A Night In

there's a storm outside. a permanent banging on the door. the lights are turned out. we're sitting on the floor, chins on our knees. we embrace. we're scared, not letting go of each other. a car crashes into a tree. screams, moans, distant sirens. we can smell the fire and the smoke making its way through the rain into our home. someone's on the roof. we can hear the steps. jenny starts trembling. i think i'm going to faint. i feel useless, not being able to help her. she begs me to help her. a window breaks upstairs. we pull ourselves even closer together. i don't believe i'm able to run, not even walk. i feel my legs cannot hold my body. the tv upstairs turns on. we can hear the news, but i can't understand the words. jenny yells at them to get out. get out of our home, she says. we hear a loud breaking noise. the tv has just been destroyed. a dead silence inside the house fills the air. suddenly, the banging on the door, the screams outside, the sirens, the moans, the fire... they don't matter. there's someone inside. he's getting closer. we hear him walking down the stairs. jenny lets go of my arm. i'm bruised. she grabs my hand. she squeezes me tight. i squeeze back. i know it hurts. in a moment like this, it doesn't matter. nothing matters. where she was last night. who has been calling her. those numbers on her phone. those marks on her body. that funny taste on her lips when she kisses me. nothing matters now. the figure appears in front of us. he stands there for a few seconds, then starts advancing towards us. i close my eyes. i squeeze her hand until i know i'm tearing into her flesh. i want her to feel pain. even if i suffer the most grotesque and disturbing death right now, i just hope she suffers more. that's all.

Season's Greetings

the house is empty, and what did you expect?
those noises at night. that banging on the window.
the musical mattress that seems to be resting on top of you, suffocating your every breath, reminding you in the morning that you'll be late for something.
you can hear the ghosts. you can feel the whispers.
you know they're out there. you know they're watching. but they've been long gone since her death.
shadows pretend to scream at every note you play on the piano, but your left ear has been blasted from your brain, while you torture the neighbors with your yawns and indifference.
you need a friend. you need a dog.
you can only sense she needs the same, but you're too lazy to even think of changing things.
the clock on the wall hangs motionless, dead from the celebrations of your failures.
you sigh. you weep. you smile for her, but she pretends nothing's wrong. it's all her. it's all here. that's the way her world moves.
she pretends it's all going to be a disaster, a headless god in a maze, a six-year-old girl in a wheelchair, when "OK" seems to describe things better, even if a little bit less poetic, a little less philosophical, more real.
you say nothing. you know it's too late. the floor is cold, and your feet are pale. the tracks on the wooden floor, on the carpet, clearly show how you've been walking from the bar to your room and back, and your room is as cold as the floor. there are no walls, no ceiling, just six cold floors waiting for you to warm up the air.
you wait. you're tired.
you sleep. you try.
you're alone.
what did you expect?

But Hey: Nightclubbing (Part 5)

“You know, that was very nice of you, what you did over there”, says Renee.
Now, I’m alone. Lauren’s in the bathroom. Renee is talking to me. I feel like I’ve just pushed Leonardo off the fucking Titanic, and spared everyone from half a fucking movie, this way earning the title of King of the Fucking World. You’re all welcome, assholes. So yes, I’ll talk to Renee. And even though I know what she’s saying, and I know what she means – yeah, the glass of vodka, the vodka tonic I bought her – I proceed to ask.
“And what exactly did I do over there?”, I say this in my most sexy fucked up voice.
“You know, that drink you gave me”, and I swear she’s flirting with me. I’m not drunk. Not yet. She’s flirting with me alright.
“Oh, that was nothing”, and I swear I can hear all the fucking James Bonds rolled into one big JB when I say this. This is my James Bond moment. She smiles.
“And your girlfriend doesn’t mind?”
Shit. She has mentioned Lauren. Not good. And I know this is stupid, and I will regret it, but I don’t give a damn. I swallow the last half of my drink down, and say the words that will definitely cost me a lot of trouble in the future. The fucking near future.
“Who? That girl? She’s not my girlfriend”.
Renee smiles, and I know she knows I’m lying. But the good part is that she smiled. So me lying means me flirting. Flirting back. Remember she was flirting first. She knows I‘m flirting. She’s smiling. I wish Lauren would fall down in the bathroom and break her neck with the toilet. Please, don’t let Lauren come back. Please.
“So what do you do?”, Renee asks me and I just can’t wait to tell her all about what the fuck I do.
“Well, I’m a…”, but Walt comes running towards me, and the fucker stands, again, in front of me. Right between Renee and me. I hate him so much right now. I hate his fucking guts.
“Hey man, it’s Lauren. She’s dancing with some guy on the dance floor”.
Now, I get anxious for a second, but hey, that’s fucking great. Just makes it all fucking great. If Lauren’s with some guy, then there’s nothing wrong with me being here FLIRTING with Renee. This is my night.
“Great. No problem, Walt”, I smile to my friend, and smile back to Renee.
Walt just says, “Oh OK. (Silence) I’m gonna do some more blow”, and goes away, as fast as he showed up.
“So, where were we?”, James Bond moment building up again.
“You were telling me you’re a…”, and she’s fucking smiling and flirting and she wants me so bad.
“Right. I’m a…”.
“Hey baby”, a gorilla stands right in front of me, between Renee and I, just like fucking Walt, except this guy’s huge, and suddenly I’m not staring at some coked up eyes, but a sweaty back.
“Hi babe”, says Renee as she kisses him on the lips. No tongue, just a lippy kiss, the kind women give to their boyfriends in public places.
“Look, this is…”, and she moves the guy to a side, and tries to introduce him to me.
“Ah, Jack. Jack…”.
“Hi”, says the fucking gorilla and he turns his back on me again and keeps talking to his sweetheart. The nerves on that guy.
Renee looks at me from behind the gorilla, and says “Well, bye, nice to meet you…”.
“Jack”.
“Bye”, and she’s gone.
I wanna die.
I look to my right and see Lauren dancing with some asshole. She’s looking at me and she’s smiling. I know she has seen everything. She saw how I flirted with Renee, she saw how the gorilla came, and she saw how they left. Together. I bet she even knows that right now Renee still doesn’t know my fucking name.
This is not my night.
I hang my head down, take a deep breath, put the empty glass on a table, and head to the dance floor.
“Hey Panda. Where the fuck have you been?”, I say.
This is definitely not my night.

