Choking on Friday's heart

He lay his head down in her lap and the cab driver asked her if he was going to be ok. He shot back that he was fine. In fact, he couldn't be better now that he had his girl. His girl. The cab driver accepted this and his girl stroked his stubbly head in silence. His girl?! She didn't know what to say and couldn't have said anything anyway for her heart pounding in her throat and she couldn't figure out if it was telling her to jump out of the car or kiss him to shush him, so she just sat, stroking his head, grating the skin off her fingertips. They drove past a club that blared a song which made him grab her hand and put it on his chest as he sang it to her, and she winced at how similar his singing was to a rusty pasta maker. She watched the city fade away, replaced by lush trees and terraces slumbering, the lamplight humming a sadness that plucked at her stomach. He asked the cabbie to take a sharp left into Lube Lane, chuckling at a week-old joke that only she knew where he had given her directions using an industrial-sized bottle of Wet Stuff to mark a main road. He said he couldn't stop thinking about her, that he was so looking forward to spending some time with her. That he needed to see her to kick off the week properly. She stroked his head as she watched a street light flicker on and off at the traffic lights, using it as a marker to breathe in breathe out breathe in and hold as it fought the good fight to stay on. He asked her if she felt it, too. She smiled weakly and went on stroking his stubbly head, unsure if she said yes aloud.

Really?

The last thing you need to ask someone while they're buried under your balls is, “Where did you learn that?”

Lay me down and let me lie

With a finger in his ear and his head cocked to the side to shake out the water from his shower, he leaned against the sliding door, watching me. His eyes were the colour of the ocean after a storm, the green making his skin glow like the day fighting the night for one more hour. His towel clung onto a stomach I had only ever dreamt of until the night before, where I had lingered and known with the enthusiasm of a child with his first Meccano set. The morning cupped the droplets that rolled slowly off his chest until the rising heat kissed them off, and my peripheral noted that all the neighbours were still in bed. He grinned when he caught me looking at him and, in cheeky response, adjusted himself.

"So what do you rate it?"

I could still smell the Wet Stuff on my hands and in my hair as I drew a breath, the whisps of smoke whipping back, burning the back of my throat.

“Overall? I’d say a 9. Hilarious, decent, and dead sexy. Yep, you're not too shabby, Love.”

He chuckled and walked over, holding my face in his hamburger hands. My stomach fluttered as I felt him brush against my leg. He kissed me, one hand tilting my chin upwards to help me melt into him.

There was still time for one more.

“Thanks, Love. That makes me very happy, but I meant the cigarette.”

I felt my face flush, kicking myself for assuming that he was secretly a tossbag who floated around for me to commend him on his sexual prowess. I bit my bottom lip and grinned, looking past him and hoping that he was looking somewhere else because if he looked into my eyes he’d know I was lost. I wanted to crawl back into bed with him and start again, but the sunrise drew a sad curtain that signalled the end. It always does.

“Yeah, breakfast fag’s always better after some sugar."

Haiku

Caramel shoulder

The sun exploded, scorching

I can still taste us

Ism

She had been reading about the man who'd fallen in love with a winged immortal. A caretaker for a library, he chose a life of poverty and mystery and delinquency in the hopes of finding a place somewhere over the river and through the woods that held a book in the deepest darkest plunge that would somehow teach him to become both winged and immortal himself. Maybe.

She ached for a sign, any sign that a love like that could ever exist and prevail in the world around her. Sighing, she shifted in her seat as she felt herself in that very moment, sobriety a red hot poker in her chest, anathema sucking the lifeblood out of the Good Ship Pseudoephedrine that throbbed above her head and bled out into the street. It was killing her faster than she could swallow.

His Lolita, Nikita and Chequita army swarmed venomous, their backs arched and ready to strike. They judged her and just as quickly dismissed her for wearing appropriate footwear. They pursed their lips in passive frustration, shuffling from foot to foot to ease the pain of walking through town all night in stilettos and undersized hotpants, the men oblivious as they swaggered in their sneakers with their boomboxes and blang and the promise of drunk and drugged moresomes.

The invisible hand dug deeper, the poker cruelly twisting downwards into her stomach, bile boiling. Folding the book onto her lap in the middle of a bridge duel with between hero and minotaur, she looked up at the B-Boy over her glasses. Ugh. He leant in so close that she could smell the dope on his breath, and she felt herself gag. He snickered as he threw “G A M E O V E R” up, his knuckles fleshy cliffs eroded with the white rage of an earth fighting back from an eon of elemental barrage, barely threaded to wrists that knew the truth. He shook them more for resolve.

