Rogue Diaries II

A thin arc of gold spills like a crooked smile from the solitary street lamp beneath me. Its pale ghost flirts with the encroaching darkness, edging over the pavement and disappearing into the narrow alley that butts against the sidewalk. Not a soul stirs in the empty streets below; there is nothing save the dry whisper of newspaper and unnamed debris rattling against the dying wind. The taste of winter brushes my face as I drop silently from the rooftop. But the cold I feel this evening surpasses mere weather - it is a bleak bite into the soul where my blood runs numbly like a cypher.

I pause for a long moment, my eyes seeking out the racing shadows, my ears scanning the crumbling bricks of the building that loom around me. I want a soft surrender this evening...some young prince or princess of the streets to quench what runs not uttered in my heart. I am slowly aware of a refrain - it is the mindless heartbeat of despair. An eternity plays out in that long second before I am rewarded with the music of a mortal heart only a few streets away. Young, female....alone. This evening's perfect offering.

I take my time running her to ground, picking my way through the litter of a thousand careless lives offered up to the night like an apology of indifference. Somewhere in this garish squalor, little dramas are played out by day - petty crimes of the heart that go unmarked and unnoticed by the rest of the world. And at night, these streets close in upon themselves and turn on each other, twisting the maze of hopelessness a little more tightly. Humanity dies in inches here.

I can feel her moving ahead of me, her footsteps a determined flight of survival. Where will you lead me tonight, my little angel of the gutter? What visions of the impossible will dance across your eyes as they meet my own? What dreams of weary innocence will flutter in your heart as they steal like a thief under my skin? And what taste of all that you have lost will I pluck from that perfect bow of your pink mouth?

My foot falls in time with her own as I follow her deeper into the black chill of this starless night. Her needs are simple - she wants only another night's promise of mind numbing sameness that will give way to the assurance of another paste grey dawn and the pale ashes of someone else's dreams. We are not so different, she and I. My needs are simple as well. I want only the lethargy of her regret sliding across my tongue...

It is another step or two and I am upon her finally...a drop in time before I see her, the pale halo of hair framing a face of measured secrets. She turns to me; the light which seeps out of a busted window of another anonymous building catches the surprise on her lips and holds it like a mask. A small, pink tongue flicks over those lips and catches between small white teeth, curling back into an invitation meant only for me. I am so close to her now, I can feel the soft, feathered hair on her arms prickle like electricity against the marble of my skin. My hand slips up to caress her cheek, thumb stroking the still tender skin in awe. Her eyes are soulless - two wounds in a face that have known nothing but the sound of the world's lies reverberating without end. My lips play softly over that halo of pale hair, moving down to gently kiss those two wounds shut before finding that sweet pink bow of mouth. I can taste the little girl who never was and the woman who will never be from her tongue as my arms gather her against me. Pressing her back against the filthy bricks, my hands peel away the thin layer of threadbare blouse and jacket as my mouth slowly seeks out its final communion. There is no one else in the world tonight save she and I... and the starless sky holds its breath. Her words are a warm prayer against my ear as my teeth gently break the delicate skin of her throat, my hands running the length of her back. Her prayer becomes my own, my mouth filling with her supplication...