this mask. And sometimes she forgot that she was ever average at all, or a terrible coward. That evening with Naif she’d been forced to make a choice—and with her mask she’d been able to turn the knob and do what was right, not what was easy.

“You act like I ain’t allowed to do what I want,” She spat back at Tallow, puffing up her chest. “You ain’t even thought about who you want to be—or are—Tansy. It’s my body and my choice, and I ain’t do no harm to nobody. And you know what, they don’t do no harm to me. You think it’s a f—kin’ joke that don’t nobody else love them. Ain’t nobody else gonna ever love them because girls like you f—k they brothers over real men, ones that live and die for you ‘cause you treat ‘em right. Ones that wake up next to you in the mornin’ cause they want you to be there. Not just cause you related by kin. Not because they don’t know no better.” Melrose ground her teeth together and tried to count back from ten—a trick her father tried to teach all the Humplots, but one that never stuck for Melrose.

“Bet you took advantage of him worse than any of them ever could of me. Like Scutcher ever could know what he wanted. Ain’t that the problem you have anyway, Tallow? Ain’t that your whole problem…” Melrose pointed her finger right back. For in the haze of the saloon there were only two now, talking above and beyond the meaningless drivel. “You act like you gots a mind and a half, enough for everyone else and then some. But you so busy deciding what’s right for you, actin’ like you know what everyone else is gonna do, you forget to just do what’s right. You ain’t brave at all. You ain’t even all that smart, neither. You just a low down, dirty b—h that thinks she knows everything. But one day, you gonna wake up and realize that you never had nothin’ at all. ‘Cause you be too busy tryin’ to think for everyone else and not for you.”

She hadn’t answered her question about Elias, though, and it turned her stomach. She hadn’t rushed in to save Naif, not in the moment when she could’ve moved her feet and ripped him from the worst of it. But that didn’t make her bad… did it? Made her slow, sure. But she’d needed the courage. She’d needed the mask of bravery and all of it to believe that she really could be the savior in red, sent to sweep him up and take him away. Because she wasn’t nothing more than average, not now, not ever. She only did extraordinary things in extraordinary circumstances, like anyone else could have done.[/color]

“I ain’t given Elias a piece of my mind but—” She paused a moment, licking her lips. “But I never been one to bow down and kiss his ass. And I ain’t about to start.” She placed a hand on her hip and threw back her hair. “Just breathing ain’t livin’, Tansy. You think and feel and make mistakes—but you ain’t own up to nothin’, is you? You ain’t own up to what else you could do for nobody. That’s what makes you and me different,” Melrose clucked her tongue. “You busy thinkin’ for you, thinkin’ about survivin’ that you ain’t livin’… you just go on about makin’ your mistakes but stayin’ alive… well someday you gonna have to admit when you did wrong—but I reckon by then you be old and wrinkled… and dead.” [/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify]

Last Edit: Oct 1, 2012 23:28:26 GMT -5 by cyrus

kneedles

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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Oct 2, 2012 14:25:00 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Oct 2, 2012 14:25:00 GMT -5

This wasn’t going anywhere; Tallow was tired and bored of Melrose already, sick of her assumptions and her judgment when Tallow Tansy didn’t have to justify one fucking thing to anyone but herself and her conscience which was most likely long gone- all the way to the east of the district along with her heart, lungs and soul. Melrose insisted that Naif Malloc hadn’t done anything and Tallow said nothing but let out a hollow laughter like the wind rattling through an empty plain. It resurfaced with the insistence that she didn’t do anything for anyone and it didn’t hurt because Tallow knew it wasn’t true. She’d whispered into Scutcher’s ear so many times that it was him and her against the world and she meant every word of it. The world clawed at their skin, tearing it up into pieces, biting jagged holes into her flesh and the world couldn’t complain if Tallow bit back.