There was a collective squelch, and the smell of stale sex stung her as the girls fawned over the battle he must’ve gone through, what more he had to do to win the war, and would a blowjob boost his morale?

“Aww yeah,” He nodded vigorously as he bounced, the blang clanging against his rib cage as if that was meant to rouse some recognition from all nearby, a gorilla thumping his chest with brass instead of hands. Squelch.

Gently closing her book with the care of a mother nursing a broken child, she placed her hand flat on his stomach so she could hop off her rickety seat without disturbing the written joust. Taking a step back in stunned compliance, he watched her reach for her bag with her other hand, flicking it over her head with the precision of a lit poi twirler as she walked out into the night, in search of the minotaur.

over and over

Her body bent awkwardly, her arms around him and her mouth all ooohed to show him that she wants it she always wants it but the tape keeps him from believing her, hunched over like a fleshy vulture tearing off what little memory she has left of love, his broken plumes stabbing at her with every move. She is a feast, my supper. Barrels of acrid wine flows from her free and pure and I want just one taste. She was my first and will be my last. Her blood is my blood and I want her body but she's perpetually ooohing. My heart and my eyes bleed each night for her because I want to hurt her but I am too late. Assure her, coo into her ear and then take her. Make her scream for me and laugh as the tears run dry, smack the bitch in the face for looking so goddamned delicious. All I can feel was is will be my ribs cracking under the weight of my hate. I can't stop I can't stop I can't stop because I was her and I am afraid of myself because I know I can't be without her. I don't know how to change it so all I do is bleed for her.

I come from the darkest place.

Bung eye

"Like I said I don't forget things. I remember how good it was, but it's been a long time coming. 2 years in the making."

Truly. I can't believe I nearly forgot.

You laugh like a girl.

But seriously.

I don't appreciate that your hand crept into my knickers during The Bad News Bears but I quickly forgot about Walter Matthau's caggy mug so I could bury my face into your neck and really truly whimper for you to stop but please don't stop you're such a tease I want more more more it hasn't happened in ohhhhh two years and I don't like hip hop but it inspired some great tatts I loved tracing over with my tongue making you buck up to meat me see how I did that I'll do it again if you take me in the kitchen away from The Bad News Bears and I don't understand basketball but you play it and however you are playing it is great because you are ripped and I've never been with anybody so ripped or ripped in any way shape or form it really is a lot more fun that you're fit and your penis is a tad too thin but you know how to use it and that's why I'm back after two years so I don't forget because great sex should never be forgot no matter how horrible your DVD collection is just please no Notebook you can bite me please bite me again and choke me and push my head down while you take me just don't get make me watch Notebook.

"Hmmm. Has it really been that long? Haven't really thought about it. How does the 6th grab you?

Hey, Lycra'd Vageens

I found this on my Facebook. She used to be my boss. She makes me want to vom a bit.

Her name begins with T and ends with anya.

Just in case you think this is all a misunderstanding / an unprovoked attack, may I quote? Yes.

"Sooooo....... am i HOT or what????? pls tell me if im not...

plus pointers on how to improve!"

The people, they say HOT. No improvements. None.

Ahhhhhitstingstheeyeballsandmakesmybumholepuckerwithscared.

bcc:

To: muz at hardcoreboarding dot com
From: muzzas biatchh 93 at gmail dot yo

Subject: :O lol

Hey hun,

I was so sad on Sat nite cos you were busy down in melb but when Benno came over with your mixtape cd forme. I totally cried coz you knew all our songs, like I thought mebbe ur 2 bussy for the loved up sheeit. I hoped you watched Video Hits cos they played my shout out while "Bonny & Clyde" by Jay-Z was on and then I cried cos you weren't here. Hezzas a fuckin biatchh, she texted me sayin hey weres Muz hot shout out ya tard I hope you get ur end wet. She don't know nothin Babby, we're 4eva wat a fucken slut ill smash the cunt next time i see her in da food court.

