The habit made its way into her life easily while he was away on what seemed to be a long vacation. His things were still left in his apartment in the dark of the night and the bright of the day. She missed something in his routine that would have revealed that he would be gone for any length of time.
Binoculars on her eyes at all hours of the day and night, save the few hours of sleep her body would force her into, left red rings and slight bruises on her high cheek bones. The pain of his absence was pain unlike anything. Worse than the ache for him, worse than the minor possibility that he would run late on occasion and routine would be disrupted. The pain required alleviation.
The habit. Ohhhh, yes the habit felt so good at the moment and would leave her feeling raw and unable to move. The habit tools were an exacto blade and a pair of tweezers. A steady hand was nice but not required. Going on day four of his vacancy and the steady hand was...well, not so steady.
The workstation had a light overhead for a shadowless effect. Bolted to the table was a length of leather strapping with a buckle to meet the two. The habit routine goes as follows:
Binoculars, collect tools from the sink in the bathroom from the last cleaning, binoculars, lay down the dark red blotched stained towel below the strapping. Check again with the binoculars.....
Now, see, she didn’t want to do it. She had to have the pain taken away for a moment though. So she checked often to make sure he was still gone. Just in case....
…...lay left arm on the table, place wrist in strapping, buckle. Grit teeth. Grin madly.....Begin.
She didn’t mean for this to become the habit. She was cutting out pictures of him with her exacto blade....He’d been gone 8 hours. She tried to fill her time.....It hurts to miss someone you love so deeply....She was unfocused. She slipped. She skinned her forearm on the interior side three inches below her wrist about 2 inches long, half and inch wide. The blade was new and the fillet was superficial. It happened fast and the pain kicked in quick after but for that moment while she quizically stared at the pink flesh laying on the blood splattered worktable she felt.....amazing. It did the trick....It did the trick three times a day since that time.
Now she had a new collection on her table, 10 short strips of her flesh pinned and laid out to dry...a new fixation. Just till he returned. She promised she would stop once he returned. Really. She would.
It was mid-August and the dank studio, rife with the musk of trash and rank of drying flesh meshed well with the humid nasty heat.....But soon August would be over and soon he would return and soon the dog days of summer would be over.
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