Melrose thought she was delivering home truths when she said that Tallow was all alone, that she was afraid and that she was gonna wake up one day and realise she had nothing. Well, that day had come and gone- a crisp pink dawn not so long ago with bloody sheets bundled up in the corner of the room and the indentation of her brother on the bed slowly filling out into nothing, an ink black night when Naif Malloc had been crying and Tallow had looked into a howling void only to find the void look straight back and into her, with nothing but her own wits to save her. She had nothing because she was like this; she was like this because she had nothing.

Ever since she was a child, Tallow had only ever had enough room in her body to love one person- she did it well, let it consume her even on days when she hated Scutcher for trailing around her and the slow whining way he might say her name (what she wouldn’t do to hear that taaaalloooow again now though). Through thick and thin she was her brother’s hero, speaking softly and soothing, putting sticking plasters over his wounds and the cracks in his heart to help them heal over. And then when she’d needed him to be hers he’d up and left. Gotten spooked, gotten overwhelmed by everything with the baby and had run off to the east. If that wasn’t enough to make a girl savagely hiss, no I don’t give a shit about nobody no more, no I won’t ever put someone ahead of me again, then Tallow didn’t know what was.

She had nothing. It wasn’t fucking news. She was so lonely it made her chest ache, she didn’t have a heart to break but for four months there had been a heart inside of her, made of Tallow and Scutcher and how much she needed him. Melrose didn’t know shit, about her and Scutcher and when she started saying that she’d taken advantage of her brother because he didn’t know any better, Tallow wanted to put her hands over her ears and scream ‘shut up, shut up, shut up’

Bet you took advantage of him worse than any of them ever could of me. Like Scutcher ever could know what he wanted

Like she’d just decided one day to fuck him. Like the lying and the shame and getting pregnant was fun for Tallow.

It had been like drowning for almost three years of her life. There were so many times when Tallow could have lost herself again, so many times she watched him vanish off to the garden and need him so desperately that she wanted to scream and start smashing glasses, tearing away the walls of their tin can shack. But somehow she stayed firm. Through the reapings, Jack’s beatings and the night he tried to kill himself, Tallow gritted her teeth and sucked it up- though the thought of being just a second away from losing him forever made her bite down on her fingers so hard she could have bitten through bone.

Then Noreen Lexington appeared on screen for the interviews and she watched his heart break thinking, somewhere past all the worry and the pity, fuck it. Fuck whatever was supposed to be right and decent because in a world where the capitol could do that to a young mother with babies waiting for her back home, right and decent never even came into play.

As they’d walked away from the district square that night, Noreen’s face still obviously fresh in Scutcher’s mind it wasn’t as though she’d hatched a plan. More that some part of her had grimly accepted that the minute they got to his room she was going to do something and she wouldn’t even have the decency left in her to regret it. She’d reached her limit, the end of her rope and fuck it all.

Tallow just wanted to make it better. For him and for her- this was just one of the ways she knew how.

Pushing their temples together, unbuttoning his shirt, Tallow’s breath was almost as heavy as Scutcher’s, though for her it wasn’t grief. “It’s okay,” she whispered, pushing her brother onto the bed. Was that for him, to tell him that he would get through the worry, that the hurt would end? Or was it merely Tallow speaking to herself? A spike like volts through an electric fence ran along her veins, a trembling started somewhere in her stomach as she crawled over him. “It’s okay.”

Tallow kissed the tracks his tears had made along his face, ran her hands along his chest and felt his bare skin against hers. Eased him in as gently as she could force herself, skimming her lips against his only lightly until they parted to let out a breath and Tallow caught it, pressing in deeper. His response was sad and lacklustre, which she should have expected, but it wasn’t fair when she was burning. If only she could kiss away his hurt, make it all better. “It’s okay,” she repeated heavily into his mouth. “Let me help.”
Trailing her teeth along his neck, her hand slipped between them for his belt buckle. “Tallow?”

