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Beautiful
Ass
Part
One: Chewing-Gum Blue
There is an abandoned engineering shed not more
than eighty metres from the station platform.
It’s freezing cold and desolate, and hell yes,
utterly appropriate. I take her there
immediately after the 07:48 to Reading has left.
There is nobody significant remaining on the
platform, nobody that can stop me. Seven or
eight latecomers watch us stroll past, silently
cursing the fact they have missed the train.
Harmless idiots. Some dribbling pensioners, a
couple of frayed kids late for school, and
inexplicably, a diminutive Lou Reed look-a-like
freak with rusty Clash pendants decaying on his
leather jacket.
I want to smack and kiss and bite all these
skinny humans on their silly lips, all at the
same time. I want to draw blood. I want to
stroke them better immediately afterwards, to
confuse them with misplaced tenderness, to ask
them why they didn’t set their alarms early
enough to not miss the train. A part of me
cares, but it is a very small part, and it’s
forever shrinking. Mostly, what I want is to
fuck her, to fuck Jennie right now. So does
everybody else on the platform. Only I will.
We walk and laugh, traversing great puddles of
mud and dung, remaining mindful of the need to
avoid the sizzling track adjacent. This very
real threat of death is distracting, but
ultimately irrelevant. I haven’t fucked her in
ages. She wears her school uniform, despite the
fact she’s bunking off. This is pleasing, and
utterly relevant. It’s a little warmer with
the morning sun rising, and watching her wiggle,
my cock slowly stirs and thaws. It’s a moment
of sorts, but I don’t look up at the beautiful
September sky, just at the scuffed heels of her
shoes sinking into the mulch. Then, as we get
deeper into the woodland, this rank horseshit
stink increases, is instantly everywhere, is too
pungent and strangely fecund even for me.
-Nice smell! She says sarcastically, wriggling
her eyebrows. Attempting
sophistication…giggling coyly, hoping that
I’ll laugh too.
I glare, just to throw her. She stops laughing,
her stupid chuckles trailing off uneasily.
Somewhere within her I suspect she is aware that
she shouldn’t even affect the most simplistic
of ironies. These are the suburbs. Nobody gets
irony, or even wants to. The context is all
wrong. It doesn’t become her. She could never
be witty or artful. Not now. There is no
laughter or art in this transaction.
-Shut. The. Fuck. Up. I moan at her.
Her face falls.
-I don’t have to be here, she snaps back.
-Mmmmm.
Of course she has to be here. When I’m not
with you I lose my mind… It’s not like she
has a choice. Besides, it was her idea. Her
tearful telephone call last night is to blame
for this contact. I remove her shirt and assess
the toast rack ribs poking out everywhere. Too
thin by far, and still she ducks school to feast
on my whopper with cheese in a filthy shed on a
rainy September morning. My nutrition value is
zero, darling, is filthy old zilch. I contain no
valuable vitamins. I offer no sustenance.
The end of the trail.
-Is this it? she whispers.
There is nobody else here.
-Stop whispering, I reply, -it’s gorgeous.
Inside the shed there is damp on the walls,
lipstick stain sucked cigarette butts, deep
cracks in the dingy ceiling. The rats scarpering
as I lob her face first at the wall. Then there
is the way the world’s on fire and her
knickers sparkle and almost ignite when they
fall to the floor. She starts fires. She started
one in me two years ago… and I still smoke.
The beauty we impart as I enter her… so godly
but fleeting that it makes me want to cry and
break the both of us in two immediately
afterwards, so that no one in this fungus of a
world ever has either of us again. Because none
of them deserve us, deserve it.
Softly, somewhat inevitably, I start singing the
Britney Spears song I’ve had in my sad head
all week. My loneliness is killing me and all
she can say is -okay, okay, okay Luke easy Luke
hit me baby one more time- through gritted
teeth. It has just gone eight. It is all too
early for all this life but living has never
felt this lively, this pornographic, this good,
I must confess, I do believe…
We linger in the shed for a little while longer
afterwards. I smoke her cigarettes and we talk
about a party we are both going to on Friday
night, but the smells of her here and now are
stronger than the useless thought of Friday,
stronger even than the smell of horseshit or
manure or whatever. It makes me want her to
touch me again. I tell her. She puts me in her
mouth for a while, but I cannot make it happen.
