Jamie Grefe licks his wounds, hugs his wife and pets his dogs from a high-rise in Beijing, China, where he teaches Literature by day and sips black coffee from a Craven A tin by night. He also, on occasion, creates experimental/improvised music with contact microphones and shortwave radio transmissions. His work appears or is forthcoming in Mud Luscious Press (Online), New Dead Families, Danse Macabre, Wonderfort and elsewhere.

And then I physically fell.  The sidewalk leading up to my porch didn’t give and I felt it scream through my bones.  I punched the concrete and it tore my skin.  My fist drove through the nights we slept together and the nights we were curled up on the couch.  On those nights we imagined the places we could go.  We dreamed about the future.  I finally felt whole with her fingers twisted in mine, a hurt and a hope in every bend that now breaks my heart.  The air was knives, serrated and sharp, sawing at my lungs and throat.  I refused to inhale, I refused to breathe.  And I kept punching.

“Please don’t hurt me like that,” she said once, the sorrow in her eyes pleaded.   I wanted to burn everything down for her and start again, like it all never happened, and give her the life she deserved.  Forests would grow back and the birds would return, looping under the rainbows of God’s vow.

Instead, I agreed, giving her some long rambling speech with every word crafted for comfort, each pause laid before her to put her at ease.  And then I punctuated my promise with a handshake.  She made me stupid, and the official gesture had her laughing the way I knew it would.  She nuzzled into my shoulder and a happy sigh rose from her throat, untying the bow around my world.  This was what the poets wrote about, this need for which so many songs begged.

A warmth grew in that dark room.

And it grew the first time she kissed me.  She wanted to be at this place with these people, none of which I knew, none of which I wanted to know.  They weren’t malicious or suffering from poor hygiene.  None of them were making faces or poking fun, or god forbid, discussing the stock market.  They were just new and weren’t of any interest to me.  They were antithesis of private time.  She was midsentence with a bachelor’s degree-carrying enthusiast for combing out his hair gel, when she stopped, grinned her evil little smirk, and kissed me.  The flecks of fire still burned in her hazel eyes, then.

“What was that for?” I asked.  She shrugged and said that I looked bored.

The warmth grew every time she fit perfectly in my arms or tucked her head under my chin.  Every time she curled against me, two warped puzzle pieces locking into place, that warmth expanded.  Each time she called me by my name, omitting my surname and replacing it with my middle initial, it was a coy plea for my attention.  The outside of her left foot acted as a pivot as her heel swung in time with her shoulders, her head tilted to the left, her dark chocolate ponytail, a direct contrast to her milky white skin, swaying, lower lip bitten; every time my mind wandered, she did this, this whine for my focus, to bring me back, a siren luring me back home.  Then, that warmth exploded in my chest.  She has been my salvation, my reward for growing up through all of the drama, the hurt and the pain that life brings.

And it grew when she rested her hand on my knee while we were out running errands.  She talked about when all of our separate dramas were over and we could be official.  Despite her looming departure, we could be together, and her father would want to make sure I was handy.  He would want to know that I was aware of what a wrench looked like, that I could change the oil on her car, that his lovely daughter would be cared for and protected.  Her eyes scanned the roadway into the future, and the smile on her face saw it all with certainty and joy.  Our lives would straighten out and we would come together as more than just the emotional cushions that we were in that moment.  It grew because I finally knew she felt it too.

Each day, however, was preparation for this moment, for this soul crushing sound in my ears, a cyclical dirge on the Top 40 station, going over and over in my head.  The pop of that door handle.  Both of us playing stoic and strong before she left for school.  Signals and static sparking between us, thoughts and messages relayed through the humid air, fizzling out before it reached the other.  Pleas for hope.  Hope for peace.  The unrequited cries to not leave me.  Good luck.  Drive safely.  Please let me know when you get there.

Don’t forget to love me back.