“Shh, it’s okay. I’ll make it better,” she said heavily, didn’t dare stop to think at this point in case she talked herself down of the edge of this precipice instead of taking that plunge.

And after that she’d made everything a thousand times worse. Stop, Tallow wanted to scream at the memory of herself, you’re going to do bad things to keep him, you’re going to suffer and you’re going to bleed. And in the end you’ll still lose him.

Ain’t that the problem you have anyway, Tallow? Ain’t that your whole problem…

He had tasted soft and lingering, slightly metallic like warm pennies and she couldn’t not love him anymore than she reach up into the sky and grab a fistful of stars. And that meant he had to love her too, had to have known what was happening- because what the hell kind of world would make a person love another so deeply and not let her be loved back. It took Tallow a while, lost up in the memories, to realise that she’d faded away from the conversation- away from Melrose’s poison, had taken up her glass of drink, grasped it in her hand and thrown it against the wall.

The sound of shattering brought her back to life though. You busy thinkin’ for you, thinkin’ about survivin’ that you ain’t livin’… you just go on about makin’ your mistakes but stayin’ alive… well someday you gonna have to admit when you did wrong—but I reckon by then you be old and wrinkled… and dead. And the shriek that Tallow followed it with rang high and shrill, gritted teeth and clawed hands as she sprang towards Melrose.

“You take that back you stupid bitch, you take that back...did he tell you he drugged Scutcher? Poor Naif Malloc. Did he tell you that he stuck him with a needle, pushed him up against a wall and threatened to have him sent away if he didn’t let Naif fuck him?” Tallow hissed, a cracked, hysterical edge to her voice as she couldn’t stop the tears from misting up her eyes. “No. You wanna talk to me about taking advantage? And I bet he didn’t tell you that Elias hit me neither, didn’t tell you that I found them and the first thing he did was try and beat the shit out of me. WHERE WERE YOU MELROSE, YOU DUMB BITCH? WHAT THE FUCK WOULD YOU HAVE DONE IF YOU WERE ME?”

She finished, roaring her words out at the last, spilling her stool as she made towards the blonde, her arms outreached and ready to strike.

[/size][/justify][/color]

[dice=200+5000]

Gash/Bruised Left Collar Bone -- 3.0 damage

[rand=8638350297696888669550236081704555561879114247862905313114169985]

Last Edit: Oct 2, 2012 14:27:07 GMT -5 by kneedles

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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Oct 2, 2012 23:58:00 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Oct 2, 2012 23:58:00 GMT -5

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The problem with the two of them was the comparison in absolutes. Was one really dark as coal, and the other pure as snow? No, Tallow had a mind to see that Melrose wasn’t so much different as she was allowed a different fate. She’d never had to face the devil and dance with him—not the way that Tallow had, not the way that blood had dripped between Naif Malloc’s legs or from Elias’ fingers. She didn’t see into the eyes of Tallow and find a soul. No, she stared into darkness, and the darkness stared back.

[/color] But instead of Melrose being swallowed up, she brought up a shield, one of words and judgment. The bitter taste of Tallow was wholly unacceptable; she was a scourge and a marked woman, more than Melrose could ever be. Dangerous didn’t begin to explain her. She was evil in the truest sense: a broken and mutilated creature that feasted on breaking the happiness of others.

The cry that shook the bloody bucket made the hairs on the back of her neck stand. Tallow was vicious enough with her tongue, and she’d known that the girl could get herself out of a scrape if necessary. Just the way her little claws could rip off flesh, the way that there was nothing but darkness in those dead eyes—she wouldn’t stop until she killed. And maybe the words was too far,[/color] she would come to think, That having to think about her death might’ve finally snapped her wicked little head.[/color] The shattering of glass made Melrose angle backward, hunching her shoulders and readying her feet. They were the main event then, as the talking stopped and smoke hung in the air around them like a heavy blanket. No soul moved to stop what was to come next, and why should they? Fights were common in a place such as The Bloody Bucket, over debts, bets, and women, they traded punches to relieve what ailed them. They were flies buzzing over shit, no better than anyone else, wanting to taste the same excrement.

