Fire Away

Oh, no, I think, I can’t even get up and walk away.

I laugh to myself, kind of nervously. You know, if that is your first thought when somebody approaches you at work, it is probably time to get a new job.

It is what I think when Pony-Tail HR Chick approaches me with "that" smile on her face. "That" smile that told me that she wants something. (Oh yes, as HR chicks do, pass it on, just keep passing your work on.)

I reach for my mouse and click on Seek. The mouse, the modern day equivalent of the ruby slipper. Click your mouse and say three times. "Anywhere but here. Anywhere but here. Anywhere but here."

Poof! Whoosh up into the sky. Whirling around and around and around until I land somewhere new and exciting, where that is nobody knows. Come on, thrill me...

I open one eye. Nothing. Pony-Tail HR chick is still barrelling towards me, Doh! "That" look still on her face.

I look up and smile. Oh, yes? What? 

"Hi. How are you?" I say. Smile. The smile isn't even forced, says the spider to the fly. I have been doing this long enough to know how to fake a sincere smile, as I mentally plot someone's death.

She shrugs and scrunches her nose, clearly, she thinks she is Tabatha Stevens, only half a life time of years, and far too many days in the sun, to pull that one off. 

“Can I ask a favour?” she says.

Oh, here we go, the dreaded favour. “Sure.”

“I have this small problem.”

You want me to do your work for you, but you are not sure how to get me to do it. “Fire away.” I wouldn’t classify your problems as small.

I love that expression. I mentally picture 6 men standing behind her with shot guns, each blindfolded. They all fire at once.  I can see the bullets spinning through the air. Her head explodes like a watermelon hit very hard, red pulp covers everything, splat, splat, splat, splat, splat, splat, splat, splat, as the bullets destroy the back of the head, simultaneously. She falls to the ground like a bag of shit.

“I have a contract that I just need to…”

Just as I thought, do your own work. I stop listening. Blah, blah, blah blah is all I can hear, set to Shine On You Crazy Diamond. I really should listen, I guess. But, I am astral travelling high above our heads. There is purple and red and blue shooting through the crisp air brightly and shiny, like streamers flung of electric magical colour. It is brilliant. It is gorgeous. Everything is beautiful I’m inside one million neon signs...

“So, what do you think?... Josh?”

Come on you target for faraway laughter... The beautiful light suddenly fades. The music stops. Gone. “Oh, um, er, I don’t know.” I stare her in the eye and dare her to question my response.

She folds like a failed bluff in poker. “Oh... um... rightio then... I’ll investigate... um... a little further then... shall, I?”

“Okay,” I say.

There is a moment where we both just gaze at each other. She is not quite sure of the answer I have given her. But, I am sending thought blockers through my death stare straight into the cavity where her brain ought to be. She is wondering if she should question me further, but she is not really sure what question she should ask. My mental mind fuck is working its magic on her, she is putty in my hands. Oh! Yuk! She is white gloop on my fingers, I shake her off, she rematerialises in front of me.

Her lip curls.

She is a deer caught in headlights, such is my mind control. I am staring at her unblinking. I am beginning to imagine ants eating out her eyeballs. She spontaneously rubs her face. She rubs again, she is not really sure why she is touching her eyes. It is as if she has hey fever, but worse.

“Okay,” she says. She shrugs and scrunches up her nose again. It still has no effect on me, that cutesy nose move, nice try Tabatha. The crow’s feet appear at the corners of her smiling eyes, momentarily. Crease, crease. He skin reminds me of brown paper. She makes big eyes. I imagine what she'd look like with myxomatosis. She opens her mouth and her tongue makes a kind of clack noise, which I am not at all sure she means to make. She backs away.

I spin around back to my screen. I can feel her presence less and less behind me. I am a star ship commander, the two screens in front of me morph into the universe. I say, "Engage." The milky way around me melts into liquid light as we hit warp speed and I am suddenly a thousand light years away from the mundane problems of the day.

What Does this Bitch Want?

What does this bitch want?

You know, if that is your first thought when somebody approaches you at work, it is probably time to get a new job.

It was what I thought when the fat HR chick approached me with "that" smile on her face. "That" smile that told me that she wanted something. (Oh yes, as HR chicks do, pass it on, just keep passing it on)

I reached for my mouse and clicked on Seek. The mouse, the modern day equivalent of the ruby slipper. Click your mouse and say three times. "Anywhere but here. Anywhere but here. Anywhere but here."

Poof! Whooshed up into the sky. Whirling around and around and around until I land somewhere new and exciting, where that is nobody knows.

I opened one eye. Nothing. Fatty HR Person was still barrelling towards me. Doh!

I looked up and smiled. Yes, bitch? "Hi. How are you?" Smile. The smile wasn't even forced. Said the spider to the fly. I have been doing this long enough to know how to smile sincerely as I plot someone's death

Figuratively speaking, of course. I don’t really want to kill her. Well, you get caught, don’t you. Life in prison. I hear prison isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. I mean, being Maddog's bitch for the rest of my life? No. Not worth it, I think, as Fat Carla approaches me.

“You got a minute.” Those dreaded four words from an HR professional, enough to make the most hardened amongst us quiver.

Depends whose asking, apparently, isn’t the answer. You can get sent to HR for that. Ha ha. “Yeah, sure.”

