Wife of the Above

And so her maiden voyage ended. With her thighs tensed and her stomach pulled flat, her hair knotted in his dirty fist and damp from his sweat. A maid and a Mrs, with blood and semen sticky on her thigh and a tear in the corner of her eye.

More tears, more blood, more semen. And more children. His and hers. She would never pull her stomach flat again.

Doted, dotted and done. The nest was empty in a blink, the Mr gone in another. She was back where she began. No blood, no semen, no tears. Her body dried and dried, until she was a wisp and a husk and a cold wind caught her.

Without within

Her life was ruled by her unborn child. Correct that, her unconceived child. She thought of him as a boy even though he spoke within her in a sexless, quiet voice. He didn't say he was a he, but nor would he deny being a she.

There were boyfriends he didn't like, men he wouldn't even consider. Even Justin, whom she maybe loved. "Him? My father? Are you trying to damage me?" No, no, no, she whispered to him, mortified. Frightened, she bid Justin a tearful goodbye. He bid her a bewildered 'fuck off' and that was that.

Not Brian, with 'his hooked nose'. Or Steve, with 'his disgusting family'. Or John, 'poor - and stupid'.

"I don't think you want me after all," the baby cried to Laura. "You don't seem to be trying very hard."

"Oh, I do want you, I do! Please, it's only...there aren't very many...I thought Mark was lovely..."

"He was lovely," the baby agreed coldly, "for you. But he didn't want children. He didn't want me."

"I'm sure he'd change his mind. I could convince him."

"He shouldn't have to be convinced. What sort of half-hearted father would he be then? I want better than that. I thought you'd want better than that too."

"I do."

****

The baby would make his own suggestions.

"Him," he said from within her, indicating a young man robustly playing ball with a small boy.

"He has a family," Laura would explain.

"Him then," the baby demanded of an even younger man in tight skinny jeans and an even tighter skinny T-shirt.

"He's gay! Jesus, give me a chance!" And she laughed.

That won her a sullen silence. And no matter how she cajoled and flattered and pleaded and begged and cried and pleaded some more, he refused to speak to her again.

Clara and Noah

I burnt in my bed. My skin slid and melted like butter, and when it cooled and congealed it was fused to my brother's. Siamese skin twins. The rescue workers couldn't separate us so we were carried together to the coroner, who cried and cried.

A few tears were for us but mainly they were for his own children, safe and separate in their beds. He knew in his studied mind that we hadn't felt a thing, the horror was for the living alone. But his eyes weren't talking to his mind. They were shouting at his heart. His father's heart.

So he wept while he drew a faltering line along the slightly paler skin that was mine. And he cried as he cut me out of my brother like a coupon. Two for the price of one.

A little piece for my Paul

Huffed and puffed and blew my house down, me away. A birthday lamb in wolf's clothing. A little boy blue.

His taste buds tingle with words - verbs to the back, adjectives on either side. His fingers tremble music and, in private, his heart draws nostalgia.

I put a meter in his chest, where no one can see. It flutters constantly, measuring the world, himself, me. I'm the only one who knows how it works. It hasn't yet achieved heaviosity, but one day it will.

Have you heard the one...

By taking her to see stand-ups, he created the illusion that he was a funny guy. He told only scripted jokes. Rented funny movies, watched funny TV shows, only took her out with his funny (but not funniest) friends. They were always laughing when they were together and for some time the illusion worked. She thought, I am always laughing when I’m with him = he makes me laugh. She didn't think hard enough. He was funny by proxy. That all-important space between a laugh and a giggle, between having a sense of humour and being funny.

It was their holiday that did it. No stand-ups, no movies, no television, no friends and he’d run out of jokes. Here, when misplaced luggage, rain, surly service and a grotty hotel room with no view most called upon humour to save the day, he was lost.

Osmosis

His lover ate pain. Not in a S&M, kinky, fetish way. Literally. She could consume his hurt. All it took was her lips upon his grazed knee, her tongue licking his pounded thumb, a gentle kiss on his aching head. And the pain was pulled from his body, unravelled from him and coiled into her.

She would wince and smile crookedly. It hurt her, but not as it did him. Nor for as long. A bad headache would leave him in agony for days, tense and angry. The knot of pain dissolved within her in just a few hours. There was no one to take hers away, so she waited for it to go of its own accord.

