I broke her at noon

I broke her at noon.

It was one of those fall days where it's still warm, but the smell of autumn tingles your brain as it seeps in your nose unseen.  Her apartment on Hollywood Boulevard could be mine if I wanted it, but it all seemed to be too much for too little: a tight space for a big name.  And while I'd had fun with the game, it was over.

We'd played for months.  She would never call me back, and then when all seemed lost she would call in the frantic need to talk to me.  To talk to me about them.  And that's what I swam in when she pulled me into her pool of porcelain ghosts of men who I knew nothing about; I swam in their clinky, creepy aftermath.  She was in pieces, and I was dancing between the delicacy of these easily shattered icons she erected in her memory of them.

Last night, when she called, I would not come.  

Later last night, when she called, I would not come.

After midnight, when she called begging, I came.

I would not listen to her sorrows sung of the next in the line of lovers whose intentions were to merely spin her and tip her and roll her around in a waiting game to see if she would bounce or break when they let her go.

I would not polish her delicate edges, let seep her condensing grief on my hands or protect her with wrappings of paper and cotton.

By daybreak, she was begging to let me once again take what she wanted emptied from her center, so that she may be free to be burned again, filled by their vital fluids and steaming temptation.

By ten, I made my intentions clear.  I was to be next in the line: to spin, to tip, to roll, to pour myself and watch her go.

By eleven, she relented.

I broke her at noon.