Bedroom Egocentrics

thethemeis: Selfishness

theauthoris: Aaron Twentythree

   If you watched us tussle among the sheets, her yelping her girlish screams and me letting out extremely occasional grunts and moans at a low volume, you’d see a pair of lust-drunk friends wrapped in a selfless quest for mutual gratification. You’d see how we explore every square centimetre of each other’s skin, wanting only to please each other. You’d see what looked like a pair of lovers, kissing and licking and nibbling and gyrating their way to synchronised orgasms, muscles quivering and beads of sweat meeting to trickle through hairs-on-end to soak into the bedcovers. Get close enough, and you’d smell the vodka on our breath. 

   But when we’re done, and we lay breathless and naked and used beside each other, we are exposed as the two most selfish people on Earth. She, the woman who knew from the very start that this would amount to nothing more than a friendship with certain other never-to-be-mentioned-in-public benefits, and who agreed to those terms without hesitation, has the audacity to hope for - no - expect it to blossom into something beautiful, like love. She wishes with all her heart that I could open my eyes and see that the chemistry we share in the bedroom extends to our lives outside of it, that we would be perfect together. She knows full well that I never want to go there, but still every time it runs through her head, and she selfishly does nothing to prevent it. If she were such a good friend, would she not keep these feelings to herself, knowing that I will never return them, and wince at the prospect?

   I, on the other hand, am the one who greedily expects this woman to carry on spending nights with me without ever yearning for any more commitment than I’ve already promised. I am the one who wants this woman to stay true to a verbal agreement we made at the start to never let it get too serious, even though I know that sexual relations complicate even the most airtight of contracts. I want this glorious paradigm of womankind to fulfil my sexual needs whenever I deem it necessary, to never look around for alternatives who could love her more; and I have the gall to expect her to suppress any emotional attachment she feels towards me, because I never want to love again. 

   We made the worst agreement two people who are sexually attracted to one another can make. And in our own ways, we’re both of us the most egocentric people in the world because of it.

   So after tonight’s particularly rigorous session, drops of my bodily fluid on her chest and a smile on her face as she runs a finger up and down my arm, she says the most selfish thing she could say. 

   ‘Aaron, we’d be so good together, why won’t you consider it?’

   And I reply with the most selfish response I could possibly think of. 

   ‘Fern, drop it, okay? We agreed this would be fine, we don’t need labels, responsibilities and commitments ruining such a good thing.’

What You Need to Know About Women

thethemeis: Bad Advice

theauthoris: Aaron Twentythree

   ‘The one thing you have to know about women,’ the man says, sitting next to his son on a bench at Waterloo East station, the rain beating down on the corrugated roof above them, ‘is that they’re all lying, cheating, filthy bitches. None of them can be trusted, and none of them are worth a second of your time. That’s the truth, buddy. Remember that.’

   ‘Okay, dad,’ replies the boy, playing with a Dr. X action figure that he holds in his hand.

   But the man isn’t finished there.

   ‘There’s this thing called sex,’ he continues loudly, ‘which you’ll learn about when you grow up, and that’s how babies are made. The one thing you need to know about it is never to have it, because no matter how much you don’t want a baby and no matter how careful you are, those lying cheating bitches I told you about will sabotage the whole thing and get pregnant deliberately just to trap you in. You’ll hear the phrase “lock it down” one day, and let me tell you now that that shit was invented by a woman. A woman thought that up, when she was planning how to get herself preggers and lock her poor man down. Probably poking holes in a condom or something.’

   By now, the commuters that stand around waiting for their rides home have started shooting uncomfortable glances at the man, for just a couple of seconds here and there. Some of them let their eyes hover, and judge the man for holding an open can of Fosters; but he doesn’t give a fuck.

   ‘Okay, dad. What’s a condom?’

   ‘Just this thing that women sabotage to lock you down, son. Forget about those, they might as well not exist. Bottom line is, don’t have sex. Not with women, anyway.’

   ‘Got it, dad.’

