Stabs at Happiness by Todd Grimson Page A

knew how to make her feel good. She got a feeling of power from what gave her pleasure in return.
    Harlow enjoyed being the star. When she was a child, raised by her doting, wealthy grandparents, they had called her “the Baby” until she was 11 or 12. She had been pampered and spoiled, protected from the world. Her hair and face and early development had set her apart, gave her the sense of being special, a soft-skinned princess living in Kansas like it was Oz.
    A cigarette with a long ash dangled from Kit’s fingers, virtually unsmoked. Dirk put his hand up between Fawn’s thighs, getting his fingers sticky and wet with syrup from a berry pie.
    Jean’s blonde hair was parted on the side, short and wavy but long enough to comb, and she wore dangly gold earrings and had on the typical amount of makeup, black-lined eyes and ruby-red kewpie-doll mouth… amidst so much warm sweating flesh.
    She saw lights, little white lights as though the ceiling had opened up and the sky descended, violet-black background for sharp-pointed, electric, dazzling stars. She saw three concentric circles of white girls on their backs, seen from above like in a musical, their platinum heads close together, legs stretched out, separating in rhythm, opening and closing in the contraction and expansion of a muscle being stimulated through sensitized nerves… diamonds and stalactites of unmeltable ice, glistening, gleaming, glinting silver and white, here and there a glint of blinding gold, beginning to melt or dissolve as the plum-black darkness folded away in the heat of throbbing lights.
    Kit looked at her, and she saw him, his features smearing, face falling apart, coming together again… and then he fucked her… like a killer… and then… or maybe later…
    Glimpses: Kit was combing his hair in front of the mirror, pants on but no shirt, a scar on his back… while somewhere else… somewhere else… something was happening, some kind of heat was being generated someplace soft, everything was so soft and moist and soft…
    Dark streets and cars. She dreamed that she was in the back of a speeding car, on the run from gangsters with machine-guns, she and her boyfriend the killer, looking out the rear window as the car sped down twisting, slanting hills of blue cement. It was all right, everything was excellent—even if they didn’t get away it would be perfectly fine. They were in the train station, hiding in the public restroom, and both the nasty gang and the mean stupid cops knew where they were. They kissed one last time, star-crossed lovers, then slit their wrists. It didn’t even hurt, it was a luxurious warm damp feeling like being a small child in the … endless dark.
    Harlow awoke to find she’d wet the bed.
    â€œOh, God,” she said aloud, shading her eyes from the daylight. She didn’t know what time it was, what day, where she was exactly… She didn’t know anything. She didn’t move, lying there in her urine-soaked sheets as they gradually cooled and began to chafe.
    Flat on her stomach. Left knee slightly bent, right cheek pressed to the mattress. It was daytime and she was all alone.
    â€œShit.”
    She was completely naked. Her thighs hurt. She had a headache and a sore jaw, and she felt like she’d bitten her tongue.
    After a while, still somewhat out of focus, she got up and washed her face. She looked out the window through the blinds, squinting to avoid the greenish dreary light. She wondered what time it was. Kit and the others were long gone.
    It looked like they’d cleaned her out. All of her money was gone, her empty purse thrown on the floor. Her jewelry was gone also—even to the paste pearl necklace and earrings. Her fur coat, her blue dress and shoes.
    She couldn’t cry. She wanted to, consciously, but her eyes stayed dry. She felt too much… too much like she’d anticipated the whole thing, like it