Bullshit on Your T.V.

She was fingering me, but I still only had five words on my mind. “And the Oscar goes to.” The director yelled cut.

My legs shook and it hurt to move. It could have been a dream I suppose. Then again it was Friday night. Friday fucking night in the city that never fucking sleeps.

It was a crock of shit of course. It always was. The bed smelled of Chicken McNuggets and sex. The bed was new and it had been expensive. Who cares.

I ate pussy and from time to time, yes, I would eat ass, but I didn’t eat that shit. Fuck McDonald’s. The smell alone made me want to throw up.

I did find myself wanting a Diet Coke and a salad. Not from McDonald’s. Fuck no.

In the end, I decided against food and instead settled for a warm bath. I'd never had an orgasm like that before. The sheets were soaked.

I woke up. Not in my room and not in my new expensive bed, but on my couch. Well, mostly on the couch. I wish I knew how I’d gotten here. I felt no pain and the sheets were dry.

Son of a bitch.

The living room was a mess of Chinese boxes and wine bottles. Fuck me. A lot of wine bottles. Someone had redecorated my bonsai tree with chopsticks. Fitting I suppose, but it was nearly sixty years old. What an asshat.

I can’t be mad. I’d have done the same thing.

From an early age I wanted to be anyone but me. I wanted to be everything I wasn’t. I already felt like a liar and a faker. Why not get paid for it? I guess it should go without saying at this point that life as a struggling twenty some year old aspiring actress living in New York City is not easy. It’s even harder when you’re bisexual and a child of the system.

My parents, my real parents, were young when they had me and even younger than that when they decided that their marriage wasn’t a good idea after all. The union didn’t last long and after a bitter custody battle and lots of mudslinging, my mother was found face down in a puddle of her own blood and vomit. The investigation later determined that my father had not been responsible for my mother’s death, but still. We no longer talk.

When I woke up, I didn’t want to fucking move. I really fucking didn’t, but I had an important audition this afternoon. I could be the next lucky bimbo killed off of a popular afternoon serial drama. Me! What a crock of shit. But it was a job. Its how everyone starts. Isn't it?

I had a few lines, but it was just bullshit filler. I was just to be there as eye candy. Of course I was. All of my lines would have been purposely overshadowed by my (natural, thank you) boobs. These silly fuckers they are. They’re always threatening to just pop out. Some dickhead writer, I won’t mention names, had an incessant need to have me want to constantly fuck the protagonist. I guess this is how some of my, well, all of my dreams manifest themselves but in my dreams it's not always a man and we don't always fuck.

I had always thought soap operas were the lamest of the lame. The acting was terrible and the plot lines. Well. What plot lines? Watching an episode was like being forced to take in an hour long cosmetic commercial due to your eye lids being taped open. But these weren't just any commercials. This was a commercial with an intimacy that never happened in real life and there was lots of sex without consequences which definitely never happens.

Who smiles that much when their face is glued down and how many times can someone’s mother die and magically come back to life? Soap operas are lame.

The long and short of it was that I hated the idea, but I could use the money and Spielberg wasn’t beating down my door down to get me.

I flipped through channels and stopped on a cable news channel. There was a big red banner loudly saying there had been an incident at the annual Running of The Bulls. Several dozen people had been badly injured and a few had been killed. This struck me as an unusually accurate allegory of show business and I couldn’t help but laugh.

I was lost in myself, laughing my ass off and suddenly felt bad when they cut to the body of a young boy who had been trampled to death. Fuck that bull and fuck me. I have become that person. The person, the people, that I hated. I’m an asshole.

I turned off the flat screen and in that moment felt like a giant piece of shit. I came back to Earth and shook it off. I reminded myself that they were the idiots not me. They died, or were injured, because they were stupid. Who the fuck runs with bulls anyway? Stupid people, that’s who. I’ll go run my bath and I’ll bask. I’ll enjoy not being gored, or trampled to death thank you very much. I’ll go to my stupid audition for the stupid role on the stupid show and fuck that bullshit. All of it.

I would come to learn later that one of the men killed in Pamplona today was the same asshole that had raped and killed my mother. Talk about a fitting conclusion. I felt less like a piece of shit for my initial reaction. He had gored her and then he killed her. The punishment fit the crime.

I had some time before the audition. My enthusiasm wasn’t much before and what was left of it was fading quickly. There was a small coffee shop near the studio. I entered and out of habit asked for a martini. The barista was not amused. I ordered a tall iced mocha and chose a small booth by the window. The spot overlooked one of the East entrances of Central Park. It also had the best Wi-Fi in the building. I'd been here before.

I'm not an aspiring actress and I'm not bisexual. At least, I don't think I am. I could be. Who knows. The dreams I have are real, I'll admit that, but the rest is a cover. I'm a detective in the SVU. I also watch a lot of TV, that wasn't bullshit either, but that show didn't light the fire under my ass and inspire my career. My life did.

I was a child of the system and my mother was found beaten, raped, and murdered. That was true as well. That I think is what inspired me the most. Not because I was sad. I mean, yeah. She was my mom and gave birth to me and all that sappy shit, but we never really got along. I didn't want to see her die, or be dead, but it's not like I'm the one that killed her.

I was fascinated with the mindset and with murderers. Don't ask me why. I don't know why. It was just one of those things. I mostly liked the danger and the cat and mouse back and forth of the chase. The chase was almost always better than the catch, because usually they didn't want to be caught. They would taunt you and fuck with you, but they didn't want to go down, not really.

Jesus out in the garage? He didn't want to be caught either, so what's he do? He starts shooting at me. It's all fun and games until you have to double tap a greasy child trafficking scuzzo. I don't feel bad about it, but I liked these shoes. Motherfucker.

I opened the bedroom door. The case was still there. Why wouldn't it have been? I bit my lip and closed the door. For the thousandth time since I'd shot him, I thought about taking it. I wondered how far I would get before, you know. Before they killed me for taking it, but it was a lot of money. A half a million dollars is a shitload of money.

It was blood money borne of the suffering of who knows how many different victims. The thought of what had to happen to all of those girls for that suitcase to be full of those hundred dollar bills was almost unbearable.

I was fucked up and I was different, but I was still human. I was also a woman living in a mans world. I had to distract myself before the tears started. No. I wouldn't take the money. No matter how many Benjamin's stared at me. No matter how badly I wanted to.

I walked off towards the sunset against the barrel of the gun. I did everything right, but that doesn't matter much to those whom choose to live their lives to the other direction.

I looked up at the clouds. I thought about a person I hadn't seen for twenty years.

I don't hate you.

I'll see you soon.