   ‘And another thing. If you decide to talk to a woman ever, don’t let them know how much money you have. That’s like, the biggest mistake you can make. Women only like two things: money and power. It’s the only reason they’ll ever be attracted to a man. And once they’ve got that man, they use up all his money and destroy all his power and then they move on, like fucking… leeches. Never let a woman near your credit card, your bank statements, your car, or anything else that means anything at all to you or has any monetary value.’

   ‘What about my Action Men?’ enquires the boy, looking up at his father and squinting, trying his hardest not to look at the woman who is scowling so harshly at his dad.

   ‘Fuck your Action Men,’ burps his dad, before taking another huge swig of Fosters. ‘Haven’t you grown out of them yet? How old are you?’

   ‘Seven and a half.’

   ‘Younger than I thought. Whatever.’ He hiccoughs.

   The woman who has been scowling at the boy’s father tuts and sighs then smiles at the boy, wishing for his sake that his father was giving him a better upbringing. ‘What?’ the man barks, ‘Got something to say, darlin’?’

   She hasn’t got anything to say. She returns to her free paper.

   ‘That’s another thing about women. They think they’re right about every fucking thing in the world. They’ve got more opinions than brain cells. You think of something, I guarantee a woman will have a strong opinion about it. And it’s not just your everyday sensible opinion, it’s a really fucking irate opinion that gets her all riled up and hot and wet about it. She’ll scream the house down about fucking… health policy, but if you talk about something important like football, she’ll roll her eyes like you’re the one who’s always talking shit. And then there’s the…’

   ‘Dad?’ The boy interrupts.

   ‘What?’

   ‘The other day mum said, “Don’t listen to your dad, he’s a complete fucking drunk waste of space. He must be the only man in the world with an IQ identical to his dick length.” Was she right?’

   The man just stares at his boy, leaning on his knee with the Fosters can in hand. The woman who was scowling laughs to herself, trying to keep it under wraps but snorting loudly. The conversing pair remains silent for what seems like minutes, just staring into each other’s eyes.

   ‘Yeah, she probably was,’ says the man, bringing the can to his lips again.

Lottery

thethemeis: Shiny Happy People

theauthoris: Aaron Twentythree

   After the pizza (of which we ate very little, what with the beer being so gassy and the fact that we'd already had six bottles each), my friend stopped admiring her bright red toenail polish and stared at me through her glazed, unfocused eyes. She made an Oh shape like she was about to stick a lollipop in her mouth or something much thicker and then her eyes lit up and she slurred, Let's pretend we've won the lottery. 

   What? I replied, finding it just as hard to blink as it was to catch her drift. 

   She repeated, Let's pretend like we've won the Lotto. 

   I paused. 

   What?

   I said, she said, jumping from her pert little arse onto her knees on my leather sofa, facing me and jiggling with all the excitement of a child jumping on a bed on Christmas morning, Let's pretend we've won the lottery. Let's act all crazy happy like we've just been given millions of pounds. 

   I hiccoughed. 

   How?

   Well, I don't know. I guess the first thing you do is realise, isn't it. There's like this slow build up where one of you reads the ticket and compares it to the numbers on the erm, on the (she clicked her fingers at the television)... the screen... and then after that everyone in the room just goes crazy don't they. 

   I thought for a moment. 

   Okay, I said. But you can do the realising. 

   Okay. 

*

   Oh... Oh my God... Aaron!

   What?

   I thought she might be having a heart attack or an orgasm or something. Either way, my first thought was that I hoped it wasn't my fault. 

   We've got the... We've hit the... OH MY FUCKING GOD AARON, WE'VE WON!

   I realised what she was doing. Oh!, I said. I hadn’t even realised she was serious.

   Look at it! Look at the fucking ticket! We've won the lottery Aaron I can't believe it we're rich oh my god I love you I love you oh my god...

   After I took the invisible ticket from her hands, she threw her arms around me with a force that nearly knocked my seventh beer from my hand. Though I was sluggish to pick up the roleplay, I was considering easing myself into it now. I patted her back and said, Oh my god! But I think it might have sounded awkward. It didn't matter to her anyway; she was still screaming OHMYGODWEWONICAN'TBELIEVEIT.

