3 Cigarettes

TITLE: 3 Cigarettes
AUTHOR: Prophecy Girl (lauri@punkass.com)
RATING: R
SYNOPSIS: Faith's a survivor. Whatever it takes.
DISCLAIMER: Not mine!
DEDICATION: To Jess. It's always for you.


[Three.]

I light it off the stove and glance around my shitty motel room. A shitty 18-dollar-a-day motel room at that. You'd think the council would provide for me, the poor little girl from Boston with barely enough clothes to cover her back. No. Get a job, they told me.

What kind of a job can I work? I don't even have a fucking diploma.

I applied for Welfare, but surprisingly their priorities aren't on a punk-ass minor who isn't exactly on the street. Maybe if I went out and got knocked up, they'd move their asses a little faster. It sure worked for my mother. That's the only reason she had me, of course. So she'd qualify for food stamps and medicaid and whatever else they give to teenage junkies who decide to get knocked up. Not saying everyone on funding's like that, but sure as hell everyone I knew.

I remember digging through the boxes at the shelter for school shoes. Trying to find the right size and being torn between girls' that were too small or boys' that were just right. I took the boys' and got in trouble, but I wore them every day anyway. My uniform was three sizes too big and I looked like a whale in it.

The other girls used to hit me with the jump-ropes and write Faith's A Slut on the blackboard. They pulled my braids until I chopped them off with a kitchen knife in a fit of rage. A girl named Katy pulled me behind the slide one day and kissed me, then told everyone I was a dyke. A dyky, destitute brat in boy's shoes.

I went for the kitchen knife again and this time it drew itself across my arm again and again as blood dripped onto the floor, pooling on the curling linoleum.

After that, "Faith" was replaced with "Freak". I was Freak The Slut, Freak The Dyke, Freak The Crazy Girl in boy's boots. The day the teacher passed out copies of "Freak The Mighty", I put my head through the window. It felt good as it shattered around me, shards digging into my skull. Ripping me open. I wished it would kill me.

My mother beat me senseless for that little stunt.

I've lost track of time, though. I put the cigarette out in the sink and grab my jacket.


[Two.]

I light it off my dying silver Zippo, standing under a bus shelter as the rain trickles down the sides. I'm not used to feeling self conscious, to be honest with you. It's not my style. But dressed in the latest whore-fashion witha couple of greasy guys staring at me--yeah. I feel a little uncomfortable. I hope he comes quickly. In more than once sense of the words.

I tap one boot against the ground in tune to a beat in my head. I was in a band in high school. We were called Bloodletting and if I close my eyes I can still smell the thick smoke curling up around us as we smoked up in the back of the drummer's van. I can still hear the dozens of screaming goths banging into each other as they moshed to our set. Yeah, we owned back then.

I was just a baby. Fourteen and fifteen, banging around with eighteen, nineteen, twenty-five year olds. But I could sing and I could fuck, so they let me stay. I slept with the guitarist, mostly, but sometimes it was anyone who asked. So what if it made the little punks from elementary school right? So what if I was a slut? I was on top of the world. If I had to suck a little dick to get there, so be it.

It took a long time for my hair to grow back. They shaved it off after I put my head through the window, to stitch me up. One hundred and forty-three stitches, total. I would take my wig off after I left the house because I'd suddenly decided I didn't give a fuck what the little bitches in my class thought or said. As it grew back, I started putting it in little ponytails, and eventually into cornrows.

Mom's new boyfriend called me Nigger Baby when he fucked me. I hid a baseball bat under my pillow one night and smashed him in the head. Home run baby. Instead of running home, I ran away from home. As far into the outfield as I could get. The cops brought me back and put me on trial for manslaughter. My own mother testified against me. Said I came flying out of my room and beat the shit out of him. Too bad for her the evidence proved everything she said was a lie.

Foster baby. Placed where they used me for the monthly check to buy booze. My band left behind. The bitches left behind. My hair finally hit my shoulders when the Council found me. Slayer Baby. Born to fight, bred to kill. I was her little machine. I tore through vamps, demons and training dummies alike. Nothing could stop me. No one.

Then, Kakistos. But let's not get into that.

My mind's wandering again and anyway, he's here now. Pulling up in a red Sedan, leaning out the window wearing sunglasses in the rain. He thinks he's one of the beautiful people.

I flick the cigarette to the ground and step on it with the heel of one combat boot, then get into the passenger seat.

[One.]

I light it afterwards and we don't talk because, hell, what could we have to say to each other? I flick the ash onto the floor. Today he was gentle. For him, anyway. Which means I've only got a few bruises to show for it. Sometimes he ties me up. Sometimes he beats me and not in that Lifetime-Television-For-Women way. He bites--hard. I let him drink from me some days.

Those days I always get the best tips.

After I eat a couple of crackers he keeps around for me and pocket the twenties on the nightstand, I pull my jacket on and head for the door. I never even took my shoes off today.

Neither of us speaks and I hit the street, letting the rain fall down and soak me. It feels good. Cleansing, almost. I've done a lot of fucking in my day, and it was almost always with an ulterior motive. This is the first time I've ever straight up turned tricks for money, though. And it kinda makes me feel like shit. But what else am I supposed to do? Nothing. There is no other option for me right now.

Slayers don't get to have a normal day job. I put the cigarette out and realize I just smoked my last one. It's alright, it's fine.

Because now I have the money to buy another pack.