“I need those figures…” I put the gun up to my shoulder, looked through the eye piece, lined it up with her left eye and squeezed the trigger. And her head exploded all over the white wall behind her…

“Today, if possible,” she said.

“Ah… sure.” What the hell 'figures' is she talking about? I thought.

“Are they ready now?”

“Ah? Just remind me.”

“Remind you?”

“Yes, if you can.”

“The remuneration budget.”

“The remuneration budget?”

“Oh, Jesus, so they are nowhere near ready, are they?”

“You asked me for these when?”

“In our meeting?”

“Our meeting?”

“Oh, you have to be kidding,” said Carla. “Why is it always like this with you?”

“Um, we never had a meeting.”

“Phone meeting.” Carla rolled her eyes.

“We never had a meeting, phone, or otherwise?”

“Jacob, I am really disappointed with…”

“I’m not Jacob.”

“What?”

“I’m not Jacob.” If I told you I was suddenly loving this, you had better believe me.

Carla pulled her head back at the neck, tucking her chin in, and widening her eyes, wider than I thought possible, you know, pulling her mouth into such a position of someone who had just crapped their pants. I could see her feeling it running down the backs of her thighs for the first time.

I didn’t say anything. I was just enjoying the criminally uptight and the perennially incompetent being caught being criminally uptight and the perennially incompetent.

I could feel my eyes narrow in anticipation of her response.

“You’re… not…”

“No.” That was possibly the most satisfying 'no' I have ever uttered.

“Jacob?” 

Watching her squirm came in a close second in the delightful stakes to the previous 'no'.

Here was a, senior, HR professional who didn’t know who the staff were. And I was pretty sure knowing who the staff were was really a minimum requirement of senior HR professionals. They were all ‘professionals’ now, not directors, not managers, all professionals, they thought that made them more accessible to the staff, whatever that means.

I felt my head shake. “No.”

I would have thought knowing who the staff were would make them more accessible than any title they care to use. But what would I know… Carla. I was smiling, I could feel it in my face.

Was she going to ask me if I was sure I wasn’t Jacob. Oh, please, ask me that, I thought, behind my smile.

“Oh,” she said.

I wasn’t offering anything more to her, I just held her in my gaze and watched her squirm. The moment was exquisite.

“You’re not Jacob?”

Close enough. Bingo! We have a winner. “No.” I can keep saying no as many times as required, as it is immensely satisfying.

“Oh,” she said, again.

Oh indeed, I thought. Was there anything else, I wondered? I could sit here for the rest of my life keeping up this silence, as every minute that it progressed is the equivalent of me rubbing her face in the piss she just did on the carpet.

I can’t tell you how much I enjoyed it. I wanted to rest my elbows on the desk, and rest my chin on the backs of my hands supporting my face and gaze at her faux adoringly waiting for the blood start to running from her nose as her brain started to haemorrhage, as her eyes fell from her face hanging down on springy veins. Oh, that thought made me want to smile and I had to concentrate for it not to show on my face. 

She turned and walked away.

Try To Be A Good Person

I tried to be a good person, I really did. But, the world is too awful a place. There are too many horrible people in charge. There are too many terrible people making decisions. 

What’s good for society? What is good for them? Right and left hand up and down? Up and down? 

"I might just go with what is good for me? You know, this once?"

This once of one hundred times? Easily justified, in the selfish mind.

It is hard, you know, when you see the Prime Minister of this country spew lies every time he opens his mouth and makes an utterance. He has made it okay to lie. He has shown us that you can base your entire career on a pack of lies.

"I don't need to tell the truth, when the guy with the top job doesn't"

Australia is now such a cruel and hard hearted nation. "Tow the boats back, tow that wretched scum back to the hell they deserve." We're alright Jack, we live in privilege and we intend for it to stay that way. Build a wall? Get bigger boats to drive them away?

Don't you dare come and crap on our good fortune.

Who do you think you are?

We don't care about you, Jack. We're okay.

That is what we are saying to the rest of the world.

“That is how the rest of the world sees us.”

“The rest of the world?"

“Yes.”

“I don’t think poor countries see us that way.”

“Oh, come on.”

“I think poor countries would be looking elsewhere to flee to…”

“Are you saying you agree with ‘fortress Australia’?

“No, I am just saying that people in need who are looking for a better life, would be looking at somewhere that is easier to get into....”

“That sounds like agreement.”

“I’m not talking about the moral stand, I am talking about simple facts. People will attempt to flee to countries where there is a chance of them succeeding.”

“You understand it is a political tool?”

“What?”

"Conservative politician’s use, what is essentially racism, to win votes.”

“A deliberate strategy?”

“Yes.”

“To win votes?”

“Yes. Use the weakest and the powerless to look tough and protective and the punters vote for you.”

“You don’t think it has anything to do with a country’s right to choose who and when people come to that country.”

“No, not at all. It is about winning votes.”

“There is no ideological basis for the policy.”

“There is, win votes by any means you can.”

“So, you are saying the conservative side of government stands for nothing?”

“Other than wining votes and gaining power, yes, it stands for nothing.”

“It’s not about serving the people of this country.”

“No, it’s about gaining power at all costs and then servicing it’s political donors who will in turn make them part off the rich and powerful elite.”

“That seems pretty shallow.”

“What can I say?”

“Well, I don’t think you can say conservative politicians stand for nothing.”

