He stood there quietly, mixing the soap into the steaming hot water as it poured into the sink. His fingers becoming momentarily scalded by the heat, but it couldn’t be helped.

His hairline drenched with sweat, slowly curling its way down his forehead in multiple beads and he looked up at himself in the mirror, this is not my face. He splashed the water onto his face and began to notice the sheering pain running through his fingers from the heat, but his face kept a strict solemnity to it, unable to be affected by, or rather not allowing himself to be affected by it.

This is not my face.

The water from his hands went down the arms of his suit coat, leaving that awkward feeling of dampness in between two objects that shouldn’t have a dampness in between them.

The room itself filled with a sepia like color, everything a strange black and white without any actual white being in the picture. The heat of the water began to sting and roll over his face slowly, blood entering into the sink water turning a sharp black.

He looked back up into the mirror and instead of seeing his olive colored flesh he saw only his eyes, his flesh was gone from his face and all that remained was the tissue underlying. Muscle fibers with the fat that was beneath. He stared quietly at the roundness of his eyes, now pulsing outwardly, blood slowly dripping down and off into the water.

His quiet expression slowly changed as he plunged his face into the sink. He enveloped himself in the darkness of the water that had turned black just moments before. The pain surrounded him for moments, he fed on it, letting it fill his soul to its brim until it became too much. He raised his head in a quick jerk panting for breath.

He moved his fingers over his face slowly as it suddenly reappeared over his facial muscles and he breathed out through his nose slowly, feeling a darkness come over him.

It was a new body. He looked in the mirror at his head of hair, long and flowing in front of him, soaked with blood, sweat and tears. His gaze shifted down staring at the lumps of fat now on his chest that were not there previously. Tits. They were small, but noticeable.

Out of the corner of his eye in the top left corner of the mirror the red light of the neon sign called to him.

The room was still sepia in color and blurred in some cases. The back of a chair would not appear in its form until after he had run into it. His hair fell down over his eyes matted and black. He wanted a cigarette. His face felt numb and on fire. A cigarette formed in his mouth as he thought about it. He drew in on the cigarette, the tip glowing white with a mix of tan.

His suit was a fine suit, from what he could tell at least. He didn’t remember putting it on, or why he was even here. It was a hotel room of some accordance and desirable by all accounts, even being furnished with some plants. A miniature palm tree in the corner, blinds on every window that were curled open, a bright red light flooding in from every window.

He sat quietly on the chair he had bumped into and just sat there, deliberately, pretending not to notice the pain escalating in his face, increasing by his jaw yet he sat there all the same, drawing in on his cigarette before billowing out a plume of tan smoke.

Footsteps. His eyes moved instantly paying close attention as a woman entered slowly with nothing but silk covering her shoulders and draping down to cover her breasts, she has bigger tits than me, they were full and pronounced. Her hips along with her thighs large and made for giving birth. She was pronounced in all areas of her body, and pale, paler than the moon itself at a full sunrise.

Just like that the sepia replaced her pale skin and she became a mixed color of shadows and tan.

He studied her body quietly, roving his eyes about slowly when she gripped her breasts and smiled. This did not quite effect him to the effect that effecting one might imagine, because the effects of one who is effecting is unimaginable.

“Jessie, what is it? Don’t you like what you see?” She smiled a broad smile, something that would make a rise out of any man.

He drew in on the cigarette intensely for a brief moment, fixating quietly on the palm tree groomed into her pubic hair, she stood in all her splendor before him.

After a short period of time he spoke quietly, his eyes fixating back around her breasts: “Why am I here?”

A violent seizure in his sight overtook him and he was no longer in a hotel room with a beautiful woman. Instead, before him was a red object with three holes. Two holes were level with his eyes, a mask?  And the third was for his mouth.

It was stretched out by pins with metal strands, stretching it out like a piece of leather. His face was on fire, feeling like a haze before him, glossing over his eyes. He stared through the eye holes and watched silently as obscure objects moved to and fro around him in plain suit jackets, some plaid, others black—fashionable suits. Women were in the room as well, these ones were wearing polka-dots, black with white dots.

