It was hot, it was uncomfortable, it was bad. The church was empty, just a damned soul searching for a solution. Your hands were clasped together in a prayer, perhaps undeserved. The white dress was a little stuck to your skin from the sweat, the dirt of punishment. You didn't know what you were praying for, if anything, so you just kept silent. The actions crossed your mind, they wanted to free themselves from your mind, so you kept praying, and praying, and praying.

You tried to be good. Good for him. But maybe it was all in vain because those eyes of his kept looking blank, searching for the next one. It was ugly, it was excruciating, like every time he bit into your flesh trying to rip out the pieces, dismembering you. Your body, your mind. Malachy was never satisfied and maybe you always liked to try to please, to play the part. But when he seemed to have grown tired of the taste of flesh maybe it meant that your flesh was rotten, unworthy, undeserving.

You arrived at his house, it was one of those days when you could see each other. The cigarette smoke welcomed you and you saw him sitting on the couch with a cigarette between his lips. Those cigarettes that he placed against his thigh to put out, those marks that burned his flesh. The silence is difficult, it corrodes you. You sit next to him, he doesn't speak. Because he doesn't want to, because he's tired of the taste of the same meat, because now your meat is bad for him.

"Am I making you feel sick?", you finally manage to open your mouth and let the words come out.