Mostrando las entradas con la etiqueta clothes. Mostrar todas las entradas
Mostrando las entradas con la etiqueta clothes. Mostrar todas las entradas

martes, 7 de junio de 2016

Two of one

   Used. That’s how she felt the moment she arrived home. The idea behind all of it had been to prove herself stronger than she thought she was. But maybe she wasn’t. Maybe she was just the frightened girl she didn’t wanted to be. The idea of being fearless had been a nice one to imagine but it had been highly unrealistic. This was, mainly, because she was always terrified. Every step she took into the world made her feel as is she had stepped into the mouths of hell. And though she forced herself through the most difficult things, she knew she was much more affected by everything than what she recognized.

 She sat on the bed for a while. Blinds and a curtain covered the window, which was good. She didn’t want to know a single thing about the sun out there, about light or life in the world. She wanted to stay there in her room for a while, a long while. After fifteen minutes of staring at a point on the floor, she remembered her clothes and took them off as fast as she can. Once she was only in her underwear, she got into bed and tried to sleep.

 It felt like the hardest thing she had ever done. Once again, her eyes would face the wall and wouldn’t close for nothing. She was too distracted, trying not to think about anything. That thought made her think about every single thing that had happened that night and she found herself repeating the scenes she had been through over and over again, like a movie in her head. She moved around in bed a lot, not being able to sleep or to shake off the thoughts.

 Maybe it was her, or maybe it was the weather, but the room started to feel like a sauna. Everything felt hotter, as if she was trying to sleep in an oven. It made sleeping even harder. She got out of bed and head to the door but stopped there. She wanted to have some water but, to do that, she had to go to the kitchen and that room was surrounded by windows and light. It was everything she wanted to avoid. Yet, she had begun to feel a sore throat and had no idea way.

 It was seven in the morning when she opened the door and practically ran to the kitchen. She grabbed a bottle of water and ran back to her room, as fast as she could. Other four people lived there and none of them were friends or anything like it. She barely spoke to any of them and couldn’t trust them with how she felt on that moment.

 Once back in her room, she drank half the water in the bottle in one sitting. She cleaned her mouth with her arm and decided it was time to try again. Only covered by a thin sheet, she finally fell asleep after finally deciding not to think about anything. She just put her mind blank and it worked. She fell asleep but it was an uneasy sleep.

 The poor woman moved around, her arms from one side to the other of the bed. She talked in her sleep too but it was hard to properly hear what she was saying, it was almost as if she was whispering to someone. That way, thrashing and whispering, she got to sleep for five hours. Around lunchtime, she woke up and decided that small rest had been enough. Her body wasn’t tired enough to keep on sleeping, although her mind certainly needed more time to get used to every single thing she was thinking about.

  Once up, she moved the curtain and raised the blinds. Her window led to an inner yard but some light came through it.  She had no intention of turning on her artificial light. The idea was to have natural light come into the room and feel a little bit less aggressive. After that, she decided it was time to have another expedition outside, this time to the bathroom. She ran quickly to it and did what she had to do as fast as she could. She didn’t want to stay there long enough to be greeted by anyone outside. Avoiding them was the idea for the day.

 When back in her room, she looked around in her closet and found something she had thought about in the bathroom: cookies. They were the ones she used to eat as a little girl. They were really thick and covered with chocolate chunks. She took the box to the bed and grabbed her laptop. The idea was to eat and distract her mind from the night before. She still felt dirty, she still felt she had transformed into someone she wasn’t and now she had to live with that other person.

 The best thing she could find was a cooking show, so she watched it in silence while eating about seven cookies. Once she was done, she put the box on the ground and covered herself entirely with the bed sheet. The food had helped her to feel tired again, maybe even sleepy. But then she realized there was something she needed to do before that, before anything. She put the laptop on the floor too and just stayed there, looking around the room.

 But she wasn’t only looking. She was recreating her night in her head, from the moment she had decided to step out of her house to the moment, just five hours ago, when she had come back feeling as she was feeling. The idea had been to have a drink or two and then head back home but she knew it had been then when the other woman had taken control of her.

 It was funny to talk about herself like that. She even smiled thinking that, after all, no matter what she told herself, she was that woman too. It was really another person, a dark figure in the night or something like that. That other woman with no scruples was also her but somehow she didn’t want to recognize her. She was scared to look at the mirror and realize who she was.