When they fought, she refused him. The pain fast, she would taunt. Left him clutching his wounds - headaches, cramps, nausea. He forced her lips to his rigid shoulder once but there was no sense of floating relief. Instead she bared her furious teeth and sunk them into him.

Then it wouldn't work any more. Even when he cried and begged forgiveness, and she cried and begged forgiveness. Nothing. She couldn't eat his pain any more, no matter how she kissed, licked, blew or sucked. God knows she tried, if only to stop his wailing moans and loaded sighs. He said it was because she didn't love him any more. She said it was because he didn't love her any more.

It didn't really matter, but they were both right.

People stink

Of money. Blood, clean sweat. Drying ink and expensive powder that covers all natural scent, all the time. Metal.

Of sex. Dank, dark caves. Carefully hidden smells that dart through unnoticed if the moment's hot enough, distract and linger if it's not. Salt.

Of fear. Stale bread, faded fresh air. Cheap booze, and cheaper smoke. Tears.

In general.

Mind Your Manners

Shut Up was sitting on the gates of Be Quiet's house, throwing words at his door. G-E-T Y-O-U hit with a thud and slid down the door. L-O-S-E-R splatted on the windowpane. C-U-N fell short on the path.

Be Quiet watched this all from the comfort of his living room, perplexed. He did not know Shut Up, could not imagine what he had done to make someone throw C-U-N at him. Although he was a little frightened, he decided to find out.

He opened the door to have W-A-N hit him in the face and K-E-R splash into the house. Shut Up laughed and laughed.

"Why did you do that?" Be Quiet called out.

This appeared to make Shut Up even angrier. F-U-C-K-I-N-G, C-U-N-T (no missing this time) and B-A-S-T-A-R-D all came hurtling towards Be Quiet with ferocious, furious speed. But he could predict Shut Up's plan of attack now and dodged them all easily.

Shut Up was so angry he couldn't find the words. He stood shaking his silent fist on the lawn, his red face glowing, his black eyes bulging. His thin lips flapped, trying to speak. He kicked a passing cat, hollered a wordless holler at the staring children and stomped home.

The Boy of Joy

Here stood a boy of joy. Of playful temperament and positive thoughts. His laughter was a release, his smile a balm. Children and women alike were drawn to him. The children only wanted to bask, to borrow from his light, but the women wanted to take. They wanted to stand as women of joy, longed for their own playful temperaments and positive thoughts.

They squeezed the boy of joy, kissed and hugged him, anything to own that part of him that was warm and content. Probed and prodded, searched and sought - gentle at first, in reverence, and then in desperation as the imagined transfusions of joy faltered and failed. Why did it not take? What was he doing wrong?

They darkened him, lengthened his shadows. And with a final angry breath, the boy of joy was gone.

Choose Your Own Adventure

(i)
Dunh. Dunh. Dunh. Dunh.
The nightclub music is pounding in your inebriated ears, the strobe lights causing your pupils to dance even though you are not. Your hands involuntarily tug your micro skirt down for the forthy-sixth time this evening. Someone may or may not have spiked your drink. You may or may not have promised sex to a spotty youth at the end of the night. Your friends (colleagues) are definitely lost somewhere in the near dark, their tarted bodies now indistinguishable from the seemingly countless other tarted bodies. You are thirty-nine and equally lost.

(ii)
You are stupid. Not slow, a bit thick or short of sandwiches. Stupid. No one says so but they have all thought it since you were five. Even your mum. Especially your mum. The few girls who have not minded your stupidity, that have even been willing to embark on serious relationships with you, have been cheated on, abused and dumped. You're that dumb. Your buddies keep you around as their fall guy, the butt. And you don't mind. Hell, you probably don't even see what's happening. That's your saving grace - you're too stupid to be unhappy.

(iii)
You've come into a world that's tired, divided and lost. It doesn't seem fair, for you're seventeen (and a half) and none of these things. You see all of the solutions so clearly but no one will listen to you. They'll talk aplenty but listen not a jot. They only have energy to talk and you are bursting with do, do, do. Some will say you remind them of their young selves, but that's a grasping, stretching, rather patethic lie. They never had what you've got.