Santa Sangre

‘We can’t stay here.’ She stood by the door that was slightly ajar, leaving a gap showing the red twilight without. She’d tried to close it behind her, but it stuck on the doorframe that had expanded in the heat.

‘C’mon, no one knows we’re here. It’ll be fine,’ he said.

They walked into the dark, damp smelling room. He put his backpack down on the floor and checked the rest of the rooms in the house while she stood uncomfortably, arms crossed. He reappeared.

‘Coast’s clear.’

‘I don’t know about this. What if my parents’ call Sally’s and find out I’m not there.’

‘They trust you, don’t they?’

‘Sure. I guess.’

‘Then it’ll be fine.’

‘Where’d you tell your mum you were staying?’

‘Just with a friend,’ he said absently.

He took some tea candles out of his backpack and lit them, spreading them across the floor intermittently. The room grew brighter, the graffiti on the walls becoming visible.

She put her bag down on the floor next to his and squatted. ‘It smells.’

‘Don’t worry, the candles will take care of it.’

‘Are they scented?’

He shrugged and pulled a can of deodorant out of his pack. Aimed high at the ceiling, he sprayed a thick cloud in the air that wafted down and settle with the dust on the dry, creaking floorboards.

‘Happy?’ he said.

She sneezed then looked around the room slowly, reading the graffiti. It was mostly made up of crudely drawn penises and four-letter words, things she’d seen a thousand times before on desks at school and in the back of exercise books. The harsh, unfocused way in which they’d been sprayed gave the images an immediate and urgent sort of violence. She looked away. He continued setting up, pulling an old dark mattress from the corner into the centre of the room.

‘It doesn’t look very clean.’

‘Don’t worry, I brought a sheet.’

‘Did you bring anything else?’

‘A sleeping bag that we can use as a blanket. Probably won’t need it in this heat, though.’

She looked at him nervously. ‘Did you bring protection?’

He dug his hand deep into the pack and pulled out a long kitchen knife, gripping the black handle. She was about to speak, but he cut her off, ‘Just kidding.’

He pulled the pack of condoms out and threw it at her. She caught it and inspected the label. ‘Where’d you get them?’

‘My mother’s room. I’ll replace them.’ He put the knife down right next to the bed and went back to work, laying the sheet out over the mattress. It was too small and only covered the middle, leaving its stained sides exposed. Then he unzipped the sleeping bag and laid it out on top. He looked at her. ‘Ready?’

‘Can we wait just a bit?’

‘Of course.’

He squatted beside her and put an arm around her waist. Though it was a warm night, she shivered.

‘Are you sure no one’s going to find us here?’

‘Who would come into an abandoned house at night?’

‘We did.’

‘We had no choice.’

He pulled a nearby candle towards him and started pouring out the wax onto the floorboards, shaping it before it could dry.

‘Why won’t you let me come over to your house?’

He didn’t answer that, just went on playing with the wax. Whenever he heard something he didn’t like he simply ignored it, like the time she’d asked him how he got the scar at the back of his neck. He pulled out a pack of cigarettes from his bag and lit one.

‘Where’d you get them?’

‘My mother’s room.’

‘Can I have one?’

‘You don’t smoke.’

‘Neither do you. I just feel like one.’

He gave her his cigarette and lit another for himself. She held it clumsily.

‘I don’t like it here.’

‘What do you want me to do?’

She didn’t answer, just kept smoking, though she wasn’t inhaling properly. He reached for his bag and pulled out a label-less bottle of vodka and took a swig. Even in the lowlight of the candles, his grimace was plain to see. It was the only vodka he’d ever tasted, but he was sure it wasn’t supposed to taste like that. He offered her the bottle, but she pushed it away. She could guess where he’d got it.

‘I don’t feel well,’ she said, butting out the cigarette on the floor.

‘Maybe you should lie down.’

She crawled over to the mattress and laid herself out on her stomach, careful to stay within the boundaries of the sleeping bag and sheet. He squatted on his haunches, watching her back rise and fall as she breathed. He stood up, walked to the mattress and lay down beside her as she faced the graffiti on the opposite wall, looking at an elaborate four-foot high tag that faintly resembled a Japanese symbol.

