Beyond the Pale Contest

Title: Bleeding Out

Pen Name: MoreThanMyself

Characters: Bella

Image that Inspired You: #11

Disclaimer: The characters don't belong to me. This story contains graphic discussions of cutting and self-harm.

To see other entries in the Beyond the Pale Contest, please visit the C2 page:

.net/community/Beyond_the_Pale_Contest_Entries/83159/

Sometimes the urge to runaway is simply overwhelming. Driving to the grocery store in the minivan, alone for the first time in days I'm suddenly hit with the desire to floor the gas pedal and fly off through traffic to somewhere, anywhere else. My heart actually races at the thought, my thighs clench as the adrenaline rush pulses through my body. I can almost feel the eyes of the other drivers on me as I make my getaway. I imagine the places I would go, Paris, New York; hell I'd like to drive across the Great Plains surrounded by vast expanses of nothing. I'd empty the savings account to fund the first leg of my trip, and then I'd get jobs washing dishes in roadside diners along the way to fund the rest of my life. I would stay on the move, trading tales of travel with fellow wanderers. I would give sage advice to lost souls. I would be a modern, female Jack Kerouac. I would be somewhere, anywhere but here.

Sometimes the urge to speed the van into a brick wall is just as overwhelming. I don't want to die. I just want to be somewhere, anywhere but here.

And then the cold grip of reality tightens around me. My momentary dream of escape begins to feel like a cliche, a reminder of the cliche my life has become. Even this midlife crisis is cliche: bored suburban housewife seeks adventure of her youth, cries herself to sleep mourning for lost freedom, resents husband for giving her exactly what she asked for.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

"Bella, what's wrong? You've been off lately." I'm standing in the kitchen over sizzling chicken, while he hovers, pretending to help with dinner. He filches a mushroom slice from the cutting board and I give him a dirty look- he knows I hate it when he does that but, in the 11 years we've been together, it's never stopped him. I take a deep breath and remind myself that these are the things I'm supposed to find endearing, the things we'll tease each other over when we're 90. In the meantime he's just throwing the recipe off, and dinner isn't going to turn out correctly if he keeps it up.

"I don't want to talk about it. Nothing's wrong." And then I smile and kiss his lips because even though my life is shit, I still love his lips. I rest my hands in his slightly long hair, lightly scratching the back of his head. I know he doesn't believe me, but he's as afraid to push for the truth, as I am to say the words aloud. He used to push me, that's actually one of the reasons I fell in love with him. I would get angsty and black and he would crack a joke, daring me not to laugh. It was really hard to be angsty and black when I was laughing. I'm not laughing anymore.

Just then the kids come in, loud and messy. I want to be happy when they come running into the house, bursting light and life through the sliding glass door and breathing energy into a house that lays too still and quiet while they're gone. Instead, all I can see is the dirt they've dragged in from the yard and our dog that they've allowed in behind them and for what must be the millionth time I remind them to close the goddamn door.

Once everyone is washed up, the plates are filled with food and we're all sitting at the table. Our dinner conversation is repetitive, but every night I hope that we will find something new to speak of, something interesting to converse about. Every night I silently beg him not to ask the question. That same fucking question he asks every day that makes me want to claw my eyes out. But, as he finishes chewing his third bite, I know it's coming and I stifle the scream.

"So, what did you do today?" he asks. What I want to say, the answer that's on the tip of my tongue, the answer that I know will start a fight that I can't help but crave just to break up the monotony, the answer I hold in is "Nothing, abso-fucking-lutely nothing. The same nothing I did yesterday when you asked and the same nothing I'll have done tomorrow when you ask again." Instead I smile and say "Well, I got the laundry finished and the floors mopped. The kids had the neighbor girl over. I need to go to Target tonight, we're out of toilet paper." I'm apathetic, not cruel; it's not his fault that I'm at loose ends and have dug myself a hole. I just have to make my escape where I can.

In sudden, flaring warning of my state of mind, my arms ache with a need I haven't spoken or thought of for years. The need to wield sharp point over skin, the need to carve out relief. The need to feel something tangible and real. In my mind I remember the feel of the blade moving silently across my flesh, leaving seeping, dark red ribbons in its wake. I remember the slow, stuttering breaths that I exhaled as my lungs expanded and contracted as the tight panic of my racing heart subdued. I remember the peaceful calm that followed the blood letting. I don't want to die, I don't want to bleed out into nothingness, I just want to lance the festering wound, relieve some of the pressure. Fuck, I just need to feel something, anything but this numbness.