The blow against her collarbone had Melrose letting out a gasp, but she weren’t no weak little flower. She wasn’t one of the girls that would fall over dead because she’d had a little tap against her breast. Melrose had been raised with six brothers, boys that played rough and tumble for sport. The ones that tried their best to make each other cry, and went even further to see how long the torture could last before they were stopped. Being a girl hadn’t spared Melrose, especially on account of her being a plump young thing with no feminine qualities to speak of. They’d been little devils, wrestling her to the ground and pulling her hair until she finally learned how to slap them in the face or better, punch them in the throat. While they lay wheezing she’d give a swift kick in the nuts to remind them that she wasn’t just some b—h (unlike her brother Jeb) that would bend over and cry.

“Raaarrrrr!” Melrose let out a yell perfectly unladylike and full of anger at Tallow. All the words that she’d wanted to have, the wisdom and the holier-than-thou attitude had faded in the instant that Tallow had decided to lay a hand on her. She could see only as far as her anger would let her, and she wasn’t a saint. That anyone would touch her, or threaten her burrowed under her skin. The f—k she think she is[/color], Melrose huffed, thinking she have any right, damn dirty b—h.[/color] And she would prove herself too, in this battle of good versus evil, that not only would she hand Tallow’s ass to her, but that she would think twice before messing with Melrose Humplots. To hell with what any of ‘em would think…[/color] Although a flash of Elias’ face made her skin prickle, it didn’t stop her from bringing her own fist to Tallow. She swang wide and struck the girls arm before launching herself on top of her.

[dice=200+5000]
[Bruised Left Arm; 2 damage]

“You f—king liar, you f—king hussy, c—nt!” Melrose spat out as she grabbed at Tallow’s arms. The words that came tumbling out of her mouth about Naif and Elias and everything flew right past her head and around her ears. Maybe if she had been calmer and explained it, Melrose would’ve stopped to listen. But that she was so intent on freeing herself from an blame at all, it brought the anger into her breast and out her fists. Tallow Tansy needed to learn her lesson. She needed to be taught to think about her actions and not just get to fart around any old way that she wanted. And that she could be so blind to what had happened—that she could accuse Naif of, what was it? The words mixed up in her head as she struggled on top of the bony girl.

“What you f—king say s—t like that for, you seent him do it with your own eyes?” Melrose hissed. For someone that was so intent on having proof, she seemed ready to take anyone at their word. “Probably just stories made up by your retard of a brother. F—kin’ idiot can’t even wipe his ass by hisself. Why you even want to f—k him... f—kin’ retard…” Melrose didn’t spare her; she wouldn’t ever, for what she saw as sinful and loathsome. She could have been porking any number of men but to have been with her brother was a sin against nature itself. A girl like Tallow with so much evil might have been beyond saving. She imagined her then, looking down off a bridge and toward a jet black sea. Staying with a man like Elias was a one way drop into hell, unless she saved herself.

But a girl like Tallow ain’t got nothing left worth saving,[/color] Melrose reckoned. No, she was expecting to stay alive, not be saved. Worse still, what worried Melrose more was that perhaps she even enjoyed it. District ten had enough trouble with someone like Elias Poers, what would it mean for all of them if they had Tallow Tansy flying around on her broomstick, hurling bombs? She struggled once again, raising her fist and readying to bring it down to Tallow’s face. [/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify][rand=31020135339349512408426243346184599662446929141887211892299819738]

Last Edit: Oct 3, 2012 0:43:12 GMT -5 by cyrus

kneedles

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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Oct 4, 2012 6:51:07 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Oct 4, 2012 6:51:07 GMT -5

