Maxwell Coffee might have been my only friend, save for a handful of childhood chums I left in Ahmedabad. I’m a bespectacled degenerate on my very best days, and an introverted reprobate all the others. I have precious little to say in my own defense tonight, as I sit here staring at the ashtray. Two American Spirit cigarette butts and a joint roach are now all I have left to prove I once actually knew a person who legitimately enjoyed voluntarily spending his free time with me.

I do not know how I allowed Thor to convince me that Maxwell had turned snitch on us. Now of course in hindsight I can see this could have never been the case. In a city full of liars, Maxwell is miserable because he overvalues truth. This has always been the case with him, and I believe if I had only waited just that one night – if I had allowed Maxwell one evening to win me over and prove his often unsuccessful but still well-meaning earnestness – he would still be here, in my apartment, sleeping in my extra bed.

But Maxwell is not here. He will never be here again. When I look at myself in the mirror, when I look at the scars on my forearms… I think about him. One might believe I was in love with him – that some sort of homosexuality or eroticism is at play here – but that is not the case. That my affections for him seem outlandish or extreme is easily attributable to my severe and chronic loneliness. As I have already communicated, he was my best and only friend.

He knocked on my door at 4:05 PM last Thursday. He had called an hour earlier to let me know that he was coming back to town. He told me he had taken some time to visit his family in the Midwest, as an explanation for the three weeks he had been missing. He apologized for being out of touch, for leaving so quickly without any explanation. I should have taken him at his word, but my head was full of Thor’s paranoid narratives. Maxwell had obviously been arrested, taken in along with Charlotte and all that damn cocaine. The both of them were somewhere in the custody of the Los Angeles Police Department, giving up every name they knew – including my own – to save themselves.

It was with all this misinformation running through my head that I panicked and called Thor just after finishing my conversation with Maxwell. Thor gave me the plan, and I carried it out to perfection – his spineless lackey to the very last.

“Ashutosh! Osh! You pudgy brown asshole! Open up! It’s the cops!” He shouted, banging playfully on my door. I took his joking to have some sinister, insidious subtext. I was suspicious of him. I drew a calming breath and threw open the door. Maxwell, in all his naïve fraternal love, embraced me with a bear hug.

“Maxwell, it has been too long,” I told him. His skin glowed with health and exuberance. Gone was the sickly pallor I had observed on him the last time he had graced me with his company. He was smiling, and his eyes flashed with energy and vitality. Were it not for his standard unkempt dress and unshaven countenance, I might not have recognized him.

“I could smell your Indian cooking three blocks down, bro. Fucking curry stinks like ass. What time is it?”

I checked my desk clock.

“Four-oh-seven,” I reported.

He shook his head and chuckled at me. Maxwell allowed me my every eccentricity; he seemed to delight in each one. Now that he is gone, I miss that very much. Everyone around me regards me as an oddity, and perhaps rightfully so. But never Maxwell. He saw through my esoteric nuances, saw a person somewhere in there. More importantly, he saw a worthwhile person, oftentimes when I could not. I miss him so much, and I have no one to blame for missing him but myself alone.

“I’ll roll a joint for 4:20,” he declared, then followed up his declaration with the question, “What’s our poison this afternoon?”

“I have no hard liquor or even beer at present,” I lied and then continued, “I was thinking we should take a trip around the corner to the Silverlake Lounge and enjoy Happy Hour. Jesus Eats Babies is opening for Hostile Combover tonight there, and I’d like to be properly inebriated to take in such a powerful punk rock show.”

My palms were sweating worse than when I tried to talk to girls. My stomach turned violently and let go a silent fart. My mouth tasted of bile and sulfur, drying out with the terror that my dishonesty would be discovered.

“Sounds good, Osh. Let’s smoke a joint first though. I’ve been sober now for nearly a month. Where is your weed?”

I offered no reply, but only pointed to my computer desk. He pushed aside random paperbacks and scattered notebooks until he found the plastic baggy and the Rizzla papers.