I am just gone twenty-one and I cannot get an
erection. My limp dick still in her mouth, she
begins to laugh. I want to feel something. I
look down at her, at this goon with spunky
molars. Where’d the feeling go?
-You are blushing, she giggles.
I touch my cheeks. They’re hot. I don’t say
anything… I have nothing to say to her. Spunky
molared goon.
She confirms she will not go to school today. I
tell her that she can hang around here until her
parents have left for work.
-You can come round to my house during your
lunch break if you want... she says.
-Yeah, I might do that, I say to her.
-Cool, she says... -text me, yeah?
We start kissing again. She has left those
flammable knickers on the floor. The taste of
her now… like dirty bleach. What is it? I
worry that I am kind of licking my own dick in a
roundabout kind of way. It was only minutes ago.
Is this is what sucking cock is like? I try to
stroke her bare ass under the skirt, but forget
she is leaning against the wall and end up
scraping my knuckles against it. It hurts. I
break away and look at my knuckles. There is
blood, mildew and something damp and rancid on
them apart from my skin. The morning air gets in
the wound somehow. It is painful, but her
overreaction makes me cringe more. She moans
-poor baby! Then takes my bleeding knuckles and
puts them in her mouth as if to kiss it better.
Still, it is sort of comforting. I can hear
Stephen calling me over the tannoy but I cannot
detect any anger or worry in his voice. If
he’s not hassled then neither am I. When I
look at her again she is sniffling and making an
elaborate show of putting he!
r pants back on. She scratches her crotch and I
smile. She smiles back. Her pale belly still
moves me sometimes. Her fragrant, tasty waist…
for a while it was my favourite bit.
-Tell me what you’re thinking, she says,
wiping her mouth.
I am thinking about lunch, about sweating cheese
on dead bread. Thinking about a sunset in
Zanzibar I saw in a magazine somewhere, thinking
about egg and chips and Blair’s unspoken
overbite, thinking about retired Formula One
racing drivers ejaculating flat champagne on
wizened French film stars’ lower lips…
thinking about all this stuff mostly all at the
same time. I realise I am very hungry. Sometimes
I want a steak or a salad or chips, but mainly,
yeah, I want to eat her bottom.
-Luke? What’s going on up there? What are you
thinking about?
I lick my lips and think.
-Ass. Lunch. Ass munch lunch. You understand me?
-Not much. Not anymore. Can we go now? It’s
not all that warm here.
I walk her back over the tracks, I guide her
past the live wires and switches and bells,
making sure she does not step on anything that
might electrocute or damage her. She turns
around to smile at me while she is walking.
Parts of me are sore. What just happened was a
massacre.
Another announcement blares out over the tannoy.
My name is mentioned again, though this time
Stephen sounds discernibly more pissed. It is
not unlikely he might be nearing the end of his
weathered tether. Who cares but he?
Entering the station office, we find Stephen,
Jimmy and Lou Reed sitting on the blue aluminium
benches. The ticket kiosk itself is unmanned.
About twenty customers stand moaning amongst
themselves in a queue that snakes out the office
doors to the car park. Some look almost
knowingly at Jennie and I, although they
couldn’t possibly. Jimmy dribbles and says
-Alright, Jennie? but nothing to me. Lou
Reed-guy mutters something indecipherable.
Stephen, green with immature envy, points me in
the direction of his office. Meanwhile Jennie
kisses me and says -see you later babe, and I
say -later, baby and Lou Reed says –hey baby,
baby, baby, baby although the look on his face
suggests this is quite plausibly unconnected.
Jimmy starts to tell an anonymous, underweight
lady he kind of knows about his omnipresent
syphilis, despite the fact that all she really
wants is a return to Winchester. Not first
class. Coming back tomorrow please?
In his office Stephen snarls, but is not
frightening, only fat and consistently
offensive. I am supposed to respect this thing.
This thing is my boss, yet when he speaks I
cannot bear to look at him.