 Her sore throat was still there. She blamed the smoke in the place she had ended in but also the people there, the men especially. She had gone to that dark world to loose herself and, she realized, she wasn’t ready for it. The place was very dark and filled with all kinds of people, at least all physical kinds. Because, in their minds, they were all exactly the same. They all seek pleasure beyond anything they had ever imagined; they wanted to experience the extremes.

 She had used her cellphone to get to that place and she used it once again to get out of there. She stayed for about two hours and then ran out, leaving someone inside waiting for her. The nice girl that showed her face most of time, had appeared suddenly and had taken control of a body that had been through a lot during those two hours. She had done things she had never done before and that she probably would never do again.

 That’s what she wanted to ignore, to forget, to stop thinking about. But, after eating her cookies, having food in her belly, she realized the best way is always to confront ones fears, to look at them in the eye and see if they are really scary, if it’s worth it to be afraid of them. Because some fears are useful but others are just there to be in the way, they have to be defeated or at least jumped over to go on with life.

 She thought of all the kisses every touch, and also tried to put faces to all of that. It was good that she was able to do that. It made her feel less stressed, less like some kind of failure. She remembered everything, even with the alcohol and the drugs. Because it had been her who had done all of that. It had been her who had been inside the belly of the beast and had gotten out. It wasn’t some other imaginary woman.

 She turned around on her bed and decided the subject was closed. The past has to be left aside, always in our minds but not in our way. She closed her eyes for a while but did not fall asleep. She just wanted to be quiet and in peace with herself. She wanted to feel less like a something and more like someone. With her eyes closed, she heard the world and decided to think about how she perceived it all, how she could imagine a whole universe only by the sounds.


 It was a silly thing to do but it was the best game she could come up with. She was tired again and, as she played her game, she fell asleep. This time, it really felt like she was resting, not having to battle anyone or anything inside her mind. It was only her. She had been the one making every decision and she had to realize that was the way it was. She was the one calling the shots and she had to realize that wasn’t going to change.

sábado, 16 de abril de 2016

Hand between thighs

   When Alan woke up, he felt a hand lodged right between his thighs, centimeters away from his genitals. He froze as soon as he open his eyes and realized he didn’t really knew what had happened the night before. Not minding the hand or the soft breathing next to him, he tried to remember where he was exactly and what had he done to get there.

 He remembered going to his friend Amelia’s house as she had organized a party for her boyfriend, who had recently came back to the country after working with an NGO for several months in Africa. Alan had always thought Julio, Amelia’s boyfriend, was very handsome and kind and he always told her that if he had been gay, he would have been the one to get him. Amelia always responded to this by laughing and saying, “Right, you wish”. She had cooked some things, bought other things and had bought lots to drink for the many people that were coming.

 At first, it had been a nice little gathering of people and, as it was a surprise party, it had been really nice when Julio had come in and he was truly surprised to see so many people there. Alan ate a lot and then began to drink, just like the rest of the people. Music slowly changed throughout the night and after midnight they were already dancing all over the place. Everyone was having fun. And that’s all Alan could remember clearly. Memories become blurry after that.

 He turned around his head to the left and realized, although the hand between his thighs was a good indicator, that he was naked. His clothes were all over the floor, his underwear on top of a shoe that wasn’t his. He turned around his head to the right and expected not to see whoever it was awake but he wasn’t. He had his eyes closed and he was a very cute guy. Cuter than most men he had ever had sex with. But no matter how hard he tried; he couldn’t remember who he was.

 After dancing had begun, he thought he remembered drinking a lot more. He probably mixed liquors and that’s why his head didn’t feel so good. And his stomach wasn’t too great either. He closed his eyes for a while and tried to think about what he should do. He ended up remembering a conversation with Julio about some political issue in Africa and with Amelia about how hot someone was. He didn’t really remember who he was talking about but he remembered saying something about an ass.

 Carefully, he lifted the bed sheet to see it if the guy’s ass made him remember anything else but it didn’t. It was nice though and he couldn’t help but appreciating that the guy slept on his chest and with his face towards him. He almost laughed at this stupid thought but he contained himself and realized it was probably time to go.

