“I am out with lanterns, looking for myself.”

—Emily Dickinson

Aware of her own unraveling, Argentina seeks help in the form of a therapist.

“Have you ever faced yourself?” he asks flatly.

“Once,” she says. “There was one time…”

Sirens blare in the background as she runs to the bathroom, a handful of pills in her fist. Her husband’s presence in the doorway frightens her so much that she drops the glass of water.

“Everything okay?”

Looking back to the shattered glass she sees the pieces quickly transform to sand and spiral down the drain, “I couldn’t sleep.”

“Maybe a little repeat could help.”

“A repeat of what?”

“Oh, you already forgot?”

She closes her eyes and reaches into her mind, back to him, holding her like he is now, back to him thrusting into her from behind, his hand wrapped around her throat, her head tilted back in dopaminergic bliss.

She comes back to now, back to her bruised body in the bathroom, rubbing her perfectly manicured fingers around her neck where his hand was.

“It’s up to you,” he kisses her temple as he releases her, “Or you can take your other pills and bring out The Thing.”

She eagerly opens the cabinet, grabs the only green bottle, catches water in her hand and swallows down a few. In the mirror she looks at herself as she dabs her mouth dry. She sees a woman she does not recognize—a redhead with huge fake tits—the image is blotchy, fading in and out, who is she, she wonders before heading back to bed.


[In therapists office]

“Tina?”

“Yes, I-I remember a time when I felt like I was just on the verge of something. Ev-everything was alive and sparkling, I was alive… And there was a boy.”

“He gave me a spliff and kissed me after my first drag. That was my first time like that, being bad, and in that instance time wasn’t untrue but it started existing differently, like I was suddenly in a world that was real but separate from reality, and there was a rush so strong I felt like it would push me over this edge. Like I was just there, with my toes in the sand digging in to keep from falling, and then just as I was about to fall, I pulled back.”

“Have you ever faced your sexuality?” he asks flatly.

“Once,” she says. “There was one time…”

Back to the redhead in the mirror, this time the image is clearer. She’s in all black, a laced up bodice enhancing her tender titties and accentuating her tiny waist. She turns away from the mirror and walks slowly down a halflit hallway, a whip curled behind her back. A naked man lays face down, bound to a kinky massage table by leather straps at the wrists and ankles.

“Do you know why you’re here, Jonathan?”

“To please you ma’am.”

“Wrong,” she slaps him and his body spasms in response to the blow.

“You are here because you enjoy the taboo of walking through my door. (Slap!)
Lying, bolted to my table, (Slap!),
Arching your back beneath the
Falls of my whip (Slap!).”

“Yes ma’am!”

“You are here for the taboo of me,” she circles him like prey, “my chaos, my impulse, my violence (Slap!).”

A pleading groan escapes him.

“I threaten you, and I disturb the order and safety of your life. (Slap!)”

“That’s why you’re here because the urge towards love pushed to its limit is the urge towards death. You’ve come to love me,” she leans down and licks his sweaty face from cheek to brow.

---

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Killing Time