I had a bad day once and she couldn’t deal with me.  Days leading up to her leaving were getting smaller in both time and number.  I don’t know what I was trying to do.  Prepare, maybe mourn a little ahead of time, so I wouldn’t be so ridiculous, so I could be gallant when it came time for goodbyes.  And I got so wrapped up and emotional in the preparation that she just couldn’t handle me.  I was so immersed in the future emotion that I wasn’t enjoying and appreciating the time we still had together.  The destruction to which this was all leading was greater than myself, and I conceded that I was being selfish, smothering her with half-hearted apologies that came from the bottom of my soul, and underneath it all that might have hurt more.  Protecting her from me.  From the words I wanted to say, the things I wanted to do.  From wrapping my arms around her ankles, locking her keys in the car and pushing that damned car into the ocean.  From launching torpedoes and watching it sink.  Keeping her here, keeping her from following her dreams, keeping her all to myself.

Swallowing all of that has been bitter, but I’ve done it for her.  Time and time again I’ve done it for her.  I’ve prayed for warships armed to the teeth with torpedoes and dreamed about sinking her car over and over.  I’ve wished I could drop to my knees and punch the ground, lash out and scream, break my bones and show the world, that this woman, this woman was my entire being.  She had me, I was hers completely.  Without her I am nothing.

“I’ll miss you,” she said.

And I smiled.  I smiled for her.

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

Daniel Donche is an avid liar, most especially of the written variety. In addition to a handful of self-published novels, his shorter work can be found desecrating otherwise upstanding websites throughout the electronic realm.  He can be found at home on http://dandonche.co.

Available now is the Warmed and Bound anthology, brought to you by the good folks at The Velvet, and featuring stories by Nefarious Muse authors Amanda Gowin, Bob Pastorella, Caleb J Ross, Chris Deal, Christopher J Dwyer, Craig Wallwork, Doc O’Donnell, Gary Paul Libero, Gavin Pate, Gordon Highland, Nik Korpon, Pela Via, Richard Thomas, Rob Parker, and Tim Beverstock.

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Cheers,

Pablo D’Stair

  nineteen

 It was strange stepping out off the train, into the station close to four in the morning, strange recognizing immediately and deeply the city I lived in, nothing specific, just the laziness I could walk with, the unconscious understanding how far I was from here or there, feeling I’d not had since stepping on the train originally, letter from Klia to Norman not even open.

Went down the storage area the basement of Murray’s building, reached in through the hole in the wire fence of his little cubby, took the spare key from under the towel on top the boxes I knew had most of his books in them, elevator up to his floor, let myself in.  He wasn’t around, supposed he had the night shift as it was just midweek.

Took a long shower his body wash, shampoo, conditioner, used a new one of his disposable razors to shave. Smiled that my Kroger brand pizzas were still in his freezer, tucked to the side of the three half empty boxes of popsicles, only grape flavored ones left, heated one of the pizzas and drank a two thirds full bottle of cold water the fridge, refilled it from the tap. 

I dressed in some of my old clothes I saw Murray’d packed up in one of his old suitcases for me, put the clothes I’d been wearing I showed up in my duffle, poked around the apartment generally to see had I left some little knick-knack of mine around maybe I’d miss later, didn’t find anything, turned on the television and smoked.  Turned the television off as soon as whatever show I’d stopped on got to commercial, dug through my duffle, carefully took out the gun.  It was a funny weight in my hand, I didn’t even loosely curl my finger around the trigger or even put it alongside the trigger, held the handle odd, way it’d be the gun were a banana—I pointed it around variously, put my coat on unbuttoned to see what did the weight feel like down the pocket.

Struck me I didn’t have an extra duffle to put the money I was bringing the guy in, rooted around through Murray’s things until I came up with an old backpack I’d seen in the same corner forever, full of old school notes and some miscellaneous garbage which I piled neatly—not like I exactly planned to see Murray again, but if ever I did he asked I’d tell him I’d took it, which he’d already know.

