And you're Goth. You're so Goth. You're Goth as fuck. Your favorite outfit for raves is a filthy nurse's uniform splattered almost black with dried blood, complete with ripped dirty white hose and one of those little hats with the red cross, except that close examination reveals the top bar of the cross is a little longer than the other three. Fat Docs, orange fingernail polish and lipstick the color of of rotting pumpkins along with blackest black circles around your eyes complete your fuckably Goth image.

Everybody pierces, but you have a reason. Something, your family, western philosophy, Saturday morning cartoons, McDonald's frenchfries, something filled you with poison, so you have to let it out, once a month isn't enough, and the dumbfucks which make up the city at large don't notice that your shroud comes out the sixth day after every full moon anyway (you bleed like clockwork, and cramp like a stagecoach). So you pierce, but only where people can't see: your tongue (and where was the blood that time?), the web between your big and second toes, and the most secret one of all, the one on your left labia, to remind you how much boys suck, you did that one yourself with some alcohol, a needle, and what later turned out to be way too much absinthe.

Your hair is dark red. It used to be brown. You colored it to celebrate your 13th birthday and ever since it has retained that hint of red, even when you dye it black to piss-off the dykes at the coffee bar, even when you dye it white to confuse the wannabe ghouls who follow you around like a goddess, and scariest of all, even when you don't dye it at all, but let it grow out to it's natural color, there's always that underlying hint of red. You see it in the broken faux-art mirror (foezar, pronounce it right, motherfuckers) hanging in your room as you step from bed to shower, shower to dresser, dresser to door and door to bed. And forever and ever your hair will be the length it was when you discovered bleeding: just above your shoulders.

Hey, Brenda, remember when you discovered bleeding? You were 16, watching TV with your mom, with your mom for godsakes, and there was some 20/20 dateline nightline weekend magazine whatever report on girls who cut themselves: is it a cry for help? A lame suicide attempt? A broken down, grizzly bearded psychologist said it was the only thing these girls could do to feel, they're so numb, so withdrawn from all emotion. They've gone beyond depression, down deep into a place so dark that word "dark" has no value, there is no such thing as light to be absent. You looked down at your own lily-white , perfectly smooth, unblemished wrists while your mom got up to fetch a couple of Diet Pepsis for us girls, then you pulled from your boot the straight razor all smart Goth chicks carry for protection/style and gave bleeding a try. Left wrist, one quick movement, the blade was so sharp you didn't feel anything at first, how ironic, you just watched as the skin parted to reveal wet-pink lips, for a few tantalizing seconds your wrist was clean and you wondered if you were some kind of freak, some kind of vampire empty of anything, and then the bloo (it was blood then but now it's just bloo, isn't it darling) gushed out like an overflowing bathtub and you felt the sting finally and the hot sticky warmth on your hand and your mom walked in and dropped the two glasses of diet Pepsi and leapt on you. Then it was dishtowel, hospital, bandages, ("Too shallow to need stitches, Mrs. Rodgers,") and a permanent sideways stare from your mother whenever you're in the room.

But forget about that for a while, Brenda, sit there at your ratty old rolltop desk in your room and add a little more amaretto to your diet Dr. Pepper and think about the nerdy girl you've got a crush on, the one in your gym class who tries so hard to play and fit in, but has caught the basketball in her face more times than her hands. The one who won't ever lose her virginity except if its raped out of her by a drunken frat boy when she's nineteen and finally scared of her dorm room walls enough to put on lipstick for the first time not on a Sunday and take off her glasses and walk over to the nearby loud party where they spike the drinks with such medical precision it's not surprising at all that half of them will be doctors and the other half lawyers.

You've fantasized about her, haven't you Brenda? Thought about what it would be like to show up at her door, dressed to kill in something silky and long, shiny and dark, your eyes immaculately lined in evil black and the scars on your arms expertly hidden by shadows, tricks of light, and the little white Labrador pup you carry in your arms. You caught her looking at you in the locker room, where you shower as much to remove the stink of a gymful of grunting future corpses as you do any perspiration you might have created by walking from the locker room to the bench to sit and crave cigarettes and then walk back again, another hour wasted on regular life. You caught her looking at you, the way your nipples harden under the cold cold water because you refuse to enjoy midday bathing at a highschool of all places.

