Stygiophilia
BY
Nathan Tyree
©2008
Nathan Tyree
This is not
For You
Chapter 0
Will you please just shut the fuck up please. Really,
just be quiet and go to sleep. I know you wanna talk, but I'm tired and I need
to sleep, okay? If I don't get to sleep I'm not gonna get to work in the
morning and I'm about to be fired anyway, right? So please just go to sleep.
Does that sound like desperation in my voice? Maybe it
does. I can't seem to make myself care if she thinks that it is. Maybe it's pleading or maybe it's anger she
hears. Whatever it is I just want her to shut the fuck up and let me sleep.
Five minutes ago she was on top of me; grinding her crotch into me and grinding
me into her crotch. She was making yelping noises like you’d expect to hear
from one of those ugly little dogs that rich bitches pack in their purses and
breathing like she was on the verge of a minor stroke or something and it
couldn't have been better. She was wet and hot and tight and fucking like this
was her last fuck. Now she wants to talk; to ask about if we're going to go on
dates and where is this going and do I have a girlfriend and all I want is to
collapse into coma. I've known this girl
for all of six hours (I think her name is Julie or something) and I'm tired of
her already. To tell the truth, I was
tired of her as soon as I came. I guess that’s always the problem. I meet some
girl at a bar or a party or the zoo; I want to come inside her; she wants
happiness and love and adoration or some such horse shit bred into her brain by
TV and Barbie dolls. The whole thing drives me nuts. You see, I’ll make sure
she gets off; I’ll sleep in the wet spot on the sheets; Jesus, I’ll even call
her in a couple of days to see if she wants to get laid again; but I will not
have these stupid fucking middle of the night conversations with some one who
is, really, just an orifice to me. I don’t love and I don’t want to.
So I’m just about to finally drift when she says Will
you go to the craft show with me? and I almost explode. I’m thinking that
maybe If I do myself an injury it’ll give her a hint. Maybe I could do my
cigarette trick. I haven’t done that one in a long time. You haven’t heard of
the cigarette trick? Oh, it’s a good one. I learned it a few years ago when I
was in one of those phases. You know. See, the thing with punching yourself is,
you always hold back. Even if you don’t want to. When your fist comes at your
own face you hesitate and tense up. No matter how badly you want it, your fists
just will not inflict the destruction on your face that they reserve for the
faces of others.
I toyed around with cutting myself. I really considered
it. It’s become quite the fad among teenage girls these days and I figured if
it’s good enough for little Judy the cheerleader that blows all her daddy’s
golf buddies and Suzy the class whore then it must be good enough for me. The
problem is the mess. Blood gets everywhere. It soaks in to fabrics and
upholstery. I’m no Heloise, but here’s a household hint: protein stains are a
bitch to get out. Blood and semen are the worst. If it weren’t for Oxy-Clean
every cheerleader on the planet would be shit out of luck.
So I gave up on the cutting. I kind of fell into the
other, the better thing, really. Late
one night, having stumbled in from the narcotic streets and forced to explain
myself to Susan (I had been living with Susan for almost three months and if I
had had any sense I never would have let myself get that far) I collapsed on
the floor next to the bed and lit a cigarette.
Where the hell have you been was what she asked.
‘Who have you been fucking’ was what she meant. I couldn’t take it. Since I had
agreed to move into her apartment we had fallen into more of these
conversations than I could stand and this one was just too much. Since this is,
as much as anything, a confession, I suppose that I should admit that I had
fucked another girl that night. I had banged this big titted blonde in the bathroom
of a club. She was kind of heavy and smelled like vanilla and wild flowers. I
had led her into the men’s room by the hand and she had started sucking my cock
almost instantly; then I fucked her from behind while she pressed her palms
against the sink. It wasn’t that I found her all that attractive. She was just
available.
Whatever. I really didn’t want to get into all of that
with Susan and the cigarette was already in my hand. I could hear the whine in
her voice and I wanted it to stop. She was looking right at me. I touched the
tip of the cigarette to the flesh of my forearm. White hot agony shot like
sweet heroin through my flesh and I felt the instant blister bubble beneath the
surface.
Cockfuckershitgodkillerfuckassmotherjesusfuckfuckcuntfuckingcunt
was what I thought. If I had a dirty mind it would have been worse. I heard her
gasp the way bad actors on soap operas do. That gave me the cajones to go on.
What I’ve learned since then is this: you have to do it quickly. You have to
jab the red hot cherry tip of the Lucky Strike into your skin without
hesitation. It sears. It burns like hell must burn, but it feels good too. When
my skin is on fire I feel something that I almost never feel: alive. Most days
I’m a straw stuffed headpiece; an empty dead skin sack; an empty space where a
man used to stand. With a lit cigarette ripping a hole in me that will take
weeks to heal and will leave a permanent scar I’m a man again.
So I’m thinking about playing that game again. I’ve done
it a few times now and it always feels extraordinary. The weird part is this:
every time I burn myself, I get really hard. My arm or my leg will be on fire,
but my cock will be swollen in my pants to the point of exploding. You ever try
to jerk off with a wounded arm? It aint easy. You don’t want to even consider
what it’s like to accidentally get come in an open burn wound. Remember what I
said about protein stains?
I’m still wondering if I should light a cigarette when I
realize that she’s asleep. She’s lying there flat on her stomach, naked and
slick with a sheen of sweat coating her skin.
