I do the math. Fifty-three minus twenty-six\u2026 yeah, twenty-seven years older. I swipe right and don\u2019t flinch when I see that this AARP horndog has the same idea as me. We match.<\/p>\n
Ever since I moved here earlier this summer, I\u2019ve been working my way up as far as numbers are concerned. Shooting for the moon, going for gold, however you wanna lay it out, the fact remains that this lay would be my personal best. Numbers-wise, at least. Everything beyond hard numbers? That\u2019s up for debate.<\/p>\n
I take another swig from the bottle of three-buck chuck wedged between my thighs. It tastes like charred tin foil and dirt, but that hasn\u2019t stopped me from starting bottle number two. My hands are nearly vibrating as I continue to swipe through the city. It\u2019s a cheap comfort to be reminded that I\u2019m not the only one within a three-mile radius hoping to fuck some pain away.<\/p>\n
He messages me within the minute. Quick trigger fingers usually spell trouble\u2014I\u2019m either about to get stood up or he\u2019s about to be far too eager. The desperation oozes from the sapphire glow of my phone, but I breathe through my mouth, ignoring the stench of his starved heart and assuredly hard cock. We volley a few messages glossing over kinks and limits, logistics and locations. He\u2019s got a car and condoms, all we really need.<\/p>\n
Fifteen minutes later, I\u2019m standing on a street corner, just a block from the apartment I share with two strangers half my age. They\u2019re both out for the night, off doing whatever it is young and beautiful women do these days. To them, I\u2019m little more than a contagion\u2014socially and otherwise. I haven\u2019t exchanged a single glance with either of them since move-in day. They seem to see something in me that I can\u2019t: a wretch, or maybe just someone inherently unworthy of even the briefest eye contact.<\/p>\n
My silk skirt is bright as a clementine\u2014easier to spot, less clich\u00e9 than a red rose behind my ear. It\u2019s the middle of July, and everything clings to me, especially silk to my skin. I hope he doesn\u2019t notice the red wine dribbled down my white tank top. I fidget with the tail of my hair hoping to conceal the evidence of what got me here. Passing drivers pay me no mind; they\u2019re too busy crawling toward a better tomorrow. I\u2019m not sure where I\u2019m heading.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t usually hitch a ride with strangers, especially ones I\u2019m about to allow inside me. But the right combination of sleeplessness and alcohol can persuade me to make some compromises, and tonight, I\u2019m feeling particularly weak-willed.<\/p>\n
He jerks the SUV toward me and nearly curbs the car on the corner of Roscoe and Damen. I\u2019m disappointed to see that his profile photo was doing him some favors. Through the windshield\u2019s ruddy tint, I dissect his feathery hairline and sun-spotted face. He claims his name is Victor, but you can\u2019t trust anyone who does the things we\u2019re about to do at the hour we\u2019re about to do them. He looks at me like I\u2019m a meal he\u2019ll be picking out of his teeth come morning.<\/p>\n
I leap into the car, and he guns the engine before the door even clicks shut. My body jerks as we bounce over potholes and discuss where to grope for some privacy. I\u2019m fine with fucking in the car, I tell him. He\u2019s got other plans\u2014doesn\u2019t want to scrub cum from his leather seats in daylight. He\u2019s got a spot by the river. I agree, too tired to argue with fate. We head east, the city lights flickering as we chat in sparse, awkward bursts.<\/p>\n
Victor skids onto the dividing line between two parking spots at Paciuzko Park. His blatant disregard for something as simple as a white line makes me go dry. Who knows what other rules he\u2019ll treat as suggestions?<\/p>\n
He pulls a tin of Altoids from his sweat-stained cargo shorts. Inside are not mints, though\u2014they\u2019re little blue pills. \u201cJust need a kickstart,\u201d he mutters impishly as he washes the hog heaver down with a glug of flat Diet Coke. The mixture of hot sugar and sweat makes the air go brick-heavy.<\/p>\n
I choke back my disgust, it tastes bitter, like bile, and stumble out of the car. Victor takes my hand as we trudge into the dense thicket of trees, our path lit by the fractured moonlight fighting to stream through the leafy canopy. Even though he\u2019s minutes away from throwing his pharmaceutically enhanced dick in me, the handholding is more intimacy than I can stomach. I snatch my hand away and stitch my arms across my chest. As we push deeper into the woods, the distant hum of cars on empty streets gives way to a symphony of cicadas. \u2019Tis the season. I\u2019ve barely been able to hear my own thoughts since they emerged from their slumber. Some have been sleeping for half my life, I read in the paper.<\/p>\n