-I gave you this job so that you might make
something of yourself. Important people asked me
to give you this job. Your father asked me to
give you this job. He told me you were
hardworking.
-I know this. But people lie. My father lies.
I’m sorry you were misled.
-I don’t want it to happen again, Luke. Can we
just agree and leave it that?
-This follows. Yes, okay. If it makes you feel
safer.
-I mean it. Why the sarcasm? Would you look at
me please? At least while I am talking to you.
-Must I?
-Luke… please.
I look at him and observe that he is sweating
slightly more than usual. His pocked forehead
gleams. His fists are clenched. He wants all
this me so very much.
-Don’t let me down... please? He whispers.
-Okay boss.
-Good.
-Yes… good.
I think about it. I think about how lying is so
very fucking boring. I change my approach. The
song comes back. Britney comes back. I got the
music in me.
-You want me, fat bitch?
Oh baby, baby, the reason I breathe is you
Boy you got me blinded.
He ignores me at first.
-That’s all, he says eventually, trying to
smile.
As I turn around he puts a hand on my ass,
sighing heavily as he does so. I slap it away.
-Jesus, Stephen! I spit.
He looks ashamed. He could at least ask first.
-Fucking hell, I hiss at him, prodding his
chest. He rears back.
-What’s the problem? He tries to appear
nonchalant, a little cool.
The problem? The way he attacks the eye, the way
he pummels you with that gut. That belly
half-covered by tragic blue trousers, half by an
untucked off-white polyester shirt. Looking up,
I almost flinch at the sight and size of his
heavy jaw hanging dumbly. It strikes me that he
is utterly asynchronous, and somehow out of
time. To all intents and purposes he is a
Goonies extra, a florid, fucked, early
nineteen-eighties absurdity. Possibly more of a
doughnut than a human has ever been before. Fat,
fattening, fattened. Too fluffy to love and very
bad for you indeed. Defined entirely by the
gaping hole in his middle, the hole where his
soul should be.
The eyes too… check those eyes out! Cartoon
eyes. Pulp fiction eyes, gimp eyes all red and
sleep-deprived. Masturbator eyes, Friday night
on Channel 5 eyes. He tries to stare me down. I
burst into laughter and clap my hands slightly.
He doesn’t flinch. Eyes on my hands, eyes on
my crotch, eyes on my face. His awful eyes on me
everywhere. It’s offensive and he needs to be
told. And I tell him.
-You fat fucking slut. You pussy.
His fake nonchalance goes instantly, replaced by
dim confusion writ large and explicit across his
features.
When I’m not with you I lose my mind
He is close to tears.
When I’m not with you I lose my mind
What he says comes out in pieces.
-You don’t need to speak to me like that…
you shouldn’t. I gave you a job when you
needed one. When your dad was ready to throw you
out for what you did!
-Don’t change the subject. It’s not about
me, pervert. This is your closeted fat gay man
issue. You want to deal with it, tubs.
-Stop this. I run the show. I am in charge.
-And what a show it is! Let’s think, What’s
the script entail? Woeful yet comedic
ineptitude, admittedly mostly mine, sanctioned,
no wait… encouraged by yourself. What else? Oh
yes, subtle yet persistent sexual harassment.
Understaffed too, and those staff you have are
pathetic miscreants such as my good self and oh
yes… who else? Jimmy the VD king? The fat old
slut who comes in on the weekends to help out in
the ticket office? Give me a break. She’s
about ninety, you asshole.
He turns away from me. A sweat patch the shape
of Italy torn down most of his back.
Give me a sign
-That fat old slut is my mother, Luke. You know
that. Why disrespect my mother?
Hit me baby one more time.
You would laugh too.
-Get to work, he whispers when I’m finished
giggling.
So very boring. How can he not see the funny
side?
-Out. Now. Please.
I’m still laughing, but hungry now. There are
sticky aniseed balls and strawberry lollipops in
a bowl on his desk. I take four of each and put
them all in my mouth at once. I let him watch me
scratch my balls. I go home briefly to wash and
check on mother. I come back. I dream of Britney.
I look at Steven, still crying. I still have a
job. |