‘We can do this another time. If you want.’

She turned her head to face him, her stomach still flat on the mattress, smiled, showing her braces in the candlelight, and kissed him.

He woke up in complete darkness. The night became cold. The candles were out, most of them having completely burned down, and there was a draft coming through the open door. He lay looking up at the ceiling, listening to the night, when he heard footsteps, clok, clok, boots on concrete. A cold sweat froze him in place until he realised the footsteps were getting further away, fading in the distance. His tension eased and he put a hand behind his head leisurely. It felt coated and of a strange texture, as though he had dry clay on his fingers. He reached for a candle and relit it, inspecting his hands. They were covered in dried blood. He didn’t panic, but calmly put the candle down on the ground beside the knife that he had forgotten was even there, and turned to her. She was sleeping easily, facing the wall, on her stomach again. The minute movement of her shoulders as she breathed was reassuring. He picked up the candle again and lifted the sleeping bag that they both slept under. He held it over her to see. Her white legs were naked, and coming from beside her hip was a dark stain that had seeped into the sheet. It was dry to the touch. She shivered, her legs twitching, and he replaced the sleeping bag.

He sat up and swung his legs off the mattress, heels touching the cold floorboards. He lit a few more candles and lowered his hands until they were visible in the flickering light. He looked at them intently. The blood—her blood—had dried deep in his skin. He could make out his fingerprints beneath it, dark red having seeped into the rounded grooves. He rubbed at the blood with his thumb and forefinger, rolling it into a tiny tapered cylinder. He sanded off the rest of it with his thumbs, rolling and peeling from his skin, letting it fall to the floor. When one final clot of dry blood remained on the tip of his finger, he sat there staring at it for a long while. Then, without another moment’s thought, he licked the speck off his finger, rolling it around in his mouth as if trying intensely hard to taste it. It reminded him of communion, which he’d only ever seen in movies, and had no idea what it meant or symbolised. Or perhaps, deep down, he was aware in some small way, not of its ritualistic nature, but of what it meant to those who knelt down to receive it. For she had received him, and now he received her. But he still felt something inside, some loss or regret. Blood never meant anything but hurt to him, and he knew that would never change. He felt the scar tissue at the back of his neck, then swung his legs over onto the mattress. He lay back down next to her, nestling into her body, and went back to sleep.

They both woke up as the hazy grey light of day started to appear through the doorway and in the hall. They smacked their dry lips and kissed, tasting each other’s sweet-stale breaths without thought or judgement. She couldn’t find her underwear, so she put her pants on without them and got up. He wasn’t sure if she had seen the bloody patch that she’d slept on or not. He threw the sleeping bag back over the sheet just in case.

‘How you feeling?’ he asked.

‘Tired. A little sore.’

He waited for more, a meaningful or condemning look, but none came.

‘Hey. I’m sorry we couldn’t do this at my place. It’s just… my mum doesn’t like to have people over, okay?’

‘I don’t even know where you live.’

‘Does it really matter?’

‘It must if you won’t tell me.’

He acted as though he was going to ignore her like he always did, but he was close to telling her everything: where he lived, how he lived and why he never wanted her to see it for herself, but when he looked up, she was studying the graffiti on the wall again.

‘Huh. I’m pretty sure I’ve seen this one in the underpass at the train station.’ She was looking at two linked circular symbols that almost looked like black, watchful eyes. ‘Funny, I don’t remember seeing it last night.’

‘It was pretty dark,’ he said, pulling on his pants quickly.

She waited outside while he packed up everything. He decided to leave the half-burned candles for the next desperate occupants. He bundled up the bloody sheet and kicked the mattress back into the corner. The blood had soaked through, leaving a dark coppery stain that reminded him of the Betadine his mother put on his cuts as she blubbered and apologised. He thought about taking the sheet home and hiding it under his chest of drawers as a repentant reminder of what he’d done, but threw it in the corner with the mattress. If anyone found it, they may think something gruesome happened here. He wondered whether they might be right.