Click: her long nail on the wheel of the iPod, shutting it down, to silence, that reverential, pregnant, church silence, the kind of quiet that suggests something is about to happen.

Something is.

Click again: the sound of her compact mirror shutting; she’s just checked herself and she’s more than ready, pout-perfect, long-lashed, blushed, and enough cleavage showing to fracture the fault lines of any faint heart.

Click: an old woman exits the door of the confessional; it’ll be Sarah’s turn next, another Saturday and she’s more than ready. Up for it.

Most of her friends are still hanging around their rooms, still in pyjamas, some feeling sorry for the thunderous headaches, the punishing post-binges, others watching pop videos, apologising to parents for their manifold misdemeanours, but already scheming their Saturday night. More of the same. Week in, week out. The parents are tired of it. Most of the parents just dog-tired.

The church isn’t far, a twenty-minute walk at most from Sarah’s house, though sometimes she wants it to last longer, give her more time to appreciate the tunes. She’s just getting stuck into an album when the church spire comes into sight, then the black spiked railings, and then the big brown doors. She often takes a roundabout route, not just for the music’s sake, but also to enjoy the stares of morning men and boys who can’t help but fix on her legs (she pulls the skirt up higher on the thigh when leaving the house) or rubber-neck to catch a glimpse of that behind if she’s in those jeans. This all from a body not even finished, waist still slender, not an ounce of fat, breasts full and not yet done with their forward charge; a tidy package all in all, as if she doesn’t know.

The perfect-arse jeans were flung in the laundry basket the previous day. Mother will wash them for her: another one she’s got wrapped around her fingers.

Today: a skirt. Short enough to cause car accidents, to short-circuit the very traffic lights and make them want to flash green only and go go go.

Must have been a sinless week because there’s no one ahead of her and she waltzes right in. Click. Action.

When the old lady shuffles past her smiling and muttering she takes a deep breath and struts towards the box. Before she steps in she makes sure there is no one else around. If another sinner, bent on penitence, should approach, then she’d have to take a cautious step back and wait a little longer. This is the way she works it. She’s careful. She’s bad in her bones, scorching to the touch, but she’s careful, oh so.

Everything in a church is done slowly. She likes it this way. Outside it’s all skipping and prancing. Her nights on the town especially, the clubs: under strobes, struts and poses; in here though, all slo-mo. She likes that sense of gravity, the tension.

The door shuts behind her: a final click.

The little square shutter opens. And then…then she gets the whole operation underway.

“Bless me Father for I have sinned, it’s been a week since my last confession.”

She can hear the tremble in his reply, his very first words, and she can see the shadows his hands make as he begins the ritual. The air in the box is heavy, musty, and she lets him wait a few moments before she begins.

“Go on, my child.”

A little more of this pausing, adds to the drama, the way she works it.

“Well, you see, Father, it’s been a very bad week for me. I’ve done some very naughty things.”

She tries to contain her smirk. It wasn’t easy at first, all those months ago, but she’s getting the hang of it now, can stun that smile, as if ice wouldn’t melt in that sweet, hot mouth.

“Go on, Sarah, tell me everything, God will absolve you of all your sins, no matter how bad they are. But you must confess. Tell me everything, child.”

He calls her by her first name. She calls him Father.

She loves these Saturdays, loves her clandestine escapades. Her English teacher asked her about her hobbies recently and for a minute she almost told him, almost confessed. Only she saw the irony and chuckled, it got her detention when she couldn’t stop laughing, the rest of her classmates stared, bemused. If only they knew.

“Oh Father, Monday night I was taking a swimming lesson in the pool with John Murty. He’s so big and strong and has these muscles.”

She sighs here, wistful, longing sighs. She does actually attend swimming lessons, not yet as competent a swimmer as she would like to be, but she won’t drown, that’s for sure.

“And he was there in his little swimming pants and, oh Father, is it so wrong of me to be staring at him?”

John Cavanagh is indeed a fine figure of a man, an Adonis for anyone that’s vaguely interested in that sort of shit. There is no John Murty. She doesn’t know where she got the name. She creates.

“No, dear, it’s not wrong. Your natural biological impulses will lead you to do that, but you must try to avert your eyes because you are not yet old enough to deal with such things, the consequences.”

“But I couldn’t help it, Father. I just had to look and look again, and I think he knew I was staring. Do you want me to continue, Father?”

Does he what?