Locked up behind me, kept the key for when I’d come back for my bag as I’d aim to do so I knew Murray wasn’t around anyway, got to the street with the old backpack around one shoulder, hands in my pocket, tensed when I touched the gun, but kept walking until I was to the phone outside of the post office.

Guy picked up, said my name then right away in with his bit how the money was to be delivered. I frowned, his plan more clever than the ones I’d been thinking.  I was to go to a hotel he’d rented himself a room out, give whatever it was I had the money in—a backpack I said over him, but he didn’t acknowledge me—to one of the desk attendants, say it was for Mister English they’d be expecting something delivered for him and would take it to the room, he’d go ahead and call the place in the evening, make sure they’d only taken the bag and I’d not gone to the room, meanwhile I was to get on a train to Henderson Crest, give him a call I was there and when he recognized the proper area code from where I called he’d go up for the money and we’d be done.

He hung up after making sure I knew which hotel and he’d had me repeat the procedure to him, nothing else.

It was only just past nine thirty in the morning, so I got some coffee, careful to remove my coat, set it over the chair back when I sat, padded the outside of the pocket to be certain the gun was as down in the pouch as it’d go.

It got under my skin more and more he’d had such a neat and clean little plan, smugness all over his voice I replayed it, like it was all some dreadful yawn for him, it was I’d done the leg work and he could just ho hum up a plan I’d slip into like a cog, give him his payday.

Even more annoyed because he was right, why not be smug?

Spun some pointless little ideas how could I get at him after the money’d been dropped when I couldn’t even begin to come up with how would I fake a call from Henderson Crest, but all of it amounted to nothing but some limp thing like try to call the hotel and get out of them some sneaky way which room’d been the one had a bag left for it—trouble was I didn’t know which room, which name, no way to finesse the question. Short of getting a job there, getting a whole list who’d taken out rooms then spend forever trying to match them up with my guy I was blanked, and even that nonsense only worked in fantasy land had he used his real name, real address.

Felt pretty terrible about myself, mind wandered to what maybe Norman was thinking I was up to.  He must’ve known I’d just split with his money, I’d even told him that was just what it was I’d had my mind set to do—but I wondered, anyway. He crept all into my head, whole little scene of him forcing the money on me, the gun, how I really felt he’d ignored me saying I don’t promise, pretended the words into I had.

I perked up a little bit it struck me maybe if I explained it right I could get someone to keep an eye on the desk, see who got the bag, pay them a little bit of money follow the person, but just as soon I slumped into stepping outside for a cigarette, saw about a million ways that this’d never stand a chance of working even if I could come up with someone’d do it inside the next hour or two before I’d have to be on the train out.

Guy was as smart as me, clearly lot smarter on top.

Ridiculing myself, it occurred to me he wouldn’t be going to the desk to get the bag, bag’d already be up in the room. But maybe I could see if I could hang around, see which room the attendant took the bag to, have someone stake it out.

No.  Just as much nothing, but I wouldn’t stop thinking no matter how much I told myself stop.

I was tired, realized I just drifted to the side walking down the street, was leaning against a wall, hand around the gun in my pocket.

Only thing I could do was to not leave the money, but that was more something I’d be doing to myself than to anyone else.

Got on a bus, seat in the back, extra vibration because I was just above one of the wheels, or at least it felt that way in my head.  Found myself thinking how when I’d been younger, high school, I’d like to walk around in the cold, holiday lights up and things especially, pretend I had a gun in my pocket, was waiting to walk past a certain person, pull the trigger—always’d wondered would the shot cause a recoil, make me hit against my leg, leave a bruise, wonder could I just keep walking after the trigger’d been pulled or would it be evident what’d happened, people rush down on me.  Those were the games I’d played. It seemed sad and pretty at the same time, smiled not quite able to make that out in what there was of my reflection the window.

