#whole new level of writing

Aftermath

There were track marks in her arms. Pretty plaits that ran in concentric circles down past her elbows, up past her forearms before ending at her wrists. A coil, then, an impression left behind by the constrictor that had hugged her so very very tight. 

There was a warm wash of an ache across her backside. It was soft enough that it ebbed away from her moment to moment, day to day, but whenever she sat down, or moved just so, it flared up again, as flushed as the day it was given to her. It felt like there was less skin between the world and the nerves, like she’d been smacked raw. 

There were faint words, too. Half a dozen showers had faded them into jibberish, the odd letter poking out here or there, but mostly just fragments, the curve of an A, or the sharp incline of the leg in the K. It looked like code, and when the world dragged, she tried to decipher herself through those left overs. 

His fingers were still around her throat, when she wanted them to be. The uncomfortable press of his thumb against her windpipe, lodging persistently against that vital passageway, a pressure that was troubling. The curve of his palm everywhere else, and the fingers snaking up towards her jaw line. She just had to touch the skin there and the sensation was brought into sharp relief, and she had to catch her breath. 

These things were more than reminders, they were evidence. They were her witnesses, a chorus of marks each of which was smirking with debauchery, knowing exactly how and where they were created. To touch them was to remember, but also validate. To hammer home the reality of the act, to be assured that yes, it did happen, and yes, it may well again. 

They were there as a promise.