Despite her upbringing, somehow Tallow managed to pull off an ‘I’m better than you’ expression better than anyone. Nose tipped up in the air, she could pull a long elegant neck out of the dirt and sniff sharply like she was some capitolite down for a visit- as if anyone could come here- but for all of this, she couldn’t shake off what was deep in her bones. Of dirt the Tansy’s were made, and to the dirt they would all return. She was quick with her words, acerbic tongue sharpened like a blade- but she was quick with her fists too, if it seemed like a viable option. For someone like Elias Poers, Tallow would have to use her words, twisting out of trouble like an eel caught in a net because there was no way that fists could ever solve the problem. But for someone like Melrose, who werent even smart enough to listen properly to what she had to say, fists felt like a necessity. Tallow could take her.

She was slight, but she fought like she aimed her insults; dirty blows below the belt, unsportingly picking out the places where it would hurt and debilitate. While others in fights might aim punches to the torso, Tallow was all clawed finger nails aiming for the eyes, jamming up noses, pulling out clumps of hair and biting down with sharpened tooth. The last person Tallow had taken on had been Jack, a man much bigger than her though admittedly confined to his sick bed. She’d put out a cigarette on his hand- hopefully he still carried the scar- head butted him and pressed her fingers into his wounds. Before that there had been girls from school, catching her before she had a chance to bottle up her rage and channel it into more surreptitious methods of revenge.

To anger her was easy, to get her to fly off the handle outright was less so. Her frazzled nerves weren’t helping much now and the blow to her arm knocked against her bones, sure to cause the blossom of bruising fairly quickly. Insulting Scutcher was always a safe bet when it came to Tallow though- her most obvious weakness. Not for much longer though, she had to remind herself- he was long gone, and she hated him for leaving- a poison running up inside of her love and warping it. Soon it would be all used up, desiccated like dry old bones and she’d be a Tallow Tansy with absolutely nothing to care about- and wasn’t that just a terrifying thought for anyone. Soon the hurt would heal over. For now though she was still red and raw like an open wound, angry, bleeding and enflamed.

“Don’t call him that,” she shouted angrily. “He ain’t a liar. Naif as good as admitted it anyways. Not that you’d know…sticking your nose in on shit that aint nothing to do with you and not even knowing none of the facts!” But Melrose asked why she wanted to fuck her brother and shit, Tallow didn’t even know anymore. I don’t care what it makes me; I don’t care what they’d think if they knew. None of the reasons why I shouldn’t love him like this matter to me at all, not when it’s just him and me, were very easy thoughts to have when she had him there in her arms. Here and now, she was struggling to hold onto why it had been worth it in the first place.

Twisting her head, she saw Melrose aim her arm towards her face and with flailing limbs, Tallow tried to get in first. Tallow had that kind of inner rage that made a person kid themselves that they were stronger on the outside and usually that worked for her, always came off surprisingly well for a girl as skinny as she was- but right now no one could argue that Tallow was in her prime. That had come and gone again some months ago, she didn’t doubt- which is a thought that no fifteen year old girl should ever have to think, but for Tallow Tansy was a fact all the same.

[/size][/justify][/color]

[dice=200+5000]

Bruised Left Arm -- 4.0 damage

Drawing back, her arm connected with Melrose, delivering the same blow to the hussey in front of her that she'd received, trying to put a little more strength behind it. Something about an eye for an eye making the whole world blind occurred to Tallow- but that wouldn't matter so long as you made sure you were the person left at the end with only one eye, essentially queen of an unseeing world

[/size][/justify][/color][rand=5675537881907076740902772406116104422376863658428028975634835660458]

Last Edit: Oct 4, 2012 6:58:53 GMT -5 by kneedles

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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Oct 5, 2012 19:25:56 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Oct 5, 2012 19:25:56 GMT -5

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The world had been easier when she was a girl. There was the goodly goodness and the baddy bads, the ones that got what was coming to them, and the ones that got what they were supposed to. The world of Panem was supposed to be black and white; it wasn’t supposed to require thought that took more time—something they so rarely had

[/color]—and to be messy. But then, nothing about District Ten ever came straight out with it. They were all connected to one another, through blood, f—king, theft, love, or some other trial. That Tallow and Melrose were fighting at all wasn’t so out of the ordinary. Ornery girls striking out their territory over the few decent men left in the district—a dubious claim at best—wasn’t so uncommon. They’d been swallowed up by the tide of a district where sex was a weapon and territories overlapped.

