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Claudia is exhausted. Blood drips steadily from her forehead, her leg feels even more like it's going to snap off any second then it usually does and she can barely breathe.
She opens her apartment door, trying to pretend there isn't a person heavy in her lap. She doesn't want to know what exactly got her friend this drunk but he is now.
Claudia drags him in, before getting out pain killers and water.
She doesn't want to know what happened when Porter turns to her. “Must be the first time I died of Alcohol poisoning. And that at the job too.”
“Your joking capabilities astound me. Pain killers next to you, the strongest stuff they give you over the counter. Two pills.”
“I love you, Claudia.”
“I am not giving you more pain killers.”
“No, really, I think you are the only woman I ever fell in love with”
“You are drunk. Take the pain killers, we will talk tomorrow.”
Porter nods, takes the medication and is out fast.
Claudia is left alone with her thoughts. Being called a woman has always been bitter in her mouth. It feels like chalk on her tongue. It never felt like a real thing. Even by Porter it felt uncomfortable.
Claudia wasn't casually called a woman before. It was always in the context of the vulnerable little girl being called a woman to deny that they destroyed the life of a child.
Woman wasn't a thing anyone called Claudia. Nowadays it is more so along the lines of “scarfaced bitch”, if a person feels more pitiful she sometimes gets “victim of that awful Gang violence”. Claudia far prefers the first title.
She's barely called her first Name by men, or women for that matter. People don't do it with a lot of fairies, but it's like she's too terrifying to be named.
Claudia knows the meaning of her name. she remembered Being told by the adults to look it up, to get a cruel prank by the Universe. Being born with a huge sign on her head, reading “Cripple” for the world to see. As if she didn't notice her leg.
She also hates womanhood for its relation to that place. To it's relation to being chained down like a rapid animal and being forced to endure sexual acts while various men hauled gruesome insults at her.
Claudia never considered not being a woman outside of the night, curled up into a little ball, begging to be turned into a boy. Any woman facing rape did so, she knows. It's nothing more then not wanting to be hurt anymore.
Claudia hates her femininity like how every woman despises hers. Every woman feels too small in her skin. Every woman wants to crack open herself out of dislike for being a woman. Every woman despises womanhood like how Claudia does.
She has been told being a woman isn't just about suffering. She doesn't believe it. Being a woman is tied to pain. She never met a happy woman who'd never change being one. She saw women who'd rather die than continue being women. And yet, none would deny her mother is a woman.
So she hates being a woman. She largely prefers being known as one of her many Insulting monikers. Honestly, she'd rather just be known as a bitch, a cunt, or a whore then a woman. Actually, not even just those, she'd rather be just called a Cripple then a woman.
Claudia despises womanhood. She always did and she always will. Every woman in her life did.
She doesn't remember any man being as repulsed as she is. The only boy she remembered being upset she met as a little child, on those rare occasions she met kids not unsimilar to herself. He used to wails every time his name was called. Claudia never did.
Sure, she'd rather just be called the meaning of her name because she hates it so much but it's because she hates the farcade of cruelty.
People don't like Claudia. None does. Claudia is a repulsive person.
You don't notice it at first, when she walks past you but once you begin talking to her she is wrong in every way. Claudia is off putting and disturbing and not a sigth any person ever wants to see.
Everyone likes to say they care about fucked up people, until they meet a fucked up whore like her.
Porter acts like he doesn't, but Claudia does not trust him, that as soon as he sees the guts and gore she made of herself, he isn't going to run far away like everyone else.
Claudia is an evil monster. Calling herself an it is nicer then calling herself A woman by now.
Fuck.
She peeks over at Porter. It seems drastic but it does strike a cord. People like him do exist. She has seen him before he was Porter. When he was still a bright eyed journalist girl who used to storm excitedly into the coffee shop.
His eyes are brigther now. She first noticed it when he knocked on her door. It was a rainy nigth, she couldn't sleep. Hair short and blonde, eyes a bright yellow. He looked like hell. The short hair was incredibly Choppy, like cut with a shard of glass, he was covered in blood, most notably his right hand, neck, shoulder and head. His previously white shirt now missed several buttons at the top and was stained, both with blood and with grime, like he had been laying on the street. There's some glass stuck in him, and yet he smiles like never before.
They weren't truly friends at that point. And yet, there he was, on probably the worst nigth of his life in front of her.
“Claudia, I just died. It was the best thing that could've ever happened to me.”
She couldn't do anything but hug him. Claudia and Porter were drawn to each other by the giant bleeding hole in their chest. It seemed just a bit less bleeding for him.
Maybe, just maybe, it can bleed a bit less for her too.