But Hey: Nightclubbing (Part 4)

Suddenly Walt comes into the picture. I can tell he saw me from the dance floor, because he's running towards me, sweating horribly all over the place. He has a glass of rum and coke on his left hand ("always grab your drink with your left hand, that way you can touch the bitches with your right one", the fucker always says, like if he wanted to be quoted by important scholars in the future. Dicklicker), and he jumps right in front of me. I can tell he doesn't even notice Lauren. And what does he say? (And yes, I can tell he's being doing blow all night, just by the way he's screaming. Screaming so much, even Marty can hear the fucker).
"Guess who's here tonight? And she's looking as hot as ever, man".
I wanna die. Right before he speaks I actually think of saying: "Lauren? She's right here WITH ME, MOTHER FUCKER". But it's too long a sentence, and he just goes right out and says it.
"RENEE... FUCKING..." and he’s doing this stupid 360 degrees turn he always does when he's terribly excited (and powdered up). The funny thing is - yes, "funny" - he stops at 180 degrees right when he has Lauren in front of him.
"... Sterling".
I'm dead.

“Hi, Lauren”, Walt says, and Lauren is silent as fuck. She looks at me and starts heading into the dance floor. I grab her arm, and she gives me that look. Now, when we see in the movies that the guy grabs the woman by the arm, you can sense she kinda likes it, she really enjoys this manly beast stopping her. Not with Lauren. Actually not with any woman I know. Do not do this in real life. Anyway. So Lauren just lets me know with her killing look that I should probably let go of her arm, and that I do. Before she keeps going her way, she says in a very soft and quiet voice that she’s going to the bathroom. How I understood her, I have no fucking clue. I think of Marty and how he reads lips. Who knows, maybe I should be a fucking bartender. So I turn back to Walt, who has a face that says he KNOWS he has fucked up but doesn’t give a damn.
“Oops”, he says.
“Oops indeed, shit-for-brains”, I answer back.
I just forget the whole thing. There’s actually nothing to do about it.
“Who did you come with?”, I ask Walt, drinking my vodka tonic.
“Just some of the guys. Mark, Robbie, the Panda”.
“The Panda’s here?”, I ask surprised. I haven’t seen the Panda since he got his father’s much younger wife pregnant. But I do not want to spend the night talking to the Panda. Fuck the Panda. He might be Walt’s best friend, but I never really liked the guy. He’s just fun to be around, that’s all.
“Where the fuck’s the Panda, man? I gotta talk to that son of a bitch”, I lie.
Walt points to the dance floor, and yes, how could I not have noticed him before? There’s the mother fucking Panda. Big boy Panda. Extremely hard not to notice the prick, with his size and all. Look at him, doing his Michael-Jackson-on-crack dance. Shit, motherfucker hasn’t changed a bit. I turn around and head the other way, but who’s standing in front of me? This night is too weird. Alright.

