City

Ⅰ

It was a hot, sweaty, summer day when I fell in love.

Her name was Jenn. She was young and beautiful, with dark primal hair and a full, perfect ass from heaven. Her body was magic. She was small and girly but a gorgeous woman at the same time. She was magic, but her face really was what was special. Big lips, forming a magnificent smile, big green eyes that would tell me everything. I felt more love for her here than ever before anywhere else. It was true. It was a perfect love drowning our young minds in a pink ocean of joy and there was a time when nothing and nobody else mattered other than her.

Nothing else seemed to have any importance at all than to be in love with her, to feel her body and touch her skin and look deep into her eyes as if all answers for life were written in them. To bike with her through every street, exploring the city to the deepest bone, to fly with her. Together we transcended normal life, the life people here would call normal. Lives I could only call wasted. Holding hands with a grip as if our survival depended on it. We were dancing past the roads, where grim faces were locked into small cars, stuck in travel, angry and tired and probably hungry too, lost and lonely on their way to work. Our surroundings were rushing by like deadly bullets fired beside our heads and we only cared about our love, about the magic, that magic, the only thing that mattered. We talked about what we loved, we talked about our dreams, about what we wanted to do and where we wanted to go and it made all the sense. She made me feel like the best man on the planet and I treated her like the queen she was, and I felt unstoppable and strong, and for that short time as it lasted, for that blink of time in which everything was perfect and true, I really believed, with all of my heart and the soul she made me find, that true love was real and only good could exist. I felt like love was the only thing that mattered, that mattered more than anything else! I felt like the world could learn to love, that evil could be conquered and good could prevail and maybe, just maybe if we were kind enough and open enough, if we would work hard enough, together as one and uniquely united, we could do it, we could be at peace, with love and happiness.

2

A door opened and her eyes widened with the same glow as if I’d be injecting pure heroin into her veins. The magic was back and the rush was traveling faster through my body than a sports-car accelerating on an empty track. The adrenalin, that was multiplying with every step on the stairs up to her apartment discharged like lightning. Our eyes connected and in a fraction of a second, I traveled to the edge of her soul and back. Then I jumped forward and so did she and we met in the middle and kissed, our bodies pressing against each other, my hands automatically linking with her ass pulling up her leg, filling the space with my hips. A quiet moan. I pressed her inside and kicked the door close. It was only us and our tongues going crazy together. I forgot what she felt like. I envisioned it so many times away from her and nothing compared to holding her then right there. Her thin body, close to mine, her warmth giving me power, a power I forgot existed.

I panted “hey” for the brief second in which my tongue wasn’t tangled up with hers, but her pants were already down, my fingers gliding in between her legs and when she screamed up another moan I realized there was no time for conversation and as I realized, my pants were already down and I was laying on top of her on the wooden floor. I looked her in the eyes and slid inside. Her pupils widened and we were going. A quick breath, with it escaping one single word: “hey”, she gasped.

I was back all right.

3

The next morning I woke up with the smell of hot coffee brewing up in the kitchen and I smiled before opening my eyes. The first thing I saw was her tits rubbing against my face. Naked, above me, she was smiling: “Coffee”?

“Coffee and tits”, I smiled back and it’s what I got.

That morning was beautiful. I remember a warm sun raining through the window and the smell of a mellow fall day in my nose. It mixed quite well with the coffee. Jenn dropped four or five eggs into a hot pan, the butter melting and sizzling on it, the egg white surfing on the butter, and the yolk coming through in magnificent orange color. Some bacon and cheese on top and we were sitting at the window naked, eating that breakfast and enjoying one of the last days before fall. She looked at me. With as much love as anyone might try to imagine, her eyes so big and round and finally a quiet whisper:

“I missed you so much”, she said. And at that moment she was completely who she was, the closest to who she really was, to whatever that might be. She was there, all of her, everything, right there in front of me, giving me everything.

“I missed you every day”, I whispered back. And it was the truth. I didn’t care about showing her anything else than that. It felt right being with her. It felt like coming home. And when I was later holding her I really felt like I was home. Feeling her skin felt more like home than any home I’ve ever had.

“I am just where I want to be”, my lips formed, and my tired voice carried into her ear. I really meant it, maybe for the first time in my life. She told me that she loved me. I loved her too. I loved her more than anyone.

I really did.

4

The days went by faster with her. The first couple of days were like the last ones before I left. It was still warm outside so we took the bikes and rode them all over the City. We were flying again alongside the streets and buildings we had discovered together. The places we made ours. We kissed at the places we had last kissed and hugged where we had hugged and as long as the sun was still there our love was too and every day was as beautiful as they were.

I felt at home in the city. I was happy there. I was excited to live there with her. No idea where it would go, but with no need to know. Before I could turn around it’s been a week, then two, and soon already a month.

She was an actress. It was her last year of acting school and I helped her shoot self-tapes almost every day. I thought she had some real talent and she did. I just thought acting school was stupid. Acting not unlike writing is one of those things you can only learn by yourself. And with by yourself, I mean nobody can really teach you that. You just have to keep doing it. Hopefully, until you are one of the greats. With writing, you really should be by yourself. And when you are not writing, you should be around women. Men too. Actually all kinds of people. And you should be doing all kinds of things. But when you are not writing, for the most part, you can’t do better than being around women. And I mean beautiful women. As a man, women can give you what you need.

They can give you the most.

Anyways. Jenn landed a couple well paying commercial parts, so she started to work. Suddenly she was gone all day and I was at home. It broke a weird kind of monotony we created. Before it was chaos every day. There was no structure to our days whatsoever. We were transcending normal life like before, but I had started to feel different about it, than when it first symbolized freedom, like the freedom I hadn’t known before. I wasn’t writing anymore. I wasn’t reading. My normal schedules just stopped making sense. There was only her. And I wasn’t thinking about anything else either. About work. About money. About the things, I wanted to do. All I thought about was her, all the time. It didn’t matter how much money I spent or how many words I typed. I paid by card and my notebook stayed closed. I stopped opening my bank account and the money dropped out like sand in an hourglass. I was only thinking about her. About how her full hair was swinging in a ponytail when she was walking, or riding. About the face, she made when I gave it to her good.

She could just look at me from the other side of the room, with those big green eyes, the way she did it and I would jump her and we would start to fuck. We fucked all over the place. In every room off the apartment in every corner. It didn’t matter. There was constant tension between us.

Young men should meet a truly beautiful woman one time. To see what they are fighting for. To see what real power looks like. It’s when a princess takes your hand instead of others. When she opens up for you. When she gives you all her love. A special love only women can give. An evolution of the love young men feel for the first time as a small baby in their loving mother's arms. It’s what they find again, embraced by her, holding herself on your shoulders, sitting on your lap, her full breasts in your face. Her delicate scent in your nose. Her soul in your eyes. That love makes strong.

5

Jenn was working and I was at home. “Feminism doesn’t feel right”, I thought. It really didn’t. Jenn was making money and I was just sitting around doing nothing. I couldn’t even take that for a day. I went downstairs and got a six-pack. I got upstairs and started drinking. My notebook stared at me. I opened another beer. The stare got more intense. Fuck. 6 P.M. Jenn wouldn’t be until 11. Another beer. I had been on a couple of film sets. All small budget and on the artsy side. But still. The principle is the same. A bunch of guys and just very few, very attractive women. I took a big gulp. But most of those guys were overweight nerds handling lighting or lenses. Nothing to worry about. Of course, there are also male actors. And they are quite handsome too. And then there is the director. And he is very close with the actors. And he usually is fairly successful. And charming. Damn. Another beer. I stared at the clock. 6:05 P.M. I stared at my notebook. It judged me.

“Don’t you judge me!”, I told it. One more gulp and I grabbed my pen. “I’ll show you!”

I sat down and opened it. It was back in the day when I only wrote by hand. I was writing a story about an alcoholic boxer and his wife. I was writing about manliness. Or I thought was. I put the pen down and started writing. I drank more beer. Wrote some more. 9:20 P.M.

I got some solid writing done. It wasn’t very honest writing but it was technically sweet. I got some juice in my lines. I felt drunk. And horny. And soon jealous too. I checked my phone. Jenn was offline since she left. Fuck. I felt trapped and needed to escape. I grabbed the keys and ran out. Thursday night. The party scene was preparing for the weekend. It had been a nice day so people went out. Short skirts and long legs filled the street. I just kept walking. I was the young lion in the savanna, roaming his kingdom. There were some really nice legs out that night. But every time I saw their faces I got disappointed. None of them were anything like Jenn. When they had nice legs, they had something wrong with their face. When they had a nice face, they were usually

somewhat on the bigger side and when everything made sense they had some guy holding their hand. I missed Jenn. I kept walking. Damn, I was young. I laughed out loud. Everything was

possible and all still out there to come. I would be rich and famous one day. I kept dreaming and reached the island. People were floating on it from all sides, over all bridges crossing the brownish water, slowly moving downstream. Jenn. I checked my phone again. She was online ten minutes ago. Some guys would be flirting with her. Smiling at her. But she would never do anything.

Never. But she really wanted to be an actress. And some director might get her there faster than me with my writing. Damn. No way. I had never been that jealous. Not with Nora, not with anyone.

Never like that.

I kept walking and reached the channel. The water just kept gliding away. Steady and quiet. I was alone. Just me and the water. I stood and watched and thought. It felt like somebody had planned it all out for me a long time ago. I got lost in my thoughts as my phone lid up.

Jenn: “I am home baby.”

“So tired.”

“I love you so much.”

My love was back. All I wanted was to feel her warmth. All I wanted was to get away from that place. Finally, I stepped, turned, and walked. I escaped.

Walking home, I wasn’t looking at no legs no more.

Again I thought, what a weird city, what a strange place,

as I was getting lost again,

on my way home.

I slipped under the blanket and kissed Jenn’s cheek. She was dreaming, I glided closer, feeling her warmth and it was the best I could get. “I love you”, she was mumbling in her sleep, keeping her eyes closed. It’s all I wanted to hear. When I went to bed I thought, I’d be laying awake until the sun would rise, trying to figure out what had happened. Feeling her then, my eyes felt heavy and burning, and only wanted to close. So they did. Then I was floating down a river, then falling into a canyon, then sinking into sleep.

It was the deepest sleep I’ve ever had.

With many confusing dreams.

Ⅱ

WE were making love when the race cars hit.

“BANG BANG BANG” then “RUM RUM RUM” and they were saucin’ down and around and I heard them going fast down main street. It was just about one A.M.

With our own little race just heating up I had no nerve for any outside distractions. I kept going and went faster.

“Like THAT like THAT!!”, she screamed.

I heard them hauling up their motors further and further in the distance, then licked her tongue.

Feeling safe they were gone.

Another one coming down. He must be way behind I thought. Loud in the corners and heavy too,

“DUUUM DUUUUUUUM DUUUUUUUUUM”, it made and it was so loud, I thought he was about to bust through the wall. I stopped and looked out the window.

“Don’t stop! Don’t stop!”, she squeaked and I was working again. Damn those race cars.

I went back to it and found the rhythm at once. Now it was even better and she pressed her face together, like she was trying to hold something in that I was digging out. I hit that perfect angle and she hauled up like the motors of them cars and it sounded somewhat like a cry almost.

“RUUUUUM RUM RUM RUM”!!! God damn those race cars as they were lapping past the apartment again for another round. Not like that! They broke my concentration and I was slowing and stopping. I thought somebody must die. And I pulled out and jumped off the bed.

“No! No! Don’t stop!! What are you doing??”, she cried out, in disbelief. As much disbelief as if I had just shot her father in the chest, in front of her very eyes. Naked, the hard one back, shooting up like a rocket in front of me I yanked the window open and screamed at those cars whizzing past on an empty street.