A small crucifix hangs behind her on the wooden wall. It’s eerie. The whole thing, encased in a box is eerie, like a coffin, a coffin with company. She never turns around to look at the cross. First time she was in there she felt a presence behind her; in the dark she thought it was a sleeping bat. Turns out it was much more frightening than a winged rodent, a man nailed to wood, a crown of thorns, fucking gruesome.

“Well, yes Sarah, if I am to clear you of your sins then it is best to know everything in detail, so I can give you the correct amount of penance, you know, to be getting on with.”

Weigh up the sins, get out the scales.

“Well, it is embarrassing to speak of it…but what he had inside those swimming shorts, it’s like he was just packed into them. His thing, you know, his “thing”, seems huge, all the girls say it. And we are all only hoping that somehow it will slip out and I can get a good look at it, to see if it really is like the snake I imagine it to be.”

Fr. Michael Mulcahy’s breathing is heavier; she can hear him, a rustling of vestments on the other side of the dark box.

She waits a moment, then continues.

“I know the serpent in the Bible is evil, but God forgive me, I want to see this one slither out of his shorts and stand up right in front of me.”

He lets out a rasping gasp, the Rothmans doing the devil to his fifty-eight-year-old lungs. His elbows bang against the wood panels.

She keeps going. Gathering speed. Working it. Working it.

“That night, Monday night, I was thinking about him all the time. When I was in bed I couldn’t get to sleep. I was just thinking about him, taking me in his arms and kissing me all over. Kissing me all over and then taking off my nightdress, I still wear one of those childish ones I’m embarrassed to say, you know, with Minnie Mouse on the front.”

The details. Fr. Mulcahy likes the details. He can’t help but blurt:

“Yes, yes, do the voice now too. Do the voice now, Sarah.”

She does. She does the voice. A high-pitched, child-like voice, embarrassing, but practiced enough to get through this, to pull it all off.

“But of course Johnny doesn’t even look at Minnie Mouse, he just tears it off and starts kissing all over my belly and then licking my breasts. Father, my breasts aren’t even fully developed yet, but he says I look like a woman, that my breasts are full and heavy, and he holds them in both hands and squeezes my nipples. His hands are soft, maybe from being in the water so much, but his caresses cause my nipples to harden.”

Gasps again.

“Like bullets.”

Gasps and crazed shuffling from his side of the box. A flurry.

“Oh Father, I can’t believe I’m confessing these sins to you, these dreadful fantasies that keep coming back and devouring me, I spent all week lingering on them. Am I wicked? Am I a naughty, wicked girl?”

“Please continue now Sarah, we’re almost done. Confess. Confess.”

She tries hard to contain herself, holds her hand over her mouth, closes her eyes and tries to concentrate on the task. She can smell his rough breath coming through the mesh, coffee a half-hour ago perhaps, fags too, pungent. He’ll have a heart-attack in front of her one of these days. Poor fool.

“Please continue now Sarah, we’re almost done.”

She doesn’t know how she doesn’t laugh, how she keeps serious, keeps it all together. But she does.

“Do you do anything to yourself when you are imagining these scenes?”

He cues her right up.

“Oh yes Father, I can’t help but touch myself. I know I shouldn’t, but I just can’t stop, I slide my hand inside my white panties and I rub myself until I’m wet and…”

The shuffling gets louder. His eyes against the mesh, bulging. Panting now, really gruff. The other side.

“Should I stop, Father?”

“No, keep going!”

Her voice high and squeaky, a Minnie Mouse parody, but reducing now to whispers, to counter the gruff priest. When she slips into her own tones he almost shouts:

“No! The voice! Do the voice!”

“And then Johnny puts his tongue on the inside of my thighs and he licks right along my flesh until I’m in a frenzy and then, oh the shame of it, he puts his tongue right on my pussy lips and licks and licks, where I’ve never even been touched before…”

“On your what?”

“My pussy.”

“Your what?”

“My pussy.”

“Your what?”

“My pussy! My pussy!”

And then he groans and the shuffling and motions on the other side of the little square window stop, and she can just about make out his dark hands moving to his forehead as he dabs at sweat and coughs and sighs and mutters something about a decade of the Rosary and how God will forgive us all our evil deeds and something else about wantonness and the fires of Hell. And the shutter opens and he slides across the fifty Euros and mumbles some more and he waits until she clicks open the door and exits before he starts his sick sobbing. They never even got to her Tuesday activities this time.

