She is spread on the bed like a butterfly, pinned. Her skin is yellowed by the lamplight no one has thought to douse. Her outstretched arms are thin and tense as wires, strung from her torso to the edges of the mattress. This is only the beginning.
Her hair bleeds onto the pillow, black as a poisoned lake. A warning should be posted, rough-hewn wood etched with skull and crossbones: Danger, Do Not Drink Here. Her mouth is a gash, hacked out of her bony face. On her tongue the taste of iron settles. No sound escapes.
Her naked legs are bent at the knees, sturdy twin arches of steel. No softness there. Who would you have to be to pass through those portals? A welder, perhaps, or a wrecking ball. Between the cambers sits the hole, hole that awaits the fist. No softness there.
From the frame of the bathroom door, another she watches. Shit. I can't have that. She and she. She, another she. Her and another her. Even language conspires to keep these women from what they intend to do to each other. Do I have to give them fucking names?
I like them so much better without names. She is spread on the bed like a butterfly, pinned. Just a she. On a bed. Pinned. No intrusion of history. If she has a name, then she has to have a mother. And what woman with a mother would do what she is about to do, with another she? And so, she must become a woman with a past, with reasons that have led her to this bed with arms of wire and steely legs.