Methylisothiazolinone
by
cyde
(Introspective, Angst)

acknowledgments: Thanks to my prereaders. My good (irl) friend Shane, Scissors MacGillicutty and Brother Grimace for helping prevent this from blowing on ice.

Tiffany smiled as she drew a bubblebath in the antique clawfoot tub. Tiffany had always loved that bathtub; it was so pretty... and deep. With a contented sigh, Tiffany lowered her slender body into the steaming froth. Being at home alone, she felt free to unwind.

Even aware of the fact that she wasn't the brightest bulb in the box, Tiffany often found herself thinking when she took her baths. Inquisitive as a child, most who knew her found it a sad irony that such curiosity would come packaged with a brain so incapable of comprehending the concepts she so hungrily sought to understand. Tiffany drew upon a vague memory of watching her father shaving. Brief flashes. The glint of the stainless steel blade. It was shiny. Shiny was pretty. Tiffany expressed her curiosity and thus began Tiffany's love affair with all surfaces shiny. As she grew older, even Tiffany herself was unable to deny the inevitable; that she just wasn't cut out for learning on that level... so she stopped actively trying.

Even now Tiffany tended toward a simplistic, associative method of thought. Blowing an errant strand of hair from her eyes, Tiffany mused at how good her bubblebath felt.

"Bubblebaths feel soooo goood."

Tiffany swiveled her head from side to side, staring for a moment at the white foam surrounding her, steam rising from its surface. Bubble baths were pretty too. Pleasure, beauty.

Her father's razor. Leisurely shaving her legs, Tiffany pondered the word 'pleasure', considering its connotations in her life in the simplest terms possible, breaking the concept down to black and white. The razor glided over a slight imperfection on the young woman's shin, nicking it. Tiffany stared at the slowly oozing cut for a brief moment before holding her washcloth to it to staunch the flow. Pleasure and pain.

Lavender, one of her favorite scents. Tiffany washed her hair. Tiffany smiled as she thought of how her favorite brand made her obsidian hair so glossy and silky. A small amount of the lather trailed down her forehead, stinging her eye. Tiffany winced and cupped her hand under the faucet, bringing the warm water up to rinse the chemical away. She reflexively squeezed her eye tight, her own tears finishing the work the clean water had started. Pleasure and pain.

Glancing toward the cracked bathroom door, Tiffany spied the vanity in her room. Makeup. Tiffany always loved how properly applied makeup could bring out her cutest features. Eye makeup had always been particularly tough, however. Of Chinese descent, Tiffany had been born with the characteristic single eyelid, making it very difficult... and painful. For all the cuteness makeup could provide, she would give just about anything to have the 'normal' creases in her eyelids which her friends took for granted. Pleasure and pain.

Clothes. Tiffany always found shopping for clothes pleasurable. Trying on a new outfit was always so fun... except if it made her look fat - a fear that always gripped her more strongly than her friends suspected. Tiffany wasn't exactly sure how to feel about her sojourns to Cashman's with her friends. She had seen how they treated the unfashionable and thanked her lucky stars that they didn't judge her by her brain. If they were to ridicule her looks, what would she have left? Her shining personality? Her brilliant conversational skills? Her quick wit? Her good grades? All her other friends? The very thought of such rejection made her want to recoil in horror. Pleasure and pain.

Her peers. Tiffany never suffered for dates with the boys. Tiffany was popular. One of the most popular girls in the school. Tiffany wondered what popularity was, exactly. Everyone seemed to consider the Fashion Club popular because that was what they were SUPPOSED to do. Tiffany thought back to the dissolution of the Fashion Club when Sandi broke her leg. Without the others around, Tiffany quite simply had no one to talk to. Before high school, fashion and popularity, Tiffany never was able to find any common ground upon which to relate to her peers. She couldn't understand what they were talking about and they simply didn't want to put forth the effort to help her understand. She realized that without her three friends, her life really didn't amount to a hill of beans. Highs and lows. Pleasure and pain.

Her friends. Tiffany did everything with them. Shopping, clothes, makeup, sleepovers, fashion shows, Waif, gossiping about other girls, gossiping about boys. All roads led back to the Fashion Club. Always the Fashion Club. It was the singular point of joy in her existence. Without it, her life would crumple like a house of cards. Tiffany vaguely realized that her association with the three other members of the Lawndale High School Fashion Club was shaky at best. What if something happened to threaten her popularity? Her looks? Her social status? Would Sandi stand by her? Would Stacy? Would Quinn? Tiffany again thought back to the dissolution of the Fashion Club... more specifically how it fell. First went Sandi and with her went Quinn. That left Stacy and herself. How long was Stacy able to tolerate her? Three days? Tiffany hadn't acted any differently than she always had. The thing was, she had always had Sandi, and later Quinn, around to make all the big decisions... to cause all the drama. To make the club fun. Tiffany thought back on the contempt and impatience Sandi had always shown her for her dim-wittedness. The relative indifference Quinn had always treated her with. Stacy's inability to cope with her on a one-on-one basis, her own insecurity covered with a layer of sweetness so saccharine that it was disgusting. Tiffany thought about other girls' friends. Friends like that unfashionable girl that always hung out at Quinn's house. Wait, that wasn't right. Quinn's cousin? No. Quinn's sister. Daria. Yes, Daria and Jane. The two could communicate in glances. They actually shared something. THAT was friendship.

It then dawned on Tiffany that she had no friends. Not even a sister to be best friends with... to be share her life with... to get into fights with... to take for ****ing granted. She had never considered it that way, and the feeling virtually sucked the wind out of her lungs. As Tiffany sat in the bath, trying to regain her breath and composure, she became aware of the bubbles crackling and popping around her, the sound suddenly rather annoying. The scent of the expensive soaps no longer held an appeal. The heat was making her feel slightly nauseous. She took a deep breath to regain her composure.

"Quiiiin is suuuuch a biiitch," Tiffany reflected, her quavering voice barely a whisper.

Pleasure and pain. A pain as deep as the abyss itself.

Searching for any port in a storm, Tiffany considered her bubblebath as she shaved under her arms. It's hot, it smells good, it's relaxing, I've hurt myself twice today trying to take one. In her reflection, Tiffany didn't realize she had drawn the razor from the inside of her elbow to her wrist until the water was completely crimson, the heat of the bath helping speed the flow of blood as it left her body.

As her world dipped, spun and gradually faded to black, Tiffany gasped out, "Saaaaandi always diiiid say I look good in reeeeeeeeeeeeed..."

The pain of the cut, the pleasure of release. What do you know, bubblebaths really DO feel good.

50 years later

An old man lay dying in his bed at Cedars of Lawndale hospital. As his life flashed before his eyes, he remembered his beautiful, beloved only daughter. His pride and joy. The day she came into the bathroom while he was shaving. She couldn't have been any more than five years old. She wanted to know what he was doing... how to do it... if she would ever have to. It must have been the twenty thousandth time he'd replayed that scene in his mind.

He remembered coming home from work shortly after his daughter's seventeenth birthday and finding her body in the bathtub, her skin far too pale. Then he noticed the water. Then he noticed his razor on the floor next to her limp fingertips.

He was eventually able to come to terms with the incident. With his complicity. He almost managed to forgive himself.

Tears traced their way down his withered face. He never was able to look at a straight razor again without becoming nauseous

Chuckling at the bitter irony, Mr. Deckler closed his eyes for the last time, finally at peace.