Audrey’s windows were pitch black. The record had ended unnoticed and the needle was skipping quietly in the last groove. I was reclined on one love seat with one leg on the arm and one foot on the floor. Audrey was across from me lying on her love seat on her stomach, legs folded up behind her. She had her arms folded and her head lay on its side on top of them. . She looked at me. She seemed to be focused on my face. I focused on hers.
Her mane was doing its regular thing. Her lip gloss had rubbed off but her lips were quite pink anyway. In fact she seemed to be creating a tiny abrasion on her lower lip through nervous biting. Coke energy I assumed. Her eyes were as alive as ever but she was developing dark circles under her eyes. It sort of presented almost like eye shadow so didn’t look half bad. We kept up this staring contest until Audrey broke the silence.
“Hey you. How’s everything over there?”
“Pretty good. You know the music’s gone off?” I asked lazily.
“Yeah. Do you want to hear something?” she asked.
“Yes” I said. There was a long pause.
“Well, what? Goofball…” Audrey snickered.
“How about Al Green?” I asked, forgetting.
“We heard that already. And I told you we’re not fucking right now. We’re socializing. Like nice people.”
She considered the issue for a moment then rose. I watched her move to the record player. She pulled a record from the middle of one of the stacks and pulled the vinyl from the album cover. She put it on and dropped the needle. An unmistakable song came on. Abba, Dancing Queen.
Audrey started to move slowly, languidly and soon slipped into what looked like practiced belly-dancing. Her fatigues had fallen a good bit and the top half of her ass was exposed. This could have produced a plumber’s butt effect. In fact, it mostly looked as if you caught her at the exact moment she began to remove her pants for you. All hips and ass and low enough on her stomach you could begin to see the very beginnings of her pubic region, two or three wispy brown hairs against pale skin. Not enough to go to jail but enough to clear all other thoughts from your head.
“Ummm.” I started, signaling incredulity at the disco anthem.
“Fuck you, baby. Abba is like…Heaven’s chorus of angels. Perhaps even Archangels.” Audrey held her hands over her head as if enraptured. She continued moving around the room, swaying her hips in a way that made me forget all of existence.
I turned my gaze to the table. Though I was trying to locate the blow I tallied the remaining sleeves of heroin. Nine left. I looked for a clock. She had an honest to God cuckoo clock on the wall, with a little blue Bavarian house and everything.
It was a quarter after one. No bird for a while. I thought about it a moment. There had been no cuckoo all day. I thought that bird was almost certainly dead. I dawned on me there was something poignant about time marching on in the face of dead birds.
I saw the coke and reached out for it. I grabbed it and sat up simultaneously. I knocked out four lines and looked up at Audrey. I was going to relate my epiphany about cuckoos and the cruelty of time. Maybe she would think I was deep. I liked the idea she might.
She continued a slow motion spin with her arms back in the air held in a flamenco pose. The move lengthened her already long and firm torso. She opened her eyes, looked at me and then spotted the loaded coke plate. In one tall leap, she came over the coffee table perfectly horizontal and landed half on me and half on the other portion of the love seat. She laughed like she had tricked me somehow.
She flipped quickly into a sitting position, grabbed the straw and bowed her head. Two lines later she sat up and turned to me. She handed me the straw. I followed suit. I welcomed the rush. It served as a reset. I had been drifting into a dog day pose.
ABBA stopped and Prince came on. It must have been some sort of prehistoric eighties compilation. It was Prince’s Kiss.
Audrey got back up and hiked her pants. She started to move more energetically than before. The pants that rested on her hips were now in rhythmic motion. Though swung at a medium pace her pelvis moved in an almost tactile exaggeration. Not theatrical but feral. Like she was scissoring all existence. Her dance was the razor edge between blinding sun and black water. I had to watch her. I almost couldn’t.
The spell only broke when she stopped and dropped into the spot next to me. She was sweaty in that southern nights sort of way. She stuck out her lower lip and blew her hair out of her eyes. Sort of. She smiled and turned her head to me lazily.
“Do you want to get some more beer? I think we’re out” she asked.
“No, not really. We have hash. And heroin. I’m prepared to suffer the deprivation of no beer. I’m strong that way. Plus only lunatics are up at this hour. I’m not going out there.”
I announced.
“Maybe it’s for the best. One minute you strolling along and the next minute you’ve got hands around your throat and a weird penis inside you.” She paused two beats and then her peals of laughter filled the flat. If you believed her it was the funniest joke in the modern era.
“Hold on, I’ll be right back.”
