Stained silk
Kathreen peels off her silk lilac robe. It slides down her freshly waxed body, into a ball of fabric on the dusty blue carpet. She notices a multitude of stains embedded within the fibres. A mix of spilt drinks and bodily fluids. A draft from the floor vent lets in the only breathable air in the stuffy dressing room. The other rooms in the building have already been contaminated with toxic clouds of smoke, rotten cologne and sweat but this time of night. Having been dancing for hours she walks tirelessly over to a small metal stool in the centre of the dimly lit room.
Stepping her naked feet onto the cold top of the stool. She wears nothing but a leather choker from her last performance, around her thin neck.
An older white man with jelled back black hair and a cigarette protruding from the side of his mouth barge into the room, a smaller meek looking man trails behind him. The black haired man walks around her stalking every inch of her bare body. He puckers his lips and bits down hard on the bottom one. Waving his hand, without breaking eye contact with her skin, he points at the small man to his right.
“brushes.” he says. The little man scurries over with a case of worn out makeup brushes that look like they haven’t been washed in months. A large selection of coloured body paints come with it. The man picks up a brush with his fifthly hands. Kathreen can’t help but stare at the dirt under his finger nails as he begins his work. Standing lifelessly on the twofoot stool, acknowledging every cold damp brush stroke against her porcelain skin. The bristles of the brush scratch at her thigh, as lines of blue and purple begin to appear. “Turn.” The man commands in a loud dominate tone. Being woken up from a day dream, Kathreen’s head shoots up abruptly. She hesitates and does not move for a moment.
“Slap!” the sound rings as a sting begins on her right side of her naked ass. The pain lingers like a fiery pricing from a wasp. The shock of the slap brings her back into the moment. “Fucking idiot.” the man says. Kathreen is quick to turn now. Her face frozen, a blanket of familiar fear and vulnerability rushes over her.
*“This is what happens when you waste mummies time.” The sound of her mother’s sweet southern accent rings in her ears. That same sting of the slap that used to come with it.*
The man continues his work, ignoring what had just happened. Kathreen glances to her left, catching her reflection in the dirty mirror just barely hanging on the cement basement wall. She is a spitting image of what her mother once looked like. Sun kissed strawberry blond hair, luscious pink lips and dark eyebrows. Kathreen wasn’t blessed with her mother’s smooth arch and button nose, though she did have her eyes. Entrancingly beautiful green that mimics fresh dewy moss in the light.
*Kathreen watches as her mother and father laugh and dance on the front lawn. She sits on the white porch swing, as her mother’s favorite silk yellow dress twirls in the wind, she dreams that one day she will fall in love and be as beautifully happy as she.*
That memory was crystal clear. At the time she couldn’t wait to wear the yellow dress someday, but now is was no longer dazzling yellow, but gray, burned to ash. Kathreen was the happiest she’d ever be before the fire, before her mother and she no longer looked alike.
Minutes later Kathreens phone starts to go off. Ring after ring she tries to ignore it. The man clenches his teeth, drops his brushes. Pulls her off the stool “two minutes.” he says. He marches over to the bar cart in the corner of the room. Picks up a bottle by the neck in his right and grips a sort glass in his left. He pours himself a golden drink. Kathreen stumbles and walks toward her bag. It takes every ounce of strength in her body to hide her anger toward the man, but she knows it’s better to be silent when dealing with men. Kathreen hurries to answer the phone when she sees it is her father. Her father is a sweet man who loves his baby girl more than anything in the world. Their bond would surpass any between a husband and wife. Kathreens mother used to act differently when he wasn’t around, but kathreen knew how happy her mother’s beautiful smile had made him, so she never mentioned the strange behaviour. She let out the first full breath she had taken all night when she hears the sound of his voice. an Instant calm showers over her. She and her father chat for a few minutes about the game and what they ate the night before, as they always do on their calls. “frozen pizza dad, you’re going to be sick. I need to come visit you more so you can have some real home cooked meals again.” She says with a little giggle. A faint smile emerges on the left side of her cheek. Her face twitches, as if is unfamiliarly with this action. “Well, hey you’re all the way in Los Angeles, you should come visit your old dad sometime. Canyon Creek sure dose miss it’s number one pageant queen.”