“Have a seat, buddy,” he beckoned me.

And thus was borne the lie that set in motion the events which would subsequently deprive me of my best and only friend, Maxwell Coffee.

I didn’t know. I was just hanging out at her house, waiting for her to get home with the coke. I was just smoking joints and blowing lines in her living room. To be honest, my main concern when she got home was that I’d consumed most of her vodka. It’s not like she got home excessively late or anything. I didn’t know.

I had no idea she’d run into trouble on the way back from Thor’s – that somewhere between Western and Vermont near USC, she’d been pulled over. She didn’t tell me that until the next day. She didn’t tell me anything, really. She just walked through the door. She didn’t even look like she’d been crying. I don’t think she’d cried about it yet.

Later she would tell me everything. The cop’s name was Buck. Of course, he didn’t tell her that at first. At first he just pulled her over for having a tail light out. Routine traffic stop. No big deal, really. I guess Charlotte’s car smells like marijuana though (that’s probably my fault), because he asked her if she’d been getting high when he took her license and registration.

“He was in my face, shining his flashlight around in my car. Real ugly, too, Max. Probably in his 40s, I guess? One of those cop mustaches. Overweight, greasy Guido lookin’ old guy, Max. Just gross.”

Of course I didn’t hear that part until the next day. She didn’t tell me that when she walked through the door. She walked in, dropped the grocery sack on the coffee table, and ordered me to stand up. When I obliged; she wrapped herself around me. She forced her tongue inside my mouth and had her body pressed so hard into mine, I didn’t think. I just responded.

She knows how long I’ve been waiting for her to do anything like that to me. I didn’t ask questions. I just went with it.

Her mind was racing the whole time he was back at his squad car running her license and registration. If he came back and just wrote her a ticket that’d be one thing, but if he came back and wanted to search the car, that’d be quite another now, wouldn’t it? I mean, at this point there was enough coke in the trunk to turn Charlotte’s life completely upside down. So what the fuck was she supposed to do?

If she’d asked me that night, I would have probably agreed she didn’t have any choice. But she didn’t ask me anything that night. That night she called all the shots. When she got done giving me the business in the living room, she broke the kiss and looked directly in my eyes.

“I’m going to shower. Meet me in my bedroom,” she demanded. Then she sauntered toward the bathroom, removing clothing on her way. By this point it was obvious she was seducing me. I wouldn’t find out why till later.

“You mind if I take a look at your car, Charlotte?”

“Would you like me to suck your cock, officer?”

I wish I coulda seen the look on that pig’s face when she let fly with that nugget. I mean, from just about any girl, at any point on a cop’s beat, that’s gotta be a game-changer. But from a woman like Charlotte, with those eyes and that body and those lips? It’s a fucking show-stopper, is what it is. A woman like Charlotte offers to suck your cock, that’s a big fuckin’ deal.

“Excuse me?”

“What’s your name, sir?”

“Buck.”

“How about we go between these two apartment buildings and I’ll lick your balls and swallow every drop of cum you’ve got stored up, Buck?”

At this point, Buck smiled. I wasn’t there, but I can picture the motherfucker just leering at this sexy piece of 23-year-old ass throwing herself at him. It was at this point that Buck realized he was in control.

“What’s in the car, Charlotte?” Buck asked then.

“Nothing, Buck. You want a blowjob or not?”

That’s how it started, but I didn’t know that while I waited for her to get out of the shower. I stripped down to my boxers and waited for her. She didn’t even wrap herself in a towel on her way from the shower to the bedroom. Honestly, I’m not even sure if she toweled off. She was still dripping wet when she wrapped herself around me again. She pushed me down on the bed, dropped to her knees and proceeded to suck my dick like it had oil in it.

“Charlotte, what the fuck?” I stammered.

She paused briefly to order me to, “Shut up and just go with it, Max.”

What the fuck else was I supposed to do? I didn’t know what the fuck was going on or what the fuck had happened earlier that day. She didn’t tell me shit about any of that until the next day.

