The Venus Fix

Forty-Seven

At one-thirty in the morning, Yasmine pulled down the blinds and shut out the building across the courtyard. At night, it was so easy to look into someone else’s apartment. Even though all the lights were out, someone could wake up. Someone could look in when she wasn’t paying attention.

That task accomplished, she walked over to the table where everything she needed was waiting for her. Her pulse quickened. The anticipation felt good. And not much else did. She savored it.

The pain was so bad. Had been bad all day and kept getting worse. But soon she’d chase it away with the silver savior.

She got undressed down to her bra and thong and inspected the scars on her thighs. She wanted to pick at the scabs, but that wouldn’t hurt enough. She needed a big jolt. Today had been that bad a day.

Yasmine switched on the Web cam.

Sitting on the floor, she unwrapped a new razor blade, smiling at herself in its reflection. She was aware that while she was alone in her apartment, she was being watched, and that mattered to her because being watched meant getting paid, and getting paid for something she was going to do, anyway, was just great.

Damn easy.

Easy? Are you nuts?

Nothing is ever easy.

It’s easy enough, though.

Compared to everything else, it was easy enough.

The voices were always in her head, talking about how wrong she was, how bad she was, how messed up. Sometimes an old voice came back and let loose with a familiar litany: Get up, clean up this mess, feed your little brother, stop at the store and buy food for dinner, and don’t forget beer for your father. And beer for your father. And beer for your father. The man in the grocery store knew her and her father and even though she wasn’t old enough he let her take a six pack home. All that matters is the beer so he can fucking drown himself in the beer and then give you orders. Lie down. Open your mouth, bitch.

He’d hit her when she refused. The back of his hand against her cheek. His belt on her back. Over and over.

Sometimes she thought it would be easier to do what he wanted than it was to take the beatings. Other times she thought the beatings were easier because they took away the real pain. The deeper pain. The screaming for mommy pain that got swallowed up in the craziness of the beer-driven nightmare.

She didn’t even remember anymore when she got the idea to cut herself. Maybe it was something she read about online. Probably was. It was so long ago. Now the shiny little razor blade was winking at her in the light and she lifted it up.

The sharpness would sting and the sting would take away all the voices and all the worries and all the real fucking pain.

Tonight was special.

He was watching tonight.

He’d even sent her a present.

And she had promised him that she would use them when she was done.

Had anyone ever cared that much about her before? To go out of his way to buy her bandages to use after the cutting?

He was so sensitive. He told her he understood why she cut herself. And how lovely she looked and how sexy she was and how much it hurt him and at the same time excited him to know that when she cut herself she felt euphoria. He told her to rent a post office box and e-mail him the address. And she had. And then she’d waited. And then the present had come.

Do you know that your nipples always harden when you make the first cut on your thighs? Do you know that? Do you know that your little pussy gets all slicked up and is literally dripping by the time you are finished cutting?

What does it feel like?

Do you come when you cut herself?

Does it feel the same every time?

I want to know that. And to be the one to comfort you when it is over. So use these Band-Aids for me. They are medicated with a special rare dark aloe, so that your skin will heal without marks. You are too beautiful to have scars. Don’t be afraid of the color of the salve on the cotton. I promise it will heal your beautiful skin, it will make it whole.

The cutting was like a drug that night. The blade made such a thin line and the blood came to the surface so quickly. She sat in front of the Web cam and smiled into its unblinking black eye while blood dripped from her leg onto the floor, and she floated away from everything she knew.

“This is for you,” she said out loud as she picked up the blade and made another tiny horizontal cut on her upper thigh. And then another. And then another.

Finally, when she was all done, when she was cocooned in the new pain and removed from the old, she saw the bandages he’d sent by the side of her computer and remembered that she’d promised to use them.

Slowly, she reached for one.