The Virgin – Part 3

<< The Virgin – Part 2

I shouldn’t have come. I hated being around people so why – oh why? – had I allowed my mom to convince me? She was full of good intentions but she couldn’t understand. “Prom night is a night you’ll always remember” she had said for the past month. Obsessing, much? She made me dress, called in a rendezvous with the hair dresser… the whole shebang, whether I wanted it or not.
She was worried. Since my accident, I didn’t go out like I used to. Not that I ever was the partying teenager type but still, I had friends and we had our share of horror movie themed sleepovers and stuff. That was before the big bang.
I was hit by a car two years ago and stone cold dead for a few minutes. My physical wounds had healed nicely. The other ones? Not so much.
My mom thought I was scared of going out, that I was terrified by the idea of being hit again. Yeah, right. I saw a psychiatrist once a week because of that. They both didn’t get it and I couldn’t tell them because that was a super highway to psych ward. Bouncing walls might sound cool but I was pretty sure I would grow tired of them.
The fact and the matter is that my near-death experience changed my view of the world big time. And that’s no fancy metaphor that means I’m more prudent or mature or whatever. I actually see the world differently.
At first, it had puzzled me and scared me, yes. I could see the true faces of people. It was like peeking right through the mask of flesh to gaze at what makes people tick.
My doctor really enjoyed her work. It was in her nature to help people. The nurse, however, was a whole other story. She was afraid of relationships so the overtime combined with the strict nurse-patient interactions were her escape route. She didn’t even know it.
Obviously, when you wake up from a car accident and see feelings or whatchamacallit you think you wacked your head pretty hard. Once the bumps and bruises are all gone, you wonder what’s wrong with your cerebrum and ask for more tests. When the doctor clears you from any brain damage and says you’re just “really astute, life-threatening events will do that to a person”, you finally decide to shut up.
That’s what I did, anyway. It didn’t make it easier though. If some people were fairly close under their skin to what they were showing to the world, most of the people weren’t. Greed and jealousy had the worst faces, closely followed by treachery. The nasty things I saw everyday in place of the facial expressions were enough to gross me out of any social event. But I was already singled out because I acted weird.
Try to keep up a normal conversation when you have to guess the person’s fake reaction because you can see their true face. Not so easy. Imagine doing that when the real face makes you retch and you need to focus on keeping your mac-and-cheese down. Now do that all day long. Very entertaining.
Everyone thought I was retarded and they billed it as a side-effect of the accident. Almost every thing I did was written off to that; the drops in my grades, the fainting and whatnots. Fine with me! I didn’t have to interact with people at school anymore. So why the hell was I standing in an ugly dress at a fricking prom?
Then, they walked in. I made them as soon as they crossed the door: demons. Apparently, humans were not supposed to see through their disguises. Aren’t I the lucky one? The look of their insides could make me puke my gut out faster than it would take the demons to cut me open. It surprised me that no one else could notice.
The first face-to-face I had with a demon – which, fyi, happened to be the principal –scared me shitless, breathless or whichever “less” you can think of. I fainted only to wake up next to the school nurse who, as it happens, is an angel. At least I assumed so, it’s not like they’re labelled or anything. I only knew they weren’t human and that one made me want to commit suicide if only to permanently forget his face while the other shone bright and cuddly.
Since then, I had taught myself to recognize the different breeds and all. It completely freaked out my mom to see demonology books on my night stand but hey, I’d rather be prepared.
At least, neither demon nor angel knew I could spot them. They left me alone and I minded my own business.
These two were an incubus and a succubus. Crap: sex demons. They were the first ones I saw but the lust was unmistakable. And if their tango was any indication, I’d say they were on the prowl. Shitload of crap. I was probably the only virgin a mile around. Not that I want to be, by the way, it’s just that my fucked up view of the world is a real handicap when comes to smoochies.
I hoped the demons weren’t here for me but I was apparently fresh out of luck.
The succubus left her partner behind to walk over to me. She brushed my arm with hers and the jolt that went through me probably passed for a shiver on the outside. She was so sad it almost made her likeable. But she was a demon and she was out to skin me alive and steal my soul. And if I needed a reminder of her nastiness, I could just peek at her: her demeanour looked like uncooked chicken breast left on the counter until it walked again. It smelled like it too.
She returned to her partner and he started toward me. What the heck were they playing? I feigned not to notice their ungodly attention. Then, the incubus brushed my arm. My knees gave away and he caught me. He set me straight and asked if I was okay. It was so faked I could puke. He was a manipulative bastard, vile to the bone. I was panting in an attempt to keep my supper down. He was so going to take this the wrong way.
I waved to signify I was fine and he walked toward his wife with what I assumed to be the smugger smile I had ever seen; his surprise-math-quiz-ugly face obscured any of his act. He lied like he breathed.
The couple talked for a heated minute then the succubus teleported out, leaving only a cloud of red fume behind. Nobody noticed. That may sound weird but I had shed light on that last year. I realised that every time I used to have a lapse in my memory, I had seen something supernatural. Like when you arrive at one place and can’t remember why or how you got there, you’ve seen a demon disappearing, an angel appearing or something along those lines. It’s like automatic camouflage by way of erasing your memory. Worst than the Predator’s.
As soon as his wife was gone, the incubus turned back to me and, supposedly, smiled. Shitload of holy crap.
Come to think of it, holy crap would probably help right about now.

The Virgin – Part 4 >>