   Grabbing my hand, she pulled me up off the sofa and ran for the front door. I had no idea what she was doing now, but I was too drunk to fight it and she was having too much fun for me to stop her anyway. She burst through the front door and started running round in circles on my lawn, her breath following her in ribbons of steam as she screamed her celebratory screams into the cold dark night. Watching her spaz out in my front garden that night, you'd think she was a five year old trapped in an eighteen year old's body; but I knew she was just under two litres of beer trapped in a skinny little twenty-one year old's body, begging to be calmed down. She jumped in the air, she kicked the flowers that I never watered, she swung from the low-hanging branch of the tree that lent lazily from the pavement over my driveway. At first, I just laughed and watched her whooping and diving about on the lawn screaming WE'RE MILLIONAIRES, WE'RE MILLIONAIRES; but after half a minute or so the whole scene became infectious and I downed the rest of my beer so I could toss the bottle and join her over there.

   WE'RE MILLIONAIRES! I shouted, holding her hands and jumping around like a loon. WE'RE MILLIONAIRES!

   After a good twenty or so breathless minutes of dancing here and there, she pointed out that if we were really millionaires we'd be drinking champagne by now, and I agreed, so I dragged her down the street toward the off licence, and she trailed behind me giggling like a clown on crystal meth and trying to tell me my front door was left open. I need my shoes! she cackled, pulling back on my hand with no real intention of returning to my house, My feet will get dirty! It's not becoming of a lady to walk the streets in bare feet!

   Never mind them, I hollered back, breathing heavily with the strain and chuckling a dirty old drunk man chuckle, I'll lick them clean if I have to! She giggled at an even higher pitch though I think she probably didn't hear me, what with all the slurring and the breathing I was up to. We carried on half-jogging toward the shops.

   When we got to the off licence I chose two bottles of the most expensive champagne I could find and I also picked up some vodka and some peanuts and when I put it all on the counter the guy on the late night shift looked at the two of us like we were raving lunatics. He scanned the drinks slowly, eyeing us with those suspicious eyes the whole time, and I couldn't work out if it was because I was dribbling or my friend was giggling so incessantly that he was looking that way. Eventually, having perused all the racks of sweets around the counter and found nothing she wanted, my friend stumbled against the counter and looked up at his face like she wanted to suck his cock and she said, We've just won the lottery. 

   The man behind the counter turned on like a lightbulb. How much? he said. 

   Millions. 

   You are lucky lady, eh? he said, suddenly very interested in her glorious tits, pressed as they were against his till. 

   Hey, hey! I shouted, snapping my fingers at his face, Those are million pound tits now! Don't look at things you can't afford! 

   He totalled up the price and I almost gasped before I remembered we'd just won the lottery and then I paid with my credit card like I was spending loose change. My friend said But Aaron... and I said Don't worry babe, we've just won the lottery. She just giggled. 

   As we left, I pointed at my eyes and then at the man's eyes so he knew I had my eye on him and his titwatching ways. I think I pointed at his eyes anyway, my aim might have been off. 

   We opened the first bottle of champagne on the walk home, which we took very slowly now that we were all tired from the jog in the opposite direction. I swigged greedily from the bottle, suppressing my burps because I was in the presence of a lady millionaire. My friend walked kicking her feet out in front of her and spreading her toes which each step, to get another look at her nail polish. It was all she could do to stay upright while she walked with such little coordination, but she managed it even when I passed her the bottle for her to drink from. 

   My front door was open just like she'd said, and when she hissed Oh no, oh no we left the door open... I just told her not to worry. 

   We're millionaires now, I said. We can replace anything that was taken. 

   Nothing had been taken though, and after we closed the front door behind us we collapsed on the sofa next to each other, dropping the empty bottle to the floor and sighing drunk sighs, filling the room with champagne beer breath. Ooh! my friend said, jumping up and turning on the stereo, turning Gaydar all the way up. Let's dance! She said, beginning to sway her hips and closing her eyes as she twisted open another bottle of champagne. I just laughed and watched her.

   Trying my hardest not to get a stiffy. 