It hadn’t been so much that she trusted Naif. There was a mixture of pity that well up in her when she’d seen his gentle face—he was someone beautiful, better looking than most of the rough and tumble boys of District Ten—there wasn’t a reason for him to go after someone like Scutcher. It didn’t add up to her, that a beautiful boy, stuck here against his will, would ever want to f—k the retarded Tansy boy. He was ugly and shy, and he belonged to Tallow. Even before she’d found out the ~~whole~~ truth, Melrose knew to keep her distance from old Scutch. He was her little lapdog, long outgrown laying between her legs, still puttering about as though Tallow held his leash. It’d always disgusted her some that a boy so kindly and gentle would be sucked up into the Tansy clan.

She tried to imagine Scutcher among her own brothers, the six of them, rough housing and playing about when she was a child. They were vicious only in keeping one another in line—never striking out to hurt someone, but to teach them a lesson. Stealing shoes or someone’s dessert—a piece of fruit in those days—was grounds for a right smacking. They fluttered about like a flock of birds, the Jay, the eldest leading them. Shame it was he had such terrible chances.[/color] The thought of having to spend more than a few minutes with the Tansys made her skin crawl. They were the lowest on the totem pole, rungs below the Humplots for their s—t and sour demeanor.

“If he a liar…” Melrose sputtered on top of Tallow, her arm smarting, “If he a liar… then why don’t Scutcher settle it hisself? The f—k he doin’ leavin’ and runnin’ away if it ain’t true?” Melrose hissed, her own hands grappling and clawing at the girl’s hair. He ain’t here ‘cause he don’t want to be.[/color] Melrose could imagine that even old dumb Scutch could see he was in a bad way with Tallow. Getting plowed by his sister and beaten by his father, taunted by the rest of the district—there wasn’t no life there for him. And if he really loved her, if he cared about her, why would he let Tallow fall under the sway of Naif and Elias? There was too much danger, a whole pit of it, waiting to swallow up the last of Tallow Tansy. Her whole body would be covered up by the mud and trapped there forever, lest she turn around her ways or find someone to save her.

But life weren’t a fairytale.[/color]

[dice=200+5000]

[Block; 0.0]

Her hand strayed and missed its target, and Melrose spat out again at Tallow. The girl was an accomplished fighter; she had to give her credit for that. There were few girls as sour and twisted as Tallow, if any. Melrose liked to think a glare of hers could stop anyone cold—the bitterness particularly seething from those cold, lonely eyes. She found it harder, too, to concentrate when some of the words chinked away at her self-righteous fury. Melrose liked to trust, liked to believe that people were good. Maybe Naif had been weak in the moment and told some things that didn’t hold water. And she hadn’t bothered to ask much to the boy, then crippled by his injuries, for fear of upsetting him worse. It’d been too easy to think that there was nothing wrong with what he was saying.