He couldn’t move, his shoulders were pinned to what felt like a desk, with his face pointing outwardly at what he thought was a mask.

Red sweat entered into his right eye and he twitched visibly trying to blink it out. When nothing happened he rolled his eye around and the light did not fade, nor did the stinging from the sweat.

Light was flooding around him completely, bright enough to compare to a multitude of suns pointing into the face.

And in a moment he was back, staring at a beautiful woman with full breasts and wide hips, and it did not quite affect him as much as he thought it would.

The silk was gone from her shoulders this time. So he stared quietly at her breasts, noticing their full size and he breathed slowly, a cigarette reappearing in his mouth and he blew slowly, releasing the smoke through his nostrils before standing up.

Fixating his gaze on the ground for a brief moment, and as he looked back up the woman was gone, but the silk which was draped around her shoulders was now floating towards the ground.

The open sign glowed off and on outside, filling the room with a strange red glow that hovered across the floor before snaking up the side of his face. He began to sweat again, anxiety and suffocation filling him to the full. The room turned an aqua blue as headlights from a car flashed through the rooms curtains contrasting with the red glow of the sign. I need a cigarette.

Digging into the front of her suit she tried desperately to find one, pulling the pockets out and exposing the contents within. Keys fell out and onto the carpet, jingling with a sudden jarring noise that ripped through the muted air, and she stopped suddenly.

She stooped down without even thinking, running her hand over the rough metal of a key, a key to what she didn’t know. However, she felt that it had importance. Importance which wasn’t quite dismissible by any means. A rabbits foot was connected to the chain of keys, he ran his fingers over it slowly, soothing, she bit into the cigarette without thinking—the filter entered into his mouth and he spit within the next moment.

She stared dispassionately as the cigarette slowly cindered on the carpet floor, it began to smoke against the carpet, slowly roiling into a little flame.

The feeling of numbness came over her, she could not even feel the need to snuff that tiny little flame in its adolescence before it could mature into a full blaze. She rubbed the rabbits foot in between her fingertips and thumb, staring into the small little wick of flame as it happened again.

His eyes fluttered, he was strapped to the desk again with the red mask before him, the lights flooding in from every direction, as he sat there numb, unable to move and the feeling of suffocation filled him the anxiety overflowed as he became restlessness. His face on fire, an extreme burning, his sight fixed through the eye holes of the red mesh in front of him staring at the blue ceramic floor.

Breathing was painful, but not impossible. A large object was pressed against his ribs and chest in a fashion that felt as though a boulder was pressed up against him.

Polka-dot dress to his right was speaking in a languid tongue, some words were discernible while others faded out and into dreariness as if it were slurred, or perhaps his perception was slurred, he tried to focus. I need a cigarette.

And with a dull flashing of light that slowly picked up in its pace, going from a slow almost rhythmic, flash, pause, and then flash. Before becoming rapid, the violent flashes of light flooded in through the eye holes cascading all around him.

He motioned his jaw to speak words, but found his jaw clamped shut, he stared quietly at the image before him, his reflection in the ceramic floor, this is not my face.

The fire had spread, still he sat there, quietly rubbing the rabbit’s foot in between his fingers, chewing quietly on his bottom lip.

He was no longer in a hotel room watching it burn away.

He was crouched down almost motionless in the middle of a black road, recently soaked by the rain. Its downpour was ever present, even now he felt the drops running down his head and neck. The drops transpiring in between sweat, rain, and blood.

He nibbled at a flake of skin as he chewed it away from his lip, grinding it in between his teeth before slowly shifting his eyes over a car that burned off on the side of the road. It glowed with blue and red flames, they danced around each other like two lovers completely oblivious and unaware of any onlookers.

Its color was an aqua-blue with a fine and delicate sharp grey around the tire-wells.

A 1938 Chevy Sedan. It was his father’s, and it was on fire. Its headlights glared at him with its two glaring red eyes, at least trying to, the other was faithfully pointing down the dark and lonely road away from him.

A moon that was like a dreaded reaper hung in the silent heaven, shining its dull curse over the vehicle.

His face began to burn slowly again, this time directly under his right eye. He blinked his right eye abstractly, and nothing happened. He tried to motion his hand up to rub under his eye, but found it unresponsive.