Turns out Buck was a bit smarter than your average pig. He didn’t know what Charlotte had in the car and frankly, I don’t believe he ever cared. But once she offered up a blowjob just for him to stop asking, he decided to see if he could squeeze a little more out of the deal.

“Will you fuck me?” he countered.

“What?”

“I don’t really think I want a blowjob.”

That’s do or die time, right there. Like what the fuck are you supposed to say about something like that?  You say yes, and you’re about to fuck some stranger between two apartment buildings on a side street in south LA. You say no, and you’re going to jail for a long time. Either way, you’re about to find out what kind of person you are, and both the options totally suck.

“Okay. Let’s do this.”

The first and only time I fucked Charlotte Lowerre, she was on top the whole time. I wish I could say I lasted hours, or that I was even cool about it, but the fact of the matter is I spent the whole fucking time telling her I was about to cum, and she kept telling me to hold off. It only ended when she gave me permission.

She said the only good thing about fucking Buck was that he lasted all of 120 seconds, so it was over fast. Apparently he was a real prick afterward. He slapped her and told her not to ever tell anyone. To his credit, he didn’t hit her hard enough to leave a mark. I heard the whole story the next day. She was real apologetic, y’know? Mostly for putting me in harm’s way, but I’ve been tested since and I’m clean, so whatever.

No harm, no foul right?

“Course I didn’t know I was getting some cop’s sloppy seconds that night. I dunno. Obviously if I would’ve known, I’d’ve felt real different while it was happening, y’know?”

Jane’s looking at me like I’m a five year-old panhandler. Her pretty green eyes are misted over. She’s actually sad for me.

“Would you have still done it?” she wants to know.

All I can do is shake my head.

“I lie awake in her bed every night and ask myself that question, Jane. I mean, I loved her. So there’s that. But now, I mean it’s been two months now since I dropped her off in Texas. Her phone’s shut off. She’s not online. Total incommunicado.”

“She’s letting you stay here,” Jane reminds me. She puts a hand on my shoulder. I shrug her off.

“I don’t even know if she realizes I’m here. All I know is somebody is paying the rent. Maybe she plans on coming back at some point? If she does, I guess I’ll see her then. Not like I got any other place to go.”

Jane puts her hand on my thigh this time.

“Max, you know you can come stay with me, right? Anytime, for as long as you need,” she offers, so sincere it fuckin’ kills me.

I take a good long look at her, with her curly red hair and those emerald eyes. Her beautiful smile is all screwed up in this real serious sad face, which is totally my fault, and I feel guilty for it.

“Don’t look at me like that, Max,” she says.

“What?”

She shakes her head.

“If you’d looked at me like that a couple years ago, I’d have your babies by now.”

“That’s fucking terrifying,” I tell her as I light a cigarette.

“I know, right?”

“Why couldn’t I have looked at you like that two years ago? You’re a great girl. Beautiful, smart, funny, kind. How the fuck did I end up here?”

Holy shit, I might cry. I dunno how Jane breaks me down the way she does, but all the sudden I find myself asking her, “Jesus Christ, Jane. What the fuck is wrong with me?”

Jane tenderly cups my face in her hands. She leans in and kisses my forehead.

“Oh, Max. There’s nothing wrong with you. And as soon as you realize that, the whole world is gonna be all yours.”

“You don’t know everything about me,” I tell her.

“Max, nobody actually knows everything about anyone. People love each other anyway.”

I kiss her on the mouth. This isn’t how she wants it, in some other woman’s bed, under these circumstances, but she loves me and I need somebody. And that might not be fair to either of us, but that’s how it’s going to be this time.

We stopped off at a Motel 6 off I-10 in Flagstaff. I don’t see any reason see any reason to make the trip to Houston in record time. The important thing was to get Charlotte the fuck out of Los Angeles.