Pablo D’Stair is a writer of novels, shorts stories, and essays.  Founder of Brown Paper Publishing (which is closing its doors in 2012) and co-founder of KUBOA (an independent press launching July 2011) he also conducts the book-length dialogue series Predicate.  His four existential noir novellas (Kaspar Traulhaine, approximate; i poisoned you; twelve ELEVEN thirteen; man standing behind) will be re-issued through KUBOA as individual novella and in the collection they say the owl was a baker’s daughter: four existential noirs.

She whispers in my ear and, though I don’t hear what she says, I’m hers. And I think she knows it. Jukebox music and chatter collides in the air leaving a steady hum. No sound is complete. Indecipherable. She could have said: If you want to live, call 000 now. I’d still give her my heart, my soul, my everything. Not that it’s much. But it’d all be hers.

I follow her and her friend around. She throws me glances from behind a veil of heavy black eye-shadow, letting me know that she knows.

Her red lips look like they’d be sticky to the touch. I imagine kissing her. Elastic strings of red pull me back when our lips separate.

I stop drinking beer and start sipping water. Clearing my head.

Her friend’s found a fella and wandered into a corner for hand-up-the-skirt kisses.

She sits at a table, alone. I move to her, counting my steps. Left, right, left right. I’m worried I’ll trip and give away my sober cover. Our eyes meet and she flashes a quick smile. Not giving too much away. But enough that I think it’s an invitation. She knows I want it all. She has to.

That water? she says.

This?

I hold up my glass, a schooner. She doesn’t need to know I’ve stopped drinking for her. Not yet.

Vodka, I say.

Straight?

Course not. With water.

So it is water then.

Well, yeah, I guess. Can I sit?

I don’t know. Can you?

She smiles. A proper smile this time, a soul-crushing smile. Or maybe it was a soul-swelling smile. Not sure yet. I sit because I want to make her smile like that until her cheeks hurt.

We talk about nothing, about everything. The night moves along but time becomes irrelevant. Seats fill and empty and fill again around us.

#

What’s your star sign? she says. No, wait. Let me guess.

I don’t even know my own star sign.

You don’t know your own star sign? How can you not know your own star sign?

I don’t say anything. I know whatever spills from my mouth will make me look like an idiot. Instead, I play it cool, mysterious. I shrug.

She studies me, up and down. I’m embarrassed by my clothes: a sweat-soaked, white tee. Ripped and stretched. Grey jeans that used to be black. The standard uniform for a lonely night at The Black Diamond.

You’re a Taurus, she says. Yep, definitely a Taurus.

Sure.

When’s your birthday?

May.

I know that much. What date, silly?

The fourteenth.

Ha! Yep, like I said, you’re a Taurus.

So, what’s that mean?

It means you’re strong and stubborn. Passionate and sensitive. Taureans are always good lovers.

She glances at me and pushes her dark hair from her face and leans in close to my face and mouths, Always, and I want it to be her hinting but she’s just teasing. Has to be. There’s no way she could be hinting. None.

But they can be jealous and possessive, too, she says. She leans back into her seat, away from me.

Okay, then. What’s your star sign? I say.

I thought you didn’t know anything about horoscopes.

I don’t.

So what’d be the point of me telling you my star?

I want to know something about you. You seem to have me all figured out.

Maybe I’m not sure I want to tell you something about myself.

That’s not fair, is it?

Fair? Who said anything about fair?

I stammer, mumble. I’ve got nothing. This girl. She’s just playing. I need to get out of here before I fall even more in love with her.

All right, I say, I’ll let you get back to waiting for your friend to be done in the corner.

That’s it?

Sure, I say.

I stand. She picks up my drink and skulls the whole thing.

Vodka, huh? she says. That’s one weak glass of vodka you got there.

I’m just playing the game, like you.

What makes you think I’m playing?

The whole vague thing, I guess.

Ever thought I’m just a vague person? I am an Aquarius, after all. We’re space-cadets. In our own world.

Oh, yeah?

Yes. Now, do you want to come play in my world or not?

I can barely breathe and I feel like I’m shaking. I sit and lean in a little closer to her.

So, what’s your name? I say.

Veronica.

Oh, Veronica. Nice name. Very old-school.