*The creak of the mint green kitchen cabinet punctures her hears, knowing well what her mother was reaching for. Kathreen stares mercifully at her feet counting the lines in the wooden floor boards. Her mother pulls down a tin can containing three metal spoons. Places the can on the counter and walks toward the stove. Her mother turns the knob on high, kathreens green eyes watching the flam. As the metal spoons hover over it. The blue heat tickling the metal rim. Minutes pass and kathreens mother has her on her knees, white cotton blouse on the floor next to her hands. Three red round marks strategically placed in the center of her back. Lined horizontally in a row, in such a way that any modest bathing suit would cover the impending scars. A regular punishment for a losing pageant queen.*
“I didn’t always win” She replies. Her dad continues to ramble about the good old days when she wasn’t too busy with her career as a dancer. He always goes on about how proud he is of her, though he does wish she could be closer. She knows the same feeling well. She used to pray at her bedside that he would win the lottery. Never having to travel for work again, leaving her alone with her mother. Every day he was gone, she dreamed of how he promised that one day he would swoop her off to a new town far away from Canyon Creek. Away from all the pageants she thought. Somewhere she could be herself, they could live on a great big farm with lots of animals that Kathreen would care for. Kathreen could grow to be a veterinarian. That’s what she really wanted. She was never interested in the glitter and glam. That was all her mother. Kathreen never told him why she wanted so desperately to leave. She knew it would only make her time trapped at home with her mother even more unbearable. Instead she told her self that she would wait, wait for the day he would take her far away from her hell on earth. But that day never seemed to come, it was always him getting away, he never had to deal with her outburst and cruelty. Kathreen needed her escape. How could he have never seen that? Was he so terribly blind or did he just ignore it so he could get away, leaving his daughter behind.
He was a shallow man. his love for her mother was gone the second her beauty was. He didn’t have patience to put up with his disfigured wife. He began to travel and meet new, younger women. Her mother knew that. Yet she still got as dolled up and glossy as she could when he would return. He saw her as a monster, he couldn’t help but focus on her horrific scares and burns covering her once perfectly crafted face. Little did he know she had was uglier inside. Kathreen stops herself. She doesn’t like thinking poorly of her father. He is all she has, though he wasn’t always around, his love for her isn’t a lie. It is not a facade he puts on in public. It’s no show like her mothers.
Kathreen feels the tension in the room growing. Noticing the man place the empty whiskey glass back onto the bar cart. She finished up her conversation with her father and sulks back to the stool. The man strokes her, from her collar bone down to her wrist. He looks into her eyes. His are gentler now, filled with 4 ounces of malt. His voice is softer, kinder but more frightening the before. “Stay still now” he whispers. A cool shiver rushes over her as his long nails glide off her hand. The man continues his painting, now with the help of the smaller man. Creating a whimsical mess of scales, slowly transforming her legs into a mermaid tale. The design reminds her of water. She begins to reminisce about the river behind her home in Canyon Creek. It had become her happy place, she felt free there. Running the bristles of weeds between her fingers, while the sun peaks through the forest trees, shinning down on the liquid glass. Listening to the melody of crickets and frogs filling the fresh summer air. It wasn’t always that way though. She thinks back to a time where
*The water was thick like glue. Transparent layers trapping her under. Helplessly trying to gasp for air. Wishing she could grow gills and begin to breathe again. Sharp red claws dig into her shoulders, so deep the water was beginning to turn a soft pink. Her back pressed against the bottom of their yellow stained Victorian bath tub. Her small legs flop vigorously like a fish, sending rushes of water on to the white and black checkered tile floor. Kathreen stares up through the foot of water between her and air. Focusing on the blurred cycling light dangling so far above her. Trying not to panic as her lungs become tight. She is screaming but it translates into bubbles between splashes. Her tears she is crying do not fall, only fade into the now red liquid. Jolting her body left to right, she is getting tired from fighting the force above. Her body begins to relax as the blurry figure kneels over top the bathtub. Yelling nonsense about telling lies. Kathreen would much rather be transformed into a mermaid in this moment.*
Earlier that day her mother had asked if she had seen her father with another women at the train station. Kathreen, not knowing the seriousness of this question she said yes. Her mother’s eyes went black. She began to accuse Kathreen of lying, suddenly her mother’s anger was with her. Why had she always been in between the two of them? How did everything become her fault? Kathreen was caught in their tornado of a marriage. A father who had always loved his daughter but who had also abandoned and neglected her, just to get away from a wife he no longer loved. A torn down former pageant queen for a mother trying to live through her daughter’s beauty. As kathreen grew more and more beautiful and her mother remained disfigured and growing older, her jealousy consumed any glimmer of kindness left in her heart for Kathreen. Kathreen pauses her thought for a moment as a knew one appears. Her mother had a hatred that was only seen by the two of them. She acted quite normal in public, but she never wanted her daughter around. Kathreen is only alive today because her mother knows that if she wasn’t, there would be no reason at all for her father to stay.