Counting today, which is almost over anyway, it’s been four days since the incident. Nearly 96 full hours since Charlotte called me to come over and told me what happened. Nearly 48 hours since I convinced her to go home, if even only for a visit. And now here we are in Flagstaff. I can’t believe this shit is happening.

Only now, as I stand here in this shower, do I realize just how stupid and ill-advised this little plan really is. All her stuff, minus a couple suitcases, is still in her apartment. Her car is still parked in the garage. She probably should have just flown home, one way. Stayed a few weeks. Less questions that way. But I wanted to take her. I wanted to get her out of there, to deliver her from evil.

Right now she’s toweling off in front of the motel mirror, completely naked, every perfect inch of her incredible body exposed to the open air. I wonder if she’s getting dressed yet, or if she’s staring in the mirror with that dead expression, not speaking, not crying. Just staring at herself, running over the experience of the incident yet again in her own mind.

I finish showering and wonder what the fuck we’re going to tell her mother when we arrive. Her step-father will ask the bulk of the questions, but it’s Dayani I can’t lie to. She’ll know something’s wrong the minute I park my car in her driveway.

I dry myself methodically, envisioning tomorrow’s drive and our arrival. After a few minutes, I  tie the towel around my waist and leave the steamy solitude of the bathroom.

Charlotte sits atop the blankets on the bed, wearing a pair of my gym shorts and my royal blue Oregon Trail t-shirt – a covered wagon encircled in typeface proclaiming You Have Died of Dysentery.

“I forgot to pack pajamas,” she tells me, then goes back to watching The Colbert Report.

Colbert is telling jokes, but she’s not laughing, not even smiling or nodding or acknowledging in any way the actions on the screen. The TV is only noise, something to distract her. She lights a cigarette. I grab another pair of gym shorts and a white v-neck undershirt for myself.

In the corner, by the mirror, I dress quickly. I look at myself, worthless sack of shit that I am. I should’ve grabbed beer at a quick stop before we checked in. I can’t go out now. I can’t leave her alone in here. She coughs. I turn around.

“You all right?”

She doesn’t respond.

“Hey, Charlotte,” I try again. This time she looks in my direction, waiting for me to say something.

“Pass me the smokes?”

She slides the lighter into the pack of Lucky Strikes and tosses them across the room. I light up and attempt to visually assess her mindset. Her caramel skin seems so pale, and I can’t tell if it’s the motel lights or if this experience has left her sickly. Her full lips quiver constantly. Her slender hands won’t stop trembling. Her deep, round, gold-flecked eyes are so damn vacant.

“Charlotte?” I call, but she offers no response. “Charlotte,” I try again. Still nothing. “Hey, Charlie. Talk to me.”

This gets her attention. For the first time since she stopped crying I see some life, some response behind her eyes.

“You haven’t called me Charlie in years.”

I shrug and take a drag, “You asked me not to.”

“Yeah.”

“Said you were tired of being a tomboy.”

“I just wanted to be pretty.”

“You’ve always been pretty.”

She takes another drag on her cigarette, closes her eyes.

The TV is playing a different show now. I walk to the set and turn it off.

“Charlie, it’s just one thing that happened.”

She doesn’t open her eyes. I sit down next to her on the bed.

“Charlie, look at me.”

She opens her eyes, stares me down, imploring me with her hopeless face to make some sense of what has happened.

“It’s an awful thing, Charlie. I hate that it happened to you, and I am so, so sorry. But it’s just one thing, Charlie. It’s one thing in your whole life.”

Her cigarette shakes as she places it between her trembling lips. She inhales deep, then exhales listlessly and shakes her head.

“It’s so bad, Max.”

“It’s one thing, Charlie. You can’t let one bad thing overshadow every single good thing that has ever happened to you. One thing doesn’t erase you.”

“Just roll a joint or something,” she directs me as she stubs out her cigarette in the ashtray and turns away from me, “and please give me another smoke.”

I’m losing her. I hand her a cigarette, light it for her.