Can't wait for you to come back and lob it in Babby and ill blow ya and maybe we can smoke some dope and you can eat my muff i tried to draw a heart in it but fukked it up so i had 2 shave it all hahalol hahajihadjihada halal yayaya terrorist muthafukkas. I'm your Bonny 4evs you make me wet wanna shove you up me rite now. Hey when you get back can I hit you up 4 20 bucks cos I wrote ma paysheet rwong an Joolz said i can only fix it next week ha wht a tite cunt.

love ya!!!!!1

She, Monolith

Leaning against the pillar on his ledge, she rolled the Coopers gently along the concrete. He loved watching her smoke, her cigarette hanging over the left side of her mouth, the smoke splashing in slow motion and disappearing into the hair that bled over her shoulder. She barely moved to inhale, and she looked up to meet his goofy gaze, giving him a wink as she exhaled. He offered his hand to help her off the ledge, but she gave him his beer instead and hopped off by herself like a girl jumping off a milkbar stool in search of the next bit of fun.

The last time he saw her was when he ran the sound for a charity benefit three months earlier, and he almost didn't recognise her. A cascade of curls that could never have been intentionally set, she wore a red dress that made her look like he could have only ever been a drunk fuck, a mistake that she would have had no trouble forgetting. He watched her cradle her martini as she nodded in agreement to recidivism statistics quoted by the esteemed psychologist Dr Ken Finch, intent without insinuation. She managed to walk away with a $$$$$ personal cheque that was going to go towards rebuilding some essential building that some country needed after some big natural blowout. He felt he didn't know her at all until she peeked over the sound stage with a whispered "Boo!" and asked him to dance. When he didn't know how to hold her, she laughed and broke into the Running Man and then jigged like Blind Tom's sidekick when she ran out of breath. Nobody knew what she was doing but it didn't bother her.

Now he watched her talking to his own mother, her laugh was a bomb that shook the windows and filled the room with light, scaring the cat who was sleeping in the cupboard above the kettle so suddenly it twisted itself onto the counter and bolted under the TV unit. She threw her head back like she meant to snap her neck, and she held her sides in a poor attempt to regain her composure. She wore forgettable singlets and hoodies and her jeans were frayed and darkened by the dirt she trailed as she walked, but wasn't the clothes at all. It was her. She was so adaptable. She listened intently to his mother's generation-by-generation stories of struggle under Communism that he had long since blocked out because he'd heard them all before for the millionth time, and she praised without any hint of pity. She poked her tongue out at him as he gestured for him to come back to her and leave the crazy cat lady behind. She poured herself into every moment, whoever she was with.

He wanted to know her, but she was guarded. He didn't know where she lived as she always insisted on meeting him at his mother's duplex in the west, always. She never wanted to see his apartment in Surry Hills, she said she wasn't that kind of girl. She baulked at any direct questioning about her past, and made off-colour jokes to divert the conversation and he always fell for it because he wanted to. Surely she couldn't be anywhere near as damaged as she suggests she is if she's this cool, he's thought over and over and over. He watched her watching him as she rode him gently, her fingers locked with his, leverage, as she rose and fell. Her wide chocolate eyes saw through all of his defenses, stripped him bare. He watch her lips kiss their way down his stomach, making him bite his own hard that he tasted blood. When they were together it took everything in him not to give her everything. She fucked him every time like it was her last. She made jokes during sex. He felt inferior but safe to be himself around her, and he had a feeling she knew and enjoyed the uneven playing field without being sadistic or degrading about it. Everything about her made him want, clothed or not. She didn't play games that other women played. She played practical jokes. She was crass. She was classy. She was unashamedly herself.

He woke up to find her sitting next to him, putting her shoes on.

"Stay."

"You get the best of me when we're like this, my love."

"Am I?"

She pulled her hair back into a messy bun, then reached back to pull her hoodie over it. She was Sanrio's answer to the Unabomber.

"No, but enjoy it for what it is until you find it."

Valentine

Leaning against the doorframe, cradling her coffee in one hand and a cigarette in another, she scowled at the two canvasses that had been hung up above her bed without her permission.


Her mind flashed back to last night, when she came home to him sitting with his legs crossed on her sofa. He looked up with the eyes of a puppy who had been critically mangled under a truck while nobody was around, and she imagined him whimpering for her all day in his baseball cap and Air Force Ones as he bled out onto his $12 recycled tuxedo. Nobody in their right mind would wear something like that to a job interview. He was unemployable in every sense, and she resolved to buy more mirrors so maybe he'd come to it on his own. She assured him that he would survive, and went to throw the groceries in the fridge because her arms were killing her.