And so you fantasize about her, how you show up at her door with the puppy, and look at her, your eyes explaining that you saw her looking, that it was okay, and she melts when she sees the dog, his name is Gabriel you explain, and she coos and does all of the typical things a teenage girl does at cuteness which usually make you sick but now you're having a hard time not leaping on her and pushing your tongue down her throat and your hips into hers. Your fantasy speeds up for a bit because you're impatient: she invites you in, offers you a drink, looks perplexed, gets nervous when you light a cigarette, grateful when you put it out, where are your parents? at Doug's soccer practice, Doug? my little brother, when will they be back, in a few hours, why? And then an excuse, any excuse, you're so goddamned tired, Brenda, of living life according to some tragimagic fucking promise of your own dark destiny, and the old clichés are old because they work goddamnit, but in your fantasy it's better if she has the sore neck, so you can massage her, her skin, so creamy, feels like ice cream tastes under your finger tips, and yes, she's so innocent, her blood is so pure, she loosens up, likes what you're doing to her neck, her back, her waist, you suggest she lie down on the floor, she does, you like next to her, and the massage melts way and you kiss her, tenderly,

the way you would have liked it, not the rum and coke tongue in your cheeks and on your teeth, that all important first kiss, it made your heart thrumb Brenda, you're ashamed to admit it but the way his five-o'clock shadow scraped your cheeks made you feel alive, made your blood course, but it would have been nice if he had been gentle,

and you've never met any woman who says she had an orgasm the first time a man ever entered her, but you did, Brenda, he ripped into you and you liked it, you told him so, looked into his eyes and he into yours and your blood running down both of your thighs as he pistoned twice, thrice, four times and then the look on his face said you were in complete control, for a moment you were the god of pleasure pain and man's will, but only for a second because he saw the way your skin flushed around your neck, your pupils dilated, and he knew you'd come, thought he'd done it, his noble dick did it, his arrogance tripled in that moment and you knew he would always think he owned you, so you had to hurt him, but you would never hurt this girl, never, you kiss her gently, nibble on her lips to show it's just playful, it's okay, her breath smells like sour milk and m+ms, your hand is on her hip and you're tracing the skin just above where her jeans meet her waist, you can feel her skin getting warmer, and she starts to kiss you back, her tongue, small lithe pink barely touching your lips and you open your mouth more, running your hand over her back, lifting her shirt up, with casual indifference almost you undo her bra strap,

she's seems to lose a bit of her apprehension as the tension on her shoulder is released, and she presses against you, so you roll her on her back, push her shirt up, and look at her, feeling her eyes so relaxed gazing at your face, and just as you're about to go down and suck one of her nipples, that electric charge which will mean her mom and dad and Doug and the stupid fucking basketball will be forgotten for at least forty-five minutes, she notices the scars on one wrist, she whimpers softly, and though you wanted to keep that a secret, you've succumbed to your fantasy and lost control, she pulls you to her, she kisses the scars, she drags her wet bottom lip across the bumps and the ridges, making you shiver, its like they're open again and you can feel hate love happiness rage all swirling around and weeping out in a cold fire from your arms onto the floor,

your fantasy has moved you to lie back on your bed (her panties your fantasy decides are a boyish navy blue, holding their shape when you toss them away to the couch) and soon you're cumming, she's cumming, and the best part isn't they way you could feel her fear, palpable, musky, mixing with the intense pleasure, in the way the insides of her legs quivered as you slowly licked them making your own knees weak, its not even the way she so eagerly discovered herself in different parts of your own body, figuring out exactly what would make you feel good because it would be what she liked, no, the best part as you drift to sleep is the way she lets you hold in her arms, curled up against your chest, taking little bites out of your neck.

But Brenda you're going to have to get your knife out, Brenda, and go out to the garage and sit on the old paint cans dad left behind with your knees together and your feet apart and pointing at each other and very very slowly draw that blade into your wrists deeper than you've ever done it before and watch the blood wash the sin of fantasy from your wrists because Brenda being happy and enjoying yourself is not what you were meant for, yours is the tragic soul, Brenda, remember? Don't die this time, it's not time yet darling, because death, too, is a fantasy.