Her ass is round and firm and for a minute I start to think about
fucking her again but sleep is the more imperative concern so I roll on my side
and drift off.
When I wake she's gone. That's for the best, really. If
she was still here I'd have to deal with getting rid of her and that can become
lugubrious at best. I lay in bed for a
few minutes wondering if I should get up and go to work or not. Finally I
decide that I better. So I roll out of bed and head across the apartment. In
the kitchen I flip the switch on the coffee maker so it can start brewing. My
tongue feels thick and seems to be coated with something viscous and very
unpleasant. On the way to the bathroom I open the door to the spare bedroom so
that Quetzalcoatl can roam the place while I'm gone. I only lock him up when I
have company. A snake-bird-demon-god-south-American-pet-thing is hard to
explain.
While I'm brushing my teeth Quetzal beats his cold wings
against the stale air and coils his small snake body around my ankle. I shake
him off and try to concentrate on not gagging myself with the tooth brush.
The stubble on my face isn’t thick enough to force me to
shave, so I take a piss, wash my hands and stumble zombie like to the bedroom
to look for something that can pass for clean in the laundry pile next to my
bed. I settle on a ripped pair of jeans and a T-Shirt bearing the logo of a
band I haven’t liked since I was fifteen. Quetzal follows me around like he
expects something important.
Once I get my shoes tied I open the freezer and take out
a few dead rats from the Chinese food box hidden behind the ice cube trays. He
takes the rats from my hand and slither flies off to enjoy his meal. That taken
care of I head to work.
My car, a 1986 Plymouth Duster that’s more rust and
Bond-O than actual car, starts on the first attempt, which surprises the hell
out of me. Most mornings I have to fuck with it for twenty minutes just to get
the engine going. I pull into traffic and go.
When I get to DNA Electronics I have to walk up the back
stairs to the employee lounge to get my green vest that we're all forced to
wear and clock in. Pounding up the stairs my lungs are telling me that I really
need to quit smoking. I ignore them. Fuck my lungs; what have they done for me
lately, right?
DNA sells TVs and stereos and computer equipment. They
make most of their money on small items like DVDs and CDs and video games which
are the items I sell. I get paid a slave
wage by the hour. There's no commission so I don't try too hard.
Les is slumped at the round table where we eat our
lunches. As I come in he lifts his red ringed eyes to look at me through a
hangover blur that I can read in the tilt of his shoulders.
Rough night? I ask. Les makes an indistinct moan
in way of reply then drops his head forward and sinks behind half lidded eyes. Man,
you gotta take it easy. Keep drinking like that and you’re gonna die young.
He lifts his balled fist and extends the middle finger
upward. Get fucked Mormon he says with something like a smile.
I get my smock and head back down the stairs to start the
day. Mr. Firth is watching me when I hit the sales floor. He catches me with
clouded eyes, then taps his watch meaningfully. Yeah yeah I’m late. I know.
Again. I wish he’d just let me alone. I don’t acknowledge his look. Instead I
just slide past him and position myself in front of the DVD new releases.
Nobody wants help finding a movie. Most days I wish that
some one would ask my advice on, say, the best comedy (Duck Soup) or the
scariest horror movie (Halloween) or the best suspense movie (A Touch of Evil)
but no one ever does. The tedium is a killer. I fight back the urge to scream
at people buying Adam Sandler movies. I want to slap them and scream HAVE YOU
EVEN HEARD OF BUSTER KEATON? in their vapid little faces. I don’t, though. I
killed someone once. That was a long time ago, though.
About halfway through my shift five teenage girls swirl
into the store and make their way right to the horror movies. They are a
dervish of giggles and budding sexuality clothed in the scent of bubble gum and
I can’t help getting closer to them. I can smell their sweet soaps and trendy
perfume and mostly I can smell their warm skin.
I ask if I can help them find anything and one says no
thanks. I see that they’ve latched on to the insipid re-make of House of Wax
and I can’t help saying You don’t want that crap.
We don’t? asks the tallest of the girls.
Not if you want to be scared.
Then what do we want? There’s a hint of flirting, a veiled come on, in her voice and her
eyes shimmer like a wave of fireflies. I can feel my heart rate jump up a bit
and I say:
Try this as I hand her a DVD of Romero’s Dawn of
the Dead. It’ll scare the pants off you I finish.
Do you want my pants scared off? Okay, that’s way
past hinting. This kid is genuinely coming on to me. I gotta tell you the
truth, I’m really considering it. I’d tear this baby up. But... shit, she can’t
be more than fifteen. Sixteen at the outside. I’m twenty-five, so sixteen could
get me eight to ten.
You and your friends will like this movie. Trust me.
I’m older, I know what I’m talking about. With that I extricate myself from
the situation and wander toward the bargain movie section. Bargain movies are
things that the store hasn’t been able to sell. They slash the prices and put
them under a big sign. People flock to buy movies they don’t want when they’re
cheap. I have to admit that I turn to watch her walk away. Her hips sway with a
sweet rhythm and her bottom is round and firm in a way that could drive a man
to drink. I try to just let it go and pretend that I have important work to do.
A few minutes
later I see the girls checking out. They took the zombie movie. I feel
vindicated. I’m starting to think that today hasn’t been a waste after all.
Maybe work can be rewarding.
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