   I turned the TV on so I didn’t have to watch her hips gyrate and her tits bounce from side to side and her hair glide through the air as she lost her intoxicated self in the music. After flicking from channel to channel hoping to find some pornography or gore, I stumbled across one of those late night roulette shows where they spin the wheel live on air and all you have to do is call in and pick a number to win big. Since I’d already won big once that night, I thought it’d be a good idea to win more, so I picked up my phone and dialled in. I bet on twenty-three, but it didn’t come in.

   When my friend saw what I was doing she stopped dancing to the ear-splitting techno beats and joined me on the sofa. At some point which I’d missed, she’d removed her top and a very thin layer of sweat made her skin sparkle as she pressed herself against me on the sofa in just her light pink lacy bra and blue jeans. It’s not until you’re drunk and you’ve won tens of millions of pounds and you’re about to bet it all away that you notice just how much you want to fuck your friends in the face. Anyway, she started calling out numbers too and before we knew it we’d blown eighty pounds on the wheel, and that’s not counting the phone line charges at two pounds a minute. I didn’t mind, it just frustrated me that we never won a single penny back. They must be rigged, those things.

   When she got bored, my friend stood up and started dancing again. She still had the full champagne bottle in her hand and it weighed her tiny arm down, and watching her I realised just how tiny her frame is. She’s as skinny as I’ve ever seen a girl, and short too; with her full breasts and round arse, it was a surprise that I’d never noticed before that she’s pretty much exactly what I go for. I guess it’s because she’d never been dancing half naked in front of me before, all drunk and vulnerable. I’d always been put off by her large-ish nose and that terrible choice of fringe that almost covers her eyes, but now those things were nothing to me. They went out the window the moment she started pouring the champagne over her face and letting it drip down her chest, saturating her bra within seconds.

   So after that, I was dancing next to her in just my underpants, my hard on pretty much out there for all to see. Who gives a fuck? I thought. I’m a millionaire. After swigging heavily from the bottle, I poured some over my own head before starting to unbutton my friend’s short shorts.

*

   By the time I entered her for the first time, we'd already had one or two orgasms each, each of us owing to the other's tongue. I'd already sucked her toes and watched her touch herself; she'd already bitten my earlobes and whispered things she'd never say to her mother. Now, she was scratching lines down my back hard while I lay on top of her, pushing so deep into her that she gasped with each new thrust. Slowly, I would pull nearly all the way out before sliding all the way in, being pulled in even harder by those smooth legs she had wrapped around me, tensing until I could feel her heels digging into my buttocks. I grabbed the open bottle from the bedside table and with her eyes closed she raised her mouth toward the sky, ready for me to pour vodka in. As I remained pumping slowly at her crotch, I let the vodka glug glug glug all over her face and hair until the pillow was soaked and she ducked her head out of the way of the bottle, giggling and telling me to stop. After I put the bottle down, she grabbed my hair and pulled my head toward hers. She kissed me with force, shoving her tongue into my mouth and wiggling it around frantically like we might have just minutes to live. When she let go, she gazed into my eyes for a few seconds. Stop making love to me, she slurred, And just fuck me. Millionaire. 

   So I did. I grabbed her wrists and pinned her down by them, and I pounded myself against her with all the strength my drunk and exhausted body could gather. Again and again, my body slapped against hers with that constant pap, pap, pap sound that is repulsive to anyone but those involved; and again and again, she groaned with pleasure or maybe pain until she was screaming and writhing and shaking her head from side to side, flicking her hair and covering us both in the vodka it was still sopping with. After that, she pushed me off her and got on all fours.

   We did it for a long while like that, me pounding her from behind and pulling her hair hard so that her head had to stay upright and her back arched, and no matter how hard I thought I was going she wanted it harder, until we both came with knee-weakening intensity and we had to stop because we felt nauseous from all the champagne and beer and vodka and pizza and peanuts swilling around in our bellies. 

   Laying there afterward, her wet head resting on my chest sticking to all the sweat and champagne, she stroked her foot up and down my leg. Her eyes were closed, and she breathed that deep breathing that is so telling of someone who is on the brink of falling asleep. I can't believe we won, she mumbled, as she slipped into the abyss. 