I need a cigarette.

One appeared in between his lips, cindering already lit. His index finger and thumb rubbing the rabbits foot as if it were gold, smooth and calming. He smiled as the car suddenly dismissed the flames about itself as he approached without hesitation.

He found the rough metal of the key and sat down rustling over to the steering wheel from the passenger side door and slipped the key in without hesitat—there was already a key in the ignition.

The keys in his hand disappeared and were now in the ignition. This isn’t my car.

He inhaled on a cigarette, deep and long, sucking it down. In the next moment he expulsed it out through his nostrils before he relaxed once again, and the sudden anxiety passed away.

He trailed his fingers through his matted hair feeling his scalp quietly, running his hand through the center of his cranium, down the back of his neck and over the shoulder. His hair was much longer than he remembered.

The room filled with smoke that clung to the very body. The pale woman stood before her again, naked with her pompous breasts. How dare she have bigger tits than me. Jessie stood. Approaching the woman. The rest of the room now entering focus as the miniature palm tree in the corner screamed in its agony as it burned to death, a loud popping issued from it as though bone were breaking.

The pale woman smiled, the curvature of her lips—perfect. The shape of her body, perfect. “What’s my name?”

“Jessie...” She smiled again.

Jessie could feel the suit cling and rub against her body, suffocating her in her anxiety. Being a woman would give her an upper hand. The thought seemed to cling to something within her brain.

The blue headlights outside did not pass, they remained fixed inside of the room as the smoke continued to billow and contrast with the room. Jessie smirked besides herself staring down at the pale woman’s feet, perfect. Down to the line and curvature. The toes immaculate and unharmed in anyway.

I need a cigarette.

The blood flowed out from the pale woman into a large puddle of iridescent red. Her eyes wide with horror and the sudden pain. Jessie looked up and down her naked body with an almost pleasurable gaze.

She squeezed the rabbit’s foot between her fingertips, her thumb stroking the paw delicately as the fire in the room now arched out screaming for more. Her eyes shifted towards the door as the still air was suddenly breached by the sound of rain tapping on the metal roof above, taking her away from the momentary glory that she so craved. There was no triumphant horn or blasting celebration—there was silence. Cold and obvious.

She buttoned the top button of the suit, her matte-black tie pinned to the middle of her shirt unmoving. Her two lumps of flesh perpendicular to the tie in an almost unnatural way. The shag carpet molted into blue linoleum flooring before her. Taking the body and blood of the pale woman along with it.

Her face burned, the tingling and numbness ran down her upper torso, the feeling of more than just sweat running down her abdomen was apparent.

She stood outside in the rain. She could see far off in the distance as the black sky emitted a white glow from the heavenly moon, it peaked through the covers of the clouds, reflecting off the occasional rain drop.

The car that had driven up to the outside of the room sat idle, its red eyes gazed at her unfeeling and raw. It was a blue 1938 Chevy Sedan. Keys appeared in her palm, her fingers stroked the rabbit’s foot.

As she approached the Sedan the driver’s door had been left open. The smell of fuel hit her almost immediately. It was comforting in its way. ’I am a god...’

She sat down in the bucket seat looking out through the windshield two holes and then a third. The red mask hung before her face.

He screamed into the void, his mind echoed with the screams as he stood within his own skull enclosed and unable to move. The Polka-dots dancing around him as pressure sheered through his flesh. His mouth remained sealed. He didn’t have to scream. There was a small puddle beneath the red mask, a mixture of blood, sweat and rain?

It pattered against the ground, he leaned against the cold pavement letting the rain dance across his skin. His new suit was being ruined, but it couldn’t be helped. He was hot. Drenched in his own sweat, the rain merely added to it.

He closed his eyes breathing in and out of his nose slowly, his heart rate hammering away at his ear drums. Raindrops kissed his lips, there was a softness behind its touch.

His eyes opened, above him was the pale woman, her breasts hung down grazing his chest as she melted her lips to his.

“What’s wrong Johnny?” Her words dripped out like warmed honey.

“I messed up.”

Next Chapter: 2. The Suit