Substance of Desire

by Ben Payne

“You’d do anything for a taste of your substance of desire, wouldn’t you?”

“Bitch, this Shit’s over,” he said, and with just four words set into motion the entire thing. It’s over, he’d said. No more association with him, at least, not without money. Money, lifeblood of hope, oh how she needed it.

The young woman, just shy of twenty years old, opened the door to her run-down two-room apartment. It smelled of mildew and dust, and there were piles of old, tired clothes spread across the room. The floorboards, from what could be seen beneath the clothes, were tarnished wood, and they creaked when she entered. The entire place was illuminated by a single naked bulb in the middle, turned on by a bare switch near the dirty door. The facet on the side of the room leaked, and stains covered the otherwise pale and unadorned sink.

She placed the bag of her findings for the day on the sink counter, before making her way to the only other room in her apartment. There, which contained a tiny table for her old toothbrush (she had no toothpaste), consisted of a toilet and an almost grimy bathtub. One of her best fines, a broken mirror, hung over the table.

Without hesitation, she removed her filthy clothes and tossed them aside before she stood before the mirror. It was coated in a thin layer of muck or water residue, but she was able to see her body through it. Her naked form was an amalgam of twisted mockery of what a human should look like. Various cuts, bruises, and scars covered her far too skinny body. The cuts and bruises, rather recent affairs, she noted with disinterest, where from recent excursions into sharp-lined dumpsters in search of finds. The scars were from her long days with her sadistic Dealer (ex-dealer, now, save for when she found the money).

She brushed some of her shoulder-length, greasy black hair from her face, and saw in the muck-covered mirror her pale green eyes; her pale, nearly anemic skin; and the scar that ran from her forehead down to her left cheek, seemingly through her eye (the eye must have sustained some damage, she thought, since everything seemed fuzzy through it). She frowned, her lips—long accustomed to frowning—barely moved, and she suddenly screamed to the image in the mirror, “I-I h-hate y-you!”

She turned away from the mirror, her heart beating fast and her lungs gasping for breath. She viciously scratched at her wrists, eagerly wanting to rip out the veins. She scratched hard enough to draw blood, but did not delve deep enough to do what she strived to accomplish. Her sudden burst of anger did not go without notice: a cold and dark voice called out to her, from within her head.

“Oh, what’s wrong, sweetie? Do you hate yourself, or do you hate me?”

“I-I h-hate b-both!” she said loudly.

“Why do you hate me? I’m the one you always fall back on. I’m the one who protected you. You’re the one who made me suffer because you were too weak to handle the pain. If anything, I should hate you. But I don’t,” the voice said in a tone that was like hers. The voice laughed, “I don’t hate you at all.”

“W-Why d-do y-you d-do t-this t-to me?”

The voice taunted. “Because you, my friend and most beloved one, are nothing but a whore. A little drug-whore. Aw! Can’t shake your addiction? Poor little you. You’d do anything for a taste of your precious substance of desire, wouldn’t you? You’d even kill.”

“N-no, I-I wou-wouldn’t.”

“See why you’re weak, and I’m strong? Hate me all you’d like, you can’t get rid of me. Just like you can’t get rid of that pathetic addiction.”

And then, as quickly as it came, the incident came to a close. She was once again alone, and she breathed a sigh of relief. She hated her dark side, her Otherself, which formed several years ago during a particularly bad night with her Dealer. She tried to escape, but since her body was bound the only way she could was to escape into inside. Whatever the torture was—she couldn’t remember—it was enough to rip her mind asunder and fracture into two distinct personalities. One, a self-hating druggie, the other a near-homicidal sadomasochist.

Having recovered from her confrontation with her Otherself, she quickly showered. The water was cold and was at low pressure. Her shampoo was a melting pot of smaller amounts of other shampoos liberated from nearly empty discarded bottles, and her soap was not much different. In short order, she was done and although she felt nothing but fatigue, she dried and dressed herself in what for her passed as fresh, clean clothes.

She came out into the living room and took her bag from the sink counter. She sat on the floor near the sink, and began to bring out the items she’d found during the day. As she pulled them out, she mentally indexed them into categories for future use. First, she’d found a few coins that added up to about $0.53. Second, a bag of marbles that had to have been discarded by mistake. She made sure to make note of that, to sell them at the pawnshop. Her two grand prizes for the day, however, were found near a pizzeria. First of these prizes were several pieces of day-old garlic bread. It was stale, but even the smell made her stomach growl. Second, and greatest prize of the day, no—month—was half of a small pizza, given to her by an employee who took pity on her. It even came in it’s own box!