   That night, I went to sleep the shiniest happiest man alive. That night, I went to sleep a millionaire sex god who had the finest piece of pussy out of anyone he knew. The next morning, I woke up a hungover idiot with a shit job, rent to pay, an astronomical credit card bill, and an excruciating worry about the night that I fucked my friend without a condom. 

My Late New Year's Resolution

thethemeis: New Year's Resolutions

theauthoris: Deadbeat

Fuck! Why am I always such a massive twat? It's only an online short story thing with a few friends of mine, nothing which will affect me in any way in the future barring perhaps a brief conversation down the pub. But still, if I can't even get myself sorted enough to contribute to something as small as that which, if i'm completely honest with myself, i've been quite looking forward to all week, how the fuck am I ever going to find the self-discipline and motivation to sort myself out this year.

I knew when I ordered that 3^rd & 4^th pint that there was only one way that day was going to end. I discussed briefly with myself the unlikely chance that i'd be able to edit and upload my currently unfinished piece of work by that evening, but even still I convinced myself that I might just call a day whilst only semi-pissed and be able to go home and finish up. I had no excuses either, i'd already claimed to be done and what a tit i'd look if I couldn't deliver now. It was only a small lie, one that in no way needed to be made. Much like the majority I squeeze into everyday conversations, almost for sport.

And yet, here I was. Lying in my bed gone midday in a puddle of my own vomit and embarrassment desperately trying to put together the clues and snapshot memories to work out what potential ridiculous things I could have said or done. My paranoia is always always in his element at times like this. He feeds me the scraps and suggests all possible obscene and anti-social outcomes that could have arisen.

“You know what you're like when you've been drinking. You could say and do anything. And if just a small fraction of the obscene thoughts and hatred that runs through his mind creeps out, then we're in big trouble aren't we.”

It's a game that we play, my subconscious and me. He suggests what he can think of as the most horrific faux pas for me to say or do in any given social situation. Then I have to try and carry on acting vaguely sane whilst not letting the thought slip out my head. Our relationship never used to be this hostile, we used to a team me and him. In my teenage years he would supply me with cutting edge offensive jokes and obscene sexual acts which I would spout out to adoring crowds. Back then all you had to do was prepared to go one step further and you could carve out a niche for yourself, create an identity. But as time went on and people “matured”, going to the extreme was no longer enough. I tried a different approached and dropped the redundant obscenely offensive tactic. He couldn't. After years of being the head speech-writer he missed the fawning applause over his work. He still had his odd moments of glory, but he became bitter and twisted, distorting his off-colour comedy into something far more anti-social. Most of the time I barely even notice him, like an attention seeking child that nobody bothers to respond to, but the more I drink, the less attentive I become and the mor chance he has of getting his grubby little hands on the wheel.

“So, did he get his way?”

My subconscious was just sitting there giggling maliciously to himself. He knew just as much as I did about what had happened the night before, but already the situation I found myself in played into his human car-crash fetish.

“I...I don't know.”

“Getting that pissed in the pub you work in, how could you be so fucking stupid! Time and time again i've told you, if you're going to do it then do it somewhere full of people you'll never see again. I've know what you think of some of those people, I've heard we he's said about them.”

“...I think i'm safe. I'm sure nothing happened. I can't remember anything bad.”

“You can't remember anything. What about at the end? There was some sort of disagreement at the end, by the dart board or something.”

“...Erm, yeah. No...i'm fairly sure it was nothing. Can't of been anything, there's nothing wrong with me is there. A few scrapes, a stubbed toe, only self-inflicted, clumsy injuries. What about my stuff, is my stuff alright?”

Without properly leaving my bed I conduct the usual scrambling search for my pocket essentials. Keys? Check. Phone? Check. Ipod? Check, and still working fine. Wallet? Check, though no money in it. And my card, shit what have I done with my debit card! Few, it's clumsily tucked into the wrong compartment of my wallet, but it's all there. Still, I feel like I lost something last night, something big, something important.

Oh no! Shit, I couldn't have. No, surely not, ...my laptop.