“No, you are right,” I say. “I can’t say they stand for nothing, because they stand for less than nothing…”

“Oh, come on? I’m not a conservative voter, but…”

“They are all about cutting regulations for their powerful mates. They set out to destroy the unions and collective bargaining to suppress wages for the workers. They froze universal healthcare rebates to doctors. They cut taxes ostensibly for the rich which ties into their bigger plan of no longer being able to fund services for the poor.”

“Seriously.”

“IPA (conservative free-market think tank) wish list.”

“I see.”

“They are dismantling the progressive tax system with their next round of tax cuts. They are suppressing the dole and refusing to lift welfare recipients out of poverty. All policies designed to pander to the rich and disadvantage the poor, bringing about greater inequality the likes of which we have never seen before, in this country.”

“So, they are the big boogey man, you say?”

“They are worse than that, they are denying climate change, pushing fossil fuel. The Prime Minster is suggesting using the clean energy fund to explore new gas options. They are pushing nuclear power generation simply as a point of difference to denigrate renewables. They are proposing that solar and wind turbines production is bad or the environment.”

“The science isn’t…”

“When 98% of the scientists in the world agree, the science is set.”

“People would disagree.”

“And to my wider point, how can you expect the population to be good citizens when you have conservative politicians being duplicitous with what they are doing, only pushing the agenda of the very few. Tell me that?”

“If they don’t like it, they can exercise their right and vote the conservative party out of govt at the next election.”

“How does Joe Average be a good person when so many of his role models treat the weak and the vulnerable as not worth their time?”

“The weak and the vulnerable don’t build a strong economy.”

“Surely, the government’s only real job is to make society more equal for all of its citizens?”

That Secret Place

No matter who we are, no matter where we live, no matter what we have, no matter what we do, no matter how we see ourselves, I think, at some point, we all have a desire to escape.

Leave it all behind. Make a clear break. To walk away. Get away from it all. Start afresh, in some other place. Be new. Be different Be somebody else.

Escape.

We all have that desire. One day, I will run away from it all. It gives me joy, the thought, a thrill, deep inside, even just fleetingly.

Some place new. Something new. Everything new. Some place where nobody knows me, where everything is reset and the promise of so many things is restored. You know, like when you were a kid and everything was wonderful and exciting, a discovery every day.

I think men want a cave and solitude. I think women want comfort and somebody to share it with.

I don't want a cave though, I want happiness and companionship. I want peace. I want sanctuary. I want simplicity here on earth.

“Escape, you say?”

“Yes.”

“Escape from?”

“All of this,” he says. “Everything.”

“Everything?”

“Yep, I dream of it.”

“Oh,” he says. Followed by a sigh.

“Just get in my car and drive. Get on the highway and leave the city. Just let the road take you where it takes you. End up who knows where? Haven’t you ever dreamed of that?”

“Yes.”

“No destination, just the wide open road.”

“Yes.”

“Nobody to answer to, nowhere to be.”

“Sure, but we can’t all do that?”

“Why not?”

“Society would cease to function.”

“So, what, let is stop. We’re only making billionaires wealthier, at this point.”

“But what about Julie and the kids?”

“Yes, from them too.”

“Really?”

“Oh, especially them. Let all responsibility go. That would be the aim.”

“But, you’d miss them…”

“Yeah, sure, sure I would, but that wouldn’t be a reason not to.

“Have you ever had an affair?”

“No.”

“Why don’t you have an affair.”

“I want to escape the complications of life, an affair…”

“Too complicated?”

“Oh, yes, who can do that?”

“Who can do that? Half the married men in the world.”

“Yeah, I have never really understood how?”

“Really?”

“Yes. I know what Julie does each day, as she does me. How would I ever get away with it? How would I fit it in?”

“Good organisational skills?”

“No, seriously? I think people who have a affairs, their partners must just not care, and the shit only hits the fan when other people catch wind of it. I don’t see how else they do it?”

“Get yourself a man cave?”

“Oh, if you are going to do it, I think you need to do it properly?”

“Make a clean break?”

“Clear out without an explanation is exciting. Brave. Creating a safe space in which to escape, is shutting down. That is weak.”

“So, disappear?”

“Break out, go forth into the world.”

“Run away?”

“Call it whatever you want.”

“Whatever you want?”

“An investment in your mental health. Discovering the rest of your life? Breathing out.”

The Fisherman's Son

Jamie was only a fisherman's son, and he lay on the slab and said fillet.

On top of the marble slab, just like that. He climbed up not worrying about the fish guts and entrails remaining from the previous cleaning. Fish heads mouths open as if gasping for their last breath fell to the floor, intestines stuck to Jamie’s thighs and knees, scales stuck silvery to the skin on his stomach and chest. Blood smeared on his elbows.

The fishermen stood around in their black leather aprons staring at the lad prostate in front of them. His sculptured chest, his perfect stomach muscles, his muscular legs, an arse they all wanted. That's what Jamie knew.

The fisherman's son was wide-eyed, like an animal caught in spotlights, except there were no spotlights. He chewed furiously as he looked from one to the next of the tough fishermen staring at him.

The effeminate son of the head fisherman had long since dreamt of having his water proof pants torn from his limbs and his underwear ripped to his ankles, before being pushed over the bow of the boat by a line of pent up, many days from home, sex-crazed fishermen waiting to have their turn inside him.

