Vacancy

‘The sky is red’, raising her chin confidently. I was bored and knew it was blue but Being sure not to put my foot in her mouth, I said, ‘sure it is’, as always, agreeing with her. My tone of complacency confirming my defeat. It was a test. It was always a test. She liked it when I surrendered. Neither of us had seen the night sky from here before so we tried to enjoy it, patiently waiting for aliens to sink the moon into the ocean, creating a new vacation spot to take the family.

We left the scenic view from the highway and drove towards the burnt-out neon of palm trees and Hulu girls. The sign seemed odd because no one would ever confuse this place with paradise. I checked into the hotel under the name of 'mortuum'. Not sure why, but I thought it was cute. The clerk couldn’t have cared less, couldn’t have giving a fuck, and for that, I was jealous. He handed me a plastic key and went back to burning his rice and tying his noose.

we spent the early evening reading the local paper. It was filled with coupons and commercials for meaningless real estate, but no one was buying, everyone was selling. We kept flipping thru pages, finding only foreign automobiles and empty parades, finally finding our way to the last leaf, covered with obituaries and love wanted ads.

I went down the line up of the recently returned to nothingness, begging for a dickens character to emerge, but no chance. Their 80 plus years summed up in a few well-formed vignettes, learning nothing about them, or who they were before they became somebody else. I wish they published their diaries. A quick mention of the children and jobs, wives, and hobbies, but no word of the men they killed or the syphilis they survived. This saddened me. The third person presented a loyal servant with no word on the attempts of suicide, or nervous breakdowns, Of the dream to live honestly and dance with a lover half their age. ‘What a waste’, I told her as she put a cigarette out on the carpet. But no, it wasn’t a waste, not really. I’m sure they were happy man, happier than me (at least a few of them). They survived as long as they could, probably longer than they should have. Nowhere to be found to share their secrets. I needed to know another man’s secret. regrets are worthless. I folded up the paper like a towel and drew an eye on her, faking a smile to keep her off of my back. My thoughts turned abstract and selfish. A voice bound with judgment filled my head.

Thoughts: I was confident in my prose, which meant I was confident in the way I’d slit my wrists, but even now, I know myself only as a liar. Well I ever feel the truth?

I did not like the pain and could not stand the sight of blood. I needed to stay to see the sad ending of the film. I would one day have my own obituary in the back of a paper, maybe even this paper. Ugly and uninspired I stood up looked in to the dirty, cracked mirror.

Thoughts: Will there be people that loved me and cared enough to drag me thru this silly world? When I die and am with God, or not, will anyone bother to call the paper for me?

The room smelled stale. The wallpaper curled like coming waves and a dirty florescent green light hung from a rope in the center of the room, luminating us like verdant monsters in a haunted house. A lamp sat on a small end table that was missing a leg, the fixture balanced on the corner beaming light of piss that warped the room. The sheets were there to hide the mattress. ‘How gross’ I said to the reflection ignoring me, more interested in stretching its toes. I guess you get what you pay for (we had stolen the money to stay here). The place had only smoking rooms, not that it would have mattered to her. The television screen flashed the room with static.

She looked into my face from the mirror. ‘Get over her…I need love’. she wanted to screw on the floor, in front of the smoking tubes and glimpses of the local weather. To her, this was love, but I had work to do. We would destroy this town tomorrow, and then leave. ‘If were gonna rob the church tomorrow than I need to work it out a bit’. ‘What are you talking about?’ she said wanting me to frustrate. ