White and Other Tales of Ruin

“I’ll teach you,” Honey said, and then she frowned, stood, walked to the dressing table and lit a cigarette. Confused. Perhaps not knowing what she’d said, nor understanding why.

“What else?” he asked, rescuing her. He looked at her naked back, buttocks and legs, imagining that he knew the geography of her already, was able to go there and touch her exactly how she liked to be touched, and where, and for how long.

“Finger puppets.” She blew smoke and smiled. “I love finger puppets. The more intricate the better. There’s a Chinese guy down the street. Lunchtimes he brings out this wooden box, sits behind it and puts on a puppet show. He doesn’t try to hide or pretend it’s not him doing it, but it doesn’t matter, because his fingers have such sweet movement. He dances and fights them across that box, and for a few minutes it’s another world, more imagined than any netcast or movie. He touches you, that guy.” She paused for a while, turned to look at him. “Or rather, the finger puppets touch you. He just moves them. For a while they have a life of their own.”

Tom was caught up in her eyes. She looked happy, and he was glad that he’d brought it on by asking questions.

She spoilt the moment by glancing at the clock again, but he persisted.

“Anything else?”

“I like being held. That’s all. Just held. After some of the things that have been done to me …” She trailed off, running her fingers along a white scar across her belly. Tom had thought it was a poorly done repair job when he’d seen it earlier, but now it was something worse. Far worse.

“Have you ever been in love?”

“I’m a whore. An artificial, a plastic bitch. I’m incapable.”

“I’ll bet you’re incapable of enjoying anything, either. Like finger puppets and dancing and being held.”

Honey lit another cigarette.

“Can I hold you?” he said.

She sat on the bed next to him, crossing her legs demurely, folding her arms and hiding her breasts. It gave her such a sense of innocence that a lump came to Tom’s throat.

“Only … I can’t dance. And I left my puppets at home.”

Honey looked at the clock. “You can hold me for six minutes.”

“Longer,” Tom said, shuffling over and wrapping Honey in his arms. It was awkward at first — strange, after what they had been doing, that a simple touch could feel so clumsy — but after a minute it got better. The tension in Honey’s muscles drained away, her head dipped onto Tom’s shoulder, she dropped her cigarette and sighed heavily. “Longer,” he said again.

“Three more minutes.”

“Honey …” He hated that she was still clock-watching. He knew that all this wasn’t just a part of the act, another twenty dollars-worth, because he could feel the heat of her skin and the coolness of tears on his chest. Something had happened, removing the sex from this moment and replaced it with something far, far more.

Tom knew that Honey had not been designed for that.

“I want to stay like this forever,” she said, and it was like a punch to Tom’s chest. “Forever. But you saw Hot Chocolate Bob. You … don’t know what he’s like. You just can’t imagine.” She lifted her head to look at him. “If we’re five minutes over he’ll be up here. He’ll kick you out, or worse, and as for me …”

“What? What?” Tom didn’t want to know what the pimp would do, but he thought that knowing would take some of her hurt and bleed it into him.

“Us plastics are quite hardy,” Honey said. “We can take a lot of beating.”

“Part of the design,” Tom said bitterly.

“Part of the design. Warriors and whores. Need to take abuse.”

“Come with me!” he gushed, realising how foolish this sounded. An hour ago he’d paid some pimp for a fuck with a random whore, and now he was asking her to run away with him, be with him. Foolish, but it felt so right.

“Don’t be stupid,” Honey said.

Tom felt defeated, lost. And stupid. “I’m sorry.” He’d come in this artificial whore’s mouth, and he thought that gave him the right to tell her he loved her. Stupid.

But he did.

“Do you mean it?” Honey said, after a long pause.

“What?”

“What you said earlier. Do you mean it? I’ve heard it a million times before, but I’ve never had cause to believe.”

“Come with me and give me a chance to show you.”

She was silent again, staring at him, and Tom felt as though he was being appraised inside and out. Could she see inside? he wondered. Could she penetrate to the deepest parts of him, the secret centres where even he did not hold reign?

“I’d risk everything,” she said. Tom wasn’t sure whether it was a statement of fact or intent.

“Then come — ”

“I can’t, not now. Kiss me.”

Tom leaned forward and kissed Honey, and she tasted of her name. Smoke and cheap food and himself, she tasted of that too, but it was all sweet. He held her head and pulled her to him, kissing her, his eyes closed, the skin of his palms and fingers tingling where he touched her skin.

She pulled away at last. Her eyes were wide and moist, her breathing fast. She glanced at the clock. “Time’s up.”