But Hey: Nightclubbing (Part 3)

We move to the bar. I do the same high five fisty thing with Marty the bartender, and I see that Lauren is looking at me. She's twitching a tiny smile. She's proud of me. Proud that her man is such a "big thing" here in RadioActive. The truth is I'm worth shit here, but I tip these guys pretty good, so hey, I guess I've earned my place. I ask for two vodka tonics. It's very loud, but Marty's an expert, the fucking man can read lips, so he goes and brings me two tall glasses filled with this beautiful liquid, which I know will fuck me up tonight and make me have a blast. I pay Marty, and hand Lauren her drink, and that stupid little twitching smile starts fading. Actually, it fucking disappears in a hundredth of a second.
"What?", I ask.
"You know I can't drink alcohol now”.
"Why not?”, and as soon as I ask “why not”, I get it. I didn't know, but now I get it. But why did I have to ask "why not?" I know what's coming. I know what's happening. The things is this, let me explain. For some reason, when Lauren has her period, she doesn't like to drink alcohol. Hey, it's cool. I respect that. What I don't fancy is that she pretends that I FUCKING REMEMBER when she has her period. Hey, yeah, I can do the math, but I have other things to worry about, so just fucking tell me, or let me know, or how about a "Baby, remember, no alcohol tonight... you know…" when I'm going over to the bar. That would really fucking help. So here it goes. Action.
"BECAUSE I CAN'T DRINK ALCOHOL. You fucking know why. I have my…", her voice rising and suddenly going down again, like she can't say the word PERIOD out loud.
It's fucking loud in here, no one will hear her. No one gives a fuck what we're talking about.
Well, apparently.
Watch this shit.
"I can have that extra vodka tonic if you don't want it", says Renee Sterling from behind Lauren.
Now, how the fuck did I NOT notice that Renee was in front of me, behind Lauren? I have no clue. I guess I was too worried wondering what the fuck was wrong with a word like PERIOD. This is not good. Lauren slowly turns around, and sees Renee. Lauren doesn't say a word. And what do I do? I fuck up. I give Renee the drink.
"Thanks. It's $8, right?", and as she starts handing me the money, I fuck up again.
"No, that's ok", I say.
Now, I’ll be honest. I know THAT's what I wanted to say. Yeah, fucking Renee Sterling is in front of me. This is probably the only time in the world when I will have the chance to buy her a drink, at least, accidentally buy her a drink. So yes, I wanted to say that. Now, if I had thought about it just a tiny bit, I would have known that THAT was gonna piss Lauren off. You don’t have to be a fucking rocket scientist. It was gonna piss her extremely off. But it's Renee. I just do not think when it comes to Renee Sterling.
"Oh my, thanks. Thanks very much", and she then turns to Lauren (yes, Renee is about to speak TO Lauren).
"Quite a man you got there", and she winks at her. She FUCKING WINKS at Lauren. Not good. I need alcohol.
Now, “quite a man you got there". This sentence actually makes me fucking hard. Even though she was just being polite, this fucking rocks. In less than a minute, I bought Renee Sterling a drink, and she said I was quite a man. The circumstances may not be the ideal ones, but this makes my night. Now I wanna fucking PART-EY, sweetie. Nonchalantly, my eyes go back to Lauren, and yes, she's furious. I don't give a fuck. I don't give a fuck if she sees I don’t give a fuck.
"So you want water. A coke?".
Lauren is so pissed off right now, but big deal.
"Water will be fine", she says and rolls her eyes away from me.
"Water it is", I say. Shit, I almost sing the words out of my mouth into the beautiful sweat drenched air. I’m happy. She’s not gonna bring me down.
Marty gives me a glass of water, which I immediately give to Lauren after paying him, and she doesn't even thank me. Fuck. I don't need this.

But Hey: Nightclubbing (Part 2)

When we arrive, we see there's a long line. The fucking place is packed. But hey, did I mention I know Shamal the bouncer, too? This is my place. I always come here, but not with Lauren, just for the simple reason that she hates Renee's guts. She doesn't know Renee's always here, I just sort of arrange my nights so that each time I come here, I'll be alone with the guys. Just that.
"Baby, do you know the bouncer?"
"I sure do, honey bunch. You just wait and see".
As I walk past the line, everybody's looking at me, they know what I'm about to do, and they just hate me for it. Big fucking deal. I just hope they realize they've been doing things wrong their whole life. Otherwise, they wouldn't be where they are. They wouldn’t be in that stupid line. Losers.
"Hey, my man Shamal", I say while I high five and do the little fist salute with my man Shamall.
"I see you bring a lady tonight. Well come on in, sugar", he says as he respectfully checks Lauren out.
This is just perfect, this way Lauren knows that I never come here with other girls. This will give me some brownie points tonight. Al-fucking-right.
"Yup, this is MY sugar, so be careful, man", I say to Shamall and we both laugh.
This is my place. This is my world. I'm in charge tonight. Or so I think. Because who do we fucking see as soon as we enter? Renee Sterling, standing in front of us, just like if some motherfucking aliens with a sick sense of humor had abducted her and placed her back on Earth, right here, in this very minute.
“Hey, where the fuck should we put this chick back, Greedo?”
“Hmm, how about in front of FUCKING JACK here and his GIRLFRIEND, who happens to hate this earthling's guts with all of her willpower?”
Shit. This is not going to be a good night.