“TO HELL WITH YOU RACE CAR DRIVERS, I AM TRYING TO FUCK!!!”

And the last one was whizzing by and down the road and away from us.

“Don’t worry about them, baby! Come back here, baby.” And she opened her legs and looked at the rocket.

And I was working again.

2

She would work for another week on some commercials. I think one was for a shampoo from Korea, the other for a woman’s shaver and she had one more for a female private product, which isn’t that important to name. I was kinda happy to have some time to myself. Finally. Also, I needed some time to recover from the constant screwing all day that did start to take a toll on me.

My knees were torn open and bleeding from the heavy friction on sharp or uncomfortable places (especially the window sill). My elbows too. And one morning, after we couldn’t sleep, because every touch of each other's skin somehow made us start screwing again, I felt so empty that I was convinced that if I had to cum one more time, I would ejaculate dust.

“Sounds like a dream”!

I went out to a bar at midday to explore the city on my own. I felt like tasting some good whiskey so I did. If you go to a real bar at day there will always be someone. Depends on the bar who that someone is of course. I met an old drunk there and somehow I couldn’t help but talk to him.

He was an interesting fellow. Especially his stories. If someone would give medals for looking like a drunk and see this guy, they would take the effort to engrave his name in the gold medal!

That guy looked like a mixture of every drunk I ever saw, mixed together with gin and ice and vodka and puke. His skin was leathery and toned yellowish. His nose was big with spots on it. It gave place for an entire ecosystem to grow and I am sure if a scientist took the time to look closely he would discover new microscopic life forms eating on this man's skin. He did kinda look like a wet sack of human shit. But it would be the last thing to bother me. And most importantly, he didn’t smell. It was very hard to believe, but this fellow, even though giving all the marks expected, did not smell like garbage. Not like shit. Not even like puke. He constantly had a drink in his hand and if he didn’t look like such a bum, he’d nearly be classy with it. I almost lost my mind after we started talking. He must have been a couple of drinks in at least, but not a trace of liquor smell descending from his mouth. Or his body. He did seem a little buzzed to say the least but for some reason, I got the feeling he would never be completely out of it.

Maybe he wasn’t a real drunk after all. Maybe he was just playing one. Going through a divorce or something, showing his (ex) - wife how self-destructive he was. Maybe he was an actor and preparing to play a drunk on screen. I don’t know why I thought this. I am sure he left an impression on me. And not too many people did.

“It doesn’t feel like one.”, I said.

“Huh”?

“Like a dream, it doesn’t feel like a dream.”

“I am just tellin’ ya one: ENJOY IT WHILE IT LASTS!”, and the drunk took another sip of his drink. Whatever that drink was. Dark black, with hints of green flashing up every now and then.

I thought I’d better not ask.

“I had a girl love me once”, he continued, “ she was beautiful and I mean it!”,(And he meant it), “BIG tits! Nice ass! You know, one where you can’t decide where to cum on first.”I knew and nodded. Surprisingly I felt no shame talking to that man. It was like he knew everything about me anyways. And how openly he talked! He talked with the honesty of a drunk but with the street eloquence of a heartbroken professor.

“We spent every day together. Every night. We were going at it ALL THE TIME! I thought I was the luckiest guy on the planet. I felt like a king!”

His eyes lid up and I could tell he remembered the smell of her, of her hair, of her skin, the feeling of perfection of her riding on him. Of looking her deep in the eyes while feeling her. And I was thinking about Jenn again and wanted to screw her.

He paused and I felt how he paid dearly for that moment of remembering.

He looked down at his drink and through it and got lost there for a moment, his big head hanging heavy on those old shoulders.

“She always told me she didn’t care about money, she cared about me.”, he shook his head saying that.

“But women just can’t help it. If a better opportunity comes around they will fucking take it.

She got a job as a secretary you know. Her boss was a real big shot. I didn’t like it from the beginning and she’d tell me for months not to worry.” He paused, again that pain in his eyes.

“Ah damn it!”, he finished his drink in one giant gulp.

“She got it up with that boss of hers and they were going at it for months. She probably sucked him off under the table every time she got the chance!”

I didn’t know what to say.

“I’m sorry.”, I said, and I was.

“Ahhh, it is what it was, right?”, saying that he didn’t sound like a drunk.

He turned for his jacket hanging on his bar chair and fished around in big pockets, eventually pulling out a half-empty pack of smokes. He offered me one and I denied. Then he lit a match and smoke arouse.

“Do you feel like you are where you want to be?”, he finally mumbled in his rusty voice, exhaling smoke in the air.

“I don’t know what that means.”, I replied and felt good about my answer.

Suddenly animated he continued:

“You need to know. If you want to keep your girl. They feel that you know. They feel if you are someone or not, or if you’re going to be. If they feel like you’re shit and you’ll stay shit,

guess what, to them, you are shit. That’s just women.”

I didn’t answer. He pulled on his cigarette and continued: “Like all the goddam people in this city. Do you ever look at them when you’re walking down the street? Look at them and you see, they are not where they want to be.”

“They look sad.”, I said.

“They are.”

Then he ordered another drink and became an old drunk again.

3

I did watch those people, walking home. Lightheaded and free. The whiskey kicked in as soon as I touched fresh air again, my pupils narrowed down, burning from all the light that is avoided so well in bars and pubs open at day. Protecting the vampires insight, hiding from the sunlight. Hiding from life. Trying to swim to the bottom of liquor bottles, as it became the only safe place they knew. The only one without pain.

Old drunks. Is there something sadder than an old drunk? One that is not happy.

And I couldn’t remember how we started talking, that drunk and me.

Did he ask me something? Or did I? Or did we just start talking? Me telling him everything about my life, and he talking about his. It not mattering because I felt like I would never see him again.

And I was wondering about it for much longer as I was strolling past the rich area and fine houses, past expensive cars, over the river, through the park, and in direction of the main square. Not choosing where I wanted to go, just following my legs. Watching those people passing by. As many there are in a city, passing by, largely unnoticed, forgotten after seconds, and never seen again. People with lives and stories and houses and kids, looking for their way around. Somehow here. In the same city as me. Living. Working. Whatever people are doing all day and during their week until they die.

That day I was looking at everyone. Not just the hot girls passing by. All of them. We all had a story. Those two seconds of exchanging a glare. Or them looking away. Or them hiding a smile. Or looking straight through me as if we were a wrong word away from starting a fight.

I wondered how much the day they had changed who they were at that moment.

Maybe that guy looking all angry just got broken up with by his girlfriend.

Maybe that girl smiling at me was trying to get out of a relationship.

Maybe it was all random and being there right then, seeing those exact people and them seeing me was so far down the road of impossible that feeling sorry for oneself for more than a second at any time of day was a joke too ridiculously funny to explain.

Or maybe it all made sense.

4

I started to enjoy that time to myself. With Jenn gone. Giving me some air to think.

And just as I got used to it, something changed.

It was the beginning of terrible and it started in a dark back street behind the island.

Jenn wrapped shooting the commercial about that female private product and we decided we would celebrate those couple thousand going bling bling on her bank account with sex and drugs.

“I know what we should take!”, and her beautiful eyes were going bling bling like her bank account would. God, I loved her.

“What?”, I asked.

“LSD!”

“LSD?”

“Oh Jim it’s my favourite!”

“You’ve done it?”

“Mhm.”, and she smiled her big smile like she was remembering an orgasm.

“So, how is it?”

“Beautiful! It is so beautiful! It can be the most beautiful thing! You’ve never tried?”

“No. I’ve tried mushrooms once or twice, but …”

“…So we HAVE TO!!”, and we were holding each other close.

I wasn’t much of a drug guy myself, but with her, I wanted to try everything. Feel everything.

“All right I wanna do it! It’s perfect, the first time, I wanna do it with you!”, I said and we started kissing.

Three or so hours later was I downing a miniature vodka bottle together with Jenn and shortly after getting pulled by her into a crowded rooftop club then to the bar, the lights going strong and the beat hitting heavy. We were together and we were free. Then tequila. More. And we were dancing. Around all the people. And again it was only us. Her and me. And everything around. Our eyes. Lighting up. More people were flooding in and the place got packed and we were at the bar again. The bartenders were young guys, busy filling glasses. Everybody crowding around the tap. The music beating on. People were flirting and hungry eyes were searching. Too many were on Jenn. On me too. I ordered some drinks. The bartender was smiling at Jenn while I was talking. I didn’t like it. I ordered, then took and kissed her and kissed her good. Those drinks were going down and we were dancing again.

Lsd god dammit, I wanted to be high! Do everything! Drink! Smoke! Drop! Fuck it I’ll do it.

We didn’t get any acid that day so we were looking for it at night in the club. And if you’re drunk in a club asking other drunk people for a drug it usually won’t be long until you hear about some options of supply.

Our option was a tall, drunk, alright-looking girl with curly red hair. She was drunk in the way good-looking girls in their twenties are drunk. Loud and annoying, laughing, slurring their words, and only getting through with it because they were hot. She wasn’t that hot but seemed to be in love with Jenn. And she was persistent.

“Ohh your juszt SO! CUTE!!”, she kept giggling about. And while she was giggling she moved her body in a waveform, throwing every word with her head towards us.

I liked it. Jenn didn’t.

“Ehmmm, so your like a couple that’s OPEN For stuff?”, she kept throwing.

“Yes!”, I said. And Jenn threw an invisible dark look at me.

“OH!”, she went again and she was hugging us. Then she was hugging Jenn a little more than me.

Then she gave her a kiss on the cheek.

“Can I kiss her?”, she asked me. What a question. Let’s go with it I thought.

“You should kiss.”, and they didn’t waste any time and started making out, right in front of me. For me. Jenn didn’t really want to, I could see it, but a part of her must have been reminded of that freedom of being single. Of the attention of being the most beautiful girl on the floor. With the hungry wolfs lurking. Her choosing only one. I was smiling, sipping on my drink, and thinking it was the beginning of a good night.

I was so very wrong.

“OHH! Your just SO CUTAE you know?? Excuse me pleassse.”, and she just stumbled, tumbled off talking to some guy like nothing happened.

“Let’s go!”, Jenn said and grabbed my arm pulling me away.

“Wait, maybe we can get some from her!”, and I knew she didn’t like it.

“Get WHAT?”

I moved to her ear and whispered: “Lsd!”

“We won’t find any here! Let’s go!”

“Go?”

“Yes!”

And she pulled me further from the dance floor to a steep staircase and to the bathrooms, beside it, right under the rooftop. We were practically alone there, standing close, the dim lights laying easy around our faces. We started kissing. I pulled her close and held her face, then her body, her ass. I pressed her against a wall, the rocket hard, rubbing close. We separated for a second. I looked for it and it was shining strong, sex in her eyes and we were playing again. I pushed her to the bathroom and through the door, turning her around and pulling on her pants, as the door opened up and some figures were walking in. She jumped like a scared deer pulling them up again and turning around. I grabbed her hand and walked her out. We didn’t screw in that club.

“It’s a nice club.”, I said, walking her down the stairs.

“I know a better one. And I am sure we can get some there!”

“OH! Hey guys! Where your going?”, it was drunk girl again coming up the stairs as we were hopping them down to the exit.

“So nice to meet you, but we’re leaving.”, Jenn said holding me close.

“OH!”, she went again, “that’s too bad! Your just such a cute couple!”, she mumbled, sipping on her drink.

“Thanks”, I said and I thought why not ask:” Can I ask you something?”