Victor\u2019s New Balance sneakers carve a path in the loose dirt trail. At least if I die here, he\u2019ll lead some poor sap straight to my body. The starts working its way into my eyes, turning everything in my sight seven degrees wayward. I trip over a root, and he catches me, his fingers digging into my arm with an intensity that feels more sinister than caring. He touches me like he owns me.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis is the first time I\u2019ve ever done anything like this,\u201d he says, navigating the dark woods with the confidence of an Eagle Scout. I refuse to believe I\u2019m his first. We pass a couple tangled on a bench and venture further, barely hearing the white noise of traffic on Sparhawk Avenue and reach a small clearing by the river, the water has gone glassy under the moonlight. We settle on a half-pipe of highway median, marking our claim. Victor pulls me close, his breath hot and stale against my neck. The urge to bolt surges through me, but my body betrays me. It has a tendency of doing that at the worst possible moments. He fumbles with his belt, and I hear the faint clink of metal as he struggles with the buckle.<\/p>\n
We dive straight into the task at hand. No dirty talk. No grade school foreplay. Just two people fighting their way toward a little less loneliness, racing toward a cloud of forgetting. He asks me to call him Daddy, and I moan it out of the back of my throat as he rides me with the delicacy of a fingerless butcher. I ask him to eat me out, he does so with teeth and protest.<\/p>\n
\u201cGet on top,\u201d he orders, appending his request with \u201cwhore\u201d and a harsh slap to my ass. I follow his command, grinding against him, the rough texture of the cement scraping against my skin.<\/p>\n
\u201cHit me,\u201d he pleads, lips curling like he just sucked a lemon. His buzz cut’s streaked with dirt, sweat, something darker.<\/p>\n
I oblige, not gently. He grunts.<\/p>\n
\u201cMore.\u201d He tries propping himself up on his elbows, belly sagging, but I don\u2019t want his face anywhere near me. That\u2019s when it happens.<\/p>\n
The crack isn\u2019t loud. More like a dull thud, a noise swallowed by the damp air. I don\u2019t even register the blood at first, just the way his body goes slack, like a string-cut marionette. Then it\u2019s there\u2014a sluggish trickle from his nose, swelling to a slow drip down his cheek. I see the moment again, like it happens twice: my hand flying, knuckles burning, his head snapping back and connecting with something hard. A rock? The edge of the curb? I don\u2019t know. But now there\u2019s blood blooming under his head, not a flood, just a dark stain spreading through the cracks in the concrete.<\/p>\n
I make my breathing small, listen. The woods have gone dead silent. The river isn\u2019t hiccuping, the cicadas have gone mute, like they\u2019re all waiting to see what I\u2019ll do next.<\/p>\n
I know better than to let myself dwell on the past few minutes. I hoist myself up and pull my underwear back on, stained with dirt and stale rainwater. I slip the condom off Victor and fish his phone out of his shorts, throwing them both into the stagnant river. I take the clothes rumpled next to him and toss those into the glittering black, too. Now I\u2019m ready to flee the scene of more crimes than I know to name.<\/p>\n
It takes seven steps for me to realize exactly what has been done, what\u2019s gone undone. It\u2019s just something I do when I\u2019m anxious\u2014the counting. I puke up all the wine that it took to get me here, feel the guilt sprinting down my limbs like a 10-volt current, as if I\u2019ve unleashed some shadow I can\u2019t shove back inside.<\/p>\n
The only person I know to call is Susie. We met three months ago at a lame loft party thrown by some guy either I or her or both of us were sleeping with\u2014those details are fuzzy now, rendered baseless by time and tonics. We were both swiping bottles of Veuve from the wet bar and have refused to vacate each other\u2019s lives since. It isn\u2019t quite friendship, what we have, but it\u2019s close enough for the two of us.<\/p>\n
When I arrive at Cafe Tapatillo, as Susie requested, is nestled in a corner booth, already taking care of the order. I\u2019m too busy staring out the window, counting every police car that rolls by. She\u2019s changed her hair again, now a grapefruit pink. With her mod bob and plunging lace top, she looks like a hentai star brought to life. The world can\u2019t look away from her.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s gonna be fine, y\u2019know.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou can\u2019t think I believe that, Susie,\u201d I strain, my throat tight. \u201cA man is dead because I fucked him.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDid he ask you to punch him?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe asked for a lot of things,\u201d I stammer. \u201cWell, told me to.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThen you\u2019re fine. Asking for it\u2014that\u2019s what gets men out of rape charges. You\u2019re just a conduit for his transference.\u201d<\/p>\n