True to type Audrey moved to the back room. I stood and changed the record. Suddenly, I wanted to reset the room. Maybe straighten up? Ana had straightened my place. I could do that here. But I would need music.
As I flipped the compilation album and played it, Hungry like the Wolf came on. I could feel Audrey standing behind me. I turned and looked. I saw legs. She had changed into olive low rider hot pants. Upon closer inspection they appeared to be more fatigues cut into frayed Daisy dukes, short as hell. She wore a gossamer thin white ribbed tank top, old and worn. Her nipple ring could be discerned as gold under the wispy Tee. She was a fucking beacon in the dark. I wanted her.
“You got tired of your tank top and decided to put on a tank top?” I poked.
“The other one got dirty, baby. When you were in the bathroom for a million years I got bored. I rubbed one out and I believe I may have brushed my hand against my shirt in all the commotion.”
“You masturbated with out me?”
“If I masturbated with you it wouldn’t be masturbation would it?” she sneered. She laid her head back and giggled.
With the short shorts her leg bruise came back into view. As it was the size of baby’s head it was pretty hard to ignore. I sucked in my breath, steeled my resolve and broached the subject.
“Jesus! What’s up with that?” I said, pointing. I tried to put as much surprise and empathy in my voice as was plausible.
“Oh, this old thing?” she twanged “Girlie pillow fight gone sideways.”
I laughed. Simply, honestly and long. I wasn’t sure that had ever been quite so enchanted. She would’ve been at home having high tea with the Queen at Windsor Castle. She also would’ve looked completely at ease hammering the old broad with a strap-on while shaking maracas. She was absolutely everything in the cosmos all at once. And she was here. She was here with me.
She began to lip-sync and pantomime to Duran Duran, looking directly at me. Hungry wolf notwithstanding, it wasn’t a sexy song but she didn’t subscribe to that logic. She moved in waves towards me, smiling kindly, warmly. She was welcoming me. I stood a straight and tall as I could manage. I was more swaying tree than obelisk.
She moved against me and we stood chest to chest. She put her hands on my hips and we began to dance together. Well, she danced. I sort of moved with lip service to rhythm. She turned her back to me but retuned her body to mine. Tidal movements started and she began to belly dance again. She dropped one hand and cupped my crotch.
She rotated on more time and faced me again. She looked up and gave me a glittering girlish grin.
“Told you it wasn’t my last chance.”
She suddenly backed towards one of the loveseats. Eventually she backed into and dropped to the small couch. She sat and pulled her feet up to rest at edge of the couch. Her blackened soles were far apart. Her shorts were small and loose. She reached down with one hand and yanked them to the side. She made eye contact and said two words, quietly and firmly.
“My baby.” She smiled, and nodded encouragingly.
I knelt and bowed my head.
It’s a funny thing. You spend a lifetime trying to control everything. You’re taught that you’re supposed to bend the world to your will. You’re compelled by society to dominate all you survey. And that’s not enough either. You’re supposed to kneel at the right altars and worship the right gods while you do it. It was too much.
Trent Reznor called it right. You can find happiness in slavery. I resolved to seek out happiness with my tongue and to begin the journey near her clit. I would kneel in the Church of Audrey. I would commune. I would worship. I would be sanctified. I would be saved. Amen.
Later, though it was of epic length, the album finally concluded the second side. Audrey had concluded as well. She was sweaty and had only barely managed to retain her tank top. Her legs were splayed open, feet still hiked up on the edge, knees in the air. Her whole body hung in a state of exhaustion. I made one last pass at her vagina. I leaned in and placed a single, gentle kiss directly on her clitoral hood. Just because. I shook my head to break the spell. I kissed it again anyway. Audrey giggled as I did.
“I do believe I’m falling in love. You’re pretty good at that, you know? Ana’s pretty lucky in my opinion.” She stated brightly. She waited a beat.
“What’s going on there exactly?” she asked, finally saying the quiet part loud.
“Nothing. Nothing is going on there. We’re nothing but friends.” I informed her.
“Whatever, dude. I’ve seen you guys together. I’ve seen the hearts in your eyes. Don’t lie to me, Gatsby. She’s your Daisy.” Her tone was soft. Her words did not feel soft.
“I’m not lying. I’m nothing to her. I’ve got eyes only for you, my dear.
“Well then, take a moment and use those eyes to find the lighter. I’ve got an idea.” She announced. She stood up all pale whites and hot pinks. Her nipples jutted out of her tank in a way that argued against its necessity. I watched her bend, rise and return the cutoffs to her hips and clasp the fly at the top.
