It's official. I received one email and one voiced complaint that my site wasn't updated enough. So I give you this... whatever you want to call it. It's some girl punching some guy in the nose, with a shitload of me thinking about random crap before hand. When I write, I find that I have certain images that I want to convey. And that's really all that this story is, a string of images. I like it though. It's refreshing to see the female as being the empowered character in one of my stories...

She opened her eyes and felt her eyelids scrape against her retinas. Everything felt crisper and more defined. The lines of everything in the room seemed to jump out at her. She glanced at the shape to her left, savoring the dragging sensation as her eyes glided stickily across the lubrication in her sockets. She stared detachedly as he twitched in his sleep. Watching him move sent a familiar shiver of feeling through her body. It could only be described as some new redefinition of pain, a sense of disassembly; of both body and mind. She remembered an old friend who said that our cognitive processes and mental awareness were evidence of our own existence. It served as a safety blanket to reassert to ourselves that we aren’t just a figment of someone else’s scarred reality. “I think therefore I am.” She thought his theory was a bunch of existential white noise.

Proof of existence was not in cognition, she thought to herself. Recognition of physical signals is as useless for evidence of one’s own existence as is pondering the cause of the signals. Did it really matter if she existed or not? She thought that it was surprisingly easy to cover your eyes and ignore the question. But why would she want to cover her eyes? Her eyes seem to have gained some extra function, and she planned to take advantage of it. She refocused her beautiful blue eyes back on the figure beside her. She turned her body toward him and stared. The blue of her iris seemed to glow like a cat’s eye in the dark. She was watching him, piercing him. He stirred; frowned. Obviously in discomfort, recognizing on some primitive level that he was being watched, he opened his own blue eyes. His were dull, almost grey. Stupid, she thought. He furrowed his eyebrows into a V of curious confusion. She continued staring.

She saw her reflection in his eyes; ignored it, and looked closer. She focused on one of the arteries meandering like a river in the corner of his eye. She could see it swelling and relaxing as the blood pump through it. Swelling. Relaxing. He blinked, and she hated him for it.

She thought briefly of the pain of disassembly in her gut, her chest, and her head. It was his fault. She closed her eyes, feeling the comforting flow from her tear ducts wash over her eyes in a wave like fresh oxygen into the lungs of one who has inhaled the bitter salt water of the ocean. Her eyes flashed wide open again and she rammed her fist into the bridge of his nose. She felt the cartilage bend, then snap. His eyes widened in surprise as blood gushed through the breach in the nasal cavity caused by the tearing of the cartilage. They closed again as the blood spurted from his nostrils in gouts that covered her hand and ran down her smooth fingers. She smiled as she felt his blood, each individual cell in it, running down her hand. She smiled at him beneath her glowing eyes. This feeling of righteousness and wholeness was new. Suddenly everything in her mind felt as precise as everything in her body. This was proof that she existed.

            He lay on his back on the floor, with his shirt thrown to one side, a crooked smile on his face and a bruise growing on his stomach. Damned if he wasn’t confused. She stormed off in a huff and didn’t even explain why. Her perfume left more slowly than she did and he savored it. Her warmth on his leg was just as gradually drifting into the ether. He chuckled at the irony that she left him not once, but several separate, consecutive times; not only by her presence but through her scent and warmth also. He could still taste her, but that was fading too. It kinda sucks being left so many times in the matter of a few minutes. He lifted his head and glanced at the bulge in his pants. Women always have the best timing.

            He let his head drop back to the floor and turned to look at his shirt. She ripped the damn thing trying to get it off. What the hell was that about? That was a nice shirt. Sitting up, he remembered why her motor control might not have been up to par when his head starting swimming and spots darkened his vision. Yup, still drunk.

            He replayed the series of events in his head. He pinched her ass, she slapped him playfully, whispered in his ear, he led her in here, threw her on the couch and she ripped his damn shirt. They rolled onto the floor, kissed, he took off her shirt, the dog licked his face, he slapped the dog, she laughed. They kissed more, she punched him in the gut, got up, put her shirt back on and left.

            He looked over at the mutt. She was smiling with her tongue hanging out of her mouth. It’s funny how big dogs don’t seem to care if you beat the hell out of them, just as long as you pet them later. He clicked at her and she came obediently. He scratched her behind the ear.

            “Why the hell did she hit me?” he asked the dog. The dog just licked his face.

            He laid himself back down on the floor. What the fuck was her name? Angela? Angie? Fuck… whatever. He stood up quickly and his inner ear disagreed with that action so he promptly sat back down. Hard. “Guess I’ll do a little more thinking,” he said, rubbing the knee he just fell on. He turned as a shadow fell over him.

            Angie… Angela… Angiela… whatever her name was looked down at him. She threw a small plastic square at him. It hit square in the middle of his forehead and fell into his lap. He looked down at an unopened condom. Oh shit, he forgot about that part. Slapped the dog, she laughed, more kissing, “you don’t have herpes or something do ya,” gut pain.

            He smiled up at her. She just shook her head, turned, and left. He turned and smiled at the dog. She smiled back and wagged her tail.

            “Big dogs, huh?” The mutt just kept smiling.

Haymaker