That’s enough small-talk, she says. I hate small-talk. So pointless. You pick these things up as you go. There’s little need to discuss them now.

Okay. What do you want to talk about then?

How about we start by moving our conversation elsewhere.

Sure. Want to go outside?

I was thinking my place.

#

The slap of sticky, wet skin. The hard timber headboard knocks against the wall. A hand on the back of my neck pulls me closer to her silhouetted face.

I’m coming, says Veronica.

Me, too.

My heart beats so hard it shifts my centre of gravity. A swell hits the back of my eyes and sends me collapsing to her side, panting.

The urge to cry, something I haven’t done for years, envelopes me. I roll on my side, facing away from her. Instant-regret festering in my gut. I should have walked her to the front door. Asked for her number. Called her in a couple of days. Taken her for dinner. Somewhere other than The Black Diamond. Somewhere nice. Like she deserves.

Instead, I took her home and fucked her like a dog.

Veronica shuffles across and holds me from behind, her hand not quite reaching over my whole chest. Her head sits between my shoulder blades. Despite being much shorter than me, she fits behind me with such precision that it’s frightening to think about not having her there. My mind falls apart and her heart hammers through my back and I mistake her heartbeat for mine for second. Her breath, warm in my ear. Shivers ripple down my spine and hit a nerve that makes my leg twitch. She giggles and does it again.

Our breathing. The same, breath for breath. I feel more at home in this bed than I’ve ever felt in my own and it makes no sense because it’s dark and I can’t see her face, let alone know where my jeans are or where the door is.

I hope I never find the door.

I don’t want to leave. I want to lay here until the sheets are dirty and tell her every damn thing that’s ever happened to me but, instead, I just lay.

I try to breath out of time with her but no matter how slow or fast I breath she’s there with me, every time.

We settle into deep slow breaths.

Doc O’Donnell is a rock ‘n’ roll dropout that writes, what he likes to call, Dirty Noir from a cramped apartment in Newcastle, Australia. To pay for the bills and booze he looks after the elderly, soaking up their tales/tails. His work has dirtied the pages and screens of Crime Factory, Pulp Metal Magazine, Short, Fast, and Deadly, Thunderdome, Outsider Writers Collective and forthcoming in Warmed & Bound, an anthology featuring new stories by Craig Clevenger, Stephen Graham Jones and Craig Davidson.

He can be contacted at: www.docodonnell.com

Hand her a book – she’ll purse her lips like a schoolmarm to hide the smile, tuck her chin, and flip through to see if it’s used and what you and the world before you may have touched or underlined – she seeks what gave you pause, with unpolished nails and straight spine she folds her feet beneath her and seeks your reflection in crooked crayon.

Her Boots Were Caramel

Shades of orange – hair, coat, everything – like she’d been dipped in nicotine. Her nose is red from ducking in the bathroom to emerge with fuck-me eyes. I have nothing to offer, no incentive for her to break away from her socket-knuckling boyfriend. Snapshot temptation on a park bench – if I’m caught, we’ll have something to talk about.

The Old Universe

A sheet of typing paper reading ‘MARS’ hung above the kitchen doorway.

She said I didn’t answer but the screen was unlocked, I was painting and didn’t look up.

“I knew you’d come today.” In the photo she took I wore red devil horns.

She washed the dishes and I asked her to leave, but it was nothing personal. There had been a Night Before and would be another – I needed a nap in between.

It was a cowardly way, I tell her today, of waiting to die. If the roof hadn’t weakened and caved in the rain, I would’ve not waken. If the roof hadn’t literally fallen in, I would’ve died.

You were already dead, she answers. There was nothing left of you.

I don’t remember any of this, I say (but maybe I do – she didn’t mention the horns).

The Jesus clock collage and all the long socks were lost in the flood, the purple figure painting and notebooks full of lurid details – smeared and blurry, lines bled together – chicken scratch memories obliterated.

I burned them. Should have told her.