Lauren sees Renee and freezes. She turns to me and senses that I'm tensed as hell. She knows I know this is not a good moment. She knows I know this is fucked up. She knows I know I want to die, and she kind of enjoys that. But hey, I think about something, and that is EXACTLY what happens. Renee never remembers me. She doesn't even know me. So while she's there in front of us, a situation which lasts about three seconds, she doesn't look at me. She doesn't even notice us. So she keeps going her way, moving through the crowd, who knows where to. Lauren releases some of the tension on her body, and I try to release whatever the fuck I can release to try to keep on pretending, and I know I’m not pretending shit, to be cool. Just be cool. Hey, it's not hard, right? Well, it's actually FUCKING hard when Renee Sterling is in front of me, way even more if I'm with Lauren. OK. Let's go.

But Hey: Nightclubbing (Part 1)

Lauren brought the car to a halt. I knew what was coming.
“You wanna go to a fucking club or what?", she asked.
"Yeah, of course I wanna go to a fucking club. I wanna go out. Just like we planned".
"Then why are you fucking breaking my balls?"
Women don't have balls, but I'm thinking that correcting her is not the best thing to do at the moment. I know what her problem is. She has named four places to go, and I have said no to each and every one of them. But hey, I have my reasons.
1) Nottingham Disco & Bar - The music is rubbish. Yes, I like the eighties, but I'm in no mood to hear Walking on Sunshine or Down Under tonight, or any night for the rest of my life, for that matter.
2) Bella Nova - Definitely a no. Sharon is always there, and I know I don't want to run into her. Sharon happened way before I met Lauren, and they don’t know each other, but you can bet your ass Sharon will do anything to let Lauren know that we were very intimate in the past. VERY intimate. Yes, of course, everybody has a past, but believe me, Lauren does not want to know about Sharon and me. Bella Nova, nova way.
3) El Paso Joe's - I don't wanna sit down and eat mozzarella sticks all night. Now, that doesn't mean I wanna be dancing my ass off all night. Lauren knows I don't dance, but hey, if I wanna sit down, I'll stay in my fucking house, know what I mean? Fuck El Paso Joe's.
4) RadioActive: OK, I have to admit that this is the best option so far, but Renee LIVES in this fucking place. She's ALWAYS there. And everybody knows how much I LOVE her. OK, I don't love her, I just wanna fucking rip her clothes apart and... you get the picture. And how does everybody know this? Oh well, it all started with that stupid game of "Never Never" (well, that's how we call it, anyway), where someone says "I have never blah blah blah", and if you HAVE done that specific thing, then it's bottoms up for you. Of course, when you're playing with tequila, by the fifth question, you'll be honest about anything. And believe me, you do not want to play this with your girlfriend. No, sir. I should have never played that shit with Lauren, but hey, I did, and know she and everybody knows that I want to fuck Renee so bad. I don't even know Renee, that's what's fucking absurd. I think we've been introduced twice, but she never remembers me. She's this big hot broad from the radio, you know the kind - "I know I'm fucking hot, but I'll stay behind the mic, where no one can see me. No TV for me. NO, sir. I’m way too hot for TV". THAT HOT is what I'm talking about. That's Renee. The woman drives me crazy. So no, RadioActive is not an option.
"Don't break my balls, baby. Pick a place, please. I wanna party".
She wants to party. I hate when she says she wants to party. Just say you wanna go out. I get the point. Don't say part-ey. Shit. RadioActive. The music is excellent. Really obscure rock/electronic from the 80s and 90s. It's good to know 90% of the songs when almost none of the people recognize even one. I love that. Music's great. It’s pretty cheap. I can drink many vodka tonics, get wasted, have a good time and not spend even half as much as with El Paso Joe's fucking mozzarella sticks. I know The Pope in there, or Popy as we call him, that means an easy way to get some blow. I even know the fucking security guard near the bathroom, so I don’t have to wait to powder myself up. Shit. Renee will be there.
"Baby, I wanna go somewhere right fucking now. I wanna PART-EY".
Fuck. RadioActive it is.
"OK, baby", I say with Bambi eyes.
"You win. Let’s go to Radio”.
"I love you", she says.
I smile. Renee better be there.