He'd hung around in the communal showers on many a night and he knew that Chook and Sargent and Jackoff all looked with interested eyes. He knew Sargent had a horse cock, not so pretty but thick. And Percy had wanked for Jamie one late stormy night but he wouldn't let Jamie touch it when he reached for it, as the cum hung from Percy's knob in strings.

If they thought Jamie would be intimidated, if they thought he'd freak out, if they thought he'd scream out in fear, they were wrong. He wasn't hurting, or terrified, or terrorised, he loved the idea of it, he revelled in the attention. He knew he would love it, he begged for it.

"Do it to me." His voice was gravelly. Like you'd wanted to do it to each other's daughters ever since you saw them in their bikinis on the beach that first summer after they hit puberty. "I'm as tight as a twelve year old." His internal monologue tried not to laugh. He rested his forehead down on the cold marble, he raised his arse in the air, wiggling it around slowly, in his white briefs poking out from the arseless leather apron he was wearing. He breathed in what these men breathed in every night at midnight when they ate their wives pussies. "I can take you all." Harder than any girl will let you take them. "I can take anything you can dish out." All of you, one after the other. "I don't care about respect, whatever you want, I'm willing.” Two at once if any of you think you can do it. "Make me stretch…”

He could hear the gathered crowd's breathing. He could sense their attention and it was all directed at him. Their sexual angst was palpable, they'd been at sea for months. All energy beams were now drilling into his skin, peeling the hair from the crack in his arse, he could feel it.

Face down, he squirmed on the cold marble, rolling around on his hardening cock. He could feel the cool sea air blowing against the crack in his arse, or was that the gathered men's intent? He knew which he suspected it to be, wanted it to be. His pink hole puckered, not that the assembled gang-bang could see that, not yet.

Suddenly, a huge hand jammed itself between his legs from the back, wrapping around his nuts first and then sliding underneath him and grabbing his boner brutally hard, which only made him stiffen up to the hardness of steal.

"This little bitch is sure ready for it," said Sargent's gruff voice. His hand squeezed Jamie so hard that in any other situation it would have hurt and Jamie would have yelped in pain no doubt, but he was so turned on he started to imagine nothing these fishermen could do, short of producing a knife and cutting him open, was going to hurt him. He was ready to be brutally raped by a gang of disgusted fishermen, and he was wondering why these guys were taking so long. He thought, if he isn't punched in the face, he doubted very much he was going to be able to cum.

“He’s always wanted it,” said Percy.

Jamie could feel the men close in around him.

He imagine having his arms twisted up behind his back, maybe his shoulder dislocating and being chocked with huge brutal hands around his neck strangling off the air flow to his brain, before his cast iron cock could spray a agonisingly painful load of jizz out of him in hard, torturous busts. He ground his hard cock into the cold marble at the very thought.

Sargent’s thick, sausage fingers breached the leg elastic of Jamie’s briefs and what felt like the tip of his middle finger slid into Jamie’s arse crack and then pierced Jamie’s puckering hole with more force than Jamie was expecting, which took his breath away momentarily, but at the same time it made precum shoot from Jamie’s cock, he could feel it wet against his stomach.

“Jesus!” It was Mad Dog’s voice.
Mad Dog was the latest fisherman recruit. A bikey who’d mysteriously said he needed to get off the road for a time, when he was asked why he joined the crew. Mad Dog, who, in his first week, had screamed “whippet”, when he’d seen Jamie walking the corridor from the shower to his bunk, pulling the towel from Jamie’s hips leaving him naked. Jamie thought he was going to get flicked with the white towelling, instead Mad Dog picked Jamie up raising him high into the air above his head, one hand on Jamie’s chest, one hand grabbing him in the crotch by the dick, as Mad Dog ran up onto the deck, to the edge of the boat and motioning to throw Jamie full force overhead into the water. Stopping as he seemingly went to throw Jamie, stopping mid throw with a jolt and dropping Jamie full force onto the deck like the proverbial bag of shit, where he lay cowering, fully naked, on the wooden deck planks. Mad Dog laughed maniacally, screaming, “You should have just seen your fucking face! Fucken priceless. You thought you were going to die.”

Jamie was really turned on. He bared up. He tried to hide it by crossing his legs.

Mad Dog grabbed Jamie by the forearm, and pulled him to his feet. He slapped Jamie’s hard on with his open hand. “You’ve got a horn, you dirty little perve.” The crew had gathered around, one of them threw Jamie his towel, which he wrapped around himself before he hurried away.

Jamie was still jerking nightly about that incident.
“Make him wet.” That was Chook.

Another hand came down the back of his briefs, the thick finger of which was saliva drenched joined Sergeants still buried inside Jamie hole making them both equally as wet and able to plumb great depths of Jamie’s anus.

“I want to fucken see.” It was Mad Dog’s voice again, this time catching on the sexual desire welling up in his throat.

The next thing Jamie could hear was the tearing sound of his briefs as they were ripped off his arse.

Then he heard spitting, only some of which he could feel landing on his skin.

“Whose first?” asked Percy.

BusinessForce

"I don't want to go back to the call centre," said Kevin.

"Nobody wants to go back to the call centre," said Justin. "You should have studied harder in school, Kev. You should have studied harder."

"Fuck off," said Kevin. "You know... you know... I..."