But, I know I can't have it. No matter the whispers of my demons, no matter the promises of relief, I know I am not that far gone. The very thought scares me; knowing that inside me lurks that darkness, the very knowledge causing panic to rise, lungs to tighten, heart to race. It also makes me angry. I can make this better, I can relieve the numbness, I can feel and all it would take is just a few simple cuts, but I'm too afraid. I fear my ability to stop once I start, if just this once, why not next time? If just this small thing why not something bigger? It always comes back to fucking fear.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

We go to bed that night and I beg him to fuck me. On my knees, I beg him to pound into me as hard as he can. He takes his hand and runs it down my spine, his cock is rubbing against my ass and I'm almost incoherent with the need to feel something, anything. He puts one hand on my hip, wraps his other hand around my long dark, hair, pulling it back and thrusting into me simultaneously and in that moment I feel. With him buried deep inside me, I can feel every inch of him, I feel the length of him press against the walls of my pussy, stretching me in ecstasy. I can feel the head of his cock when it hits the perfect spot, moving flesh aside, holding me open and taking what we both crave. For that brief moment I can breath, and within my moans of pleasure is freedom and release from everything I know I have to be outside of our bedroom.

It's easy to be the woman I am here. She only exists in this space, but here she is willing to take what she wants, demand what she needs, and give herself fully to the pursuit of it. She is selfish and wild and alive. As he continues to pound into me, I feel my skin damp and sticky with the heat we create. My body shivers and quakes with desire and lust and want. The muscles in my pussy start to tense, a line of heat runs from my navel to my clit, which aches with the need for relief. He sweeps his right hand across the base of his cock, gathering my wetness to slick up his index finger. I know what he's going to do and oh god, it makes my stomach muscles clench and my breathing speed up with want.

His hand lazily traces the curve of my ass and his fingers run across the space between my cheeks. I push back towards him, lowering my shoulders, arching my back into the bed, opening myself further to him, begging him. He doesn't hesitate as he plunges his finger into me and for a moment I am full, complete. Without warning, my body seizes up, overcome with pleasure; I am blind with sensation. My orgasm swells and pulls me under, I am completely unconscious of anything except for the bittersweet pleasure overwhelming me. Tumbling, churning, drowning in this singular moment of rapture. He has continued to thrust into me, while I tighten and relax around him, as I call out his name into a pillow, scream incoherently, and I feel him come inside me. I can feel the force of his release as it coats the inside of me and the faint flutters of another orgasm gently crests over me as I lay spent beneath him, mind blissfully blank, body awash in feeling.

My need for this has increased in direct proportion to the ache in my arms. He doesn't question it, though I'm not completely sure that he's comfortable with my new sexual proclivities. But, he's just as afraid to ask as I am to answer, and so we maintain this tentative balance between my coping mechanisms and the bounds of our denial.

I have moments of rebellion where I want to mark myself, show the world that I am more than this invisible life. In my mind I've created dozens of tattoo designs, beautiful art, haunting images, quirky shapes. I can almost feel the buzz of the tattoo needle against my skin, the relaxed, euphoric feeling that comes from having something important inscribed, indelibly, permanently onto my skin. In my mind I imagine dozens of piercings, socially acceptable pain and holes to relieve the building pressure. Cold, glinting metal to serve as warning to others that I am not who I pretend to be, that I am an impostor in this life. I remember the feeling of knowing that I am leaving the small shop forever altered. In more than just a physical way, I am not the same when I leave as when I arrive. I wish to turn my transparent life opaque. I want to be seen.

In truth, I hesitate for fear of trading one cliche for another. Instead of being the bored suburban housewife, I will become the middle aged has-been trying to relive her misspent youth. I'm afraid that the things that used to get me through these feelings won't work and I'll be left worse off than before, more invisible despite my efforts. Fucking fear.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

After the vigorous fucking, my body is too keyed up to sleep. He lays beside me, dozing, his glasses still perched on his face and his lamp left on. I sit up to rub my hand lightly over his cheek. "Hey babe, you need to take your glasses off and turn off your light." He grumbles sleepily, but does as I suggest, finally curling up next to me and he's snoring softly moments later.

I sit in the dark and try to will my body to rest, but now my mind is racing with thoughts and images. I pull out the small notebook I keep at my bedside and start writing. Poems, snippets of thoughts, words of dialogue, I purge myself trying to stem the flow of ideas. If I can just get them out, I can rest; if I can just make sense of everything, I can sleep more than 4 hours tonight.

The time creeps on and I look up to realize that it's now 3:27 in the morning. I am still awake, still suffocating in this nothingness, surrounded by everything I've ever wanted. I set my notebook aside, slide under the covers and flick off my lamp. There will be no resolution now and I have to let my body rest, even while my mind refuses to sleep.

Standing in line at the store, I fight to contain the scream that is building in my throat. I can feel it tightening my vocal chords, I hold my breath lest it escape without my consent; my eyes prick with tears from the effort it takes to force it down. I swallow this the same way I absorb everything else in my life. I am passive and immutable. I am the dark matter, the silent, invisible background that sets the stage for everyone else to shine; there is no evidence I exist aside from my effect on the bodies around me. I want to rip the binding from my lips and be heard, live in the foreground in my own right.