It was after she had put everything away when she found her Magilligan '91 Limited Wood sitting on the counter, half empty, lid off. She looked at him and watched him swill the rest of his mixer, apparently Coke helped it go down better. He was drunk and flailed towards the stove where the pasta had simmered itself dry, the pan black and warped.

Serve yourself since I didn't know how much you felt like eating and I accidentally ate all of your salt and vinegar chips, he said. You have a great movie collection, he said. I wanna watch Predator and a couple of eps of 30 Rock first but can we fuck after that baybee pleeeease I wanna make a movie with you tonight but can you moan loud and talk dirty because I like that a lot and it's more believable because you're so hot baby and maybe you can lick my butt and pull on my balls a bit - maybe we can forget about 30 Rock cos I'm so hot just thinking about it and ooh can I smack your tits around a bit because that's what they do in all the pornos, he said.

Her heart swelled, and she felt rage flood the vein above her forehead that made her look like a furious cock, pulsing and purple. She's dating a peace rapist.


She looked at the grey behind the Verdana "Partners" on canvas one. At least he got the font right. She hoped that it was inspired by something deeper than a cliche but she didn't hold out any hope, since his life's work to date had been to buck so hard against the norm that he had come full-circle and was more than normal. After the gimmick, he was boring. He mentioned two days ago that he had watched American Psycho. Her stomach churned, and she felt her oesophagus pulsing, stirring the bile upwards. The second canvas, "Crime", was awful. The background was blood red, but there were stick figures drawn all over it in various stages of fighting. The Crime itself was the liquid paper outline and the excess red pain flicked over it in an amateur attempt to mimic blood spatter.

Partners in Crime. Where was the "in"?

Shaking her head as if to will away a terrible dream, she caught a smack of yellow on the grey that she was positive didn't belong. Was that phlegm?

The art was, like him, an appropriate argument for legalised abortion. She stubbed out her cigarette and dropped it in her coffee cup.

He lay peacefully and oblivious. His mouth was agape, his chin covered in dry spit. His boxer shorts had ridden up and his flaccid penis stared at her between his leg and the pillow he had draped it over. He had hairless sideboob, his milky cleavage more than passable for a thumbnail for a RedTube clip about some pert college girl getting sleepfucked.

Hey baby sorry about last night I'm a dick. I love you happyvalentinesday. I fell asleep because I was drunk and I'll buy you a bottle of Jack to make up for the one I drank, sorry. Can we have sex tonight and I can do all those things to you I said I would... come on, I lost my job yesterday and if anyone has a right to you it's me babe, stop playing hard to get.

You are a shitbag. Get the fuck out of my house and don't come back.

Josie

You held my hand at the bar, stopping me from tearing my napkin into an even finer confetti. You sat facing me and rubbed one waxed calf against mine as you offered me a sip of your lychee daquiri, one hand on my thigh with your pinky inching my skirt up. I felt awkward, but I couldn't help it. I was out of my element and that was what excited me.

When you asked me to smell your hair, I thought it was a bit weird but totally hot and I could feel the eyes of everyone nearby on us. I saw suits nudging other suits, and women whispering to other women, jealous and begging for more. When you winked at me and leaned forward so I could smell you better and you licked my cleavage under the curtain of your auburn hair, I nearly lost it.

I nearly tripped in the elevator and couldn't believe that you wanted me, but your fingers buried deep between my legs and your lipsticked fat lips sucking on my tits said otherwise. Your giggle as I pointed to a camera in the elevator was more than enough encouragement for me to take your hand, run you to my room and throw you down like the filthy bitch I know you are. I didn't want to know what you did and where you lived. It would've ruined it.

Burying my face in your hairlessness, I breathed you in and drank you as if I had just come out of rehab. Your legs wrapped around my head so gently and so softly, and your purring only made me want to ruin you. You smelled like summer and tasted like sweet butter. We fucked against the window as a boring meeting under the city clock wound itself up across the street. We 69'd on the table and I still chuckle at us nearly falling off the table when we found the Holy Bible wedged between the wall and your sex because I ate with my eyes closed.

I loved that you fucked me so hard that I came out of it with come all over my face. I loved that you licked it off and suggested a bath, only to do it all over again as the sun crept up and poked through the sandstone and steel of the city.

It's been three weeks and I am so pissed that I lost your number and didn't think to give you mine. I hopped online yesterday and looked for your profile, but you had removed it. I've kept mine on but I'm waiting for you. I don't want anybody else.