“What about that night we went up on the hill and took mushrooms and watched James Brown play the Hollywood Bowl? What about the time we sat in the back row of commencement and passed that flask and heckled John McCain? Those things were fun. Those things were good. Do those things not matter anymore?”

“I don’t know, Max. Just roll a joint, please.”

“What about Appleface?”

She exhales smoke and looks back at me, eyes sparkling with nostalgia. She smiles.

“I remember Appleface,” she tells me.

Then the dam breaks, and she starts bawling on my shoulder.

“It’s just one thing, kiddo. Everything’s gonna be all right,” I assure her as I stroke the back of her head. “You should get some sleep.”

She raises her head from my shoulder.

“Roll that joint, Max?”

“Sure, sure. Just let me go get a rollaway bed from the front desk real quick.”

“No, you can,“ she pauses, sniffles, wipes her eyes. “We can share the bed.”

I put out my cigarette.

“You sure about that?”

She nods.

“It’s fine. Just roll that joint and let’s watch some TV.”

I do what she requires. What else can I do?

“Max. Max!”

What the fuck is that? Is that my father’s voice waking me up right now? Oh my dear shit is it still dark out?

“Whnuuh,” is the best he’s getting at whatever the hell time it is that he’s bothering me.

“Get up, son. Don’t shower. Put on some warm clothes you don’t mind getting dirty and come to the kitchen. Breakfast is in five minutes.”

“The hell?” I ask, but he’s gone from the doorway. I roll over and check my cell phone. No missed calls from Charlotte. Also - it is 4:45 AM. What the fuck, Dad? Why did I think driving up to Alpena, Arkansas from Texas was a good idea?  I could be back in L.A. right now, sleeping off a hangover.

I dress as I have been instructed and leave the guestroom. Down the hall, the piquant aromas of coffee and bacon waft intermingled from the kitchen.

My father stands over the range, frying eggs.

“Your plate is ready. Four eggs, three slices of bacon, make your own toast, get your own coffee and milk. You have maybe 15 minutes until we leave for the day,” he informs me.

“What the fuck are we doing?”

“Don’t curse in my home.”

For half a second I size him up, wondering if I could take him down. At 6’4” he’s at least three inches taller than I, and he’s a big, brawny barrel-chested motherfucker. He outweighs me by at least 40 pounds, I’d say. Dressed in his flannel jacket like he is now, and growing his hunting season beard, my father looks like some artist’s idyllic rendering of a modern day Paul Bunyan.

I eat my meal quickly. My father finishes before me.

“Put your coffee in a to-go mug and meet me in the truck.”

Fucking wonderful.

My dad drives this late 90s model Ford pickup truck, black and unassuming. He at least actually uses it for hauling shit, I’ll give him that. He’s always moving things for people. I’ve helped him deliver some late season Christmas trees to poor families in the community and lonely old ladies from his church, but that was always in December, home for the holidays. I’ve never been out here in the fall.

I climb into the cab of the pickup and place my coffee in the cup holder between myself and my father.

“So seriously, what the hell are we doing?”

“Don’t curse in my truck, either.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, whatever. I’m not 12. I’ll be gone soon, I promise, all right? Then you won’t have to be reminded that bad words exist, and some people say them.”

My father just shakes his head, sips his coffee. Tranquil bastard.

“That’s not it. You can stay as long as you like-“

“Whatever. I’m going back soon,” I snap and grab my own coffee.

Like I’d fucking stay in Alpena for any extended period of time. I was just being nice, coming up to say hi and see Dad and Mary and the boys. They’re half my family after all. I figure I was sort of in the area. I’ll move on soon. I’ve been sober eight solid days now anyway. I’m starting to fucking break down.

“It’s a respect issue, Max. That’s neither here nor there anyway. We’re going to get some firewood, to answer your question.”

“At five in the morning?”

“It’s a long day, son.”

“It’s picking up a bunch of logs from some random weirdo who lives in the woods and peddles his pastoral wares in front of Home Depot, Dad. And also, that guy is not awake or selling logs right now.”

