TIN RUST(Mongiwekhaya) She cried.

This was the third time we had had sex.

I’d been in a few relationships that peaked on that beautiful (and sometimes a little scary) summit, but this was definitely her first relationship that involved it. I know this because the first time we did it, she told me and asked me to be gentle.

I have to say, I’ve never been with a virgin before. Even my first time. Her name was Dominique, a wild woman, with a dashound she loved more than any man that came her way. She played her games, tanning at my friend’s house, waiting until I stepped out; She pretended to be asleep in the sun; I stopped and stared at her lying there; golden; lithe; later in a fit of laughter, she admitted to setting up that scene for my benefit.

But once she had me… well… Dom loved that dog. I think she liked me. I think she liked the pleasure of having me around, and liked the pain of it too. She was my first. So I loved her…or at least acted like I did. Beautiful, sweet, psychotic Dom.

Dom the photographer. Dom the Suicide Girl… not a real suicide girl but the website kind. You know, tattoos, leather of some kind, and photographs. Dom the lover of life good or bad. Dom, who years later, was found in a crack den; Dom who had driven me crazy with lust, and fear, confusion and inadequacy. For all her cleverness and wit, she ended up burnt out and half dead in a crack house. Trust me: I take no joy in that. I only tell you because my recent experiences have left me without doubt that the Angels have no pity. We all forget that simple, humbling fact.

I have to admit, Dom was sweet in her way. Like when I revealed to her, weeks later, that our first time together had been my first time ever.

‘Shit,’ she said sitting in her underwear, the dashound curled up where my jealous head should have been, ’Why didn’t you tell me? I might have been gentle.’

But when it was Bonnie’s first time and I was her Dominique, she minced no bones.

‘Be gentle,’ she said. Even then, she didn’t cry. She cried now. Curling into a little ball, turning away into a fetal pose of pale fragility.

‘What? What is it?’ I am anxious and more than a little frightened. She turns.

‘It hurts.’

‘Really? Only now?’

‘No. No not that.’

‘Then what?’

‘My mouth. But don’t worry, just give me a moment.’ Now I’m really confused. Her mouth? I was kissing her. Tongues curled round each other, that powerful embrace, rendering us both silent, except for moans.

‘Don’t worry baby,’ she says. She turns tender all over and smiles weakly. Those ivory gossamer teeth stand out against the saliva imbued with bright red blood.

‘Shit,’ I say.

‘You kissed me too hard.’

‘I did?’

‘That skin… that piece that holds the tongue to the bottom of my mouth…?’ she opens her mouth carefully lifting her tongue. And that little ridge of skin, thin as paper, is ripped and bleeding. She closes her mouth again and continues crying. crap. I kissed her too hard.

‘Baby, bunny, I’m sorry.’

She shakes her head.

‘I forgot…’ she is silent, no longer crying but clearly trying to stand up to the tin rusted agony in her mouth.

‘What did you forget?’ I ask.

‘I forgot what pain tastes like. Tastes like… sadness.’

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