My name is Fáinche and I'm an Irish amateur horror writer. I'm from the border in Ireland so it's rich in history and culture. I am a bird mom to 2 green cheek conures who are 5 and 8 years old and the loves of my life. I also live with my partner who introduced me to the only living animals I am not allergic to. I am working on a collection of short stories, and a novel, and I am so excited for what the future holds for me. After dealing with a few years of ill health, I am ready to kick the fear of failure to the curb and take the bull by the horns.
BLIND DATE
by
Fainche Ni Dhubhne
My hands shook as I tried the door, and with little reluctance, clicked open. Hot tears spilled down my cheeks and I wiped them away furiously, spreading the sweat and grime on my face. I glanced over my shoulder. Dust mites swirled in the shafts of light that wormed their way through the boarded-up windows and sliced across the floor. The room would have made a nice bedroom if it had been taken care of properly, the plaster of the wallpaper peeling in the corners and mold bloomed across the wall like confetti. A single stained mattress pushed against the wall, the rope I chewed off my wrists stuffed under the right corner.
Sounds of clinking glasses, voices falling and rising like crashing waves rushed into my head. I found myself looking up from the candle-lit table at Mark, his blue eyes crinkled at the corners as he smiled at me. I found myself back to last night.
“Not too bad for a first date?”
“Not bad at all,” I smiled. My heart seemed to have taken up permanent residency in my throat for the evening, since meeting Mark at 7 o'clock. He was shorter than stated, his hair was different, but I had a weakness for blue eyes that firmly rooted me in place.
He had kissed my cheek and pulled a bunch of roses out from behind his back. Yellow roses. Not my favourite: I imagined my hands wrinkling and gaining liver spots as I accepted them.
The pub was too warm. My bra needed readjusting, my heels were a little too tight, and I was conscious of the sweat drying off my back through my sheer top. My social anxiety ebbed away at the confidence of my outfit choice.
“So,” I began, “what do you do for a living?” I was already sipping on my second glass of wine. My tongue felt heavy already, my nervousness fizzing with the alcohol in my bloodstream.
“I’m a real estate agent,” he said nonchalantly. “No, no, don’t give me that look. It’s really not as glamorous as it seems. And what about you? A model?”
I laughed. “Nope, I actually teach English as a second language.”
“Jesus, a teacher? I might need you to give me a class sometime.” He flashed a cheesy, toothy grin.
“You seem pretty well-spoken to me,” I retorted.
Raising his voice over the new crowd of people that sat down close to us, he asked, “so where are you from? I can’t exactly place the accent.”
“Ah, all over,” I said, “I’ve only been in Dublin for about four months, though.”
“And what do you think?”
“I like it here, you know. I mean, I hate the grey buildings everywhere, but I like the rain.”
“You should see Connemara”, he said, after polishing off his second beer. “It’s beautiful. Hey, if all goes well, maybe I could take you someday.” And then, gesturing to my glass, he asked, “another one of them?”
That was when he must have spiked my drink.
The rest of the night was a blur. Kisses over the table, his arm draped over my shoulder as he walked me out. My head spinning. The lights of the city too bright; they moulded together into one monstrous fluorescent blob. My legs wobbling under my weight. My heels scraping along the cobbled stones. His body on top of mine in an alleyway, the stench of piss snaking up my nostrils, his erection pushing against my stomach.
And then I woke up here. Rope fibres splintering my raw wrists and ankles. The mattress stained with my blood.
I tiptoed down the hallway in my bare feet. Shivering in the cold, I wished I had taken my torn top from the floor. Skirt askew, I could not find the fucks to adjust it to cover the baby hairs on my bruised inner thighs.
I pattered down the polished wooden floor, my feet sticky with sweat.
Passing an open doorway, I was greeted with a pristine bathroom, equipped with a shower and three rolls of toilet paper. Threatening painful jabs from my bladder were immediately forgotten when the staircase came into view. I took them two at a time.
Daylight streamed in from the frosted glassed front door and reflected off the vase on the tiny white table to my right. The yellow roses stood proud in the vase, taunting me. I wanted to smash it and tear the flowers apart. Shove the petals and broken glass down my throat until my stomach was full of blood.
I quickened my pace. As I passed an open doorway, I saw Mark, sitting on a cream couch, idly scrolling on his phone, a steaming mug balanced on his knee. His head snapped towards me at the sound of my approach, face blank and emotionless, eyes shadowed and dull.
“Whatthefuck-” He muttered as he moved. A strangled cry bubbled from my chest.
“Hey! Stop!” I heard him calling.
I was almost there. Three more steps and I would be outside.
My head started ringing. Something crashed. I imagined the coffee spilling over the cream couch, seeping into the cracks of the faux leather.
The front door swung open with ease and for a moment, everything stopped. I was on a neighbourhood road, houses pressed together like dominos. Birds chirped as they flitted from the trees along the footpath. Sunlight shone through dusty summer clouds. Oblivious, a family across the road packed their car for a trip. A woman, cradling a squealing baby in her arms, kissed them on the cheek.
A hand clamped over my nose and mouth. My muted scream stole my breath as his arm wrapped around my waist and gravity left me. I watched the husband smile and close the boot of his car. I was pulled back into the house, the door slamming with the sound of my death.
Perhaps they would smell my rotting corpse in a few weeks.