In face warming embarrassment, I briefly wonder what would happen if I allowed the scream to escape. If I just opened my mouth and let the darkness flow out; I imagine the darkness would look like the black flies from The Green Mile. The store would fall deadly silent, as if someone were brandishing a weapon, as if my voice could cause harm, as if my scream matters. The machine would grind to a halt, thrown off balance by my little cog out of place. I imagine the face of the old woman in front of me, her sweet smile turned to shock; milky, blue eyes wide with fear. I can hear the shattering of the glass jar of artichoke hearts the bagger would drop when my cries pierced the hum of mind numbing pleasantries. I feel their eyes on me: some angry at me for breaking the peace, stepping out of the bounds of polite society, forgetting my place, some pitying me for not being able to hold my tongue, and, if I'm lucky, maybe I would meet the eyes of another woman across the checkout aisles and see a flash of understanding and commiseration. I can feel their judgment, their whispers of "crazy bitch" and "fucking psycho" all the while trying to convince themselves it would never be them, because only insanity can cause deviance of this magnitude.

I can feel the fire in my throat, the blaze of the shrill cacophony as it burns its way up my vocal chords, allowing the scorching sound to incinerate the pretense of my life. I would stand with my arms crossed and my fingers digging and clawing at my skin, ripping away the veil I hide behind. My face red, blood vessels bursting from the force my wailing, tears coursing unrestrained, snot drip-drip-dripping, my whole body tense with exertion.

If I were going to expose myself, make myself heard, I would show all the dark places, all the hidden, oozing, raw spaces. Once I let it all free, it would take over and consume me. I would stand in the middle of an unassuming suburban grocery, screaming my lungs hoarse and raw, gouging at my flesh, surrounded by jars of pickles and cans of tuna, losing my fucking mind.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

Morning dawns bright and early, the kids are downstairs sorting out cereal, bowls, and milk, it sounds like it's going to be another day of arguing. The boredom of summer is seeping into them, too; the hours of tedium making them restless and cranky. My eyes are sandpaper dry, underlined by the purple-blue evidence of my restless night; my nerves stretched taught underneath tense muscles. We have so much to do today, so many useless, ceaseless tasks to complete.

I fight to get them dressed, I fight to get them fed, I fight to get their shoes, to get them into the car. I fight to get them through our errands. I spend my day herding children with their own deranged agendas and no sympathy for my need to focus. I've forgotten the salsa and decide that we don't need it anyways because thank fuck we're finally home and damned if I'm going back out. I release the children into the backyard, let them roam free and feral, while I sink into the couch and relish the silence surrounding me. I let the peace cocoon me, until the pulsing of my headache eases and the stillness begins to press in and smother.

I feel restless and twitchy, tremors of exhaustion run randomly across my hands. I wish I had someone to call, but there is no one. My inability to make small talk precludes my interaction with most of society. I am surrounded by necessary inconsequence, I refuse to invite more in with meaningless words, from meaningless people.

At a seemingly random moment, my body is overtaken by panic. I feel my lungs seize as they rebel against the onslaught of irrational, unfounded fear, my heart races as if trying to escape the confines of my body, and I am trapped in my head, completely overcome with thoughts of my inability to breath and the overwhelming fear of dying. I gasp for air, my face begins to buzz with numbness, my lips feel as if they've detached, my arms and legs lay heavy and useless around me where I've sunken to the ground. Though it's been years since I've had a panic attack, I remember the proper procedure for escaping, once you figure out how to save yourself it's not something you ever forget. I force my lungs to take small breaths which I hold in for the count of fifteen in an effort to quell the spasms. I ignore everything except for the feel of the air in my chest and with every slow, deep breath I can feel the band around me loosen and my lungs begrudgingly take a little more oxygen each time. After what feels like hours, I can breath with minimal effort and my heart has stopped thrashing against the cage of my ribs, seemingly resigned itself into its captivity. My body is heavy with exhaustion as the adrenaline burns away.

/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\/\

I walk into the kitchen to start dinner, looking through the freezer I am struck with a sad sense of deja vu. I am living my life as one day on repeat. As if I am a moon, orbiting a large, desolate planet, every day I follow the same path, the same trajectory.

I am paralyzed in stasis by indecision; choosing nothing and yet choosing everything. I exist in this half-life as if the most important parts of me were already decayed away. I remain stationary, immobile for fear of sinking further into this suburban quick-sand.

I lean against the kitchen sink and cry, my body wracked with sobs. I don't want to drown anymore, I need to fucking breath. I'm tired of being so afraid, of being stuck in this nothingness.

I regain control and am overcome with the eerie calm that follows emotional breakdowns. Everything is in sharp focus, my escape is right in front of my face and I know exactly what I need to do. My husband comes in from work and I hand him the phone along with the number for the pizza place, as I walk up the stairs. I need to be alone for this, I need to let the darkness out, I need to scream at the top of my fucking lungs. I lock the bedroom door behind me and put earphones in my ears to drown out everyone else. I am in this place where I can be selfish and wild and alive, I hope to fucking god that gives me the courage to do this. I pray this will lance the wound without a razor blade.

I open the laptop and start typing, "Sometimes the urge to runaway is simply overwhelming".

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A/N: Thank you, Dear Reader, for taking the time to read my little tale. This story would never have seen the light of day without Nitareality and Jules: Thank you.