Two old men are seated at the back of the church, on either side of the aisle, and when she passes she can feel their necks turn to get a glimpse of her calves. She sashays out of there knowing that the head on the crucifix is the only head that never turns in her direction, no matter how many Saturdays she shows up, it hangs, dismayed.

Dave Drake is waiting outside for her, all height, meat and solidity. He smokes, hasn’t yet got that Fr. Michael rasp however, twenty years too young for that; he just oozes confidence, the confidence of a trickster, who knows that he’s got you right where he wants you, and somehow, somehow, you don’t mind being there at all. His hair is remarkably soft and she runs her fingers quickly through it when he bends to kiss her on the cheek: a touch of vanity perhaps, that care and attention to self, expensive conditioner she’s sure of it, well Sarah wouldn’t be surprised, that’s the way men are these days, more careful, they like to look pristine, whatever the sordid business.

Drake takes out his cigarette case and offers her one, she takes it to her lips and he lights it for her, his big hands sheltering the flame from the wind. He notices the lipstick that so quickly stains the butt, tarnished already.

“You’re a star. This is turning into a nice little earner. What? Ten minutes work. Fifty Euros.”

She smiles, enjoying his thick North Dublin accent, laps up his praise.

“Where was the cum-point today?”

“Pussy. It’s always pussy.”

“I thought last week it was Minnie Mouse.”

“Yeah, well, whatever, it was over pretty fast as usual.”

“You’re such a tease.”

“I’m such a professional.”

He smiles at her, believes her, would believe anything she says. He has a soft spot for these country girls in their boring country towns. They’re so bored they’ll do anything, anything for the damn dour days to pass faster.

“Right, well, I’m outa here. Now don’t you think I deserve a little something. Can’t hang about.”

Drake reaches into his pocket and pulls out a little packet of white powder.

“Candy for my girl.”

“Ooh, you are so good to me. I’m glad we’ve forged such a good partnership.”

Sarah knows there isn’t much in it for her. She works for him, hands over the cash, gets a tiny bit of blow for her efforts. But what choice has she? Drake has his famous knife inside that jacket too. And he’s cut up girls in the past. In whatever town he happens to be working in. Wouldn’t think twice about taking another slice. She fears him. He terrifies her. And for some odd reason, for some reason that she still can’t fathom after all these weeks of this “work”, she’d fuck him just as quick.

“You’re a star. All three of you.”

“Three?”

“Yeah, you, Minnie Mouse, and your pussy. Aren’t those the three leading players.”

“Don’t forget the fictional Johnny Murty.”

“Indeed, hell of a man. Body of an Olympian, face of a matinee idol, dick of a porn star.”

“Yeah, and my Johnny is copyrighted. You can’t go stealing any more from me,” she laughs.

Drake takes a good look at her fit body, grins. He’ll take it one day for sure. But not yet. He’ll let it mature a little more first, few months perhaps, then fuck it with such ferocity that she’ll never smile and chatter with him again, only tremble when she sees him coming towards her, either his long cock or his bowie in his hand.

Sarah waves herself away, plugs her earphones back in and moves to her soundtrack. She has places to be. People to see. She’s a torpedo, goes only one way, a crazed rush forward, she’s all youth, and despite her walk on the shady side is innocence yet.

The two old church men exit through the main door and pass him, their prayers done for at least another few hours. Maybe they are making some deal with their maker, knowing how close they are to the end of it all, maybe they’re preparing their way, ensuring the ride there is less bumpy. They pass Drake and mutter, mumbles that could be mistaken for reprehension, or general disaffection at the state of things, maybe they know what goes on every week, hearing the sobbing pathetic priest sitting in his dark box, a once-fine institution only digging bigger holes for itself these days, maybe it should call that hole a grave, jump in and just stay there; whatever, Drake can dismiss their rheumy sputters, doesn’t want to think of old-age and the inevitable slide towards infirmity, can do without all that for another while. Right now he’s got to make it to St. Christopher’s, because that little peach Melinda is on her way to confess to Fr. Brendan. He closes his cigarette case after lighting and dragging deeply on another: click. Saturday’s are always busy.

Colin O’Sullivan

Masataka slipped down the back stairs and went to the car to greet her. She hugged him hard, her nails digging into the back of his neck.  Friday night.  All right then.

“In the back?” he asked.

“Yep.”

He pulled the man out of the back seat, all tied and gagged as expected, rope chaffing wrists.

