Andrea reached hesitantly for the
lipstick and applied it with shaking hands, her heavily shadowed eyes framed by
sooty lashes staring at her in the mirror, full of trepidation and desire. She
adjusted her dress straps in an attempt to make the shapeless thing more
alluring on her mannish chest and delicate, soft body... Feeling equal parts of
excitement and fearful confusion, she stared at herself in the mirror, the hot
shameful disgust of the wrongness of what she was doing filling her, helpless
to stop herself. She heard the front door shut below and jumped, terrified.
Hastily, she pulled of the dress and stuffed it under the bed, before running
into the bathroom to wipe the make-up of her fine-boned, feminine features,
fear making her clumsy in her desperation. She felt the door slam open behind
her and turned to face her father, almost sobbing in terror. He stood in the
doorway, filling it with his large frame, an expression of disgusted rage on
his face.
“Andrew. What the hell are you
doing?”
Andrew’s voice was shaking as he
gasped desperately, “Dad, I...”
SMACK!
Andrew screamed and staggered
back against the sink, his face on fire and his ears ringing from his father’s
heavy blow as sick bile rose in his throat and hot, fresh tears cut a track
down his powdered face. His father looked at him curled up against the sink, whimpering
in pain and clutching his head, moaning “I’m sorry... I'm sorry...” over and
over again, and unmoved by his pleas for mercy, reached slowly for the heavy,
leather belt at his waist...
SMACK
SMACK!
SMACK!!
The dull, sickening sound of
leather hitting fragile flesh was drowned out by the sounds of torturous agony.
Andrew’s voice grew hoarse from the screams till finally; he could take no
more, slipping quietly into the comforting, familiar embrace of peaceful,
blissful oblivion, on a cold bathroom floor, alone in a pool of his own cooling
blood...
She dreamed of fire... of freedom
and warmth and safety in the arms of the only being to ever give her surcease
from her pains... the hypnotic, dancing laughter of tongues of flame strong and
seductive, sensuous and moody, indestructible and uncontainable, the epitome of
everything she longed in the depths of her most sacred places to be... Fire had
saved her, had protected her, had kept her sane as cruel hands had bruised her
tender flesh, grabbing and tearing and hurting, always hurting... Angry at what
they had found under her beautiful dress pale and silvery as the moon, they
found other ways to punish her for being in the wrong place at the wrong
time... but it had been their brutal ministrations that had forged within her
the realisation that she was not what she should be...
She had staggered home, her dress
filthy and torn, covered in the blood seeping from her bruised, battered,
violated body... her eyes, sunken deep into her bloody, swollen, tear-stained
face, were the blank orbs of those who had gone away, leaving only a shell in
their absence... Andrea had gone away to dance with the fire in her soul, the
flames flickering in her mind... Andrew walked through the door and into a new
hell... his family could not understand, would not accept... his father tried
to beat it out of him, his mother could not bear to touch him, to look at him,
unclean abomination that she named him, and his little sister, when he turned
blindly to face her, hoping in his crushed soul for compassion, for mercy, for
a kind word or gentle hand to soothe the pain that was his world away, barely
fifteen laughed at him, scorned him, mocked his desires, tormented his already
broken mind and rejected him. “You are not my brother,” she said cruelly, each
word piercing him, tearing into the depths of him and shattering the little
humanity he had left, “You’re just a freak who likes to dress up like a girl
and get raped by men. You are nothing.
Pathetic. You aren’t one of us.” She spat it venomously. “You’re not woman
enough to be a girl.” She laughed at him and flaunted the female body he so
desperately desired to have in front of him, taunting him, adding to the abject
misery he lived in...
Then, when she
could not take any more humiliation, any more pain, any more rejection and hurt
and loneliness... the flames started to whisper to her... Kill... Burn... KILL... BURN... They will burn for this! ALL OF THEM WILL BURN! She began to dream of screams, of fire roaring,
crackling, consuming and destroying... Huge pillars of flame, the power of the
gods, devouring those who had hurt her... mocked him... beat him... Andrew, Andrea... Andrea, Andrew... ANDREW,
ANDREA! THEY WILL BURN!!
Andrea woke
suddenly, a scream filling welling from the depths of her soul, torn from her
very firmament, as she rose slowly from the cold, hard bathroom floor. She did
not see her blood covering her, an ugly rust staining the otherwise pristine
floor, did not hear the whimpering, animalistic noises she made as her
brutalised body moved slowly, agonisingly through the door. Her mind was burning,
her essence consumed by the blazing inferno that burned through her entirety.
All she saw through burning eyes was a blazing riot of intense white heat, all
she heard through burning ears was the roaring crackle of insatiable
destruction demanding that she kill... demanding that she burn... demanding death
for her pain...
She staggered up
the stairs, clutching a butcher’s knife in her bloodstained hand... Every step
she took, she steeled herself, taking courage from it, drawing strength from
her determination, from the fire searing through her mind, racing through her
soul, taking pride in it, revelling in who she was.
She stood in her
room, after covering every inch of the house that had become hell in accelerant
and fingered the knife, fascinated by the cold, silvery gleam in her hands, the
metallic death she held...
Steeling herself
once more, she grasped the last evidence of Andrew’s hated existence in one
hand and raised the glittering blade, hungry for blood, high... Her agonised,
bloodcurdling scream pierced the silence of the dark night, as the severed
flesh fell to the floor and hot, fresh blood splattered against the wall.
Shaking with shock and throbbing, torturous pain, she heated the bloody blade
on the dancing flames she had created. The white hot metal seared and sizzled
against her mangled, ruined body and the sickeningly intoxicating smell of
burning flesh filled the room. Andrea could not feel - the shock had made her
numb and the pain and blood loss had made her light-headed...
When the blood
stopped flowing, Andrea moved slowly, barely conscious, out of the house while
her family slumbered on, uncaring of the screams that had rent the silence of
the house apart. She was nothing to them, her pain was nothing. They had had
the perfect family, had one daughter and one son and now... they had no son.
They had only one child. Andrew was no more...
Andrea stood
outside, the cold night’s air cooling her throbbing body as she stared at the
hell she was now going to leave in ruins. Her blood pounded in her ears and
fire roared through her veins. There was no going back now. She lit a match
slowly, watching the flare of deadly beauty, of vengeful hunger. She dropped
the result of her ruination to the floor and time slowed... then there was a
blinding flash of light as the conflagration leapt joyfully to life, hungry,
ready to consume and devour anything foolish enough to hurt her... Instantly
the house was engulfed in the fiery blaze.
Andrea laughed
with reckless, exultant abandon as she watched the house and its now burning
occupants turn to ash before her eyes. The flames leapt and danced and ran
joyfully through the accelerant covered hell, burning, devouring, and consuming
it. There was no home now, only a blazing fireball reaching gloriously into the
dark sky, framed by the stars and moving to the music of its own raw,
destructive fury. The family that lived there could be heard faintly, their
screams and shrieks adding to the perfection of the moment. Andrea laughed as
she heard it, relishing the fact that their anguish now matched hers... Riding
the mad fury of the flames, she laughed and laughed till she cried, and as the
sound of sirens filled the horizon, she turned and staggered away, leaving nothing
but the last glowing embers of Andrew’s life.
N.B Andrea and Andrew are
derivatives of the word “androgynous” meaning “asexual, of both sexes”
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