Again that look from Jenn and I felt like all she wanted was to get away from her.

“Sure!”

“We are looking for some Lsd, do you know where we can get some?”

“AHA!”, she made and handed me her drink: “drink it!”

“What is that?”, Jenn asked.

“It’s what you want!”

That girl was a strange case. She did have that aura around her that in normal life and every day during the week she was a completely different person than there at night. Watching her going around talking to other men, I did feel like she was using her sexuality in a somewhat almost self-destructive manner. To get something she never had perhaps. Whatever that might be. I couldn’t lose the thought that she was running, running away from herself. I don’t know why I thought all that about a so random stranger, but it is what I felt. That strange drunk girl, that was actually more high than drunk, with secret drugs in her drink. And I tasted her drink, as my partying mind couldn’t warn me otherwise. That orangey cocktail actually went down quite delicious, with a delicate taste of something else.

“It’s good!”, and automatically I handed it to Jenn. She drank from it too.

“It is good.”, Jenn had to admit.

“You will feel good too!”, drunk girl giggled, knowing something we didn’t.

“That’s Lsd?”, I asked Jenn. And drunk girl surprised us both:

“Actually, it’s MDMA.”

“MDMA!”, I felt Jenn getting angry, “You drugged us!”, it was enough for her.

“Actually you drugged yourself.”, drunk girl wasn’t moving in wave forms anymore and there was something more to her then, something dark, “Don’t look at me like THAT!”, she continued, “You’ll still have a good night!”, she would be wrong about that.

Standing there, a little shocked, a little drunk, and feeling for the effects of the drug, which would start coming up in about an hour from there, some guy yelled from up the stairs:

“What are you doing down there baby? Get that ass back here again!”

Drunk girl looked up and yelled back: “Why don’t you come and get it?”, then she turned to us and pulled her drink from Jenn’s hand, “Excuse me!”, and again she tumbled, stumbled off, up the stairs, with as much class as she could try to find. We never saw her again.

Jenn didn’t say anything she just turned and let herself glide down the stairs. She had enough of that place.

Outside it was dark. People were out and loud. Large gatherings on the island. They looked like those pictures of penguins or walrus’s on National Geographic, standing close together to stay warm. Only were those people not trying to stay warm but to find someone to keep them warm later that night. They kinda were like those animals on TV.

She walked in front and didn’t wait for me. I caught up and grabbed her arm, turning her to kiss her, she thought about it for a second, then turned, painfully close to my lips and kept walking.

“Baby, what’s up?”

“Nothing.”, and she picked up speed and left me behind again.

“Nothing?”, and she didn’t respond.

“You can tell me you know?”

“Nothing!”

“You know what MDMA feels like?”

“Mh”, she made.

“Me too.”, I felled her rolling her eyes as I talked, even though I was walking behind her.

I caught up again. “She was crazy huh?”, I said.

“I just can’t believe you!”

“What?”

“WHAT?”, she stopped and looked at me for a second with an estrogen-powered combination of anger and disappointment and kept walking (running).

“I didn’t know it wasn’t LSD!”

“Aha. You didn’t know.”, she was shaking her head at me.

“You drank from it too!”

“We are not talking about that!”, she nearly screamed at me and kept walking.

“Well, I am.”, I said as calmly as I could, again catching up to her.

“Jim?”

“Aha”, I made.

“Can I ask you something?”

I knew it would be a question I would have to answer very carefully, but as I felt better about that than an argument on a night we were supposed to be together, in love and celebrating, I preferred it.

“Do you miss being with other girls?”, and she suddenly talked so calmly. Like a hunter offering a hand full of grass to a sheep, with the other hand holding a sharp knife behind the back.

“What do you mean?”, would be my usual response, truly acting like I did not understand what she asked.

“Like, do you miss having sex with other girls?”

“With other girls? OF COURSE NOT! What kind of question is that?”

“Mh. So you don’t miss meeting new girls?”

“NO!”

“And flirting with them, and their attention?”

“No.”

“Really?”

“Of course!”

She wanted to but didn’t quite believe me. We were walking over one of the six bridges connecting the island to the rest of the city. The smell of liquor and a lot of people dove deep in my nose. The island looked so different than during the day. People everywhere. People drunk. People loud. And people looking for sex. Everybody was looking for sex. We were walking right through the gatherings. I didn’t know where we were going but was excited about the next club. I was even excited for the MDMA to kick in. You are not supposed to mix it with liquor but I felt pretty much indestructible at that time, so I had very little worries about that. I was just worried about her. I followed her, right through the gatherings. And the hungry eyes of wolfs on her. God did I not like it. During the day, walking on the street, the wolfs didn’t let themselves go so far. During night they weren’t thinking. They just wanted. They saw her and their minds got rattled by her beauty. They were looking at her. Through her. Looking for her eyes. Trying to connect. Then I was looking at them. Staring them down. One after the other. Passing through the giant groups of many men and fewer women. That second of exchange. Them spotting what they wanted and realizing the problem. I was their problem. That second of them looking away from her because they spotted me, warningly staring at them. Them realizing I am there to stay. And us two exchanging all the information in the world. And sometimes, those wolfs showed me a little smile. So small, it could easily be lost. But present. That smile telling me they were there. Lurking. Waiting. Wanting. My enemies. The men that wanted my girl. I felt instinctive knowledge during that night. The later it got the more instinctive everything got.

Jenn didn’t look back at them, she curved her way through the crowd, pulling stares from left and right like a movie star on the red carpet.

Finally, we got through and our ears got hit by the loud sound waves of tuned-up motors hauling up like hyenas in the close distance. The race cars were back. On the other side of the island.

Finally, Jenn turned to me and smiled: “Not tonight.”

“No, not tonight.”

And as cheap sports cars were going faster than they should, their motor sounds quieting in the distance, we got closer to the next place, and a heavy and dark beat dove through my ears into my stomach where it found its rumbling home.

“It’s here.”, Jenn said.

I saw it.

5

It was an old building. That city was full of them. Old buildings, new ones, a forgotten world, alive next to the jungle, the stress, the numbers of a ruthless system going bling bling and ding ding ding. Old buildings (where the witches were living I thought or felt). A house formed like a square. Yellow wall paint. Paint on the wall paint. Psychedelic paintings. Graffiti. A man meditating with the head of a cat. Mushrooms. Demonic symbols. Demonic numbers painted small in black color.

Drunk and excited. There was the island, in the middle of the city, connected with bridges over the brownish water to the city from every side. In the middle of the city and island was a special piece of land, connecting both. On it was the building. A roof formed like a pyramid, on top of 4 levels of house. Rotten, old house. Coming from the island, there was a dark backstreet connected to it.

Jenn took my hand and we were standing all alone in the middle of the street. Behind us the island, with its sounds almost silent now in the background. In front, the building. Techno music. Electric sounds and an everlasting beat. A beat that wouldn’t stop. That was loud even outside. That was heavy and that was dark. We stood in front of a large wooden gate, held open. There was a table with a short, dangerous-looking guy sitting behind it and staring off. I stopped her and followed my hands gliding around her warm waist. I let my mouth touch her ear.

“You know this place?”, I almost whispered, as quietly as I could without going silent under the beat. She turned and looked at my face from top to bottom in less than a second and nodded. Her eyes shone bright in the partying light. She looked great in her short top.

The next thing I remembered was us standing in front of that desk. That guy sitting. Not smiling. Looking like he was in his late 40s. But also leaving an impression that he might be younger, just had seen a lot. Aged quick. He definitely must have seen a lot. Scars on his face. One on his lip. Glass I thought. That small, grim-looking face. Dangerous, I thought again.

“FIFTEEN PER PERSON!”, he demanded with his squeaking voice, trying to press it down to make it sound deeper than it was.

I fumbled cash out of my pocket and threw it on the desk. The guy mumbled something to himself, still staring off. He fit so well into that place, I thought. He was part of that world.

Then some not-great-looking girl with good legs but an ever-bored face, sitting on the table beside him, hammered a stamp on my fist and on Jenn’s too. I ignored it for the time being but realized later it was a pentagram in blue color. That demonic shit should have warned me I guess.

We entered. Around the house was a big garden. Trees, with colorful tapes curling their way from branches like snakes, lost in a trance. There was a steep -wooden ramp for skating, I saw dark silhouettes sitting on top of it talking, and I felt them staring. In front of the entrance, there was a small stage with two DJs banging electrifying techno music out there speakers. On the ground was sand. On the sand were what felt like a million pairs of shoes waving and moving and hoping and sliding without a break. Inside those shoes were feet and they were connected to legs and those were coming out of bodies, that had arms and fingers and a neck and there was a head and a face and thoughts and a life. And they all looked so different. Dancing there under the control of sounds that made them move, they were all the same. And we were part of that group and glided through those people, through them, around them, ecstatic faces stopping to scan us and following the music. Finally, we made it to the bar. I ordered something and I ordered it for two. There were only women working the bar. They were all stressed and tired, close to traumatized. Definitely not down for a flirt. The bar was beside the stage. Actually, the bar was inside the building. There was a hole in the wall through which I ordered. I turned and Jenn was gone. I looked over to the stage, over all those people. Two big speakers facing the crowd. Blasting. And there she was. Shaking and moving and moving her hips. Right in front of the crowd. Right in front of everybody. Some guy, tall with short-cut black hair freed himself from the crowd and danced all the way up beside Jenn.

I stared back through that hole in the wall at the girl I had ordered from. She was crushing ice inside with one hand and wiping sweat from her forehead with the other one. Definitely not down for some flirt. I turned back to Jenn. That guy was right beside her now. They looked at each other. She smiled at him. God did I not like it. He was dancing closer and she turned, dancing towards him. They looked each other in the eyes. They were dancing together. I turned looking for a girl. Any girl, just pretty enough. There was one. Dark blond hair. Good body, long legs and she had big tits. Bigger than Jenn’s. But not as well formed. She was pretty, but her face was levels beneath Jenn’s. I looked at her tits and I think she saw it. She turned to me.

“Don’t look at me like that!”, I smiled at her, strolling towards her.

“How do you want me to look at you?”, she smiled back.

“Definitely not like I will buy you a drink!”

“You will not?”

“If you marry me I will.”

“I think you gotta buy me a drink first.”

“That’s in the right order?”

And so on and she liked me and while she was talking about something, I secretly (as secretly as I could), looked back to Jenn. That guy had his face up close beside her ear, telling her something. There was a smile on her face. I couldn’t believe it. They were walking to the bar, and the guy ordered something. She didn’t appear to see me and even worse, she didn’t appear to see me talking to that girl. And there it was: He put his arm around her, all the way around her. He held her.

“Excuse me.”, I said and left her standing. I remember every step walking up to the bar.

Just as he turned smiling something at her, I entered. In-between them. Without thinking my hand grabbed his wrist and lifted it up from Jenn and back to him, as I was sliding into the space between them, putting my arm around her. The guy was in shock. Jenn was as calm as I had seen her.

“Hey.”, she simply said to me, “This is Jim.”, she said to him.

“Bro don’t worry! There is nothing going on here! Really!”, the guy explained himself.

“Of course.”, I said.

“Jenn and I are just old friends that’s all! We went to school together.”

“Oh really?”

“Yes. I’ve known Bobby for many years.”, Jenn said and watched.

“Drink with us!”, the guy said, “There is REALLY NOTHING GOING ON!”, he assured me after seeing my eyes and he ordered another vodka from the poor woman working the bar.