I dig around under my bed for the white machine which consumes 90% of my free-time. I find it and it looks clean enough. A little dirty but it's been through worse. It's had its fair share of tea and biscuits poured onto it and soldiered on regardless, hopefully this is just another feeble attack that it'll shrug off. What the fuck would I do with myself without my laptop, i'd have to watch more TV, or worse, start reading books. I took a deep breath and opened the lid. Fuck, fuck, fuck! The smell itself told me that it had taken a battering. My stomach wasn't ready for the smell this early in the morning, but I had to know. I held down the power button and was greeted with a predictable and unpleasant long bleep as if the machine itself was berating me for what I had done to it.

My sub-conscious roared up again, he hadn't had this much fun in a long time.

“YOU STUPID CUNT! THAT'S GOT TO BE THE MOST EXPENSIVE NIGHT EVER! IT MAKES GETTING INTO THAT STRANGERS CAR AND HANDING OVER HUNDREDS OF POUNDS LOOK VAGUELY FUCKING SENSIBLE! YOU'VE REALLY OUTDONE YOURSELF THIS TIME YOU USELESS CUNT!”

“You can't do anything with that. You take that to get repaired and they'll open it up, be hit with that smell and throw the fucking thing away. Then they'll stand around and laugh at us, they'll call you in to deliver the news and stand around everyone knowing, saying “There's the idiot that vomited all over his laptop.” You'll have to destroy it and make sure you smash it up completely. You don't want anyone putting it back together and finding out what you've been doing, what we've been occupying your time with!”

I didn't like to admit it but my paranoia was right, he nearly always was. And above everything else I still couldn't finish and upload my story. It was gone, it was all gone. The collection of half finished songs and musical ideas I'd been hoarding for the past few years. They weren't great and in truth most would probably always remain unfinished, but it was comforting knowing they were there. It meant I had been doing something. It meant that even though anyone looking in on my life would see nothing to be particularly proud of (beyond never committing any heinous in-humane acts) I could always tell myself that I was an undiscovered musical genius with a few aces in the pack should it come to it. Oh bugger, all the hours i'd spent playing those games too, gone. It's not often seen as a great use of time, but if nothing else it gives the feeling of doing something. A way of documenting passing time. And it was all gone. So much for starting the new year in a proactive manner.

Still, I could still get something out of this yet. This might just be the event which forces my hand, making me start something i've planned to for a while. After all, it's not too late. 13 days into the new year is nothing, I can make a vow now and stick to it just as rigidly. That's it, I will. From now until next year, I won't touch another drop of alcohol. I know it seems like a melodramatic knee-jerk reaction, but it's something thought about doing for a long time. This isn't the first time i've waken up in a pool of my own vomit and whilst I haven't kept count, I wouldn't be too surprised to hear I was into double figures. Plenty of times I have gone one step too far, where there is always the potential to make a complete cock of yourself.

“You can laugh it off now and then, but sooner or later everyone will just grow fucking tired of you.”

And whilst drinking in moderation seems like the obvious solution, that's something that i'm supposed to have been doing for the past two years, but I simply haven't. It's not that I find myself longing for a drink at any point, the majority of the time I just do it because it's what you do in those situations. The problem is that I'll either have a few or get completely plastered. I've never mastered mid-range drinking (unless I really run out of money). It's just that once you've popped your head in for a bit, you begin to remember why you've done it so many times before. For me, Charles Bukowski put it best:

“When you drank the world was still out there, but for the moment it didn’t have you by the throat. “

Even my paranoia loosens his grip. He might even start fighting my corner, telling me i'm not in the wrong or maybe that the girl across the room really does like the look of me. Though he'll never admit to it the morning after. But that sort of habit is a bad one to get into. Maybe if I can avoid the stuff for a year. Learn to have a good time and relax among the swarming masses. Maybe I can go back and finally master that mid-range drinking. Finally wake up after a night of drinking, with a full set of memories and a vomit-free bed. Bliss.

So that's what i'll do, my January 14^th resolution: No alcohol for a year.

               ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

That evening back at work and it turns out I wasn't anywhere near as bad as I thought I might be. If anything I good quite a good reaction to my night of heavy drinking, perhaps I over-exaggerated the whole thing. At the end of my shift my boss poured my drink. It'd be rude to say no and besides, what harm can one do.