Amanda Gowin lives in the foothills of Appalachia with her husband and son. Her stories have been published in BlackHeart Magazine and Thunderdome, and will appear in the upcoming anthology Warmed and Bound. She has always written and always will. Find her online here.

On the east coast there is a bookstore, a place called Bett’s. They are the biggest King store in the world. I went there to meet up with some friends, fellow collectors, and to go on a tour of the town. Bangor, Maine. There was the tour of the Standpipe where he created It, books to stare at, and the massive King mansion as well. It was as I expected it. There was wrought iron with elaborate carvings of bats and crescent moons. There were brick pillars and a long yard that fell off the face of the earth. And the house…the house! Three stories high, dark and wide, crooked and pointed and dense. I stared at it long after my friends left me there. Back to the hotel room, they were cold. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it, the one window on the third floor, yellow light seeping out the glass. Was it him? Was he writing the eighth book in the Dark Tower series, or the sequel to Black House? I could hear metal keys clacking, an old Remington QuietWriter, even though I knew he used a Mac. I longed to hear a wolf or coyote, a plaintive howl in the distance. I wanted the clouds to part, the full moon to fill up the night, the cold to freeze me to the spot.

Sometimes when I stand in front of the vending machine, lost in an empty, dull haze, I try to pencil in the details, what he said. I think of the expansive library, the tea, his beard. It comes to me in flashes, these bits, and I grin at the Snickers, I laugh at the Cheetos, forgetting what I wanted to eat. Forgetting I was hungry at all. I made a deal with the man, a trade, and it landed me on a bus driving out into the night. Often my break ends and I go back to work hungry, and yet, filled with the glimmer of something he told me.

The long, black Cadillac eased up to the gate, and I stared at it, in wonder. Maybe it was a friend, or a staff member. Did he have a staff? Was it his wife or son? I knew too many personal details, I knew too much of his life. Tabitha, if you’re wondering. Joe is the one with the talent. I leaned over to stare at the car, the passenger side window sliding down. The man sat inside, full beard and glasses, tired eyes filled with a shimmer.

“Better move along, son,” he said. “Getting late.”

“Oh, sorry, sir, I was just admiring the house. I uh, big fan, long time, I am.”

He smiled.

“Sorry, I didn’t think I’d see you. I’ve read all your books.”

“Thanks,” he said. “What’s your name?”

“Richard. I’m a writer too, trying to break through.”

“That’s tough, man. But I wish you the best. You want me to sign something?”

“Um, sure. I’ve got a copy of The Stand here, my favorite.”

“My favorite too. You sick, got a cold?”

“No,” I said.

“Family history of cancer, mental illness?”

“No sir.”

He looked me over, taking in the leather jacket, the jeans, my slowly expanding waistline. He licked his lips, dry from the weather, and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“Can you keep your mouth shut?” he asked.

“Uh, sure, I guess.”

“No guessing. Can you keep your mouth shut?”

“Yes sir, I can.”

“Hop in,” he said.

Some nights when my shift is over, I sit in an old gray Taurus out in the parking lot and drink a forty ounce, no hurry to get home. Home, that’s a joke. A one-bedroom apartment over a gas station, cold and sad and the only place I know. I drink it too fast, remembering words like secret and eternity and vomit the foam onto the pavement. He offered me a deal, and I took it. I had a chance to be part of his club, to be a part of the man, and to expedite my own career as well. Career, that’s a joke. I can hardly remember my name, I can’t add very well, and I’m not sure where I’m from. He took too much, that greedy bastard, but that’s why he’s the king.

We sat in his library, a low fire burning, the smell of wood smoke filling the room. We sipped at some tea—since he’d long stopped drinking—but we put it in brandy snifters for fun. He told me how he got his stories, the source of his prolific imagination. He opened a footlocker that sat by the wall, filled with manuscripts, one atop another. There must have been a dozen novels sitting in there. When I turned to him, my mouth open there was a gleam in his eye, white teeth emerging from the hairy beast that wrapped around his jaw.