 The hand was the most difficult part.  The best way to do it was to make him move the hand instead of Alan taking it and moving it himself. So he just moved his legs and feet a bit and that made the guy turn his head around and remove his hand from where it was, instead putting it right under his body. Alan waited for further movement but it didn’t happen, so as silently as he could, he got out of the bed.

 He suddenly had a string urge to sneeze and grab his nose just in the right way not to make a big noise. He had a bit of a dust allergy and he realized the floor was not precisely spotless. There were little balls of dust here and there and he decided to get his clothes fast, before he needed to sneeze again. He grabbed his underwear first, then one sock that was on the bed, then his pants on top of the other guy’s shirt. His shirt was on a chair, as well as his jacket and, finally, his other sock on the nightstand near the possible owner of the room.

 Alan realized two things right there: that he might not be in that guy’s place and that he had no idea where his shoes were. He looked beneath the bed and under every piece of clothing still on the floor but he couldn’t find anything. So if they weren’t there, they had to be outside. Hoping not to have to wake up the guy, he grabbed the door handle and pushed as slowly as he could. The door didn’t make a noise and he closed it with care.

 Effectively, his shoes were on the corridor outside. He got dressed right there and in a few seconds he was clothed and walking to the main door. The apartment was nice, although a bit dusty too in the social areas. There was an opened bottle of wine on the coffee table and two glasses. Those were probably theirs and that really explained why Alan had such a need to eat something or vomit. He had never been a good wine drinker and realized he must have been really drunk to accept wine.

 He put on his shoes right on the door, checked his jacket for his wallet and cellphone and when he felt them, he opened the door, got out and closed without minding the slamming sound. He was out anyway, so he didn’t really care anymore. He walked towards an elevator and press the down button and then had a memory, a confusing one, of having kissed someone in an elevator recently. Not a surprise.

 When the elevator opened, a woman not much older than Alan came out and greeted him. He walked into the elevator and, just as the doors were closing, he saw she was standing in front of the apartment he had just left and was looking for her keys. He opened his mouth in surprise and wondered who she might have been.

 Moments later, on the street, he quickly knew where he was and where he had to walk to catch a bus towards his house. It was very early and it was, if Alan remembered correctly, a Saturday. So that explained why the woman was visiting he guy he had been with. Maybe it was his sister. Or maybe it was a friend that had keys, but that didn’t really make any sense. Or she could have been his roommate. After all, he remembered seeing a couple of closed doors. If only he could remember anything about his likely conversation with him.

 When he got to the bus stop, he tried to straighten his hair and look a bit less “hangover” in the face. But that was probably impossible so he just sat in the small metal bench and waited for his bus. He checked the number on his cellphone and then realized he maybe used the phone the night before. So he checked for pictures and, he certainly had many of those but not the kind he was hoping for.

 He almost dropped the phone and had to lower the brightness of the screen so no one else could see, even if he was alone at the bus stop. There were five pictures and in all of them he was having what looked like great sex with the guy he had woken up next to. He certainly didn’t remember that but then something woke up some of his neurons: in one of pictures, he could see the guy had a tattoo of a Celtic symbol on his arm. He remembered having talked about it but not with whom. Probably that guy…

 He knew he said he knew what the symbol meant and he did: it was about eternity and everlasting energy or something like that. Maybe that had been his so-called “pick up line”. Alan didn’t really use those but maybe it had worked that way for him. He also had a couple of pictures in the party but that he remembered very well because they had been taken early in the night.

 The bus arrived; he passed his card and then sat down in the back row. He looked at people and cars and dogs as the bus took him home and when he finally got there he just took off his clothes again and got in bed. But he couldn’t really fall asleep. He was still thinking of the guy and how guilty he felt not knowing who he was, at least a name or something about their conversation or what the sex was like.


 He really was an attractive guy so Alan wondered how he made it happen. Maybe the guy was desperate or maybe Alan had some charm he didn’t even know was there. Maybe he should have stayed in that bed, with that hand between his thighs in order to know more about that guy and possibly about himself. What harm could it have done?

jueves, 31 de marzo de 2016

True image

  Julie’s walk was very confident and full of energy. Every step she took towards the pool area in the cruise, made her noticeable to every single person on the boat. She was wearing a blue bikini with a large hat and sandals with quite a heel and she was pulling it off in the best way possible. All men had their eyes on her and all women wanted to be as confident as she was.