“Nice job,” he said to Hiroko, looking at the knots.

Hiroko smiled back at Masataka, enjoying the praise, her tingle beginning.  Before she closed the door of the love hotel behind her, she looked to the bruised, purple sky, in hope of thunder or lightning, but nothing yet.

They lugged him into the room and let him flop there on the carpet.  Some of the rain had gotten on him, his sweater flecked with large wet patches, his baldness shining, dirt on the end of his jeans too, after the drag across the gravel and up the filthy stairs.

“Look at the state of you,” Masataka said, looking down at him.

Hiroko laughed her heartiest, some of the night’s nerves showing in it; she couldn’t wait to get to the bedroom.

They drank shochu first, sitting on the sofa, looking at him all bound up there in the carpet, the thick gag stuck in his mouth, making his smile stretch wide like a demented hyena, and Masataka had just enough of a reach to softly kick him in his paunch, playfully, which made Hiroko tingle even more. They listened to some old pop CDs, Hysteric Blue and Judy and Mary and drank more, eyes locked on each other as they kicked out every so often at the man’s body.

Nothing could go wrong with the night. Hiroko and Masataka were good at this, had been doing it for some time. He had taught her the knots, how to make things tight, and she had learned. They poked and prodded him as he lay before them, her painted toenails digging in his ribs. He wasn’t going anywhere; his eyes stared back at them, wide in pleading, and sweat appeared at the sides of his temples. They spat at him too, letting the shochu drip down their chins, and onto their victim’s face, it looked like piss, which made them all the more excited. Hiroko wanted to piss on him so bad but already Masataka was stretching, limbering up, preparing for the bedroom.

“Ready?”

She didn’t have to be asked twice. She took Masataka’s hand and he led her to the bedroom. Her skirt sashayed, the way she hoped he would like it. It was one she had worn before; a silky thing, smooth to the touch, insanely easy to whisk off.

She couldn’t help but laugh again. No nerves now, sheer excited expectancy.

“Say goodnight to your husband,” he said, even though it would not be a full night at all, a temporary reverie, but she looked to the lounge and whispered:

“Goodnight Naoto, darling.”

And blew him a kiss.

She moaned, softly at first, but with an ever increasing volume. He started in at it too, the groaning, letting Naoto know, letting Naoto know just how much Hiroko enjoyed this. More and more then, louder and louder, him thrusting into her and the bedsprings creaking. Masataka had ordered the bed that way, a specialist company, he didn’t want a new solid, silent bed, he needed Naoto to hear. The hotel complied, anything to make their regulars comfortable, and they knew he’d be coming here and paying for a long, long time. The love hotel had no problem with creaking beds, groans and hollers too, all part of its lexicon. She started to cry out when she was close, when she could picture the ropes cutting more and more into Naoto’s wrists and ankles, as he lay there prostrate, only the wind and rain-lashes at the window for company, and the terrific animal sounds coming from the bedroom. Then she began with the howls, the strident affirmations, and then with savage intent him too, Masataka, joining in on the chorus, and she hoped to make their explosion happen at the same time, so that the wriggling man in ropes had no other choice but to catch every last blast of it.

They returned then, soon after, hand in hand, Masataka still naked, letting his penis hang, used and flaccid, but still long, with a swing to it, and Hiroko took the knife from her handbag.

She was grinning, even wider than her husband, who squirmed around on the ground, his eyes flicking from the gleam of the kitchen knife to Masataka’s member.

She knelt down to him, cut the ropes from him, and cut the gag from his mouth. He gasped.

For a minute he rubbed the sores, his skin raw, and he took deep breaths to restore himself to his usual functions.

Hiroko reached out and fondled Masataka’s penis, but he took her hand away. Enough, Masataka’s eyes said.

Getting to his feet with humphs and groans, Naoto reached round the back of his pants to get his wallet. He opened it and counted out the cash.

“Usual,” he said, but it wasn’t even a question.

“I guess,” said Masataka, taking a blanket from the heart-shaped sofa and wrapping it around himself.

The cash was placed in Masataka’s hand. Backs were turned and the door was opened and they headed on down the back stairs and out to the dark blue car. Naoto stuck the key in and started the engine, the music immediately came to life, Judy and Mary again; he liked their stuff and grinned. There was no thunder and no lightning and even the wind and rain had let up.