Justin slapped Kevin on the back. "Oh, come on, let's not go back over that," said Justin. "He touched you, we all know he touched you." Justin punched Kevin on the arm. "Come on, come on Chook should be home now, we can get some gunga."

"I sooooo don't want to go back to the call centre."

"Come with me and soon you won't even be thinking about it."

"Call centre hell!"

"Ah, call centre hell," said Justin. "Back to Camp Guantanamo."

Kevin made a noose and rope motion above his head. "I'm not going, you can't make me. I'd rather..."

"Kev, I'm not going to make you do anything," said Justin. He put his arm around Kevin's shoulders and he gave his buddy a squeeze, which felt oddly nice, reassuring. "No one is sending you back to hell, mate."

Kevin could feel himself physically relax with his buddy’s touch. Kevin put his arm around Justin, as if for support as they walked down Droop Street.

Chook's door was once painted red, but at some stage someone had tried to paint it black, but had done a lousy job, the red bled through like it might under a scab, Kevin always thought. The creeper on the front of the house was so over grown that the window was beginning to be lost in amongst the foliage. The womb, Kevin thought, he’d smile to himself when he thought that it needed a Brazilian.

Justin knocked on the door. Nothing. Justin knocked again.

"He's not home," said Kevin.

"Chook's home, Chook is always home." Justin knocked again. He knocked again. Then he pounded on the door.

"Police!" yelled Kevin.

Justin reeled around looking alarmed at Kevin. "What are you doing?" Justin raised his hands in the air. "What the fuck?"

"I thought it would get him to open the door quicker."

"You are not a bright fucker, are ya?" said Justin. "You want Chook going over the back fucken fence." 

The door cracked open. "Who is it?" a croaky voice asked.

"Justin."

The door was suddenly flung open. "Jesus, fuck me it's bright.” Standing in front of Kevin and Justin was a tall, lean, pale-skinned streak of a male with his hair standing on end, his eyes half closed, shirtless naked, semi-muscular torso, with dirty crimson track pants, sitting diagonally low on his hips to expose his pubes and the very top of his dick shaft. He put one hand to his face, as the other hand tugged his pants up at the front. The track pants had the left leg torn off below the calf. 

Kevin could only assume that this was Chook.

"Did some cunt say police?"

"Just my boy Kev," said Justin. "He thought it was funny..."

"Fucken retarded," said Chook.

Kevin started to say something, but Justin covered his mouth with his hand. "They are the first words this retarded mute has said since his mother and father were torn to pieces by dogs in front of his very eyes..."

Kevin looked at Justin with wide questioning eyes, still with his hand firmly over his mouth. Justin met his gaze, his eyes widening as if a command.

"Did he get that on his iPhoned," said Chook. "I'd sure fucken love to have seen that."

"Na mate."

Kevin licked Justin's fingers with his tongue. Justin squeezed Kevin's face hard enough to cause Kevin pain and to stop him licking his hand. Kevin stopped licking with a short whimper and a shiver.

Someone had been drawing on Chook's face with red biro, outlining his mouth and his eyes, adding a Hitler tash below his nose. Kevin assumed Chook hadn’t done it himself. Kevin tentatively bought his hand up to his face as though he was trying out drawing on his own face.

"You'd better get the fuck in here before the boy's in blue turn up," said Chook. "I can't afford any more pay offs this week. Um, er, I'm already carrying stock depletion because of the last one."

The hallway was dark when Chook closed the door behind them. There was some light seeping in from the tears in the curtains covering the glass next to the front door, but beyond where they were standing, it was like looking into a cave. There seemed to be multiple layers of carpet covering the floor, just waiting to trip someone up.

"Go on, go through, or do you want a fucking tour?" said Chook. "You've got in here often enough to know the fucken way to fucken go." 

Chook laughed a throaty laugh, like a huge chunk of phlegm had just let go in the back of his throat. He coughed and coughed until he, clearly, hacked it up into his mouth, then he spoke through the liquid veil over his teeth, like his words were wet. 

"Even if you don't remember the way ou..." His vocabulary failed him and he resorted to grunting and pointing, seemingly angrily. Maybe not.

The house stunk of stale smoke and BO. The curtains were closed in the lounge room too, in fact, all of the curtains in the whole house seemed to be closed. There was a huge TV diagonally across one corner of the room, blaring Jerry Springer. There was a thick cloud of smoke hanging in the air. When Kevin looked passed the blue light of the screen, every square centimetre of the wall space was covered in shelves covered in knickknacks, vases, plates, figurines, jugs, statues, clocks, boxes, crystal... in a mind boggling display.

"A lot of shit, hey?" Justin's words broke into Kevin's observations.

"It's not shit," cried Chook. "They are my fucken treasures…"

“Opshop finds,” said Justin, dismissively.

“One day, one of them is going to make me fucken rich, you wait. I’m gunna unearth a Da Vinchy."

There was a brown couch in the middle of the room, a coffee table in front of it and an armchair next to the both of them. There was a bong on the table, a huge porcelain bowl with a huge mix in it. Every square centimetre of floor space was covered with tables, tea trolleys, chests, foot stools, ottomans, poofs, all sorts of small, occasional furniture, in varying sizes and shapes.

"Take a seat," Chook commanded from the door, talking over the TV, as he entered the room. "On the couch!" He pointed to the chair. "That's my fucken spot!" He stood in front of them, sliding one hand down his track pants and scratching himself and one hand picking at his unkempt hair as though he had nits. "Did you bring that money you owe?"