We drank those shots. I thought I should maybe feel stupid about myself. But there was not a part of me that believed that wolf. NOTHING was going on. Of course not. I saw it in his eyes. I knew what he wanted. But for the time being, I stayed calm. We drank those shots, then the drinks I had ordered earlier were standing at the bar, waiting to be taken. I grabbed them and Jenn said something to that guy. Then she kissed me lightly in front of him, grabbed my hand, and pulled me away. He threw something after us about meeting later somewhere but we were gone.

I didn’t say anything, I just looked at her.

“Let’s go inside.”, she said. A heavy, old, wooden door opened and we entered. The music from outside was gone. We entered and followed the beat. It was dark in there, but little did I know it would be much darker.

6

There was a smell of smoke in the air. You couldn’t see smoke, but you could feel it. It blurred my vision in a very subtle way. It got stronger as the night went on. It was dark in there. The walls were dark. The beat was very close now. I could feel it in my stomach. I could feel it on my toes. The vibration. The house was packed with people with empty faces roaming around or dancing or kissing against the wall or standing and staring. I followed Jenn. She knew this place. I checked my watch. It’s been at least forty-five minutes since we had taken that sip of that drunk girl’s drink.

“Do you feel something?”, I asked her.

“Feel what?”

“The MDMA.”

“I don’t feel it.” Maybe we wouldn’t feel anything, I thought, it was just a sip.

“JENN?”, a man asked and started giggling excitedly. Jenn turned, then I turned.

“Matty!”, she seemed happy and they embraced.

“What are you doing here darling?”, he asked. And a few people pressed themselves past us, in between me and Jenn, and Matty.

“Partying!”

“This is the right place!”, and the small group passed and I pressed myself back to them.

“That’s Jim.”, Jenn said and Matty and I shook hands, then he looked back to Jenn.

“It’s so full here, why don’t you two come upstairs, I got a private room there…”, Jenn didn’t reply immediately and he continued: “Some friends are up there too, just come say hi.”

“Maybe lat…”, I started and Jenn had already decided: “Let’s go then!”, and the guy’s small eyes, hidden in deep and tired sockets flashed up, like the eyes of a wolf at night reflect a beam of light shining on his hungry face.

We went upstairs and down a thin corridor with white walls and a harsh lamp on the ceiling, that was glaring like those old lamps in cheap hospitals. Matty was quite a bit taller than Jenn, but still considerably short for a man and he was fat. Not tremendously fat, but he was fat. Sweat was constantly laying on his forehead in form of drops, that seemed to be so sticky, that they stayed in place on his skin. His eyes were fallen back in a red net, holding them into place. He wore a deep black hoodie. It made his pale face look so much paler. He stopped in front of a heavy black door and pulled out some keys.

Inside was a girl waiting. Pink hair. Long, pink fingernails. Too long to actually use her fingers, so she would continuously throw back her long hair with her entire hand, using a big swashing motion. She seemed bored. And she quite obviously was on some pills. I felt like I had seen her outside before, but couldn’t quite find the right place in the puzzle for her face. She wasn’t very pretty, but like the girl at the entrance that stamped me, she had some very good legs, and that did a lot. She was sitting on the sofa and Matty sat beside her. He gave Jenn a comfortable chair beside him. I was sitting outside of the square on my chair. It was old and the armrest was broken on one side.

Matty and Jenn talked. They obviously knew each other from the past. They kept talking about that past. A past I knew nothing about. Talking about details of people I had never heard of. The girl with pink hair didn’t speak English. Every now and then Matty told her something in some eastern European language, which I didn’t recognize. Always very quick and not more than a sentence before he turned back to Jenn and kept ranting about someone and something. I wasn’t supposed to be there. Jenn didn’t talk to me and she didn’t even look at me. She just listened and replied. She wasn’t flirting with him. She knew him, but she didn’t seem to care about him. She just acted that way. Then they talked about drugs and Jenn told him what we were on and if he had some LSD.

He bent over to his backpack, fishing out a plastic bag.

White powder inside. He poured some out on a small stand and formed three short, but thick lines. Then he took out a plastic straw and held it out for Jenn.

“No thanks.”, she said.

“C’mon!”, he said and smiled.

“No, no not tonight.”

“I know you know how to do it, just have a little bit!”, he said. This time she just lightly shook her head and looked away. I saw she felt ashamed and it was new for me to see that from her.

“What is it?”, I asked Matty.

“Jim, don’t.”, Jenn said. I saw in her eyes she was worried.

“You want some?”, Matty asked. Jenn looked at me. She knew something I didn’t. I felt it.

“I’m good.” Matty just turned to the stand and started snoring. All three lines. He looked up and looked terrible. His eyes were even redder and had completely fallen back. He was pale like the walls outside in the hall, but the worst was his smile. He was smiling from behind those small red eyes. A little smile. Without saying anything. Just smiling. First at both of us. But actually just at Jenn. It wasn’t a good smile. He looked evil.

I wanted to go.

“I got something for you.”, he sniffed, then nodded to the girl, sitting there in quiet, getting lost in the small room. The stinky room, that felt dirty. Packed with broken DJ equipment. The girl fished in her pockets and pulled out a small plastic bag with colorful pills inside. Matty grabbed it from her and held it up against the light.

“You can’t take LSD now, but you should take more MDMA to balance. You can have two of those.” There I got it. That fat guy was a dealer. That’s how they knew each other. He had something gloomy about him. It was deep in him. Maybe he was born with it or maybe it came later but it was heavy like the endless playing beat that even slid under the doorframe in moments it got just a little bit too quiet in the room.

He was on all kinds of stuff. It wasn’t pretty. I didn’t like seeing people that way. It made me sad. Matty pressed the plastic bag with the pills back into the hands of the girl.

The girl took out two small pills. A blue one and a pink one. Both formed like a pentagram and again I wondered what made people fascinate so much by that darkness. To my surprise, she handed them to me. I looked at them, then I looked at her, I looked her in the eyes and asked her if they were any good. She understood.

She tiredly smiled back: “Very good.”

Well, I’ve never heard a dealer tell me something else about their drugs.

“We should go.”, I said, and then we were walking out. Matty stayed sitting on the sofa without moving. I felt him stare after us. Stare with those red eyes.

Like a hungry wolf at night.

7

It was just about when the drugs hit, that my memory started to fade. Not fade in the same way memory fades after a heavy night of drinking. In a way, those memories fade that you want to forget, slowly and with pain.

We were dancing as it started. Coming up through our bodies. Tickling. Serotonin levels in our bodies started to rise, like a small creek is lapping out of the ground at the source. Jenn felt it before me. We were downstairs in a darker room. The smell of smoke was stronger there. Every now and then some guy danced his way close to Jenn. Then I would dance closer. The longer we were there, the more I felt everyone's goal for the night wasn’t about having fun, it was about finding somebody to fuck. It was a weird energy. One that everybody felt. Surrounding us all. You could feel all the eyes that were searching with stress. You could see all the bodies that didn’t move to express what was inside, but to make others believe that what they wanted them to see was true. It felt so wrong.

Jenn was close. She got closer. She started touching me more and more, then she threw herself around my neck holding herself like a small monkey for a deep hug.

“Jim! It’s coming!”

“What’s coming, baby?”

“It’s coming up! You feel it?” I didn’t.

“Kinda.”

“Wow!”, she exhaled a giant smile. She was on it. She was happy.

I kissed Jenn and went to the bathroom. The bathroom was one level above and I jumped up the stairs. People were making out on them. I followed a hallway, red wall paint, harshly red, like dried blood. The doorframe to the toilet was black and the door was missing. The toilet was something else. There were two cabins inside, both with broken wooden doors, that were only half there and which you had to hold closed so they wouldn’t open. It was mixed, but girls still formed a line to the right cabin, that went back all the way to the staircase. I just walked past the line to the left cabin. The toilet lit was gone. It was just a dirty hole. I took him out and pissed. It was warm. It felt great. Behind the toilet was a small hole in the wall. What a building I thought again. I could look outside while I was pissing and I saw the stars. A warm night breeze stabbed through my hair. I just wanted to lay on some grass field and watch the stars. Watch them with Jenn in my arms. Tell her what we would do together in the future. Feel her warmth and count the stars.

I heard the wood crack and felt the broken door open in my back.

“You done in there?”, some guy was almost yelling. I shook him off and put him back and flushed.

“All yours.”, I said walking out. I only got an angry look as answer. He got less.

When I was back downstairs Jenn was gone. At first, I thought: “relax”, she just went pee. Then I thought she took her time, to signal to me she didn’t like to wait. Then I realized she wasn’t coming back. I was strolling to the bar inside and picked up water. I looked for her and gave up on it and decided to go back outside. The group of a million shoes changed. There was still music but the momentum had shifted and people were just barely dancing, but they were standing and talking or sitting and smoking. Little groups of 3s to fours. And there was a big one. And there was Jenn. Five guys, standing in a half circle around her, with their drinks in their hands and big smiles on their faces like white masks. Just two guys were actually talking. The other ones were just standing and smiling like they were waiting for a wonder. Jenn said something. They all laughed, like a group of mad comedians. The guy closest to Jenn was talking the most. He was the tallest. I took another step towards them and saw he was the same wolf from earlier. The tall guy with short-cut black hair, the friend from school, Mr. Nothing going on. The guy standing beside him was the second tallest and he was talking whenever he could cut off Mr. Nothing going on. And when he would do so, Mr. Nothing going on, immediately cut him off and they would then fight for the right of word. Jenn was watching that. The guy standing the furthest from Jenn was the shortest and the ugliest. He was just smiling like an idiot at Jenn. Poor guy, I thought. Or would have thought under different circumstances.

I entered the group beside Jenn and for a moment all the men’s eyes were on me. But not Jenn’s. Mr. Nothing going on gave me the most energetic introduction.

“HEY! Look who’s back!”

“Yeah hey.”, I said less energetically and threw a look at Jenn. She looked at me differently. Differently than usual. Usually, she was so sweet. She was so good. She was such a gentle human. But when she looked at me there, she could have been a stranger. Pure calculation was in her eyes. Like I was one of them. One of them wolfs. One of many. And she would choose. I felt cold. And I felt dizzy. The guy was telling me something but I was somewhere else. It was more. I realized, it was those drugs. But it was different from just MDMA. I felt very strange. I needed to lie down but I didn’t want to leave her there with them. They kept talking. I couldn’t talk. The tall guy was getting more comfortable with me around, the longer I stayed quiet. And he was talking more to Jenn and he was getting closer. Everything was spinning. I felt sick. He was closer to her than I was and he made her laugh. I couldn’t say anything. There it was, he casually reached out to her arm, touching her shoulder to deepen something he said. Jenn ignored it. He kept talking, then he did it again. He left his hand there for a moment too long.

“Jenn.”, I said and I only said that. She gently stepped back from him and turned to me. She must have remembered. She grabbed my face and pressed her lips against mine. In front of all of them. I felt them watching. I felt Mr. Nothing going on forcing a heartbroken smile on his face in the background and I knew that feeling. I was calm. She opened up and pressed her tongue in my mouth and she did it so they would see. She was ruthless. She separated and smiled at me and grabbed my hand.

“Come with me.”, she said and there was pure sex in her voice. All five wolfs stood and watched and said nothing. She didn’t even look at them. She just pulled me away. While she was leading me toward the entrance, I didn’t feel good about it, which was surprising, I felt bad for those guys. I knew what they felt. I had been there many times. MDMA makes you more empathetic. There can only be one that succeeds I thought while she kept walking. There can only be one guy that will go with the girl. The girl everybody wants. And all men fight for her. But just one wins. And I thought about how they were talking about social justice online and in the media. There is no justice in this. There is life. And at that moment, that night, when a mixture of low-quality drugs punctuated my bloodstream, it hit me strong and painfully and I felt like deep down people, if exposed on parties, or hidden during everyday life are really nothing but animals. Weird animals. The weirdest ones. But animals. And there is a hierarchy and there is sex and there is dominance and there are just very few in the warm sun, with most below on the dark bottom. And who wants to be in the sun has to crawl up and take that spot from somebody who owns it and those up there have to defend it against the others. And all that again was about sex. It always was about sex. That thought was too much and I felt suddenly so very lonely. There are always winners and there always have to be losers. We were at a place made of those people that had been losing forever and ever. It truly ain’t nice to be losing in life.