Colin O’Sullivan is an Irish writer working in Japan. His collection of short stories, Anhedonia, and Majo, a novella for teenagers, were published by the now defunct Rain Publishing, Canada. He is currenly looking for a new publisher or agent.

The band, as you may well know, was called Encomium, we thought the moniker optimistic, and the first EP, which you may not know as it sold very few copies, was called We Are Of Course Being Facetious. People called us pretentious from the offset, saying we were pale imitations of the Smashing Pumpkins, but Walter expected all that, was prepared to hear a lot of rubbish and thought he knew how to handle the press, handle our image and overcome all obstacles. We were all educated, not some low-life junkies you’d meet in a toilet somewhere shooting up while trying to learn three chords. We were bright, innovative and talented, I don’t mind saying it. Walter said we didn’t need a manager at the time, thought we could handle it all ourselves. That was maybe a mistake. We were bright, like I said, full of ambition, but you can only juggle so much. We had no idea what would happen, what could go wrong, accidents happen. There were people ready and willing to take us on and push us forward, but Walter had his own ideas and wanted to burn bright, for a short time and then explode, though we never knew if that explosion meant propulsion into the big time, or just go splat all over the walls. Well, you know which way it went for us, unfortunately.

Rick, guitar

I knew Walter since we were in kindergarten, so yeah, I suppose I knew him better than anyone. And no, he never went in for that satanic stuff as a kid, I mean sure he read a few Clive Barker books, but that was as far as it went. We all read those kinds of books then, it was de riguer for a while, Alister Crowley too, that kind of vibe. Not that we were Goths, nothing like that, just you know, it’s cool for kids to like the dark stuff. When we started to play were just kids really, early twenties, ready for a good time.

Lee

Walter hid a lot of stuff from Rick. So Rick didn’t know all that was going on. Walter and he were too close, like brothers; it would hurt Rick to know what was going on, what was really going on. The press weren’t so far off the mark with the satanic stuff as it happened. And no, no I don’t want to go into it right now. But yeah, the press doesn’t always need to be castigated in this country; sometimes they aren’t far off the mark.

Jimmy, bass

I did coke, sure. We all did. Walter and I had problems with it for a time sure, yeah. But when I first got into doing lines with Fred (Parkz, vocalist with Pantophobia) I went down the path alone, to say that I pushed Walter into anything was ridiculous. You all saw him, saw him on TV and in magazines, did Walter ever look unsure of himself, ever look like he would be cajoled into anything? If he wanted something he’d take it, didn’t need any pushing. He was cocksure, sure, yeah.

I knew him from Art school. We have the same rock story as any other band, Pulp, R.E.M, or any other that met in art school, started playing in dad’s basement, got a few school gigs, cut a record, and tried to make it big. Of course R.E.M. and those did make it big, obviously, we went bust, but you can’t blame it all on Walter, if he wanted out…well, he made his own decisions like I said.

Sarah, girlfriend, author of “A Debunking of the Myths surrounding Walter Tear”

It all started to go wrong after the first album, Ersatz, hit the shelves. Walter had become something of a cult figure, the weird antics and so on appealed to young nihilistic people. Kids even started to change their names to be like him; soon there were Alfreds and Georges around, kids calling themselves Fred Burn or Albert Stain, or Stan Stab to have a name just like Walt. They wanted a first old-man name, and a violent/provocative last. Max Maim. Geoff Grate. No one knew whether to pronounce his name “tear” as in the liquid that falls from your eyes, or “tear” as in what you do to a piece of paper, or record contract, he liked to keep his audience guessing, and in interviews, when asked, he’d say “you decide.” He said that all the time. If a journo asked, about a forthcoming album (The Bereft, never finished) he’d just say that: “you decide.” It was that kind of insouciant, languid approach that he favored and won him respect. And all of us had the vocabulary too, we knew how to put journos in a spin, we were all educated, so what happened, what happened and what went …what caused outrage or bewilderment, and I know some say that it was orchestrated and that Walter knew what he was doing right up to the end, well…others say he didn’t mean to go that far and that it was an accident, that he never meant it. What do I think? You decide.

You know of course that they even started to print those words on T-shirts and thousands of kids would show up to gigs wearing those words on their chests, an ocean of you decides all over the place. Just another gimmick, or message? You…

Rick

It was an accident. Whatever that bitch tells you is a lie. It was an accident. She was wrong for him from the beginning. It was all an accident. I wouldn’t be surprised if it was all her idea. She’s got a book out now you know.