Kathreen returning to reality finds herself fuming. She is in such a fit of rage that she has begun to sweat. Some of the dark blue paint is now dripping down her skin. The black haired man licks his thumb and wipes off a patch of paint on the inside of her thigh. Then slides his thumb upward towards her pelvis. She is now locked eyes with the women in the mirror, absorbed by the sight of her mother. She would rather be ugly the look anything like that women. Wanting nothing more than to crawl out of her own skin. The man’s hand still rubbing her body. She had been touched by older men her entire life. Pageant directors, coaches, photographers. Only to live out her mother’s dream. The feeling of the mans callused fingers smudging the paint becomes utterly unbearable. A volcano of anger rises inside her, and the foul memories continue to surface.
*The judges hands tightly pinch her upper thigh as she stares at her pink lace panties dangling off her ankle. A small white flower embroidered on the centre. The man’s thick leather belt tossed on the oak wood floor beside the window. The creaks of the old bed frame and the growing sound of grunts fill the stale otherwise silent air. Her mother stands downstairs in the kitchen ignoring the horrific noise above while be fixing a tea.*
Kathreen can hardly stand still, her hands are clenched in fists so tightly marks are beginning to appear on the side of her palms. Both me are touching her legs now, adding blotches of green to the tail. She can no longer contain herself. She cocks back her arm and slaps their hands away from her body. Both men immediately fall backwards, then rise to their feet. Kathreen ignores them and drills toward the mirror. The men shocked, begin to yell and work their way over to her. “You could have ruined the tail! You crazy bitch, Get your ass back her!”
She doesn’t give them a second look. All she sees is red, her face cold, eyes black, she resembles her mother more than ever in this moment. Kathreen raises her right fist. Throwing it back and then forward into the mirror. Sending a blow that shatters the glass into hundreds of pieces. An avalanche of infuriated tears race down her face. She bends down to pick up a blade of gagged glass. “This face will no longer do” she says. Suddenly the black haired man grabs her shoulder from behind. She whips around and with demonic eyes. Drunk with rage she sends three slashes across the man’s face and neck. The smaller man cowards to her left though she does not show mercy. The small man now lay screaming next to her ankles as he receives the same punishment. Kathreen releases the stained glass that has now cut the soft skin on the inside of her hand. Letting it fall to the floor, it disappears into the pool of blood spilling from the men’s faces. Her mermaid tail is now complete with a terribly angelic array of crimson red splashes. She wipes the tears from her eyes and admires her new prizes. “Ever pageant queen needs a trophy.” She says. Kathreen steps over the screaming bodies. Her toes leaving prints on the carpet like signatures. She pushes back her strawberry blond hair, bends down for her silk lilac robe and walks toward the door.
“This is what happens when you waste mommies time.” She says in her sweet southern accent.
Source: reddit.com/r/eroticliterature/comments/ns69i2/stained_silk