I gently glide the razor blade along my arm and Jenna giggles, a trace of a chemical smile playing on her face. She thinks this is fun, thinks we’re being anti-….well…something, anti-anything I guess. Her dark clothes and black fingernails are just a mask to distort the ordinary girl beneath. She thinks she wants to be like me. She doesn’t. The cutting’s not a statement, it’s not rebellion, it’s just who I am.

The blood from my arm starts dripping onto the carpet and I’m not nearly done yet. When I started this, the smallest cut would bring such relief, almost a euphoric sense of achievement. Now I need to use my skin like an etch-a-sketch to reach the same high. The scars covering my body are my art. Fuck piercings and tattoos! They’re for pretenders; the scar culture is the only one that means a thing.

As I continue with the delicate razor strokes Jenna sits silently, transfixed by my new piece of art. She has a puzzled look on her face, but the substance abuse has taken its toll leaving her looking more than a little crazed. I wonder what’s going through that little mind of hers. Probably nothing more than plagiarised words from that charlatan Crowley she’s been reading.

She slowly reaches over and catches a few drops of blood in her hand. Languidly examining it, she casually, almost erotically, runs her hand down the back of my head and rubs my neck. The warm blood’s itchy and I immediately wipe it off, feeling the bristles on my head standing on end. Her distraction isn’t enough to make me lose my concentration and I quickly start slicing again.

My therapist thinks I do this for attention, a kind of pseudo-love thing and she’s not that far from the truth. I want nothing more than to be able to show my body off to the people who would appreciate it. That’s the reason Jenna’s here now. I sold her some coke a few weeks ago and she admired the star shaped scar on my forearm and the rest was inevitable.

She was fine for the first couple of days. I showed her my scars and she tried to pretend she was edgy and underground. She bought more of my drugs and I watched her try to overdose. We fucked a lot, I talked about Literature and she droned on about Movies, I decried religion and god and she didn’t say a thing. She’s probably still clinging to the hope that someone loves her.

As if she can read my mind, she suddenly sparks out of her trance and kneels on the floor beside me. Still watching my hand as it adds a final stroke to my new masterpiece, she asks me if I love her. Without hesitation I reply with a firm ‘no’. I’ve barely known her 3 weeks and she’s just a stupid little girl flirting with the edge and I don’t really want to be around when she falls off.

My refusal to love her produces a solitary tear from her chemically tinged blue eyes. As she wipes it away, she leaves a smear of black eye-liner on her cheek. I think about saying something but simply don’t care that much. This will be the end for us. She’ll just move onto the next guy, desperately wanting someone, anyone to love her and I’ll just continue drawing patterns in my skin.

I try to stand up, but with Jenna still on her knees beside me, I almost trip over her. She pushes me back down and grabs my balls. She gives them a gentle squeeze and then starts to undo my trousers. This time she looks me straight in the eyes and tells me that I may not love her but I love what she can do for me. It’s surprisingly astute for her and just as I try to push her away, she puts my cock in her mouth.

With the razor blade resting on my knee, I pick it up and begin slicing again. My mind explodes as the sensation of carving flesh and oral penetration combine to bring me to new depths of pleasure. The endorphins rushing through my body produce an orgasm more draining and intense than I thought possible. Barely 10 seconds and I’m done. The blood from my chest drips down onto Jenna’s head, covering her face and shoulders. She smiles and licks the droplets from her top lip.

I take a shower and leave Jenna cutting up lines for her own high. When I return she starts to giggle, which turns into choking laughter. She keeps pointing at me and falling about, barely able to breathe. The whole time she has this huge grin on her face. I’ve never seen her look genuinely happy. It’s almost fiendish. She finally composes herself enough to point me in the direction of the mirror. She tells me I must love her after all but I don’t understand.

I turn to examine my reflection and there on the right side of my chest is a flesh cut heart. I feel my face contort with confusion, the skin on my neck pulling tight from a failed masterpiece. I trace my finger over the heart-shaped laceration, nudging open the wound again and briefly wonder if she’s right, maybe I do love her?

Nick Mott (33) was born in Aberdeen, Scotland and currently works in the Oil industry.  He has studied Psychology, Sociology and to his regret Politics.  He has no formal education in writing but is being continually harassed to get one.  He is has been previously published in Prole.

He gets most of his inspiration from his metal hip which was implanted when he was 29.  He fully believes this to be the first step towards his immortality.