Crimson Flush

"I´m a faggot and my ass is torn." Emily muttered just over the radio- The new summer hit pumped out of the Ford´s speakers and Emily rolled her eyes. It always seemed to be the queer people who became hits. this year it was a homosexual couple- two wierd guys - but everyone seemed to love them.

"Gosh whatever!" She blurted out to nothing. Not like she cared. There were so many better things to care about besides fruity feminine men. Like, for example, how she was about to loose her job, which meant she´d loose her appartment - that came, and went, with the job.

She rolled her eyes and sighed again. Twenty two years old, homeless, and jobless. AND with nowhere to go to top it off. "Yeah, I´m officially screwed. No wait, I WISH I was screwed. God! And I dont even have a boyfriend. Add that to the list."

Then, of course, there was what she affetionately termed her halucinations. Those were creepy. They werent really halucinations at all. More like dreams. Strange dreams. She never quite remembered them. More like an aftertaste of disgust and fear... and lust. And then there was the physical aftertastes. Those were even more disturbing.

Emily gripped the steeering wheel tighter. The sun was setting and she hated driving in the dark. She hated the dark in general. She felt ashamed and embarrassed to admit it, but she was scared of hte dark- terrified in fact - since she had been very young..

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She could only vaguely recall her life at the orphanage. iIt seemed like another world now. The soft voiced, firm handed nuns, the scores of other little girls who never wanted to play with her. the lumpy beds where she´d cry herself to sleep at night, alone. And the nightmares. They never quite left her, but they never quite stayed either. She recalled waking, running out, terrified, into the night, finding comfort in the silent warm darkness.

Till "That" day. the day she went away from the orphanage. They had said things about spirits. Evil ones. About needing to be rid of them. She heartily agreed. Evil should not be allowed entrance into their godly homes. But she had missed one vital element in the equasion. HER. Where were they going? To the monestary. Why? Only silence thought to answer. And, weary from wondering, sheep overcame her.

She woke to find herself being gently sat into a chair. Something slipped around her arms and she found she could not move. White silk ropes bound her arms and legs to the chair and she began to panic. Gentle hadns soothed her, wiping the cold sweat from her brow. Clouds of incence floated in the still air as a priest proceeded to splash holy water on and around her. Another came, chanting stranged words under his breath, and marking a cross on her forehead with oil, and then, with, something else. It dripped down her face and onto her lip. A heavy odor filled her nostrils and she gagged. Blood! Lambs blood. The "blood of the Lamb" they said. To symbolise Christ´s blood to wash away her sins. From a dying lamb, found up in the hills, and bled almost dry - two strange puncture wounds on its neck. They said it was a sign.

A tingling warmth spread through her body and up two her neck, where it turned an icy cold. Like a hand, squeezing, crushing her throat. She screamed- she couldnt help it - just before blessed blackness overcame her.

She had been out for days afterward. By the time she awoke she was informed that she was being sent far away to foster homes. The monestary didnt want her anymore.

As she walked down the hall to leave, suspiious supersticious eyes quickly turned away and the hum of hushed whispers filled the air. Eyes that used to look kindly, and voices that used to soothe her to sleep. The same voices. A fat tear splashed down her cheek. This was all she´d known. Now the only family she´d ever had held out crusifixes and shrunk away, a deathly fear in their eyes.

Now she couldnt even remember where she came from.