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The red lipstick, hard and moist, hovered near my mouth. I bit it lightly and acquired stained vampire teeth. There was enough to know what the red lipstick could do. If I ever picked up the gumption to wear it, I’d see too much colour. A flesh-coloured one over the darker shade would mask it with only me knowing what lay beneath. A little secret sealed.

That day, however, was meant for blood. It had been a bloody mess. A blanket covered me with amino fluids as I punched numbers. Call. Call. Call. Hello. Hello. Hello. Lovely. Wonderful. Yes. No. Play. The Game.

Games People Play. Bestselling goddamn work. Like Chicken Hawks for the Soul. Did I get the name right? I must have. The only soup I like is asparagus or French onion. I don’t know what is French about the onion. Do the onions walk down the Champs Elysees in fashionable togs and stilettos that hurt the tarmac? I like tarmacs, especially those with red marks, lipstick marks, bitten and kissed by wheels. Dying to die. Dying to live.

I held the lipstick like a microphone and belted out the Song of the Tart. I don’t know what a song of the tart is, but it sounded like something a tart would sing. I like tarts, I like it tart. At that point in time I could like the idea of liking. Loving is too much effort. Loving can destroy. Liking is nice. Like soufflé. It slips through your tongue straight into your gullet. It does not pause at the throat to fill you up.

Red lipsticks, alas, you cannot like. You hate. Or you love. As dusk settled into the room like a boudoir, the red lipstick looked like she would act the part. She glided over my lips smoothly. I pursed them together. A little strayed outside the line and stained skin…how impossible it is to keep things in place. I lose the limits of my own mouth. I opened it wide and lined it and then dabbed the rest. It was a bud with dew, frost over cake. I walked out and realised that with this on I had transformed. I was leaving something behind and I did not know what.

I tried to fake a cough to cover up the colour. It was dark outside. The trepidation receded. I looked up at the moon. It smiled a brilliant crimson. The moon and I went together. There were people. I did not notice. In the glass lift, they looked. A woman kept us waiting. I snapped, “Come on in.” She snapped back, “Can’t you speak nicely?”

The red lipstick was at work. It wanted things its way. I shut it up. “Hmm...sorry about that,” I told the woman who was wrong anyway. I said sorry five times. I had to apologise because of the red lipstick. The hard and moist one. The one who hovered near my mouth and made me bite her and hurt her so that she could turn around and show me her little bruise.

I got out of the lift and inhaled the scent of different fragrances. I had forgotten to wear one. My lips smelled of camphor and redness. Redness smells like apples that have been left to rot. No one seemed to mind. I sat down in a plush chair and crossed my legs. Fully covered up, I still felt exposed. Legs. Arms. Cleavage. The cold coffee was ordered. I asked for it to be warm. Yes. Warm cold coffee.

The froth touched the lips. I wiped it with a tissue and saw pink; the red had mixed with cream and altered it. I scrunched the napkin and put it away. The return journey was less confident, less trepidation. Less. Loss.

The mirror showed the gloss gone. The remains were matted, stuck to the lips like an obsession. Faded glory was still glory. The colour remained until dawn.

I am holding the red lipstick again. We need to talk and find out who did what to whom. Did I eat blood or was blood sucked out of me?