Evidence of Hard Living
Pip Malloy

The fan over his bed swirls, silent in the lazy heat.

He feels like the weather, limp, pressed upon, heavy and humid. Sweat beads on his upper lip, skitters over his chest, but does nothing to cool him down. The smoke from his cigarette struggles to reach the fan, hanging in the air. The room smells of nicotine, liquor, old sex. She speaks quietly, seated by his hip. Every once in a while, she’ll shift, touch him, and his skin grows warmer. She burns her fingerprints into him, until she settles on an old game, touching dead skin.

On his hip, there is a slice, drawn outward from the hip. It arches over the bone in a jagged tear. She taps it. “This one?” Her voice is dry, young.

“Whore. Thought it would be easier to kill me than to fuck me.” He intones. She’d been right. “I was fifteen.” It’s an old scar, the skin not so tight.

“This one.” She moves her fingers up, a horizontal cut, about as wide as his little finger. It begins to the left of his navel and cuts inward at a slight angle.

“Barfight when I was twenty. Bastard had a shank in his boot, caught me on his way up. I killed him.” The last is added as an afterthought. “He was my third murder.”

She shivers at his words, and he imagines he can see the air shiver with her. He feels her fingertips whisper to the round scar next to on his right shoulder. “This?”

“Bullet. .44. It was my first mission as a Turk. Political assassination, guy’s bodyguard turned out not to be as dead as I thought.” He studies the ash at the end of his cig. “I survived.”

She nods, down to a trio of arches over his ribs. “These?”

“You. During the Avalanche crap. We fought in the sewers, remember? You caught me with that damn duck. I knocked you out after that.” He shut his eyes.

Her fingers touch dead skin on his thigh, a vaguely elliptical patch. “Here?”

“Knifed in my first gang fight. I was fifteen.” He flexes the muscle. “He was my second murder.”

She moves up to the inside of his bicep, slightly to the left. A torn, sunburst of a star. “This?”

“Exit wound. Shinra Special. Bullet tore through the woman Rude was aiming for and got me.” Half a smirk dislodges the ash onto the pillow. “I still tease Rude about that.”

She shifts, and fingers brush over him to his knee, a long mess of scar tissue. “What about this?”

“Roadburn. Took a turn on my bike too fast.” He slits his eyes to watch the fan some more. “I was twenty-six and drunk as a skunk.”

On is left pec, a cluster. “This?”

“Shallow acid burn.” He frowns. “Reactor I was investigating exploded next to me. Wouldn’t have gotten hurt, ‘cept it burnt through the wall I ducked behind.”

Multiple circles, up and down his arms, little poker chips of puckered flesh. Each one was tapped like a button. “All these?”

“Cigarette burns.” His voice goes flat. “Some mine. I went through a bad time when I was twenty-three. Some my mother’s.” He shifts slightly, the sheets sticking to his skin. “I was five when I got them.”

Her voice hitches, and she immediately removes her finger, as if burned. Her hair falls around his face, short, sweet scented. He shifts the cigarette between his lips to keep from burning her, and her body presses slickly to his.

“And these?” She whispers, touching cheekbones, long, matching splinters.

“I was ten.” He mutters, tired of the game. “It was my first murder.”