Not unexpectedly she moved to the record player and the LPs. She put on what I think was Yo La Tengo. It was familiar and floaty. Soft vocals and droning guitars. She turned and posed the question:
“What do you think about smoking the coke and smack together? Like on some weed?”
“Couple things, babe. We don’t have any weed. Also…I don’t remember the second thing but we don’t have any weed.” I pointed out helpfully.
“Have some faith in your girl. I have an old half joint I found in my music box right before I left for the airport. I’ll tear it open.” She rose and went to retrieve it.
The speedball factor came to my mind again. But I knew the stuff was going in my lungs no matter the red flags so I sat and gazed at her living room windows. The sunlight cast a beam directly over the coffee table. The various pieces of detritus conspired to cast a shadow that looked like a city. The two liquor bottles were skyscrapers. The line of heroin packs was a strip mall. I did this for a while (Sugar Cube Box Church. Cigarette ash abandoned lot. My Empire of Dirt.)
I looked for a clock. The cuckoo clock, silent as a tomb, did appear to be keeping some sort of time. It read about eight thirty. She would need food.
We hadn’t eaten in a day. I didn’t care about me. But she was less than half my size. She didn’t have a hell of a lot of fat on her. She didn’t have any reserves to fall back, so to speak. I needed to make her some breakfast. That idea made me happy.
I stepped, woozily, to the kitchen. I opened her fridge. It wasn’t empty. It looked like there was some old take out. She had a Shorty’s to go bag in there. She had a few condiments. I took note of a peculiar hexagonal bottle. It was truffle oil. Right next to it was a can of EZ Cheez. Next to that was a bottle of Dom Perignon with only a half ounce of champagne left. And she had a couple bottles of sparkling water, some grapefruit juice and a Yoo Hoo. I stole her Yoo Hoo.
I opened a cabinet and spied a can of chicken noodle soup. Campbell’s. Old school style. Soup was always easy to deal with even when your gastrointestinal system was being a little bitch. It was one more hack. I grabbed a small sauce pan hanging from a rack to the side of the stove. I sat it one a lit burner and heated the soup. I grabbed a deep blue bowl off the side of the sink. Looked clean. I located a spoon. I transferred the soup. I turned off the burner but left the pot there. I walked back to the love seats and coffee table. I sat down in the unoccupied seat. Audrey was still curled up on the other but had here eyes on me.
“My Yoo Hoo! Can’t trust anybody these days.” Audrey lamented.
“Can I have it?”
“Apparently so.” She said, scolding and smiling at once.
I slammed the Yoo Hoo on the way back to the soup. I poured it into the bowl, grabbed it and the spoon and returned to Audrey. I set the bowl down in about the only clear spot on the table.
“What’s this?’ Audrey sat up.
“Chicken soup. It’ll help.” I was suddenly a bit dizzy but I managed what I hoped was a compassionate smile. I sat down, and then lay down.
As Audrey sipped her soup I tried to compile a mental damage report. I was dizzy for one thing. Blood sugar maybe. Blood pressure maybe. Maybe I’d eat too, I thought.
I was nauseous but that was normal. My whole body was sore and I was uncommonly fatigued. My head was clogged ear to nostril. I knew clots were there.
I looked up and surveyed the room. The vinyl had sort of collapsed from three piles to perhaps seven. I used the term piles very loosely. The coffee table was populated by cans, ash, foil, two plates and an empty bottle of Absinthe. Some of the floor daises had migrated center stage. Most of those were wilted and danced upon.
I looked towards the kitchen. The pink table had some PBR cans and a pink light rimmed the curtains of the window behind the stove. It was morning already. We had been at this a solid day. It seemed like a week. It seemed like an hour. I had never been anywhere else and I certainly had nowhere else now. These walls. This girl.
She came back in the room and slowly strutted to the mantle over the ornamental fireplace. The fireplace itself had a few cigarette butts in it. Not as many as it could have. She retrieved her pipe and began breaking open the halfy. I grabbed the powders from the coffee table and joined her. After a few seconds we had constructed a tiny Mt Olympus in a pipe, all greens and browns then capped with snow. Audrey squealed with delight and clapped her hands a couple of times, rapidly. I put the lighter on the mantle next to her and stepped back.
She brought the blue glass pipe to her lips and fired the lighter. Possibly a seed was in the weed remnants because there was a microscopic explosion and flash, followed by a plume of smoke that smelled like the fifth Horseman. Audrey tilted her head back and stared at the ceiling. She had been holding her breath in and suddenly exhaled. A plume of smoke rose from her in a mushroom cloud. She turned and gazed at me with lidded, sunken eyes. She had dark circles under them and her skin glistened in the dawn light.
