Into the Oblivion

Into the oblivion
Gloria stood under the shower letting the water rinse her body. She felt nothing as she washed herself and the last traces of her makeup were gone. She was in an apartment high above the city and her tears kept coming but she felt nothing. She had learnt long ago to silence these cries which began in her past. When those men would come at night into her bed and demand of her tiny body things she could not understand. At first she resisted feeling ashamed afterward, she could not find a cover or clothing that could hide it. Eventually, those nights, got to be her only way to find sleep, and then she began to enjoy it. The pleasure would consume her till she lost every last shred of her conscience and felt like she was swimming in haze. It had started in the trailer where her mother entertained her many boyfriends. Men who would look at her with lust filled eyes. She knew she had a power over them, with her creamy skin and nubile body that could transport them to the throes of ecstasy and she had indulged in it with an abandon till her mother found her one day wrapped around one of her newest boyfriends and had thrown her out.
She felt no regrets; she had money, the best cars, clothes and a life that most people would envy her for. She had traveled all over after that using her body to give pleasure and feel it in equal measure. Nothing else mattered but the throbbing that would engulf her senses. This is what she was made for and she had taken to it like a fish to water. She was one of the highest paid call girls at 20 and she wanted to experience more each time. She did not know anything but this life filled with its hedonistic wiles that had enslaved her. She knew no thoughts but that of the demands of her body.
She had changed her name, to Ramona. It suit her profession and gave her an air of allure and seduction. Ramona had been born on the night her mother threw her out and there had been no looking back. She was the ultimate adornment on a man’s arm. Every door that had been closed to her had been opened and she moved only in the highest circles. Then why these tears, why this fear of that first memory. It was then that she discovered the thrills of heroin. It could make her transport herself to a new high where she could feel every miniscule touch and experience in a heightened way. It made her feel thrills she had only imagined until then and she got it off her customers and began to use it more to feel that wild abandon that would close her body to the nightmares.
Today was a day like any other and she waited for a call to tell her who to service and where to go. She sat at the bar in a slinky leopard print dress, her hair like a golden halo, her skin shining with a sensuousness that could not be contained. She loved the attention and the glamour she had. Not trailer park trash anymore. Not the girl, others would scorn at in school and walk away from when they saw her coming. Not the girl boys would grope at in the dark but never be seen with in public. Steven Ramirez watched her from a distance. She was in the same spot in all the clubs. At the bar swinging languorously, her every move graceful and her every act one of seduction but her eyes were always hollow and in a haze that was drug induced. Her eyes spoke of a vulnerability and a cry to be held. She longed above all for someone to touch her soul and save her from this abyss she had sunk into. He walked up to her and asked her to dance. She was happy and she tried to seduce him and he invited her to his home. “No going home” she said. “My place, my hours, my price” as she danced sexily and entranced him with those eyes.
Steven Agreed and went along. They walked hand in hand like lovers in the rain, as she led him to her apartment and began the night. He would sit in the dark corner and watch her, enjoying what she did but never doing anything. She was surprised, this was the first man who was not trying to grab her and dying to feel the pleasures she offered. She tried more, and then when he did not respond grew angry. “ You’re a faggot aren’t you. I don’t do faggots” she said before she fainted. She woke up the next day in a warm bed and found him sitting watching her. “What do you want? Why are you still here?” She began to shiver, wanting another fix to get her through the day. She looked around groggily, looking like a sleepy tigress looking for her next meal. She walked into the bathroom, naked and searched for her shot. Found it all gone and ran out screaming obscenities. “Where’s my stuff you bloody faggot!” He had left.
That was the first night, the next one he came back and offered her more money, but she would have to stop the drugs, she would have to feel only him. She laughed at him and turned around. That’s when he pushed her and kissed her, savagely touching her at the same time in places she never had been before on the couch. She felt a passion exploding in her mind like it never had before and stared at him mutely and followed him out. Their trysts began that way, he would pick her up and take her to his yatch, take her on picnics and take her to parties but she could never feel the bliss she did in his arms anywhere else night after night. She was hooked, addicted to his smell, his touch, his eyes, his lips like she never had been to anything or anyone else.
One fine day, he left. And that’s when it began, the coughing, the slow deterioration. She had sold herself to the devil and now she began to feel the pain and watched as she aged ten years in the week he was gone. She did not know how to find him or where to go to get rid of those memories as she stood under the shower that cold night. Under the stars, atop her terrace, she took a final shot and stood at the edge looking at the city that had given her everything and stolen all she had. She stood at the very edge of her existence a million memories of pain and pleasure wracking her body and flew down into the oblivion. At peace. Away from all the madness, free and soaring at last! Steven Ramirez had HIV aids and she had been his last pleasure.