 Following Julie, however, was her brother Kevin. It was an absolute contrast because Kevin wasn’t dressed at all for a swimming pool; he just looked like one of those people that go to awesome place but don’t do that much. Well, that precisely was Kevin because he didn’t even wanted to come at first but he had being pressured by his parents to accompany his sister. The trip was her gift for finishing high school with great marks and she had been joined by some friends in the cruise. So the suffering was double for Kevin.

 Which was silly because he was older than him. He should have gotten over the whole high school thing but he actually hadn’t.. His experiences there had been so traumatic that he didn’t even liked to be around Julia when her friends were with her. He quietly went away, most likely to his room or he just wandered around the ship, which was large enough.

 For the swimming pool, he was wearing these big, long, baggy trunks that looked two sizes larger than him, not flip flops but actual shoes and big white t-shirt. Besides, his face was covered in white, like a ghost. When they got to some free chairs by the pool, Julia removed her sunglasses and look at her brother, a bit disappointed. He was covering himself with his towel and looking at everyone a bit scared.

 She told him to come near and helped him with the mask of sunscreen he had put on his face,. She made him look a little bit more normal. Julia told him she should enjoy the pool and the sun for once and that nothing was never as bad as he imagined it. “Everything is in your head”, she often told him.

 Kevin always ignored that phrase because he thought it was a very silly thing to say. His fears, for him, were extremely real and they weren’t only in his head. He could hear and see people mocking him all around, always, and he wasn’t as strong as Julia to take it all and just don’t mind or to be able to fight it back. Kevin had always been very shy and had even been bullied in school, so it was normal that even as an adult he was still afraid. But the thing was he had never attempted to defeat his demons and that’s what worried Julia.

 She took a last look at him and then removed sandals, glasses and a nice watch a friend had given her as a present for her most recent birthday. Then she walked to the other side of the pool, were several people her age greeted her. There were boys and girls and Kevin could recognize most of them from the first two days of the cruise. She had gone out almost every night to the disco they had there and he had been falling asleep really early as there were no TV sets in any of the rooms, for some reason.

 Maybe the people that had built the cruise ship thought that it was enough to put all these fun things to do for people to be happy and not need a TV but Kevin certainly disagreed with that. He really felt miserable and wished the week was over faster.

 Some girl passed in front of him and looked at him for a second. Her look was the one of someone who sees something gross by the road or something like that. Very affected by it, he decided to stand up, check for the room keys in his pocket and go back there. Julia wouldn’t mind and he certainly didn’t want to stay there. So he just left.

 When he arrived in his room, he was sweating heavily because of the clothes he was wearing and decided to shower in order to refresh a bit. He left the clothes all over the floor and just entered the bathroom and tried not to think about anything as he felt the cold water running over his body. He didn’t use soap or anything like that, he just enjoyed the cool shower that seemed like sitting on the rain. It was one of the few things he liked about the cruise.

 When he got closed the water, he remembered he had left the towel on the bed and the cleaning lady hadn’t come in yet. So he shook off some of the water and stepped out naked. For a moment, he didn’t realize it but he was looking at his own body naked. Then he remembered the bathroom door had a full body mirror behind it and he was surprised by it.

 Kevin had always hated mirrors. He had never liked mirrors because they made him look at him and he had passed years trying not to do that. He had been called so many names because of his ears, his body, the way he was smarter than other in school… And besides all of that, he had always thought he was fat and ugly and just didn’t wanted to be made to look at himself.

 But when he stepped out of the shower, he just froze there and saw his own body, after a long time.  Somehow, it was different that he remembered it. He got nearer and, unconsciously, started examining his skin, his face, his chest, his arms, his penis, his legs and feet. Everything.

 He took a long time watching his own body and he was fascinated because he realized he had never done that. Then, feeling like awakening from a strange dream, he opened the door and grabbed the trunks he had been wearing. He put them over his body in front of the mirror and realized how ridiculous it was to wear something so big on him. He was skinny but he certainly wasn’t an XL man.

 Kevin dropped the trunks on the ground and just kept looking at himself. He finally shed a single tear and said, in very hushed voice, “If only someone…” But didn’t finish the phrase because he had no idea how to finish it. He thought about how he wanted to be like his sister, who was strong and didn’t care what people said about her. She was strong and he felt so weak. But he also realized he wanted to do something about it. The mirror had helped him see that.