“I love this. Let’s just do this. This. Forever. I want you here with me covered in smoke and sweat. I want you to rest here. I want to see your face in the morning. I want to ride your face in the morning. Don’t leave Jacob.” She looked at me. She was sincere. She looked afraid. She leaned against me and almost went limp. I held her up.
I placed my left hand behind her knees. I threaded my other arm behind her. I lifted her and held her like a child asleep. I immediately began to buckle but through the grace of coke strength I held. I took us to a love seat and I put her down as gently as I could manage.
Audrey peered up at me. She looked at me like she missed me. I kneeled beside her and I leaned over torso to torso with my face by her ear
“I’ll keep you safe Audrey. No one will hurt you ever again. I promise.”
“The blind leading the blind. We’ll be in the ditch in seconds…” Audrey said sadly.
“I’m gonna rest my eyes for a minute. After that? We do the things.” Audrey said quietly.
She closed her eyes and I rose and moved to the other love seat.
I turned my head to the ravaged supplies. The baggie of coke was gone, but there was a respectable amount scattered on the plate. I counted five packs of heroin left. The hash was long gone except what ever remnants of Mt Olympus were left. Enough to work with. Not enough to finish the day.
I sighed. We were almost out of drugs and definitely out of money. At least I was. Maybe we sleep? We probably should. We could share her futon. I could hold her. I suddenly felt very aware of thinking of Audrey and me as a single unit. The thought worried me in a vague way. As she ate, I decided to check in and also give her the lay of the land.
“Hey, how is it?” I asked.
“Good. First solid food since…well, you.” She gave a small mischievous laugh.
A thought occurred to me. Olympus was still on the mantle and I hadn’t hit it yet. The universe had suddenly gifted me a few seconds of giddy anticipation. If the biggest issues I had right now were fatigue and soreness then that semi-smoked speedball was a Tetris like fit to problem.
I stood and crossed the space to the mantle. I took the pipe and lighter. I fired up the bowl and drew in one the fouler tastes I’d experienced. Sort of if you smoked rotten dirt, toothpaste and formaldehyde. The high hit me instantly like a gold brick covered in cotton candy fracturing my skull.
I’m not sure you should have called it a high. I didn’t feel like I was floating in the sky. I felt I was a mannequin made of electricity. I felt like I felt a million miles away and a hair’s breadth away. I was a cloud coming apart and a stone at the bottom of the ocean. I was the last puzzle piece.
I wasn’t sure I’d make it back to the loveseats. As I turned I grasped the mantle to steady myself. I left the pipe and lighter there and weaved to my seat. I thought about a record but didn’t think I had the agility to pull that off. Plus I was digging the silence. Audrey broke it.
“I have to get a nap at some point. I work tonight.” She said. It took me a few beats to answer. I was not doing all that well. . The whole room was wobbly.
“We could fake another car crash. Go back to the emergency room” I ventured.
“That’s a lot of car crashes in twenty four hours. Who taught you to be sneaky?” she chided gently.
“Why don’t you nap now” I asked.
“Because, I’m lit up like motherfucking Times Square, goofball.” She said with some affection wrapped in faux exasperation.
“I have to work too. We don’t have enough coke to get us through. I think we have to sleep. Maybe a round of the dragon?
“Okay, twist my arm.” She scooted to the edge of the love seat and began prepping the foil. I reached down for every last ounce of intestinal fortitude I could muster and strode smoothly to the adjacent love seat. I actually made it. I sat and then drew my self up and moved perpendicular to Audrey, knee to knee. She reached for one of the last heroin packets and did the work. We smoked. She hit it two more times than I did.
After a few minutes of ecstatic reverie she stood and held out her hand in invitation. I stood, shockingly steady. I took her hand wondering what was next. She walked me to her bedroom.
It was as I remembered. Pale blue walls. Clothes. Records. A futon. I noticed a framed movie poster for the first time: Casablanca. Rick was right. Me and Audrey had problems. Ana and I had problems. They didn’t add up to any amount of beans whatsoever. I watched her cross the room and lay down on the futon. I joined her.
I turned on my side, away from her. I wanted to hold her but my necessary shoulder had been injured in some incident I didn’t remember. It was sore. Audrey shimmied up next to me.
She threw one arm over my chest and a leg over mine, an emphatic spoon. For the second time in as many days I was falling asleep with someone by me. It felt at peace. I felt at home.
“We could do this always…” I murmured.
“I’ve got you now. You’ve got me now. That’s enough.” she replied as she kissed my neck. We slept.