Lingers.
He is finally asleep. She steps out quietly, grabbing her clothes with her. Hanging her formless dress on the bar she slowly strips her sticky clothes off her skin. Her nipples are engorged disformed and chaffed. It hurts when the cotton brushes her skin, She feels ugly. She thinks she is fat. Her tummy is like a lump of dough dimpled soft and pliable. Not to mention that red amd silvery streaks now web across her lower half.
She turns up the cold metal knob that says H. H for Hot. H for Humiliation. H for Honor. H for Home. H for.. She loses her train of thought.
When was the last she had a manicure, smooth silky pink rounded and perfect. Her long stringy greasy hair mats to her scalp. She brings her fingers to her soft skin. Still flawless and supple thankfully unlined.
Garlic, her fingers smell of garlic.
She flings the shower-head to the ground and picks up the green scrub that is used to clean the crevices and starts rubbing hard. And she puts her fingers to her nose again. Still she smells garlic. Where is the bleach? Bleach can eliminate most odours. Bleach stinks but it will take away this pungent odour.
She pours it on the fingers, it stings her blistered fingers from the intense rubbing. SHIT she screams and curses and runs water over her fingers hoping to get most traces of the corrosive agent off her hands.
Apple scented body wash. Tear-safe. She foams it with her palms and rubs it over her body absent mindedly. Her fingers still hurt. She tears.
She hears him screaming again. She tries to ignore him. And turns the knob for H to the right. Hot is good. Hot is comforting. Hot is numbing. Hot is painful.
Ok the water was now too hot. She turns H off and turns the knob of C and blasts the cold liquid. She shivers.
She looks at the stranger in the mirror. How cliché and yet how true. A shadow of her former self, her present looming over her past. She needs to get out, get some fresh air. Get some peace and quiet.
He is still calling. She’d better attend to him.
She drapes her towel over. Walks over to him and smiles.
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At 6 a.m., 18-year-old unwed mother Linda, was found bare naked except for a towel by her side at the void deck of Blk 215 Starwood Avenue, with her young infant three-months-old in her arms.
The father of her baby was not present at the time and could not be contacted. According to his mother Mdm Chee, he is working nights as a barista at a bar. His mother, chicken rice hawker, whom the girl was living with at the 15th level was present at the scene of the crime and was in the kitchen peeling garlic in preparation for opening at 8p.m.
According to initial reports, other than injuries sustained from the fall, Linda’s fingers were chaffed and seemed to have suffered chemical burns. No foul play is suspected at this moment.
