Piercing
By Adrienne DeVita
It is late afternoon when he finally pulls me out;
The fluorescent lights glint off my cool steel body.
He removes me from the velvet-lined box
And wipes me down with a cloth soaked in alcohol.
The pungent, medicinal stench fills the air around us,
But I relish the touch of his hand,
The warm pulse of the blood beneath his skin
As his fingers tighten their grip.
In the leather chair, the child trembles.
I can see her body shaking with each heavy breath,
And he loads the diamond stud into me—
She’d picked those out herself.
Her earlobe is between my jaws,
A quarter-sized lump of thick skin—too thick, almost.
He presses a teddy bear into her arms,
But I can still feel the sweat drip down behind her ear
And cloud my gleaming silver body.
He pulls my trigger.
I thrust the stainless-steel post through her fat lobe
Tearing through flesh and nerve alike
For a moment, all is still.
A shriek erupts from the girl’s tiny body.
It echoes throughout the cavernous mall;
Shoppers and storekeepers turn to stare, agape.
“Oh god oh god oh god,” she chokes,
Heaving with each gasping breath.
She brings her hands to her face
As he wipes me down with another coat of alcohol.
Tears smear across her face,
And the bear falls to the floor.
Once I’m clean again,
He loads another round,
Handing the bear back to the girl,
Her face red with crying.
One ear down, one to go.
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