What a wicked game we play, I thought, watching the bright moon in the sky. The only one in the sun tonight.

We were walking to the edge of the garden and close to the entrance, where there was another smaller house, with a very similar design to the party house, also yellow wall paint and graffiti on the outside, just a bit smaller. And completely empty. We stopped in front of the stairs leading up to the closed entrance of that house. Nobody was there. Only she and me and the moon. The music from the party was muffled and the drugs made it sound more muffled by the minute. She turned, reflecting the moon from her glowing eyes. Then we kissed. She touched my crouch and he was hard already, then her small hand went inside my pants. She was burning for it. Without noticing it was my hand on her cunt and we were laying down on the stairs. I slid her pants down and off her ass and she was looking at me playing with her clit, while I was getting free as fast as I could. Then I was on top of her and I felt pure warmth. Waves of warm love pulsed through my body like a tsunami on the beach like an earthquake under a tower, there was no sense to nothing and didn’t need to be because that feeling right there, naked with her, high as the moon on MDMA was greater and more intense than anything I can remember. She was feeling the same. She was wet and smooth and I forgot where I was and woke up inside, and she was moaning as if it was her only lifeline to reality. All she needed was me inside and all I needed was to be there. And we were going strong. I can’t remember looking at anything else than her blissful face, those eyes playing with me from under me, but I remember seeing silhouettes in our background, two or three people, a girl was there too, they must have seen us, they said something about us, then passed. It felt so dirty, and yet it didn’t matter, it could not have mattered less. Our tongues danced together, tripping over each other and it made us go stronger together.

“I love you I love you I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU I LOVE YOU!!!”

“I LOOOVE YOU!! I LOVE YOU!!!”, and we couldn’t stop because there was only love.

“WE will ALWAYS be TOGETHER!” “I ALWAYS want to be with YOU!!” “I LOVE YOU!” “I LOVE YOU!”

“JIM! JIM!”, she was finally gasping,” Jim I love you!”, “I love YOU!”, “Jim I love you more than I have EVER LOVED!”, “I LOVE YOU! I LOVE you like THAT!”, “JIM! Jim, I want to be with you! Jim, I want to have children with you. I want to have children with you!”

I never thought like that before, but it didn’t matter. I wanted her, only her. “I love you, Jenn. I want to have children with you! I love you so much!”, she couldn’t be happier to hear it and it was a moment of perfection. It was perfection. And we kept going. And going. The intensity lowered. It wasn’t long. Those thoughts came back. Everything felt so slow and so wide and so far away. How brutal it is that women chose I thought. I looked at her laying under me, look at me with that face. Those grimaces of lust and joy. Was that her? Was it really, or was it an ancient mechanism in women? To be as dirty as possible. As provocative as possible. As far from how they were allowed to show in normal life as possible. To stir our monkey brains, so the man would cum, cum as soon as possible, so the possibility of pregnancy was the highest. What thoughts, I thought. I tried to get away but they already had me. Those drugs made me look different at everything, I fell down into a hole, and I had no idea how to get out. I couldn’t help it. I saw her differently. I thought how I was seeing her there was how she really was. I kept falling. That animal. That reacts to instincts. And deeper. That every so little thing mattered.

I saw her as a passive thing. Like a female elk on National Geographic, watching two bulls fight it out. Not caring who won, only caring that the one that won got her. It was terrible. I didn’t know how to make it stop. Just an animal, we were all just animals. Stupid animals, playing a wicked game. And in the end, we would die. We would all die.

I fell, fell, fell into the darkness.

She felt it. I forced him to be hard. He wouldn’t.

“PLEASE! DON’T LOSE HIM!”, she was begging me, “Don’t lose him now!”

Then I lost him and pulled out.

“It’s those…”, I started, but she was already up, pulling up her pants. Looking at me for just a second. She couldn’t hide how disappointed she was. She needed it right now. And I couldn’t give it to her. “Let’s go back.”, she simply said and she was already leaving.

I walked back, looking at the moon. I was angry and sad. Mostly I was high. I wanted to be home.

But still, the night was far from over.

8

We were following the beat and it became too loud to think. Down the stairs, down in the basement, down to it all. Small rooms and thin endless long corridors lead to darkness, few figures emerged from there. Down through those corridors. Darkness. Then light.

Red light, deep and harsh and brutal, filled the entire room. A room full of people. People in ecstasy. People with tattoos covering their entire faces. Demonic tattoos. Dark eyes. Deep and dark. Demonic numbers on the walls. People like people I had never seen before. They stood and held and watched when we passed and stared after us and got lost again. We came right down, all the way down. To the empty heart of that building. Down there was nothing but madness and darkness and the beat. The beat that wouldn’t stop. That was too loud and too brutal to bear. And that light, that red light.

We had descended into hell.

I don’t remember the next two hours.

It was about 3:30 A.M.

It was dark.

9

“Breathe, just breathe baby.”

“I don’t feel so good Jim.”, she said holding her hand in front of her mouth, while I was guiding her to the bathrooms.

“I know, I know, just a little further.”

I was guiding her up the stairs, people didn’t seem to care. Past the line of girls, which was a lot shorter then, to the left cabin, the same one I had used. As we arrived, the door opened and a guy came out. Another guy and his girl standing in line were just about to enter when I told them she was sick and they let us in front. The guy understood. There still was some kindness apparently. I helped her inside and held the broken door closed.

“Thanks.”, she mumbled, turning on her knees to the toilet and emptying her stomach there. I held her hair and let my hand gently cruise up and down her back.

“It’s ok Jenn, just breathe. Just breathe.” I sat down behind her in front of the door. I needed to breathe too. It was a lot. I had been to many parties. That was different. I was looking at people so very differently that night. I also had never been that jealous before. Finally, I wondered what made her puke. And I got angry.

“Where are those two?”

“What two?”, she gasped.

“Those two that gave us those pills.”

“Why?”

“I think they might have given us some bad stuff.”

“Don’t worry.”, she said, then puked again.

“How can I not worry?”

“They didn’t. I know them. They didn’t.”

“How do you know they didn’t?”

“I know them. It’s ok.”, she said and she stood up and flushed, then sat down on the toilet.

“Are you ok?”, I asked, truly concerned. I suddenly felt a strong urge to protect her. I felt like I wanted just the best for everybody.

“Yes.”, she did seem a lot better.

“Just let me pee.”, she said. Then the door opened. A young girl stood in the frame. She was very skinny, a little bit too skinny and she had a long, cricket nose and wild dark hair. She seemed surprised, but for a second she just stood there. Her first reaction was to apologize and leave I saw it, but something made her stay, and stay just a bit too long. Jenn started to scream:

“Excuse me! Don’t you see I am in here? Could you get the fuck out of here now please? ”, she wasn’t screaming with anger, she was screaming the way women scream at each other when they really have to. It was never as aggressive as men could get. But it was a lot more discomforting to me at least.

The girl stormed out, I saw her holding a mop in one hand.

“I am sorry.”, she said, but continued after a short break from outside: “I just really need to clean here now.”

“I am in here you dumb bitch!”, Jenn was screaming at her, “Don’t you see I am in here bitch?”

“You can clean later.”, I told her as kindly as I could. I just didn’t want Jenn screaming like this. It sounded like the girl wanted to say something, then she stopped herself and started again: “Mh, yes, I am sorry. It’s just…”, she truly sounded exhausted, “It’s late, we just want to get home.”, I thought about those bar girls and how tired they must had been by then.

“I understa…”, again Jenn cut me off: …” Can’t you see that we are in here? Are you so stupid?”, she was screaming. It was disgusting to me. How could she treat her that way? That poor girl.

“Jenn, she is just trying to get home, she said sorry, she has been working all night.”, I whispered to her, but she didn’t hear it. Her eyes were missing a light. And Jenn’s eyelids looked tired.

She popped up from the toilet and I helped her out of the cabin. Strangely enough, all those people standing in line were gone. There was only that girl. She was mopping up the floor. She was looking down. She didn’t look at us. Jenn was washing her hands then she turned to that girl and went again:

“It’s just not right! You can’t do that!” The girl seemed emotional, but she stayed quiet.

“When somebody’s in the cabin you don’t just enter!”

The girl slowly looked up. She was looking at Jenn. She saw how pretty she was. Way prettier than her. Jenn stood straight up. The girl’s posture was broken. She still held on to the dirty mop.

She hated Jenn. I felt something on my neck. I looked up. My heart froze in fear, I swallowed a breath. There were two mannequins hanging on the ceiling. Both completely black. Hanging upside down. With hands and feet mounted. Their mouths open, frozen in a scream.

What a fucked up place.

I turned to Jenn: “Let’s go.”

The girl looked Jenn in the eyes: “I am sorry.”, she said. It was bitter. Saying it with as much hidden hate as a person could. Jenn didn’t look at her, she just left her standing.

We were back outside.

10

The sun was coming up and sending hell back into its hidden corners. Orange feeding on the few clouds. I was gnashing my teeth, unwillingly, and couldn’t stop. The energy was fading. Everyone's energy was dripping away, disappearing. We were all dried out, tired, sad people. And I don’t think anybody got any sex. Most were still there. Or most were gone. I don’t know. I couldn’t tell. I was just done.

And Jenn was gone again.

I was standing alone and I didn’t care. I stepped, stepped, stepped over the sand, that has been kicked to the floor by people that hoped for something better than they got. The way they’ve done the past weekend and the way they would be doing it the following until they got somebody pregnant, or moved to another city, or became someone else. Got older. Got saved. I stepped with my head down and arrived at some wooden pallets, thrown together into improvised benches. A few people were sitting there. Couple guys, couple girls. Neither the guys nor the girls were in any way interesting looking. But they were there and I needed to talk. Talk to anybody about anything. Anything. I felt like my thoughts were stuck in the mud almost. Deep, sticky mud.

They looked up.

“You mind if I sit?”, I mumbled, still gnashing my teeth like rocks on each other.

“Have a seat.”, somebody said. And: “Sure sit here.” Someone else said and I was sitting. I could breathe. They were normal people. They were tired. But they were people. We were sitting right at the river. And the river was just passing by. Passing as if nothing had happened. Passing the way it has been passing for two hundred years and would be for another thousand. And there was orange reflecting on it and a part of me thought it looked beautiful but I was incapable of feeling any of it.

“You smoking?”, someone asked and I wanted a joint.

“You roll.”, that guy said and passed me his weed and some papers. There were six or so of them. I grabbed the weed and papers and realized there was this girl sitting close to me that had her eyes fixed on my face with a stupid-looking smile and she wouldn’t look away. I didn’t find her pretty. But she might have had something. Her hair was dark, her face pale. Dark eyes. I decided I would ignore her and roll the joint. My hands were shaky. Everyone had their tired eyes on me. Laying back on the wooden pallets. Cruising through being awake. The girl made weird sounds in reaction to my movements. Sounded like a sunken giggle mixed with a quick exhale. It threw me off. I didn’t like her. I felt her still staring. Then made the mistake of looking at her.

“Where are you from?”, she asked. “Nowhere.”, I said.