She rationed out the pizza, and knew that it would last her at least a day or two, maybe a little longer if it managed to stave off mold. She ate a slice, and carefully wrapped up the rest, inside the box, inside some plastic wrap she’d recovered a few days earlier. The pizza was cold, but it was far from the usual food she ate, and she was pleased with it. It was a small pleasure in her otherwise dreary day.

She looked out of her window, which was just above her sink. The window was had a similar film of grime on it as the mirror had, but she saw out of it well enough. She lived in an attic-placed apartment room, on the third floor of the building, so it afforded her a great view of the gang-infested street she called home. She sighed some, and memories of her time among those gangs flooded through her. She trembled, and looked down as she caught her breath.

It was then that she caught a police car marked ‘Sheriff’ pull into the potholed parking lot of her apartment complex.

She tried to relax, and pay it no heed, but alas, she could not keep herself from growing frightened. She spoke to herself, “W-who i-is th-that?”

“The enemy,” said the voice, her Otherself.

“E-en-ene-emy?”

“He’ll want to hurt you. Trust me.”

“N-No.”

And again, silence. This time, it was all consuming. She looked out of the window, and noticed that it had begun to snow out. Already the streets were beginning to be coated in the beautiful white elegance, and she was soothed by it. She had always found the snow beautiful, even while she was forced to stand out in it for hours at a time to solicit men to earn her drugs from the Dealer whom she had once loved.

Then came the thing she feared most. A knock came at her shaky door. A man called to her, “Miss, please open up.”

Her heart pounded, and she was quick to try and clean the place, to make it look reasonably presentable. He waited, and she opened the door hesitantly. He was a man in a tan light blue uniform, and he wore a black jacket. A golden-yellow badge was attached to the jacket, and the word ‘Sheriff’ on it. He seemed almost taken aback by the dilapidated look of the girl, but it was his job, “I’m here to evict you.”

“W-what?” she asked, her voice wabbly and loud. Her eyes widened, and she stepped back a little. She took the $0.53 she had in her hand, and handed it to him, “T-take t-this, i-it’s all I-I have.”

He frowned, and shook his head, “I’m afraid I can’t. Look, don’t take it personally. I’m just doing my job, but you have to leave the premise.”

“P-please, j-just an-another d-day?”

“I’m afraid not, ma’am. You have to leave now.”

She trembled, and she began to cry. She had no place left to go, nowhere to hide, nowhere to even sleep. She turned away from him, and tried to find bags to place all of her things. The police officer simply stood at the doorway, his arms crossed. The bags did not suffice to carry all of her things, and she looked to him, “I-I c-can’t c-carry a-all o-of m-my th-things.”

“Ma’am, I’m afraid you have take only what you can carry,” he said, his voice showing that he was sympathetic to her, but it was his job, and he’d dealt with similar evicts before.

Finally, she’d gathered up just about everything she could take, when a small knife fell from several crunched-up garments in a corner of the room. As soon as she moved to pick it up, she coughed badly and something happened. Her whole body let out a violent shake, and then her Otherself came out.

Holding the knife in one hand, she came up to the officer, and spoke again, “Are you sure you won’t let me stay here?”

“No. Stop asking,” he said, his voice stricter. He did not notice that she did not stutter, or that her eyes had changed color slightly. Nor did he expect any violent actions, but it came: she struck at him quickly, plunging the sharp knife into his chest and jerking it back and forth. She let out a sadistic laugh, and watched as he fell to theground.

“Backup! Backup!” he screamed into his radio, “I’ve been stabbed! Backup!”

Then her good side, the side that had been in control until the Otherself took over, returned to her, and she saw what she had done. Shaking, and in misery over the horror that she knew was of her own fault, she took the bloodied knife, and drove it deeply into her own wrists, gouging at the veins as she’d scratched at them.

As her warm crimson fluids flowed from her rent veins, and she felt she was beginning to fade from consciousness and life, she crawled to a corner, and lay there. Her last thoughts before she faded into unconsciousness were of regret, and the last image she saw was of uniformed men rushing into the room.

Then darkness consumed her.

And as she faded from life, she heard the trumpets of the angels, and a great white light flashed before her eyes. She saw her childhood—long lost to the ages—a place where she belonged, all gone now. Fire roared about her, and she was gone, lost and dead. Farewell, world.