I stare, mouth agape, as I wrestle with her pretzel logic. A waitress drops a basket of chips, salsa negra, and tacos. Susie tears into them like a famished bird. I wonder how long until she vomits it all up or if she\u2019s been starving herself. She\u2019s always changing her strategy.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe\u2019s out there rotting in the woods,\u201d I whimper, grinding a chip between my molars. If living with guilt feels this heavy, I might as well throw myself into the river where I discarded Victor.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou said you got rid of his phone and clothes. No trace of you remains,\u201d Susie says as she shovels rice into her mouth.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou see all the shit they can do on Cold Case<\/em> or whatever the fuck\u2026even the smallest DNA can incriminate someone\u2014even someone who didn\u2019t commit the crime.\u201d I drain my margarita and start chewing ice cubes to keep from crying or talking.<\/p>\n \u201cHere\u2019s what we\u2019re gonna do. We\u2019ll wipe tonight from your memory. No guilt, no alibi. Tonight never happened.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cHow?\u201d I ask, desperate.<\/p>\n \u201cTrust me,\u201d she says, sliding a pistachio-green pill across the table. It\u2019s almost the size of a dime.<\/p>\n I swallow the pill, knowing better than to trust Susie.<\/p>\n \u201cLet\u2019s head to the function,\u201d she says, shoving chips and a pill into her mouth, still the most captivating one in the room despite her sloppiness.<\/p>\n By the time we\u2019re in a taxi heading to Chinatown for some nameless DJ\u2019s set, the ecstasy kicks in. I glance at my reflection in the rearview mirror and for once, I like what I see. My eyes don\u2019t bulge as much, my cheeks not as puffed. I sway in the backseat, eager to feel the linen of the interior burrow into my pores. The street unfurls into my 50 mile-per-hour disco. I glance at Susie and see that, as usual, we\u2019re on the same page.<\/p>\n We land in a pocket of industrial wasteland that\u2019s actually adjacent to Chinatown. True to form, Susie has only ballpark estimates, nothing close to a real address. We amble up and down roughshod sidewalks like we know what we\u2019re doing, but we\u2019re just hanging off a prayer and the high of whatever chemicals are coursing through us. The air is spiked with chili oil and it burns my eyes, running shadowy lines of mascara down my cheeks. We toke our cigarettes, hoping to mask the scent of our sins and brace ourselves for the night.<\/p>\n The warehouse is a chaotic mix of drugs and shadows. The bass is a relentless assault, pounding so hard I can\u2019t differentiate my heartbeat from its thudding rhythm. Victor\u2019s corpse feels miles away, irrelevant. Susie leads us to a cramped bathroom packed with cocaine. She calls it \u201cTokyo,\u201d as if its exotic name can mask the chemical bite. We snort, chasing the high as it ebbs into malaise.<\/p>\n \u201cSusie, this isn\u2019t working,\u201d I whine. \u201cI just wanna go home.\u201d<\/p>\n Susie, either ignoring my protest or adrift in the subwoofer wheeze bleeding through the bathroom wall, carries on shaking her hips to the beat like they\u2019re on a swivel, tossing her torso back and forth like a pendulum. Bored and hot-wired, I continue cutting the trenches left on the toilet seat until I decide to snort the remnants. Waste not, want not, or something like that.<\/p>\n The trance is broken by whispers chattering their way up the line to the bathroom and into our snowy little clubhouse.<\/p>\n \u201cI hear the cops got our address,\u201d one techno bro says in hushed tones, his thumbs already plugging away at his phone in search of the next narco Narnia to hit.<\/p>\n The suspicions find ground soon enough, when a flurry of knocks, a mezzo forte flurry, ring through the front door in some binary code that we all seem to understand. Dominoes and bodies start to fall. Bartenders clank bottles, hopscotching beats pulse in and out of audibility, and everyone remaining unravels into a pandemonium.<\/p>\n \u201cWe gotta get outta here,\u201d Susie tells me with a terseness that I forget she\u2019s capable of. I have no choice but to agree. We don\u2019t need any more blood on our hands tonight.