 So he grabbed some of the money his parents had given him, got dressed with the clothes he had before and went to one of the many stores on board. He didn’t like to try on clothes or to be around people that loved fashion but it was necessary for him to do it. So he approached a saleswoman and asked where he could find some trunks. She directed her to the right spot and even joined him. He was embarrassed to have her next to him but just took a deep breath and pretended she wasn’t there. He looked for a color he liked and then a size he thought would work and just bought it, without trying it on.

 He went back to his room almost running, got naked in the bathroom and put on the new trunks. The difference was huge. On the mirror, he could even see his butt and a pair of legs that weren’t so bad. He just needed a bit more sun because he looked pale and sick. But the trunks worked great and he smiled at his own image when he saw himself on the mirror.

 Some minutes later, he was sweating heavily again. But it wasn’t because of the sun but because of how nervous he was. He had decided to get out of his room in only his flip-flops and his new trunks. He had his towel on one hand and the room keys in the other and nothing else. He was shaking a bit but kept walking looking at his feet or very high in front of him. He did so slowly not to stumble against anyone.

 He found an empty deck chair not so close to the poll and decided to sit there. He had put on some sunscreen before leaving the room so he just laid there, a bit nervous and tensioned but certain that would help. He fell asleep for a while until his sister came and woke him up. She was angry at him because he had left her things unattended but a friend had noticed so nothing had happened. She asked his brother what was he doing.


 ¿What does it look like?

 And she just smiled. She kissed him on the cheek and told him to be careful with the sun. She was going to leave for the games area but she would look for him later. He told her he needed to get more tanned, so he would be there for a while. Amused, she left with her friends.


 Kevin saw her walk away and realized he had taken a huge step out of his shell. Right then though, he saw two guys with ridiculously chiseled bodies but instead of feeling less, he laughed. And he just closed his eyes again and turn around, to do the back.

domingo, 10 de enero de 2016

Creatures of the lighthouse

   Jane took off her socks and put them on top of the heating. She had no idea the lighthouse had radiators in all its rooms but it really came in handy that that was the case. She also took off her pants and shirt and decided to stay only in her underwear, lying on top of her jacket. The storm outside did not seem to subside, if anything it was getting worse by the minute. The rain was so strong that almost nothing could be seen, except when the light from the tower passed over it and revealed. But even then, it was just the pissed off sea and the razor sharp rocks that had been the whole reason to built a lighthouse there.

 For many years, the tower had been managed by a human, a man that stayed there several months and then was replaced and had to come back again later on that year and so on. But rather recently, that had ended with the modernization of the tower and the installation of an automated system. That was the reason why Jane had been forced to kick the door several times until the old cement caved in to her efforts and the door flung open.

 The machines and computers that controlled the tower now occupied most of the space but there were still spaces to be used by people, possibly for tourism or by the person that had to come and fix the system in the case of any failure or something like that. It all looked so new and clean, except for the ground level that was slowly flooding due to the storm. Jane had found an old folding chair and had used it to prevent the door from opening as she had broken it when entering.

 She had been walking for days along the national park that surrounded the lighthouse so Jane knew exactly where she was or at least she had realized it when she found the tower when the rain started to get really dangerous. All the time she had been walking in that place, she had thought that animals were the ones to be careful about but it wasn’t the case. The storm had scared them all off and she was the only living being stupid enough not to take shelter when in had been obvious for many hours than the storm was going to arrive to the coast.

 Deciding to check for food, Jane realized she didn’t really have much food on her backpack. At first, she had a lot of provisions she had brought from home like dried fruit and things like that but now her rations were very low and had nothing to calm her stomach, which was growling like a wounded wolf. She decided to go down to the middle level of the tower and check out a kind of deposit there was there. No idea why, but the door was opened so she had free reign to check everything out. There were cleaning products, paper, some tools to fix things, a big bag of sand (for some reason) and, finally, a survival kit that she opened in haste.

 The kit was a very complete and Jane made a mental note to thank the people that managed the lighthouses when arriving to society. It had flares, a flashlight, more tools but also some beef jerky and juices in bags and candy. It wasn’t the most nutritious meal ever but Jane guessed it had been put there in the case of an accident or something. It wasn’t really to survive on for more than a week so Jane knew it was perfect for her as she believed she was only staying for one night.