We turn off the highway onto a side road, county junction FF or BB or something equally backwoods. My dad’s smirking as he drives, the smug asshole.

“Our local weirdo is Dean Loden. He owns a large plot of forested land out here. He goes to my church and he allows me to chop my own wood, every year, for free.”

“Dad? Seriously?”

My father chuckles at me.

“Why do we not just buy our firewood like everyone else?”

“I buy a lot of firewood. And I give a lot of that firewood away to people who can’t afford to buy it for themselves.”

“Dad, seriously. I have money. I’ll buy the firewood. Fuck this.”

My dad slams on the brakes. Seething, he looks me directly in the eye. I do believe that I’ve pissed off the minister.

“Swear again in my presence. See what happens.”

“Sorry. Crap.”

We travel a taciturn half mile.  As we turn left onto a dirt road, my father speaks again.

“You know your grandfather picked cotton all summer, in the sweltering heat, until he went off to college.”

The truck bumps and bumbles along the gravel road, sloshing coffee from my cup at every pothole.

“Yeah, I know. And he had to walk three miles to the one room schoolhouse every day, uphill, both ways, in the snow, barefoot.”

“You’re such a smart aleck,” he admonishes, disdain thick in his voice.

“I just don’t see the point of the story.”

I can see the sunrise now, just barely, all pink and purple like a fresh bruise spreading over the horizon. My father draws a deliberate, exhausted breath.

“The point is, your grandfather knew the value of a hard day’s work. He instilled that value in me,” he tells me as he brings the truck to a stop, more gently this time, on the side of the road, “and when you show up out of nowhere on my doorstep, strung out with some sob story about being fired and driving across the country for no reason, smelling of marijuana-”

“Dad –“

“I feel like maybe I failed you somehow.”

“Damn, Dad.”

He doesn’t allow me a chance to say anything more, doesn’t scold me this time for cursing. He just shuts off the engine, opens the driver’s side door of his truck and leaves me to shiver in the chilly silence.

I finish my coffee, zip my jacket, exit the truck and grab an ax to help my father turn some arbitrary tree into our winter firewood.

I got home yesterday. No one was expecting me. 

Assholes fucking fired me. Boss wrote me a fat check on my way out though. He’ll sleep well tonight.

“You understand. We’re hemorrhaging money. Business is blah blah cuts across the board so sorry fuck you here’s a check.”

Spectacular. He didn’t mean it and he obviously didn’t mean it, and I don’t give a fuck because the check will clear.

Osh says I can stay with him, which is fucking great. The shit I could fit in my car is already at his place.  Sando says we can use his truck Monday to move my bed. Check already came in handy. If I’m gonna be telling my family I’m unemployed, I’d like to be pretty fucking blown for that bullshit. So I dropped by Thor’s before I made the drive from L.A. to La Jolla.

My baby sis is home from school by 2:30, but the parents both work so there’s a babysitter: a sinuous brunette in some tiny shorts and a spaghetti strap whatever. My mom likes hiring the pretty ones and then talking shop with them to keep herself feeling young. My dad’s just a class-A pervert, so he doesn’t complain.

My sis jumps up to greet me.

“Bubby!”

“Hey Claire, how’s school?” and pick her up and kiss her on the cheek.

“I learned clocks,” she tells me, which I figure means they’re teaching her to tell time in her kindergarten class.

“Clocks! That’s wonderful!”

She’s just a kid, so it’s important she feel reassured.

The babysitter stands up and tugs on her shorts, self-conscious. I smile as warmly as I can in an effort to put her at ease. No need to let her adolescent near-nudity keep us from being friendly.  I put Claire down and extend my hand.

“I'm Max. Claire's brother,” I inform her.

“I figured,” she says as she offers a limp hand. Her face still has some baby fat at the cheeks, giving her pronounced dimples when she smiles. She’s got nice eyes and good curves. She looks like she could be a college student, but most certainly isn’t yet.

I go to the kitchen. Claire goes back to watching after school cartoons. The babysitter follows me. I open the liquor cabinet.

