Last cigarette

She’d always been in dysfunctional relationships. Giving too much or taking too much, it seemed she could just never find the right balance to live happily ever after. In place of a white picket fence, she had apartment walls that were painted the beige people used when afraid to commit to anything bolder. Dark brown patches stained the ceiling over her bed like the physical manifestation of her despair, as though her pain at the end of each relationship seeped from her sleeping skin to mar the world around her.

How did this happen? Why was she only attracted to destructive tendencies, drifting toward them without a single thought, like a fly’s multi-lensed eyes being transfixed by the blue light that will ultimately be its demise; it just can’t help itself, and neither could she.

The relationships didn’t start out bad, after all she wasn’t so crazy as to not want a little happiness before the misery set in, but those happy moments seem to get shorter and shorter with each try for eternal bliss. Steve was a great kisser, but he tried to control her too much, and it was when he gave her a dog collar as a necklace that she knew it was time to call it quits.

Mike was physically abusive. Susan was emotionally abusive. Scott was simply disinterested; she still wasn’t convinced he knew she’d moved out, and that was over a year ago. It seemed to her that as long as her lovers had a body to bang, it didn’t matter one whit to them who’s spirit inhabited it.

There was one exception to this pattern; one partner that had minimal needs and always gave everything he had. She sat on the floor, leaning back against the wall with her knees drawn up, forearms resting on her bare knees where they peaked through the holes in her jeans.

In her stained fingers she held her lover, rolling and turning him as she admired his brown outfit, and the smooth texture of his skin. Her friends had been telling her for years that this was her worst relationship ever, the most harmful, the most damaging, but they had never know the touch of this lover so how could they know?

She brought him to her lips and touched him with heat, igniting the deepest part of him and she inhaled, breathing him into her. He filled her and she opened to him, allowing him to touch and caress her where other fingers could not reach, could not dream of going, and her eyes fluttered shut and his passion surged into her blood.

She exhaled, letting his white fingers caress her face before dissipating into the air where she knew she’d take him in again later. Another inhale and he filled her again, swirling around inside like a whirling dervish dancing in the blackness of her chest.

She didn’t know that his caresses carried a very high price. She hadn’t realized just how poisonous his affection was, and as he plunged into her system, she didn’t see the destructive power hidden in the folds of his love.

She suddenly felt ill, but couldn’t help turning to her faithful lover for comfort, unaware that this would be her last cigarette until his love stopped her heart.