He offered me a deal. I could pick any one novel out of the batch, and make it my own, for a cost. It was a guaranteed best seller, he told me more than once, and in return, just a bit of myself. He’d done this many times, he intoned, no worries, nothing to fear. Struggling young writers approached him all the time, there was no shortage of proteins to choose from. I placed the novel in my backpack, and he lay me out on his desk.

“No worries, son, I’ve done this lots of times.”

I stared at the floor, lying on my stomach, as the needles pierced the back of my neck.

“The first one is the worst, then it’s a walk in the park,” he said.

Pinpricks, then the electric razor, then the scalpel. The bone saw shot a fine mist into the air, smoke from my very own skull. Something trickled down the back of my neck, and he chuckled to himself. The next smell was garlic and onions in a pan, the kitchen just off his study. My legs trembled and I feared I pissed myself, a twinge at the back of my head. My eyes rolled, fingers twitched, drool pooling under my head.

“Dammit, too much,” I hear him say. “And you’ve pissed on my desk, you ingrate.”

When I come to on the bus, the bandage wrapped around my head, the throbbing in my skull pushing tears out of my eyes, I am nowhere near Maine. The slow vibration of tires underneath me has woken me up. I’m in the middle of the darkness, cornfields and billboards on a bus ride heading someplace south. My backpack is filled with tightly wrapped cash, in bundles of twenties and tens. But no novel, no book. There is only a note. It apologies for ruining me like this, but I’ll be unable to tour, to promote, and quite possibly in time, to tie my shoes. It could all go away at any time, he writes, his apologies for the slip. Get a simple job in a small town and just whittle away the time. He suggests coke and whores and cheap beer, and in the end, I take him up on it all.

Some days when I stand in line at McDonald’s, or at the video store, I get a flash of his bearded face. He tells me of all of the brains he has eaten, just a nip, just a slice, just a bite. And I smile. I could never really write anyway. It’s probably better this way.

Richard Thomas was the winner of the 2009 “Enter the World of Filaria” contest at ChiZine. He has published dozens of stories online and in print, including the Shivers VI anthology (Cemetery Dance) with Stephen King and Peter Straub, Murky Depths, PANK, Pear Noir!, Word Riot, 3:AM Magazine, Dogmatika, Vain and Opium. His debut novel Transubstantiate (Otherworld Publications) was released in July of 2010. He does book reviews at The Nervous Breakdown.

I had a friend in high school named Evan.  Evan had a red-and-white
mottled face, stammered, did drugs and rode a Kawasaki.  I dated one
of his ex-girlfriends for a couple weeks.  She wasn’t interested in
me, particularly, but was rich and gorgeous and dated bad boys to piss
off her father, who owned a local trucking outfit.

When we were Juniors, Evan started seeing a waitress from the pizza
place.  He fell in love.  They fought a lot.  She dumped him in a
public spat.

One night, he sat down in the parking lot, poured gas over his head
and set himself on fire.  He hung on in the hospital for days.  My
father, who was a cop, said Evan would beg to be shot when they were
alone.

Evan’s girlfriend didn’t find him burning.  He was discovered by
another waitress who had stepped out for a break.

When they reopened, two days later, people showed up like nothing had
happened.  Everything was the same, only quieter—except for one little
detail.  The Tropical Juice dispenser was gone.  I’m pretty sure
someone threw the tanks at Evan in an attempt to put him out, because
the stains on the asphalt were bright and unnatural and there was just
too much there.  I’d really like to know, even after all these years,
but still don’t have the heart to ask and no one’s ever brought it up.

Walter Conley lives in VA.  His poetry and fiction appear in the
small press, anthologies and online at sites like Danse Macabre, Gloom
Cupboard and In Between Altered States.  Walter draws banner art for A
Twist of Noir and a monthly comic for Pulp Metal Magazine.  He edits
the ezine Disenthralled.  His blog, Back Again and Gone, is at
http://baag2009.blogspot.com.