“If you’re gonna stand there, get me two glasses from that cupboard next to you.”

“Two?”

“Yeah. What do you want?”

She hands me two high ball glasses.

 “I’m 17 and your mom will smell it on me while she’s driving me home.”

 I grab dad’s 12-year Glenlivet from the liquor cabinet, mom’s Belvedere from the freezer and the OJ from the fridge.

 “You don’t drive?”

I mix her screwdriver.

“I’m grounded.”

Hand it to her. She drinks.

“So you party.”

She smirks.

“I have fun.”

“I have coke.”

“What about your sister?”

“Let me show you a trick.”

Medicine cabinet, two Benadryl, crushed, then sprinkled into a Snack Pack.

“Nap time,” I tell her with a wink.

“No,” she demurs, incredulous.

“She’ll be fine.”

Half an hour, Claire’s asleep. The babysitter and I go back to the kitchen. I rack up two lines and snort mine first, then offer her the second. She hesitates.

“What?”

“I’ve just never seen anyone cut a line that big before,” she says.

“I can make it two for you.”’

She nods, takes another drink.

I do it for her and hand over the dollar. She snorts one, her head flings back from the counter. She shivers, and looks to me, eyes wide and luminescent.

“Other nostril now,” I instruct her.

She blows the second line like a first-class champ.

“It tastes funny,” she tells me, then chugs the rest of screwdriver.

“Better?” I ask, extending my hand for the glass. She nods.

“Don’t make the next so strong this time.”

I smirk over my shoulder from the refrigerator, raise my eyebrows at her.

“I just don’t want to get sick, you know? Sometimes I get sick when I drink like this one time at this kid Reggie Donald’s house, his parents weren’t home so he threw a pool party and we got a keg and made jungle juice but I drank too much and got sick and my best friend Chrissie had to hold my hair and it was really gross and I have no idea why I just told you that.”

I place her fresh drink near her on the counter and pull her close to me. The coke is working through me now, so I’m tingling and turned on. I kiss her forcefully to see how she’ll react. She presses herself into me, and that’s all the invitation I need.

A couple lines later, we start fucking in the guest bedroom. During the second round, she seems surprised to have an orgasm.

For whatever reason, whether she’s never gone off during sex or her dad works/drinks/cheats too much or her boyfriend tells her she’s fat or whatever’s got her damaged, she says, “Holy shit, I love you.”

Not wanting to sully the moment with something as unnecessary as honesty, I tell her, “I love you, too.”

She’s just a kid, so it’s important she feel reassured.

I live in the woods. We have wireless. Winter's coming. I only own jackets. Right handed, full beard (not pictured), isometric exercise. No job. No car.

I break balls. I don't drink. 

I have talked to cops on acid, stolen food because I was hungry and accidentally had sex in a Victoria's Secret dressing room in New York City (not all in the same day, because I'm not James Bond (yet)).

I live at home with my parents. I kind of sort of hate myself a little bit, but not really. Mostly that's the lingering effects of 10  solid years of substance abuse-induced depression talking.

I fuck words with my mouth and fingers, sometimes for money.

I am a whore collecting unemployment, a sort of Economic Amputee.

I believe my writing is equivalent to dirty asshole at the moment, due in no small part to a very recent poor showing in another writing competition.

I don't dance. I don't like people. I pretend to (dance, not like people)  though, because I'm lonely.

I volunteer with "at risk teens," which basically means teenagers with problems - abuse, cutting, drugs, gangs. etc. They like me because I understand them, because I used to be them (except for the gangs thing, because I am so skinny, rural and white... and also the cutting, because fuck emo).

I have no idea what I want to do with my life, but I have enough unemployment money coming to me to drag my ass mostly out of debt.

I am living proof that Socialism works (by helping me not work).

I fake smiles like your girlfriend fakes orgasms. THE END.

i am doing lj idol, at the recommendation of a friend, because i am so incredibly unemployed.