The Drug Lord’s Concubine
Fiction short story
I. On The Run
Mary rolls a cigarette from a new pouch of Park Drive. Too moist. Bits of tobacco stick to sweaty fingers. She wipes them on the scratchy settee. The Bella Vista is the fifth motel in as many weeks. The room is perfectly square. The beige curtains shut against the spying sun but the heat can’t be stopped. All the windows are open. She wears a crochet bikini and her gorged breasts sit upon a swollen pregnant belly. A purplish line runs from the belly button to the pubic area. The same colour as the notches, scars and dents on her shins and the mark on her cheek where someone stubbed out a cigarette. Mary can’t remember who.
She’s cut her hair off.
At two weeks beyond the approximate due date, the baby remains unrushed and the state of pregnancy is now eternal. The morning sickness too. A pot of vomit sits on the coffee table attracting flies, a film has formed on the top like the skin on warmed milk cooling. A cask of red wine is on the table too alongside a crossword puzzle and an ice cream container of meth crystals, like sea salt, and also a glass pipe yellowed from use like a bruise on the mend.
Dr Phil on TV accuses his guest of lying.
Brent comes and goes with no season or warning. Will it be hours or weeks? Mary…