“I’m from there too.”, a guy mumbled sitting beside her.

I turned and fumbled the weed into the paper, surprised my hand stayed under my control. That girl kept staring at me. The guy sitting beside her was staring at her. Everybody was on some stuff. It took the human from the people. I didn’t like her. I shook. It fell. I dropped the weed. All the weed from the joint. They stared at me with disbelief.

“Shit, I’m real sorry bout this.” Now they didn’t like me anymore and I couldn’t blame them for it.

“It’s all right.”, some guy said, but it wasn’t and the spirits were low. I just got up and left.

And I was wandering again. The party scene like a battlefield, the fallen soldiers, those that didn’t make it home in time. I always liked to stay until the end of the night. Any night. I never wanted to feel like I had missed out on something. Usually, I wouldn’t. But I stayed anyways. And it killed the joy of the night. I always stayed longer than I should have had and after, all I remembered was the disappointment of how it ended, rather than the delight of the good moments we had. I was greedy like that. We all were.

“Hey, you.” I turned and it was that girl from the beginning of the night, I started a very disinterested conversation with.

“You saw my girlfriend somewhere?”

“Girlfriend?”

“Or some tall guy with short black hair? That looks a bit like an idiot?”

“No.”

“Okay.” And I left her standing again.

I was wandering for ages. It was the MDMA and whatever it had been mixed with. But I didn’t feel like that. I felt like it was the truth. And it was naked and stank.

I saw Jenn leave. She was hanging on his arms of him, laughing and smiling and being close. And he held her. And she saw me but she didn’t look at me. She looked through me. She kissed him. She kissed him with her tongue and she stared through me doing so. And I was shit. I was dirt. I was nothing. And I only saw her back as they were leaving.

I saw it over and over and over again. Different scenarios in my head. All with her leaving. All terrible. I saw my entire life as I got lost wandering. How I would react? What I would do? Who would I fuck. I stabbed myself in the heart thinking we were not together, then smoked my brain in anger. And it got harder and harder to snap out of it. And in my head, she had already done it. I saw a guy giving it good to a girl behind a corner. He had a giant skull tattooed on his ass. I was lost.

I kept walking. I don’t remember where.

Then, there was Jenn. Standing there in front of me. That young woman that was so much more like a girl than a woman. Beautiful and delicate. Standing alone. Her long legs crossed. Looking at me. She wore a red baseball jacket on top of her thin top, giving her strangely wide shoulders.

“Jim?”

“Jenn?”

She smiled. Then dropped her smile into concern. Her eyes had dark lines colored beneath them. She was coming down and coming down hard and it would be my immediate future too.

“Where were you? I was looking for you everywhere!”, she said. She truly was concerned.

“I don’t know. I met some people.”

“What people? Nice?”

“Sure nice. Where did you find that jacket?”

“Bobby gave it to me.”

“Who is Bobby?”

“Oh, you met Bobby! My friend. From school?”

“He gave you his jacket?”

“Well, I was cold.”

“You were cold.” We got close and closer instinctively. Without even realizing it. Just the way it was supposed to be. She looked up at me, with her big shiny eyes. Small and tired now, but still shining strong, like they always did. She looked sad. She hugged me. It was warm and intimate and close.

“Jim?”, she whispered. “Yeah?”

“Let’s go.” She separated and took my hand. That small hand was warm around my skin. She was leading me away from it all. Away from the party, away from the drugs. The craziness, those people, the tattoos, the fighting for a love that had been killed so many sad years ago. Away from the war, the chaos, and the living dead. The demonic symbols. The graffiti. The man meditating with the head of a cat. It all had been too much for me. For us. For our love. All that. Too terribly sad.

We were walking and my body felt so light I thought I was floating over the ground. At the same time, I felt heavy and I got heavier by the second. The fresh, light sun was shining bright on our faces and we passed some trees and some grass and we made it. There was a hammock. An old, big hammock. Clinging onto the trees like a monkey on a branch. Resting. And waiting. Hanging.

We stopped.

Jenn smiled at me and it was warm and finally, there was some love again.

She loosened her grip around my hand and we climbed into the hammock. It was a deep one. Hanging right over the ground. I liked that. I trampled on it and landed and lay in it. Jenn too. And there we were, together again. I let my fingers touch her forehead. Ride on her skin gently to the place where the hair met the face and I dove my fingers slowly into the jungle of dark hair, on top of her head, down on the back, around the ears. She was purring like a cat and left her eyes on me, studying, every detail of me. It was like our first nights again. I touched her face. No skin was more gentle. We were so close. Looking at each other. Her nose was just right in front of mine.

“I was looking for you you know?”, she said calmly. I didn’t answer. She kept getting lost, studying every millimeter of my face. “You have a perfect face, Jim. You have the most beautiful face I have ever seen.” I had never heard that before. But she meant it.

“Your nose. Your eyes. I have never seen such eyes.”, she was here. She was there with me.

“I love you, Jenn.”

“Your mouth. I love you. Oh, how I love you.” She sneaked her mouth up and finally, we kissed. She was open and it was good. It was true. My arms were gliding around her. She weighted nothing. Her touch was bliss. I was holding her. We were both laying on our sides, facing each other. We might have been in that position many times, but never had I been so close to any other human than to Jenn that morning, when the bright orange sunbeams flooded our faces. And our bodies. It was warm. It was perfect. It truly was perfect. And whatever had been left of the drugs in us kicked back in. But it was only the good part. The beautiful and strong. The love part. We loved again.

“Jenn, I love you so much.”

“I love you.”

“We are perfect for each other.”

“We are.”

“We don’t need any games.”

“No.”, she said, “No games.”, she held a thought, then it spilled out of her:

“I’m sorry Jim. I didn’t want to hurt you. Really. I didn’t. I’m sorry.”

“It’s O.K.”, I said.

“It’s just what women do to women to show them they get the attention.”

I had to think about that one. Women were competing too, competing like men. Everyone competing for sex.

“Why do you love me, Jenn?”

“Oh.”, she smiled. There were so many things on her mind. “You are funny. You are beautiful. You are good. You are not just a good man. You are a good human. Jim, you are good. I love how you say my name…” “JENN”, I said and it was music in both our ears. She laughed. Then continued:

“You know what you want. You know what you need. You are such a man! But sometimes when we are alone and you look at me, you look just like a baby. So innocent. So delicate. So good.

I love you, Jim. I don’t know why. I just love you.” I smiled. She smiled. I was holding her closer. I kissed her forehead gently and her smell was good. It was home. She was my home. Then we talked. And we must have talked for at least another half an hour. Although time didn’t exist

anymore. We talked about everything. We talked about our relationship. We talked about our childhoods. Our parents. Our dreams. Our loves. Our future. I felt like there was nothing to lose and no reason whatsoever to lie. To change to what wasn’t real. I was completely and truly open and honest. Like never before. And she was too. All that while laying so close that there was nothing to see but our faces, right there. We kissed and laughed and I watched the trees and branches move in the light breeze of the morning wind and listened to her talk about being a child and wondering what life would be like.

It was magic that life. There was so much to it. So many hidden corners and forgotten streets, like empty buildings in this city. I never felt so free. I knew our lives had just changed. I knew they were changing right then.

“There will be quite the story.”, I said, “Quite the story we will be telling our children.”

Jenn smiled. In that smile was a wish. A true wish, full of light and hope but darkened by reality. By memories of all the times, love had failed. But the smile was there. And our love was there. And I was holding her closer in those magic moments. “I hope so. I really hope so.”, she said.

I did too.

11

“Don’t get any sperm on that jacket.”, he said. That dick.

“I can’t promise that.”, I said calmly, laying easy on that hammock.

“Do you want it back?”, Jenn asked, still in my arms. “Yeah.”, Bobby said. Bobby was, well he was on some shit too, of course. He was all sad and down on himself but he tried his best to not look like that. The problem in those situations always is, that the girl knows what you want. Jenn knew little Bobby tried his very best to fuck her that night, but she was still laying in my arms. Bobby could only stand and watch and see what he had lost. He had to act like he didn’t care. There lies the brutality of it all. The weaker man has to retreat in defeat under the lost eyes of the girl he wanted to conquer, that threw him away like a used condom after sex and would leave him to die sick in the street without a single tear on her cheek.

“Let her wear it for another five minutes, I’ll get it to you.” Jenn looked from me to him. Bobby nodded: “O.K.” I held Jenn close. “Matty asked if you would come up for a drink.”, Bobby said.

“Tell him we are leaving now.”, Jenn said.

“He really needs a drink, he said you would get him one upstairs.”

“O.K. We will get him one drink.” I stopped paying attention and got lost again in the branches and sticks above us swinging so slowly in the breeze. I heard the river silently pass.

Bobby left and we were alone again.

I would write about all that one day I thought.

12

It wasn’t quite over yet. I forgot we were still there, just made it about a hundred meters down the garden. And we were walking back. Matty. I had forgotten about him too. At that time I was pretty damn close to losing complete touch with most of my senses. Whatever we had taken had some pretty nasty stuff mixed with it. I took hope from the morning. The stage outside was empty, just cables hanging from the speakers like dead snakes from the hands of a bushman. A small group of people were standing in front of the entrance of the house, smoking and tiredly talking.

Bobby was there. I took that oversized red jacket from Jenn and handed it to him. He was too thankful with hate and drowned aggression under tired eyes. I was used to it then, we left him there and he was gone from our tale. We stepped up the stairs to the house, as party staff was rushing by and inside and closing the door. The door was locked. I tried again. It was still locked.

“It’s locked.”, a skinny tall guy leaning against the wall mumbled. It suddenly felt cold outside. We stepped back, and I hugged Jenn and kissed her. The door opened.

“We need to get in!”, Jenn started to explain, stopping herself, realizing who she was talking to.

It was a tired face. A broken one. A long cricket nose and wild dark hair. It was that girl from the bathroom and I knew we wouldn’t get in. This time she had a broom in her hand.

Oh, she hated us. She stared at Jenn and slowly pulled the door closed with her other hand behind her back. “Closed.”, she simply said.

“Ah ya.”, Jenn mumbled, “Can we get inside, please?”

“Ehm, no.”

“We have a friend inside, he really needs us.”

“Ehmm, no.”

“Why not.”

“Ehmm, it’s impossible.”

“Why is it impossible?”, I asked.

“It’s closed.” she simply said.

There was some real hate there. That girl hated us. She really hated Jenn.

It was more than her being mad about how Jenn had treated her. It was her entire life right there. I couldn’t believe it. That big cricket nose. That long, skinny face. She looked exactly like any picture in your head of a typical maid. A dirt poor maid from royal times. One that would milk the cows and maybe cook food for the children of the queen. She looked exactly like that. She even had that broom in her hand. I felled like it was all a movie. She looked at Jenn. Jenn was so beautiful. Even then, after a night of no sleep and a bloodstream full of shit. With all that hate in her eyes, that girl truly looked ugly. She saw Jenn and she saw, she would never be as pretty as her. Jenn was the queen and she was the maid and that was the truth. I knew it, she knew it, only Jenn was somewhere else. It was sad that truth. That girl hadn’t done any wrong, she didn’t choose it like that, it was just the way it was. And it is like that for most people, most people that ever lived. Again that feeling of darkness, that feeling of loneliness.

“Matty!”, Jenn argued, “We are friends of Matty!”

“I don’t know him.”, the girl said.

“Of course. Matty Kosinski!” The girl said nothing, just bathed in her light dress of short-lived superiority.

A staff man mid-30s walked up the stairs.

“Excuse me, we need to get inside.”, Jenn told him.

“I’m really sorry but we’re closing.”, the guy said.

