As she chewed her lank hair, I thought how child-like she looked. If it hadn’t have been for her full breasts, their nipples hard from the breeze lapping over her naked torso, I would’ve reckoned she was no more than twelve years old. There was a child’s vulnerability behind those watery eyes. It made me want to hold her, and yet something was holding me back. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the gun she held nonchalantly in her hand that stopped me, but her defiant look. It was then that it struck me; this pitiful creature believed that she was in control. Laid bare to the elements her body was free for whoever wanted to look, yet she felt empowered.
Crouched inside her freeze-frame, she embodied both the urge to nurture and to destroy. Her posture was one of power and control, yet her eyes showed a wormhole of weakness. “Who are you trying to fool?” I asked her. My voice roused her from her hypnotic state of denial, “You’re not in control. You’re not the flash.”
She rolled over on top of me, pinning me down. I didn’t resist her frustration; it meant she was listening. Her mouth snarled, but her grip didn’t embody the same aggression. She looked like a ferret – her teeth bared ready to bite and her neck ready to be effortlessly snapped. She fell onto me, her breasts pushing against mine. Her skin was soft to the touch but, instead of feeling any sense of eroticism, I was disgusted. She was no more in control now than she was as a child, cowering behind the school bins as punches were thrown and her face was spat upon.
She abandoned the gun and held my arms above my head. She pressed her mouth against mine and ran her tongue over my lips. I opened my mouth and let her explore me. She tasted of blueberries. Her grip around my wrists was weak. Her legs straddling my waist were trembling. She pulled away from me. Her chest was covered in goosebumps. I stared her in the eye. She coquettishly hid behind her fringe as it fell across her face. I smiled at her. She bit her lip. She stroked her fingers down the side of my face.
The ferret was beginning to trust me. Silly mistake. I reached for the gun.
I am the camera.
I am the flash.
Mellissa Flowerdew-Clarke 