Skin

You hate her, your black rival. And she, with no less passion or fury, hates you.

That mutual loathing springs not from the color of each other’s skin, and yet both of you use it. The hue of the other’s flesh as you hiss and growl — both in writing and in word.

Cursing. Insulting. Deriding and degrading.

The racial taunts you write and speak being reserved only for each other, and to both of you would be depths beyond the pale in any other time or place.

And yet for you and your enemy, they are fuel. A source of venom from which you can each draw and then inject into whatever bite you might obtain.

For nearly a year, your midnight texts and late-night, whispering phone calls have been enough. Finally you and she meet.

In the backyard of your home.

In the grass and the dirt. In a filth most appropriate for the soiling nature of your racially-tinged rivalry.

Angry as you and she are at that moment, and as dismissive of one another as you have always been, as you clash — it calls to you: the skin you had for so long used as weapon.

Yours white and hers black.

The chroma of it begging. The hue of it hailing. The tint of it tantalizing and tugging to the point when it must be tasted.

Must be bitten.

Must be devoured.

The flavor turning enemies into allies and rivals into co-dependants.

The lust of it. The passion of it. Your hating of each other’s skin becoming both wound and salve. Sickness and remedy. Cause and carnal cataclysm.

Allow though you both do, the titillating tastes each of you take. You still fight. Still war.

Scratching and choking. Squeezing and wrenching. Pulling and pushing.

Until you can focus on such no more.

And give into the call of your hateful partner’s skin. A skin that begs to be enjoyed once more.