Kevin thought it looked like a maze, he hesitated and then stepped his way through carefully.

"Yeah," said Justin. He started to pull $100 notes out of his pocket.

"Keep it!" said Chook. "You're a good bloke..." He pushed Justin's hand full of cash back into Justin's chest.

"Customer," said Justin.

"Mate," said Chook. "Money drives me batshit crazy. It destroys people." He sat heavily in the chair. He picked up the remote and muted the TV, suddenly there was silence. "Some bitch has had a baby with her fucken brother, do you believe it?" He reached out for the bong. "Wanna a smoke?"

"Yes," said Kevin, perhaps too quickly.

Justin slapped Kevin. "Yes," he said too.

The bong was already packed, Chook moved it to his mouth. He flicked the lighter and held it to the cone. The water gurgled and hissed. Chook sucked the entire contents of the cone up in one draw, pulling a face of such pain Kevin was sure he was going to expire before his very eyes. Chook's mouth contorted in an ugly way. He seemed to have the circular breathing of a didgeridoo player, he seemed to be leaking smoke from every hole in his head as he finished sucking it in. A cloud of smoke wafted up into the stale air of the house above him. 

"Ahhhhhhhhhhhhh!" Chook groaned and moaned all at the same time as he exhaled, deep, guttural from deep within him. Then he coughed.

"So," said Chook. There still seemed to be smoke seeping from all of his pores, if smoke had been leaking out of Chook's arse, Kevin wouldn't have been surprised. "What do I owe the pleasure..." Chook was stuffing mull into the bong cone. He handed the bong to Justin. Justin flick, flick, flicked the lighter and then drew in deeply on the bong.

"We just wanted a smoke," said Kevin. He decided to fill in the silence that was created by Justin's turn on the dirty glass vessel. Justin turned to Kevin looking somewhat alarmed with Kevin's honesty.

Justin tried to talk immediately. "Um... er... no... no..." Justin held out his hand to Kevin.

"What? Ah?" Kevin suddenly felt nervous.

Chook laughed out loud. "What? Fuck! No, no, no Justin, I like your boy's honesty." He laughed again and got up on his chair like a crab might sit in a chair. He took the bong from Justin, who lay back in his chair and blew his smoke towards the mud coloured ceiling.

"Thank the fucken Christ for someone fucken honest. Good for you buddy. Good for you. Bra-fucken-vo. I get sick of these piss-ant cunts coming around here sucking my fucken blood dry and trying to call it something else."

Chook handed the bong to Kevin. "You suck cock, Kevin?"

Kevin didn't know what to say to Chook's bluntly honest question.

"We didn't JUST come around for a smoke," said Justin. Kevin noticed Justin's eyes were big.

"Fuck my arse you didn't," said Chook. "I'm allowed to have soooocial calls anyway. It doesn't always have to be running the fucken empire, you know."

"I... I... I..." Kevin stumbled. He was making an attempt at answering Chook's question. He wanted to capitalise on his new found acceptance. "I might..."

"Relax, dick!" Justin slapped Kevin across the chest. "It isn't a proposition, it is a question."

Kevin’s answer was repeating in his head, as he put the bong to his lips and flicked the lighter. He relaxed the back of his throat and sucked on the mouthpiece. The hot smoke burned the back of his throat and he felt like he wanted to cough, but he concentrated all of his efforts on not coughing, relaxing his throat more and more and more until he'd sucked the whole cone into his lungs. His throat was burning and he desperately wanted to cough, but he didn't, he held out. He didn't quite know how he managed it, but he did. He was sure it had something to do with Chook's newly found admiration of him. He wanted Chook to like him.

"You're alright," said Chook. He winked at Kevin. The red biro outline around Chooks eye moved as he winked accentuating the gesture, leaving Kevin to wonder if Chook was really coming on to him.

“How’s business?” asked Justin.

“Sweet,” said Chook. “I’ve almost got me nothing to do, ever since I put the call centre to work.”

“The call centre?” asked Justin.

“Yeah, 1300 MRS HLP.” Justin looked confused. “I sell baby clothes.” Justin looked even more confused. He glanced over at Kevin momentarily and then he looked back at Chook. “Home fucken delivery,” said Chook.

“What?” asked Justin. “You sell what?” He sounded confused, but more than that he sounded disappointed, disappointed that Chook had gone legit. “Baby clothes?”

Chook had kept a deadpan face, but then his, what would have been a handsome face under the wild hair and the red colouring in, broke into a broad smile. “Yeah, fuck head, I sell baby clothes.” Chook roared with laughed. He looked at Kevin. “I sell fucken baby clothes, do you fucken believe it.” Kevin didn’t know what to believe.

“What?” said Justin.

“I’m getting into the baby care business.” Chook laughed some more. He picked up the repacked bong and flicked the lighter. He sucked hard on the glass mouthpiece. He coughed and smoked chugged out his mouth with each chug. “You crack me up, fucker.” He took the cone out of its slot and banged it into the ashtray.

“What the fuck?” said Justin.

“I sell baby clothes,” said Chook. He put the cone back into the bong. He picked up some mix from the mull bowl and put it into the cone. He handed it to Kevin.

“Don’t give me the shits,” said Justin. He was clearly getting sick of being made a fool of.