Tallow ain’t right… never has been, and never will be…[/color] Melrose eyed her through the tangle of her blond hair. But why she even protect herself usin’ Scutcher… unless it a lie. ‘Cause he can’t even say if it true since he ain’t here.[/color] There still wasn’t a great reason for her doing nothing. For her to deny, or not apologize to what had happened that night… well, it marked a bitterness that Melrose could never imagine for herself. Not without wantin’ to throws myself off a bridge.[/color]

“You just want all Elias’ stuff… you ain’t care one goddamn about Scutcher. He just a stupid lump you used and left high and dry. Saw Elias and took you chance. Probably messed up Scutcher in a bad way…” Melrose might have been losing the physical battle, but it didn’t mean she couldn’t win the mental one. “Boys like that need love, not someone to chew up theys heart and spit it out. You messed him up bad Tallow, and you gonna pay the price for it… specially with Elias…”
[/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify][rand=472422346239909533251898146700114478656033053994235991575638763607]

Last Edit: Oct 5, 2012 19:41:44 GMT -5 by cyrus

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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Oct 6, 2012 10:17:37 GMT -5

Post by kneedles on Oct 6, 2012 10:17:37 GMT -5

It was easier to block Melrose’s arm than it was the barbed comments piercing at her like sharpened glass embedded deep into the skin, twisting up like thorns in her chest. He left her, he chewed up her heart and spat it out even though Tallow had been begging and begging him not to go. Curling her fists up tight until her nails were embedded into her skin, she tried to tell herself that Melrose didn’t know shit about them or their situation and that all this crap she was spouting wouldn’t hurt her. Some part of her wanted to scream the truth, the whole truth right here and now- but it didn’t belong to Melrose, it was their private personal business and that’s where it always should have stayed.

“He didn’t run away,” she said thickly, wrapped around another shriek. “Scutcher wouldn’t settle it hisself because he aint like that…you know that, but he dint run away from me. He went to find work, coz he couldn’t be around our daddy no more, or people like Naif Malloc…but he…he didn’t leave me.” He went out East and in a few months time when, he’s settled, I’m gonna go out there with him- leave all the shit that happened here and have it be the two of us, she wanted to yell as she thought of the plan they’d had- lying to Melrose, lying to herself. When she’d got the idea it had seemed like a certainty, like everything was finally falling into place and somehow she was doing her best to make it work. Standing here in the bloody bucket though Tallow had to admit that it had been plugging up the hole in the damn with her pinky finger and the water had all spilled through anyways. He didn’t leave me, he’s coming back.

Tallow missed the days when she still believed in stories.

No matter what she said, Melrose wasn’t going to listen to Tallow- too much history had passed between the two of them, they were the two queens at opposite ends of the chessboard; Melrose in black and Tallow in white who had both run out of pawns to play with, and there were no more knights left in district ten. All she could do was hold onto the fact that she knew in her heart of hearts that no matter what they would say, no matter what conclusions anyone would jump to and how they would always think the worst of her because she was Tallow Tansy that she loved her brother.

Jack Lexington had told her at the riots that it wasn’t love that she was feeling, now Melrose was gonna say that she’d messed Scutcher up and there was only so many times that Tallow could go on yelling, you’re wrong, you’re wrong before she grew weary of it. And there were so many things Tallow was weary of; her house isolated and deeply encased in pig shit, going to school and learning why the government was great, she grew weary of mixing up makeup to paper over the cracks, of bushing her hair one hundred times every morning and every evening, she grew weary of district ten, she grew weary of her life.

There must have been something other than blood then that ran through her veins, keeping her animated, upright and that fierce glaring in her eyes- something dark and abyssal, like tiny pockets of empty space running through her nerve endings.

[/size][/justify][/color]

[dice=200+5000]

Thrown to Ground -- 0.5 damage

She was right about one thing, though, Tallow could only imagine. No good was going to come from being with Elias. But she could handle herself, the way she handled Melrose now- putting her arms around her and throwing her to the floor, Tallow following after her because the fight wasnt over yet.

The patrons of the Bloody Bucket cheered as they hit the floor and Tallow tried to stradle Melrose to pin her down. Not because they'd picked sides- Tallow wasnt even sure if people were rooting for anyone in particular, just hoping their clothes started falling off.