“Matty wants us to meet him there.”

“Oh. Of course then.”, he said, “Let them in!”, he told that girl.

She hated everything and everyone. Most of all herself.

She stared at us.

“Open the door please.”, Jenn smiled at her.

“Okay.”

For the final time, we were back inside again.

13

Hell can be anywhere. Some people really have to go through hell. I only had to go through a night. But it was hell to me. I felt weak. I saw some things I wish I hadn’t seen, but then again, everything gives you something. I didn’t know where all that would go. I had just bought a train ticket and followed my heart, as they say in the movies. And I had landed there.

We were walking through those nightmarish corridors again, Jenn holding one drink in her hand, doing her best to balance it in her state while taking the right turns, the same ones we had been taken so many hours ago, as my mind was spinning and climbing, out of the mud.

My thoughts were stuck to that loop, like flies in a glass of honey. It all felt like a movie. I guess everyone gets that feeling sometimes. It’s a good feeling. Because you feel special. But it’s dangerous too. We kept walking, taking turns left, then right, then left again, and up the stairs. Our shoes sticking to the floor, stained with dried alcohol.

“Why are you bringing him a drink again?”, I asked Jenn.

“He is an old friend. And besides, he got us those pills.”

There were those white walls and the harsh hospital lamps and a big black door.

That girl with long pink hair and pink nails stood in the hallway. She was smoking and looking at the ground. She seemed horrified. “We all are baby, don’t worry.”, I thought. Just as we passed she dropped her cigarette on the floor and let it burn down. She just gild down the hall like in a dream. Staring at the floor.

As she passed, I noticed a strange smell. One I hadn’t noticed on her earlier. She smelled like old leaves and dirt. She smelled like death. I remembered that smell.

Jenn knocked with her free hand. I stared after that girl. Lumped over and sad. What had happened to her? Matty opened. He didn’t say anything. He looked terribly pale and sweaty. He was wearing a white tank top.

“Got your drink.”

“Ahhhh.”, he drank like a man lost in the desert for three days, “Come in!”

We got in. Now Matty sat on the sofa by himself. He leaned back and sunk deep into the cushions. He gave Jenn the good chair close to him. Me the one further away. We sat. Matty drank.

Matty then talked. I don’t remember what he said, but I remember that Jenn didn’t answer him back most of the time. I also remember that I didn’t like the way Matty looked at Jenn. Matty looked through Jenn like a snake. With his small, sick, red eyes.

“You have nice legs.”, Matty told Jenn. Jenn didn’t reply.

“How did that happen?”, he pointed at the small but clear bruises on her legs. I was thinking about the screwing on the windowsill and kitchen counter and wooden floor.

“That was Jim.”, Jenn smiled.

“You will be coming next week?”, Matty asked.

“No.”, Jenn said.

“You can come here alone, just with me and I can get you drinks for free next time.”

That slimy piece of shit.

“I think we have to go.”, I said.

“Yes.”, Jenn said. I had enough. I really did. Everyone was trying to fuck her. All night. It does take some energy out of you.

We got up. Matty stayed put.

Matty started saying something to Jenn again and she stood and listened. I didn’t feel like waiting for her lead so I just walked out and leaned against the wall outside. The door stayed open. I felt like rocks were stacked on my back. So heavy that I was just about to collapse. I couldn’t hear what Matty was saying inside but Jenn just stood there frozen and didn’t say anything. I saw Matty’s eyes. He looked bad.

Jenn was shocked. I slowly stepped back inside again.

“Don’t say something like that.”, she said. She was close to tears, “If you say things like that I will not come back.”, she sounded like a little girl.

He looked up with those evil red eyes.

He stared at her.

“You will come back.”, he smiled. A brutal smile. A killer smiles like that. He was a lowlife shit. He had no chance in hell with Jenn, or any girl like that, and that made him weak. Weak men are the most dangerous ones. Jenn was close to a tear. She quickly got out. I couldn’t hear what Matty had said to her but I felt it. And it wasn’t good. I considered digging my knuckles through his

chin bone. But I felt too far from any kind of aggression. I only wanted good. It was him and me in the room. I stared at him. He stared somewhere in my direction but his glare didn’t quite make it all the way. I didn’t say anything. I just stared. I stepped back. Grabbed the big, heavy, dark door and pulled. I didn’t look away until the smallest space disappeared and the door closed, locking the beast back into his sad existence. Sitting alone in that dark room.

It seemed like everyone there had spent a lot of time in dark rooms.

The building was empty.

It was time to go.

We didn’t talk walking out. We didn’t need to.

A few minutes and the house was gone. We passed through the huge wooden gate, the desk

empty. That dangerous-looking guy made it home too.

Over the bridge. Over the island. The river. Then to our bikes, we had left there.

We swung on and were riding off. Riding off in the rising morning sun. Bright and warm and big.

It was over.

I was no child no more.

14

It was warm outside. The sun was strong and laying warm around my skin like a safe blanket. I felt good and free. I felt like we had made it through. I followed her home. We were riding our bikes in silence. Then Jenn stopped.

“Do you want to see the place I spent all my time as a child?”, she asked.

“Yes.”, I tiredly whispered and I knew it was the only right thing to do. She smiled at me and turned and we were gliding down empty streets on our bikes like two old ships mercifully sail back into the harbour. She stopped and leaned the bike against a clear white wall.

“This is where my mother works.”, She said. It was an hair salon. It seemed almost antique from the outside. Like from a different time and today all at once. Just like the rest of the city.

We sat down on the window board.

“When I was small, I would wait for her for hours”, she remembered and the golden sun lid her eyes up. She looked so beautiful, so precious.

“You got mad at her for making you wait so much?”

“Yeah. Very. I always thought she didn’t care about me. I didn’t see how hard she was working for me and my brother.”

“I was like that too.”, I said, “I only see now what my parents did for me.”

“We forget.”, she said and smiled at me. I touched the soft skin on her chin with my fingers and we gently kissed. Then a car parked right beside us.

“Oh my god.” Jenn jumped up and grabbed her bike. “Let’s go!”, she said.

“What? Why?” She didn’t care to explain and already started biking. “Let’s go!”

I grabbed my bike and swung on it.

A middle-aged woman stepped out of the car. She saw me. She saw Jenn, biking away.

“Jenn? Jenn!” She stared from Jenn back at me. It hit me. That was Jenn’s mother.

I felt like she was in shock, but she seemed calm. Maybe I was just projecting my own nerves on her.

“Jenn!”, she called again. Jenn stopped. Looked back. Realized there was no escape. And returned.

“Good morning.”, Jenn said. The woman looked from Jenn back to me. She wore an elegant black coat and carried a big dark bag on her elbows. Jenn had told me about her mother. Even shown me a picture a while back and I was expecting a very beautiful woman. And in a way she was. But not that day. “Hey.”, she said. Her skin looked wrinkly, she looked tired and old.

“Mom, this is Jim.” And Jenn’s mother looked at me and she saw my eyes. My big dark pupils, still high on MDMA. I saw her eyes. Deep red bags under it, like she hadn’t slept in two days.

“Hi.”, I said. “I just wanted to show Jim your work. We are going home.”

“You should come, I will cut your hair.”, she said.

“Great.”, I said, but Jenn immediately intervened: “Now we need to go to sleep.”

Jenn was on her bike again as her mother eyed me. “Not so bad.”, she said and smiled. “Not so bad.”, I said and tried to hide how high I still was.

Then another car came around. Jenn’s mother looked at Jenn and so did I and I saw pure panic on her face.

“No.”, she said. “No!”, again. And she started biking as the car parked and the door opened. “We are going Jim!”, she said, “we are leaving!”

She started biking. And I looked over to the car. A big muscular man stepped out of it and stared at me in disbelief. “Jim!”, she screamed but I stood still. The man crossed the street and stared at me directly. Then he saw Jenn.

“Jenn!”, he screamed and he wasn’t happy.

Her father.

Fuck.

“Jenn.”, I just said, as she tried to escape. She stopped, while everything in her told her to run, and then she turned.

Again there was no escape. Like a small dog that knows it shouldn’t have eaten the cookies on the sofa, was Jenn slowly riding her bike right beside her father. He whispered something at her I didn’t hear but I think it might have been better that way.

“That is Jim.”, she said and I held my hand out but he didn’t want any of it.

“Are you coming inside?”, he asked Jenn.

“No, we have to go to sleep.”, she said. “I didn’t ask what he is doing, I asked if you come inside.”

“No. Not now.” “They will come later.”, Jenn’s mother said, “I will cut his hair.”

He only looked at me briefly. “Is he from town?”, he asked Jenn. He really didn’t like me I thought.

“No.”, Jenn said. “Is he Catholic?”, he asked. “I don’t know.”, Jenn said.

“Is he working?”, he asked.

“We can’t talk now, dad.”, she just said.

“Come here tomorrow for lunch.”, he said. Jenn’s mother smiled at me again and went inside. Jenn’s father stared at me.

“Let’s go Jim.”, Jenn said and swung on her bike. “Good to meet you.”, I said to him and held my hand out again. He just stood still and looked at me from head to toe. Then he turned to Jenn: “We will talk tomorrow.” Then he went inside. We swung on our bikes and left.

“I am so sorry.”, she said.

“It’s okay.”, I said, “High on MDMA and after a night of no sleep is not the way I imagined how I would meet your parents, but at least I met them.”

“I am so mad at my father.”, she said.

“He doesn’t like me too much does he?”

“He doesn’t know you that’s all. He really liked my last boyfriend, you know.”

“Mhm.”

We were riding in silence for a little bit as we turned into our street.

“What a night.”, I said.

“Yeah, what a night.”

15

Then all energy left us. We made it home and tiredly walked into the apartment. Jenn made some tea. I pissed. We met at the table and drank.

“Who was that guy?”, I asked her calmly.

“What guy? Matty?”

“Yes.”

“He is an old friend. I know him for many years.”

“Really?”

“Yeah…”, she was thinking, “he is my friend.”

“Jenn. He is not your friend.”

Jenn looked down through her drink. She nodded.

“But they aren’t bad, they…”

“…They all just want to fuck you.”

“Jim!”

“But it’s the truth. You call them friends, all they want is to fuck you.”

“That is not true!”

“This is not me being jealous this is just the way it is.”

“Not every man I meet wants that!”

“Yeah, they do. If he’s not gay and has a dick, he wants to fuck you.”

“I am not just an object Jim! I am a human!”

“Of course you are, you are a beautiful human, but still. Every man you meet. And Jenn, listen to me, because you have to understand this.”, she did look at me with those big green eyes. She looked innocent and vulnerable, “Every man you meet. Everyone. If he has a dick and if he is not gay, then he wants to fuck you. He might be nice, he might be gentle, but EVERY MAN,

EVERY SINGLE MAN YOU MEET, WANTS TO FUCK YOU.”

A single tear swell in her eye, listening to me, then dropped out and onto her cheek. For a second I got to her heart questioning her existence as a woman and the role of all women, it seemed so incredibly sad to her, then she rebuild her inner wall and hid behind it.

Then she smiled.

“You are still my miracle.”, she whispered.

“Let’s go to sleep.”, I said.

We undressed and slipped under the blankets. It was cold. It was very cold. We snuggled together. The room started moving. Then spinning. Not fast. But consistently. Finally, the feeling of coldness got superior and hived us into sleep.

I fell

deep

And there was nothing.

For many hours.

Death must be like that.

Ⅲ

I could have been dead. Trapped in time. Getting crushed up and rinded against infinity. I was time and space. And there was a thin line between insanity and hope. Long was wide and good and then everything got shorter and tighter and tighter and there was no escape and I was swinging for a million years. In a giant pendulum. That was it. That was hell. I didn’t deserve any better. Finally, it widened again. It widened. Then shrank.