<\/p>\n We weave through the scrambling crowd through what Susie hopes is a covert fire door. We tumble back into the seasoned air and the laminated torsos of two cops waiting to stumble upon some rough justice. They look like parodies of their own professions: one\u2019s donning an aggressive and unfortunate mustache that looks more rent-a-cop stripper than lawman, the other is trying and failing to stow a beer paunch behind layers of nylon and a spit-polished badge.<\/p>\n \u201cWhere do you think you\u2019re going, young ladies,\u201d Magnum P.I. Lite asks.<\/p>\n Susie and I scuttle back toward the door, nestling our backs against the rind of the building. Even through two inches of metal, we can hear screams filling the gaps where music once was. I wonder if they can smell Victor\u2019s blood on me, if they realize what this night has made me.<\/p>\n Magnum\u2019s partner starts pawing at Susie like an alley cat, suggests he take her \u2018round back, like a dog about to get shot or a sack of trash to be tossed. He hikes up her neoprene skirt and I take a swipe at his fatty cheek, but I\u2019m toe-to-toe with a man who\u2019s got a hundred pounds and a far clearer head on his linebacker shoulders. He rams the butt of his Glock into my scalp, sending me into the hardest sleep I\u2019ve had in years.<\/p>\n When I shiver back into consciousness, the world is all fuzzy corners and high-beams. My skirt is pocked with drops of blood and smeared with dirt. Susie is laying next to me, stroking my hair, which feels wet and sticky for reasons I\u2019m not ready to know. She looks worse than I feel. Her hair is mussed and matted, capillaries flayed across her jaw like lace.<\/p>\n \u201cAre you ok,\u201d I mumble through an iron-flecked loogie that jumbles my words and feel like dying. I spit and spit and spit until I\u2019m dry, hulled like the pit of a peach.<\/p>\n \u201cI will be.\u201d<\/p>\n Susie scrounges two pills from the gold cylinder hanging around her neck, her jugular thumping hard and fast beneath a fresh hickey. We tap our pills together in a stimulant salud and let the breeze steer us toward our next destination.<\/p>\n We fill the air of daybreak with garbled words and small talk, finally agreeing to grab a bowl of noodles from the Xi\u2019an spot down the street we think we\u2019re on. Filling ourselves back up with hot broth and taro milk and nips of sake seems like the first step to replacing what the men have taken.<\/p>\n The pills kickstart a couple blocks into our stroll, rendering at least one shard of the night reliable. The early risers and morning joggers gawk at us like we belong in cages, behind plate glass. Maybe it\u2019s the dirt in our hair or our lake-wide pupils, or maybe we\u2019ve finally become too marred for mercy.<\/p>\n As we sit in the noodle shop, my neurons rearrange themselves, playing musical chairs. I try wandering down the tunnels of memory but keep getting lost in my own brain, like a needle in a groove. Even past the broken blood vessels, flared across the whites of her eyes like Ferrari red fireworks, I can tell that Susie\u2019s lost in those same stalks of synapses.<\/p>\n The waitress lobs a ceramic bowl beneath my chin and I welcome the tidal wave of steam that bursts the pores of my face. The broth is so crystalline that I can catch my reflection in the red globules of oil. I don\u2019t have the heart to tell Susie, but I feel like I\u2019ve seen this color before. I just can\u2019t seem to place its name\u2026 something that starts with a D, I think.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I don\u2019t usually hitch a ride with strangers, especially ones I\u2019m about to allow inside me. But the right combination of sleeplessness and alcohol can persuade me to make some compromises, and tonight, I\u2019m feeling particularly weak-willed.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":182,"featured_media":22416,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21832","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fiction","writer-shannon-shreibak"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21832","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/182"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21832"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21832\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22417,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21832\/revisions\/22417"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22416"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21832"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21832"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mrbullbull.com\/newbull\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21832"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}