 She went back to the top floor with the whole kit and started to eat as she sat down again on her jacket. But realizing the floor was too cold, she decided to stand by the heating and look outside, in order no to get bored and maybe getting sleepy. She ate the beef jerky slowly: it was very hard to chew on it and had to yank pieces of one by one, so it took time to finish a single portion, which was good in order no to ran out of it.

 Then she gasped and almost dropped her meal. She raised her head and looked outside, sure she had seen something when the light of the tower had hit it. But there was nothing, only water falling from the sky and the water from the ocean that was very violent. Aside from that, only the rocks and none of them had the shape of what she had seen.

 Jane sat down again and realized it was impossible that a person would be outside the tower as the storm was very violent. And who she had seen did not seem like a normal person, it was like a very pale person, almost like the way people have painted ghosts over the centuries. The more she analyzed it all; she realized it was really silly. She had been silly to think about someone been out there and it had possibly being the light playing ticks on her tired mind.

 She decided to look in the kit again and she found one of those blankets that keeps you warm without electricity (the one use by paramedics). She just used that as her blanket lying on her jacket and used her hands as a pillow. Before that, she had turned off the light on the top floor of the tower and everything was now in darkness.

 Her eyes closed and then open and then closed only to open again a few seconds later. The light of the tower annoyed her but that really wasn’t the reason why she couldn’t sleep. Jane was, for the first time since she had begun her adventure, very scared. She didn’t mind the heat outside or sleeping in a tent or even the bugs. But there was something deep inside her telling her than there was something weird about that tower and, furthermore, that what she saw had not been an optical illusion of some kind.

 Then, she heard knocking. The sound was weak but it was clear it was coming from below. Jane’s mind raced, thinking if maybe there really was someone in need out there or if there was really such a thing as ghosts or spirits. But for that last one, she had to punish herself in her mind: it was ridiculous that a grown woman than had learned a few things in life was now thinking there could be a ghost outside her door. It was preposterous and simply stupid.

 So she closed her eyes but the sound coming from the ground floor didn’t really help her relax in order to sleep. Trying to be logical, she concluded that the sound had to be because she hadn’t put the chair in the perfect angle to really close the door. So the wind was banging on it and everything was shaky and moving. So she decided to stand up and go down the stairs in the dark, with the flashlight, in order to fix that sound that could make her crazy if she didn’t do something about it.

 Barefoot as she was, she realized the ground floor was flood when she put her feet on the cold water. It reached ankles. She walked to the door and realized she had been correct in her conclusion. The door kept getting opened and closed and it was all because the fair was not good enough to keep it shut and the water out. So she tried to find something she could put on the handle of the door in order to close it for good.

 She had started walking towards the stairs in order to go up again and look for something or at least some told to help her, when the door flung open and the wind entered messing her hair and everything. Water also came in, making her fall to the ground, hurting her knee. She reached for the door and tried to close it but the door wouldn’t move and the wind was too strong for her. She pushed and pulled and did everything she could, but everything coming in from the storm was making her weaker and weaker by the second.

 It was then when, once again, she saw it outside. But this time she was sure she had seen it because it hadn’t been for a fraction of a second. This time, she had felt time get frozen and her eyes been able to detail every single part of the creature’s complexion. It was taller than her, very pale and with a larger mouth than any human she knew. Its feet and hands were very large and it watched her, very attentively. She noticed it had no pupils and that its eyes were very white too.

 But that lasted a minute or so. In the next moment, the wind subsided for a second, which Jane used to push harder and close the door with a loud sound. There was no need to look for something to lock it with because the door had closed so violently it had become jammed in its place. Nevertheless, Jane stayed there for a long while, only breathing.

 The next day, the storm disappeared. The weather outside was perfect, with bird singing and everything. After the door had closed, she had remained there for a while but she eventually found her way to the top and had some sleep. It took her a long while to open the door again and she did it fell of its hinges and into the flooded floor. Jane just went out and started walking along the coast, looking at the sea and how the storm was now there, again.


 And she thought of the creature but even now she doubted its existence. Maybe the monster was inside her and she had just seen it in a dire moment.