Lee

That day started out like any other. We had a gig that night and TV cameras were going to be rolling there. Jimmy was high but what else was new and fuck him if he thinks he’s gonna see any more of the royalties. It was a birthday bash for some record company exec or something and we were to play along with a few other bands. We were not that high on the list, but not that low either, middling, so much of our story could be summed up in that word, middling.

Sarah

Walter had seemed nervous before the gig, even at the soundcheck he sounded a bit off. But no one took any notice, knew that when it came to it he’d be on fire on stage as he always was, gyrating like he did, whisking the crowd into a frenzy.

Lee

We were the fourth band to go on, or maybe third. I can’t remember – it’s been a while. The kids were there, what ones were let in to this private bash, T-shirts with you decide everywhere. As a joke Walt said he was gonna wear a T-shirt saying I decide, that he was like an author, a storyteller not giving away the ending, like one of those books you had as a kid that had several endings and you got to choose which way you wanted to go, which page you wanted to turn to, but he didn’t wear it, he wore the same black T as the kids, you decide, you decide.

Sarah

The kids started to chant it: youdecideyoudecideyoudecide! And that’s when it happened.

Rick

It was no accident.

Lee

We were two, no, three songs into the set when it happened.

Colin O’Sullivan is an Irish writer living in Japan. His collection of short stories, Anhedonia, and his short novel for teenagers, Majo, are available from Rain Publishing, Canada.

She still waits for him, she hasn’t changed, it’s him, it’s Robert that is changing. Robert needs new.

This has happened before: Robert changing his mind about things. It had been the same with Louise. She had been his type, silent, constant, and then, suddenly, he had enough of her, simple as that. Flung her out of the house, just garbage, didn’t need to give an explanation, didn’t need to defend his brusqueness. He is a cold man sometimes, he knows this about himself. But he can’t form too much of a bond, it just isn’t right.

Robert is tired of it all, dejected, like an old bicycle tyre that has a slow puncture, not yet flat but getting there. Maybe it’s the job, all those people looking for new glasses, everybody wanting to have their eyes better, and not only better, but prettier too. What is it all about, this seeing? Why does everyone want to see so clearly? Some things in the world don’t need so much focus, you can get by; so far Robert has lived his days like this, everything doesn’t need to be so real and vivid. He’s going to start over, be rid, just dump her, get a new one, there are plenty others.

He is a violent man, he knows this. He has a temper. He gets frustrated. Now that he has decided he no longer wants to be with Maria, well, it’s much better to dispose of her savagely than to just say goodbye. After a long day selling glasses, telling people they look lovely and that their eyepieces (spectacles!) suited them, he takes a long sharp knife to the bedroom. Maria is there, staring at him, her eyes wide, her mouth open, aghast, and he leaps and plunges the knife into her and watches her deflate, the air hissing out of her, wrinkling up, or is it down; the garbage collectors will have another laugh, a latex limb hanging out under the lid, or a tuft of mock hair loose, eyelashes hanging off, they’ll make their usual jokes and roll eyeballs and Robert will go again to that emporium and get a new one.

The barmaid’s name was Marlene, they knew that much. She was thin, with smooth brown skin and long frazzled hair; follicles that were knotty and tired, split-ends, a clump of briars on a head, without the berries. Adam and Paul discussed her, and that hairmess, often, every time she worked. Which was every day. Six to twelve. They couldn’t figure out how hair so frazzled could be on a body so fit and tight. The men were forty, odd, and still keen when it came to women and aesthetics. Adam wore a James Joyce t-shirt picked up in a tourist office in Ireland; Bob Marley smoked on Paul’s.

Habiliments.

“I fd love to just snatch her top off and run my fingers through that long frazzled hair,” said Adam, “though I’m sure my fingers would get all tangled.”

“Mm,” said Paul, “I’d be more inclined to go to table, sweep all the glasses and sticky beer mats away, bend her over, and take her from behind, with her nose stuck in that thick glass ashtray.”

“Ah,” said Adam, “you see that’s the difference between you and me.”

Adam is Paul’s only friend, and Paul Adam’s. Not many in the pub talk to them. Adam and Paul are unmarried. Their t-shirts stained.

Colin O’Sullivan is an Irish writer living in Japan. His debut collection of short stories (Anhedonia) is published by Rain Publishing (Canada). A novel for teenagers, Majo, is due out later this year.