“I’m still in business. I’m putting my calls through BusinessForce, so my phone doesn’t ring off the hook.” Chook paused for effect, letting the fact sink in. “I had to get some legit cover, to get my phone answered for me. I can’t exactly have the punters calling up and asking for a quarter and 5 points, now can I.”

“Through BusinessForce?”

“Yep…”

“You sly fucker,” said Justin.

“Frank Positano, the owner, buys coke from me.” Chook shrugged.

The smoke burned the back of Kevin’s throat, as much as he didn’t want to cough in front of Chook he couldn’t help it.

“You don’t cough, you don’t get off,” said Chook sympathetically.

“You got other people taking your orders for you?”

“That’s right. And I’ve got a couple of illegals making the deliveries…”

“Illegals?” asked Justin.

“A couple of Viets who’ve over staid their welcome, shall was say.”

“Deliveries?” asked Kevin.

“We do home delivery,” said Chook. “You got a licence?”

“Sure,” said Kevin.

“Do you want a job?”

“Oh… um?” said Kevin.

“You got a car?” asked Chook.

“Yeah.”

Chook looked at Justin. “So I am now in the coordination business,” Do they call that analytics?" he said. “Arm’s length, man.”

“Arm’s length,” said Justin.

“Like we always said,” said Chook.

“Like we always said,” said Justin.

Like who always said to who, thought Kevin.

“I organise A to collect B from C and to deliver it to D in exchange for E,” said Chook. “A then delivers E to F and I transfer F to G. I then transfer H to A. At the end of every month I transfer J to C. And life is fucken sweet.”

“Sweet,” said Justin.

“And the king sits in his counting house, counting his fucking money.”

“I told you all those years ago it would work,” said Justin, clearly in awe. And you did it.”

“Getting the punters to say the right thing on the phone to sweet little Kylie doing her part time job on her one of her two days off from uni is the weak link. That will need a contingency plan, but other than that…”

“Arm’s length.”

“As the Bishop said to the actress, as long as you don’t, actually, get caught with your hands in their knickers, everything else can be handled by a good lawyer,” said Chook. He and Justin laughed. “I had no idea officer that they were delivering gunger.” Chook pulled a clueless face and looked around the room like a halfwit. “He just came here to give me a massage, if you know what I fucken mean. Nudge, nudge, fucken wink!”

“Is it a crime to like them hairless,” said Justin.

Justin and Chook roared with laughter.

“They could be shaved,” said Justin. “Don’t get me wrong.”

Kevin suddenly had no idea what they were talking about.

Love In Dark Places

Piss and shit and puss and vomit – you are getting fucked mindlessly at 3am blind drunk off your mind – you are spewing in the garden as the guy who just fucked you wipes your shit off his cock. Your phlegm is sprayed across the grass glistening in the moon light. He has sticky shit skin fingers, you can see them sticking together when you look back. His wedding ring is gold, occasionally glinting in the dim light. You have vomit flavoured, sour breath, you can taste it. He has a sticky foreskin with raisons of your shit under it. What can you say, this was unexpected. If you'd known, you'd have come prepare, still, it didn't slow him down any, now did it, he got right in there. Fuck it felt good, getting opened up like the little bitch that you are. You can see his choc chip knob as he pulls his foreskin back. He tries to shake it off. The smell of your shit is in the air.

He looks up at you with those eyes. Sexy or menacing? The eyes of a lover, or a psychopath, you are really not sure. You think they are the reason you liked him. The way he looked at you. Was it menacing, or commanding? It was the eyes, it had to be, as he wasn't much of a talker.

The wind blows cold in the dark. Bitter is the wind at 3.30am.

You shiver cold in the night. You start to say something, you don't know what. Words. Just say something.

He calls you a dirty faggot, before you feel his fist in your face. Crack! Bone hitting bone, that's what you feel. A sudden impact, unexpected. You stagger backwards. Dazed. You bring your hand to your face, automatically. Your face is wet, also kind of sticky, like treacle. It is numb, you can't feel it, the blood on your hands. You look passed your hand to see the back of your guy disappearing across the oval towards the darkness of the trees and then out of sight.

You are alone on in the park in the early hours of the morning with your jeans and jocks around your ankles, wiping the sleeve of your hoodie across your wet stub of a nose. Cum oozes from your cock now shrivelled the size of a footy frank.

The frost on the grass is making your shoes wet. There is a breeze blowing up the backs of your legs. Up the stretched hole in your arse. You almost laugh at that thought, but you don't. You grab the waistband of your jeans and jocks and you pull them up together. None of it is fitting you exactly right, material is sticking to you in odd places and is seemingly caught in other places. You don't care, suddenly all you want to do is to get out of there. You button your trousers and pull your hoodie over your head.

A group of boys yell something from the other side of the oval. You freeze. Still, like a gazelle in the cold hard gaze of the hunter. It's just the usual 4am drunk stuff. They are yelling at the night, not you, you see that. They can't see the semen dribbling out of your arse, cock and the corner of your mouth. What they'd do if they could, hey? You stuff your bloody hands into your pockets and walk quickly to the perimeter of the cleared grass to the safety of the trees. Across the clearing in the opposite direction to the latest intruders. Just in case, you never know. Turn and walk away.

