That first cut is always so damn sweet

Bastian Celeste walked his fingers over the casing of miniature drawers. There had been a time when a studio fitting like this would have been a show of status all by itself, but these relics of mahogany and brass were frowned on as much as ivory now.

He slid the first drawer open,  ‘You know, I often think that the 20th century and I would have got on rather well.’

‘A century that gave us genocide, atomic revenge and Margaret Thatcher.’ Filligan eased himself into the gap between the walls, ‘I think they’d have named a tube station after you and put your face on their banknotes.’

Bastian shook his head, reaching for the button tucked up inside the roof of the drawer, ‘The 20th century was all about humans trying to be gods.’ he flicked a sarcastic glance at his companion, ‘Now we just make them in our own image.’ He closed the drawer and moved onto the next one, pulling it half out and then pushing it back in again, ‘Power was and always will be an addiction, and where there’s an addiction there’s a lucrative living to be made in solutions.’

‘I thought you didn’t care about money?’

‘Who said anything about money?’ Bastian opened and closed a line of drawers, down and across, before stepping away. He began counting backwards from ten.

‘There are other safe zones,’ Filligan pushed himself against the back wall as Bastian snuggled into the alcove next to him.

Bastian slithered closer, ‘Four. I don’t even need to be in here, I had a noise cancelling patch fitted two years ago. Three. I just like how uncomfortable this makes you feel.’

‘You’re a complete arsehole.’

‘Of that there is no doubt.’ he nudged Filliagn, ‘Oh, and zero.’

‘Godamn…’ Filligan made a valiant attempt at throwing his hands over his ears before passing out.

Bastian patted his companion’s shoulder, allowing him to slide gently to the floor. Then pulling a delicately carved pill box from his top pocket, he raked through the contents with his little finger and shut the box again, this time opening it along a concealed hinge and exposing a lower compartment which was empty except for a plastic lining and a miniature knife. Bastian picked the blade out carefully, twisting it and rolling it along his fingers as he crouched down and pulled Filligan’s hair away from his neck, inhaling the sweetness of it, ‘Oh, Filligan Platt, now you’re just playing with me.’

He flipped the blade between his thumb and forefinger, savouring a final breath before cutting a neat set of parallel lines at the base of the young mans neck. Then he slid the blade along the length of the cuts and pulled the thin strip of skin free.

Bastian held it up to the light and smiled, winding it around his little finger several times before placing it into the pill box along with the knife, ‘I’m a bad man, my friend, but then you knew that before you signed up.’

I meant to post this on Friday but ended up in hospital instead. My whole week has been shot to pieces, but Bastian Celeste remains. I’m gonna have a drive around over the next few days, see what all you peeps have been up to without me.

HIVEMIND
Part 1 – I’ll slip into something more comfortable
Part 2 – Just depends what sort of mood I’m in.
Part 3 – It’s not like we stood in line fore this
Part 4 – That first cut is always so damn sweet
Part 5 – After 9 days I let my mind run free