[/size][/justify][/color]
[rand=7285733595490456514157274737954167290670145303015206047378014773]

Last Edit: Oct 6, 2012 10:25:12 GMT -5 by kneedles

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Lying to herself// Liquor's top shelf (luke) Oct 6, 2012 19:45:43 GMT -5

Post by cyrus on Oct 6, 2012 19:45:43 GMT -5

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Melrose was the type of girl to trust, if just a little too much. Could have been her own intentions, or the words of those that seemed morally right—not wretched like Tallow or Elias, but pure like little Naif. He was just so young and he’d lost so much, how on earth could they ever treat him that way. When the words came out about Scutcher that he wouldn’t settle it himself, she didn’t believe Tallow one bit. Of what she knew of Scutcher, as thick as he was, he did things because they were right

[/color]. The boy might have been simple but he wouldn’t have let Naif be ripped in two in front of him, not the way that Elias had done. He might have ran away because of what she was—a terror, abusing him by twisting the knife of her love deeper and deeper until he realized he could stay and perish or run and live.

Tallow threw her to the ground and it rattled Melrose. She hadn’t expected so much resistance from the girl, but she knew that feats of strength could accompany the talk she was giving. Rage must have burned through her, the kind that was forged from truth that Tallow was so desperate to deny. It made her work harder and push further at this beast of a girl. Even through the cheers of the men around her at the chaos, Melrose could only fume at the lies ~~she thought~~ Tallow was spinning to sooth herself. Well if anyone can give her a piece of mind,[/color] Melrose reached up toward Tallows form, grabbing at her hair. It oughta be me.[/color] They were a whizz of fists and fury then, two District Queens struggling to hold on to what they knew as right.[/color]

[dice=200+5000]
[Thrown to Ground; 0.5 damage]

That was the way of the world then—the never ending struggle to hold on to what she believed versus what she knew. There would be times when her best judgment would cloud her mind and tell her—maybe the warmth of his arms and the smell of his cologne weren’t worth it[/color]—but she was better off living than doing nothing at all. What other way was there for her here, with a s—t farm and more brothers than she could count. She was to get married and pregnant, or pick up some trade that would earn her keep. But all of that was s—t, and everyone knew that. So what if she wanted a good life and saw it in the presents the men gave her? Better that she do it now, while she was young and pretty, when they wanted her than to become used and dried up with nothing to show for it.

She could have been like Tallow, bitter and hurt by a world that was so obviously terrible. As dumb as she played, peroxide hair and all, she had no misgivings about the way of the world. There was a giant hole above all their heads, ready and waiting to be blocked out by the ass of whoever’s turn it was to shit on them. Surely that’s what Tallow wanted, not to get shit on by her fellow man, thinking that with Elias she’d get her turn. But wouldn’t change a damn thing. It’d splash on her just the same, except now she’d just have a shit-eating grin on her face. ’Cause she’d think it was special and just for her. [/color]Melrose tussled on top of Tallow then, gritting her teeth.

“You full of s—t Tansy. You know that? Scutcher too good to just run away. Would have stayed here and done what needed to be done. He got a heart even if he ain’t got a brain…” Melrose grabbed at the girl’s hair and pulled. She pressed her chest against the girl and got close, her body dripping sweat atop the girl. “Don’t know why you think you so smart if you can’t even see the shit you have—can’t even stop whining and complaining about what everybody else has to go through every damn day. Well of course life is shit, but so what? So what? You think that give you a right to kill someone, to make ‘em bleed until they almost dead, on account of how shitty this world is? You know how bad we gots it, you knows it. You just think you can do whatever you need to get out of it…”

Melrose pulled harder on her hair. “But you ain’t no better than me, you worse. You just a bitch that ain’t got no decency… actin’ a fool like you didn’t ever know what youse options was gonna be… hope you feel shame for what you do, you low down bitch…” [/blockquote][/blockquote][/size][/justify][rand=2199178806040436687910216860473273147933441214264617028720676899]

Last Edit: Oct 8, 2012 22:12:20 GMT -5 by cyrus