A million years later, Jenn opened her eyes. In, then out. Gently carrying her breath. Something moved and I got pulled.

I saw the old ceiling. My eyes opened slowly. In my mind, everything was still spinning, but I was laying there still. Staring up at the ceiling. I felt Jenn looking at me. I turned to her. She lay on her side and was studying me. It was like in the beginning, but something was missing.

We were laying still. I didn’t think I could talk to her. She smiled tiredly. I wanted to smile too, I might have. Then I turned back looking at the ceiling.

It was so incredibly cold that morning.

2

The sound of the race cars brought me back. “DUM DUM! DUM DUM!” And down and around and fast down main street. It was just about 1 P.M. “RUM! RUM! RUM RUM!”, it made.

It sounded like war.

“Brrrr”, Jenn gnashed her teeth, hugging herself. Sitting on the bed besides me.

“Winter is coming.”, I said. She nodded then got up and to the bathroom. I heard the water run in the sink. Then I listened carefully to Jenn throwing up. Then the race cars came back for another round. Loud and heavy in the corners. They couldn’t get enough. They burned past on the street downstairs and I felt like somebody cut through my forehead with scalpels, filled my head with broken glass and gave it all a proper shake. My head was fucked. I heard the beat from the night

before and it didn’t stop. It was a loop and I was almost back in my dreams again.

Jenn came back, pulling me from there and looking sick: “Jim, I don’t want to take LSD anymore.”

“Yah, I know. Me neither.”

She sat back on the bed with me and gave me a hug. It was distant and cold but it was better than being alone. I remembered feeling alone. What was I doing? What were we all doing. Spinning on a dirt ball until we die. Destroy our minds so we wouldn’t have to think about the senseless living and dying and living again.

It was still in the apartment. Only Jenn’s sound of breath. And the pigeons outside. And the race cars driving out in the distance.

It was another day for the can.

3

I went out to get some coffee and called my mother. I needed her.

“Hello baby, how are you?”

“I am O.K. how are you?”, I said quietly.

“I am great. What is going on?”

“Nothing.”

“I know something is going on. What happened?” Unbelievable. Of course she knew.

“Everything is O.K. Really. It’s great here. Such a beautiful city. You would love it. You have to come see it!”

“Oh I am sure. I’d really like to one day.” I was walking inside the supermarket and nobody said anything and there was silence.

“How is dad?”

“Ah you know him. He is enjoying himself.” “Ya, I know.”, I said.

“How is your girlfriend? What was her name again?”

“Jenn. She is great. She really is.” “I am happy for you Jimmy.”

“Listen. Mom?” “Ya?”

“I, just. I was just thinking about it and I just wanted to tell you that what you and Dad did. How you raised me. You did a great job. Really I couldn’t be happier. I don’t think I ever told you that but you did a lot and I really know how hard it was and thank you.” I was talking without hold and my voice dipped a couple times close to a tear. My emotions were not under me.

“Of course baby.”

“I see more from life now. We went to some parties. I think I know more now. And it’s not all good but I, I just wanted to say I love you and I love dad, very much and thank you.”

“Baby. We love you too. It’s all going to be O.K.”

“Yes.”

“And you can always come home.”

“I know. Thank you.”

“Give your girlfriend…give Jenn a kiss.”

“I will. Thank you. Give dad a hug.”

“I will.”

“I love you.”, I said.

“I love you.”, she said. “Bye.”, I said. “Bye.”, she said.

4

I got back upstairs and Jenn was under the shower. I dropped the coffee on the table and

followed the smell of steaming water, taking off clothes with every step. I opened the door and there she was, my queen. Naked and free, glorious and gorgeous, hot water running over her perfect face, her primal hair hanging back. I took off my underwear and opened the door and stepped inside, gliding my hands around her waist from behind. Her skin was warm and smooth and

nurturing. She had just so much love to give. I slid further and manoeuvred my dick in between her ass cheeks, him hanging down. I parked him there and hugged her gently, hot water running down on us as the rocket starting growing. When she felt it, she slowly broke free, kissed my cheek

and left.

There was distance between us. For the first time, it was real. I was sad. But I clinched on to every bit of pure, naked skin I could get, because it was everything for me. Because it shined love into our drug infested hole of sadness. Something had changed that night. Even today I still can’t point my finger to what exactly, but after that night that something was gone. Even though we got close to it many times, even though our story was at that point still far from over, we had lost

something we could never truly find again. The horror was about to begin.

5

The apartment was old and a little broken at places and we had to move out.

Which brought up an interesting question: What in the fuck would I be doing with my life?

“You will write.”, she said casually.

“Yeah but what until then?”

“Write.”, she said sipping on coffee. I smiled. That was why I loved her.

“I will need to make some money.”

“So send something in.”

“I will.”, I said staring at the empty wall.

“When?”

“I will do it. I just need some time. I gotta get a little better first. With them you sometimes just have one chance.”, I said, trying to be serious, but her shiny eyes and her full lips robbed me from my concentration.

“Jim, you are great. You are my favourite writer.”

I smiled and I loved her. A writer needs a woman I thought. At least at times.

“What about Hemmingway?”

“He’s O.K.”, she said.

“O.K? Baby, have you read something from him? Have you read his short stories?”

“No, but you are better!” I had a point about that but she just gave me the eyes and whispered: “Kiss me.” And it got lost somewhere. Finally I freed my lips and could continue.

“What about Bukowski. You have read him right?”

“Yeah.”, she said trying to catch me again, “You’re better.”

“So what do you like about my writing?”, I asked.

“That it’s beautiful, that it’s from you.”

“Yeah, but technically, what do you like about it?”, I tried sipping on my coffee but it was burning hot. Which was weird, because Jenn and me got our cups at the same time and she was nearly through with it.

“I don’t know literature that well. I just know that I like it.”, she said, thought some more and

finally said: “When I read something from you I feel like I am there. I want to know what happens next. I like that.”

“That’s good.”, I mumbled and thought about the few short stories and poems I had read to her and at what point they must have caught her attention.

“So you found an apartment?”, I asked.

“No, nothing.”

“We should really…”, I started, but she had me. Her eyes big. I smelled her and it was wonderful. “Fuck.”, her soft lips read to me. “Damn.”, I thought.

And we were screwing again.

6

I had been working some jobs, so I had a fair amount of money saved in my pockets. Not a lot, but finances still didn’t make sense when I was around her.

It was our last day in the apartment and we packed our bags. We cleaned the floor, a bit. We didn’t have much stuff anyways, so packing wasn’t too hard. Then the entire apartment was empty, just like that. Lost its face. Suddenly there was so much space! Our small home became so big and I thought we had lived there all wrong that entire time. We were ready to leave. All that was left, was the mattress and us. We stood in front of it staring at it. It stared back at us.

“They should just burn it.”, I said. Jenn laughed. “They should.”

“You know what though?”, I asked.

“What?”

“Still a bit too clean.” She stared at me. I looked over to her.

And we were screwing again.

We gave the good old mattress a last blow out for retirement. And it was a good one. We went straight to it. And it was good right away. She welcomed me and I gave it to her from all around. She called me her god and about forty minutes later we shipped the vessel in the harbour and

retired it for good. We were laying on the mattress, sweating litres and hugging each other. Feeling all the memorise from our first love nest for the last time.

We didn’t bother cleaning up and left.

It wasn’t all horror after all.

7

Like I said, I had some money, so I took her to some fine hotels. It was off season in the city and although that didn’t make it cheap, we found some nice places for a fair price. Finally we were able to rent an entire apartment in the rich area of town, for basically nothing for a few nights. The apartment was a stunner. Top floor. Giant windows overlooking the river and churches and even the main square. No loud street anywhere close and no fucking race cars! The moment we entered, it was like somebody had turned a switch in Jenn’s brain. She dropped her bag and threw herself around my neck.

“That’s ours?”

“Yes baby, all for us.”

“Oh, Jim I love it! It’s beautiful!”, she smiled, “You are so beautiful!”, she said with her sexy eyes and she lightly licked over my lips with her tongue from heaven. I was hard in an instant and she went to her knees.

“May I?”, she asked.

“Yeah. Yeah of course.”, my stunned brain blabbered. And she started working and she worked him real well. Then she came up again.

“Come with me.”, she said and grabbed my hand and took me to the sofa by the big window.

“Sit. Be comfortable.”, she smiled, sliding her hand over my dick.

“I will be.”, I said. She stepped away and presented her ass doing so. I looked out the window and felt like a winner. She danced back with two glasses of whiskey in her hand. I love whiskey, she not too much, but she would always be drinking with me. She handed me a glass and sat down real close beside me. “Thanks.”, I smiled. She kissed me, then: “Cling.”

And we were drinking and laughing and flirting. We finished our glasses, she poured me another one and we started kissing, then Jenn went down on me again.

I watched all those lights in the city at night through that window. People being stuck in traffic.

Fighting with their wives at home and searching for a love they wouldn’t find. I tasted whiskey and she worked him better. I felt I was close and sank deeper, back into the cushions. Whatever would happen, wherever I’d go. I’d be a winner.

I closed my eyes and grabbed her dark hair and came into her mouth.

It was the taste of money.

8

It all ended one evening when I took a look at my bank account.

“We need to find a place.”, I said, “We should really…”

“Fu..”, her lips started whispering, “NO!”, I jumped up from the sofa. She couldn’t catch me again.

“No time for that! We have to find an apartment!”

“Oh really?”, she went. She wasn’t even in the mood for sex, but she really couldn’t have it if I turned her down. She casually got up from the sofa like a cat from her spot in the sun. She put her hand on my chest. “I think we have a lot of time.”, she whispered. My hand went down her back and her body jumped like electrocuted. Gently down her lower back and I felt her thin hairs erect. She stood there with her arms on her sides looking up at me. My other hand went around her waist. A quick moan escaped her and she curled her arms around my neck, pushing up on her toes, pulling herself closer.

“Where is my little girl?”, I asked.

“I am your little girl?”, she whispered and sounded very much like that. I kissed her and she was open for me. Our tongues played and I pulled her closer, making her feel how hard I was. She let go, jumped back, turned, and left to the bathroom locking the door.

She stayed there for about twenty minutes. When she came out she was naked and yawning.

“I am so tired.”, she said and lay down in bed. I followed her, laying down beside her and we started kissing. She wasn’t there. She made space.

“I love you, Jim, good night.”, and she turned off the light and went to sleep. And I was laying there, with a hard dick and a hurt ego.

There was no taste of money that night.

9

It was like my manliness was laughing at me. So bad did it feel. She started doing that more often after that. Just going to sleep. And we wouldn’t fuck. And I felt like the biggest loser in the world. It made me feel tense. I was aggressive. And horny. Then we would fuck like gods and shake up each other's worlds. Then nothing.

We were sitting in a cafe, and we turned pretty much homeless, jumping from hotel to hotel, steadily decreasing in quality and price.

Finally, we found an apartment. Actually, Jenn’s uncle found one for us. A small, tight space in an old complex in the center of town. It was a weird place, something about it left its very own feel with me. But it would become home for us.

We were so excited.

Our home.

It would be five days until we could move there. We were basically homeless until then, but Jenn got an invitation for a casting in another city in the west from a big studio for a good movie. She told me she had been at that casting after I had left her and gone home. She told me they liked her and I saw it in front of my eyes, my princess hoping in the room with her big, innocent smile, joking with the casting director and confidently reading her lines and playing the room.

I was sure she would get it. It was a chance to change our lives.

...