You relax when you are out of the hard gaze of the open night. Your steps quicken though, as the cover of trees brings its own fear. Nobody can see you in the darkness of the shadows. Nobody can see you cry in the dark. The tears and blood and snot, are running down your face hidden in the dark. You wipe your sleeve across your face again. Your nose hurts now at your touch. You hurry to get out of the night. You fart and soil your jocks in your haste.

The elms line the pathway in lines like sentinels. The pathways cross the grass crisscross. The park lights fall in pools intermittently. The more brightly lit street glows in the distance, up ahead, like a mirage, seemingly momentarily out of reach. You quicken your pace to make the unreachable reachable.

The street is deserted except for streetlights standing along the road, the light, golden fluid, sweeping out from each pole like a full skirt. You look right, a delivery truck turns off the main road, you look left, a cat runs across the road and disappears. You head down the street.

"What are you doing out so late, man?" He is suddenly walking next to you, appearing out of nowhere.

You recoil. "Nothing. Heading home." Where the fuck did he come from?"

“Holly shit, look at you, man, look at you. You’re bleeding man, bleeding. What happened to you, man? What happened to you? You’re bleeding. Bleeding.”

You cover your face with your sleeve. “Nothing,” you mumble from behind it. “Nothing happened.”

“Something happened mate, something happened. Nothing didn’t happen. Something happened.”

“Nothing mate?” you say. This guy is sped up on something. You want him to go away. You want to lose him, you contemplate walking fast, you contemplate running.

“Something happened man, something happened, something happened. Clearly something happened…”

“Leave me alone…” Is he going to fuck you over too, you think.

“Why you shitting on me mate, why? I’m just asking the question.”

“I got hit, okay. I got… I got…” Tears come, you don’t want them to, but you well up.

Suddenly, there is something white flashing in your peripheral vision. “Here mate. Here.”

He is offering you a large, white, crisp handkerchief. “No,” you say.

“Take it, mate. Take it, mate. I want you… I want you… I want you to have it.” He hands it to you in a great flourish like ribbon twirling. “You are bleeding man. Take it.”

You take the handkerchief, you don’t really know why. You wipe it across your face. The dry blood crusts on the white material like red dust.

This is turning out to be the weirdest night. When you were sitting watching your TV at midnight and there was nothing on, you wished you’d gone to bed, as your still small voice had told you to do.

“Tell me what happened man? Tell me what happened?”

“Nothing.” You wish he’d stop asking. What do you say?

“Tell me what happened man? Tell me what happened?”

“Nothing!”

“Tell me!”

“Nothing!”

“Tell me!”

“A guy punched me… okay… after he fucked me…” That just slipped out. “Okay. He fucked me and then he hit me."”

“Then he threw you out?” He sounded incredulous.

“No…”

“No?”

“No!” What do you say?

“No? I don’t get it.”

“There was no out.”

“No out?” He pulled a quizzical face.

“We were out. In the park. We fucked in the park.”

He looked surprised. Big eyes, like he is putting it together in his head. “In the park? You guys have sex in the park?”

“Yes.”

“You meet in the park?” He holds his hands in the air as if a question.

“In the park?

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

“No strings attached?

“No strings attached.”

He looks at you with big eyes. “You lucky bastard.”

“What?”

“You lucky bastard! I want to have sex...”

“Huh?”

“Not with you.” He hesitates. “Not that there is anything wrong with you, man,” he holds up his hands “you seem, you seem very nice. But I like girls.” He shrugs. “If I liked dudes, I’d have sex with you,” he looks you up and down. “I’m sure, I’m sure it would be great, you’re nice looking and all, except for the…” He circles his face with his finger. “But without that, you and me, no worries.” He laughs. You wonder if he really is propositioning you. “But you need, you know, you need, let’s face it, you need a… a vagina.” He laughs. “I like girls… with vaginas. I wish they’d fuck in the park.”

You laugh. It just comes out.

He laughs nervously.

“Was it some kind of sex game?”

“What?”

“You’re face?” he scrunches up his face. He balls his fist and punches the air.

“No.”

“Do you guys punch each other to get off?”

“No.” You hear your voice sound incredulous.

“Oh, I don’t know, I don’t know what you guys do, you know, I’m just asking, you know, just being friendly.

“He was just a fuckwit…”

“I don’t, you know, oh except when I was 12 with Stephen Roth, in his tree house, in Box Hill, but that was just kids stuff and I’m sure that’s not what you guys do.”

“Married guys, they are just like that sometimes,” you say.

“Married guys?”

“Yeah.”

“You and married guys?”

“Yeah, lots of married guys in parks.”

“Holly shit,” he says. “With wives, married guys?”

“Yes.” Fuck it, you think, why not tell him, he seems to want to know. “Once they cum, the guilt kicks in and sometimes they lash out.”

The traffic lights at Alexander Parade turn green your way and the little green man lights up and you and your new best buddy continue walking across the wide road.

“That’s the thing with guys that I’ve always wondered about, you know, two guys, I’ve never known some to ask, but isn’t it messy? Don’t you mess the bed, you know, with all that jizz?”

“If you have been doing it right,” you say. You laugh.

He laughs.

He’s kind of funny, you think. He’s not bad looking either.

“What have you been doing?” you ask.

“Oh, you know, hanging out,” he says. “Smoking pipes with my buddy, in North Fitzroy. Can’t you tell?”

“Yeah, maybe,” you say. “Maybe I can tell.”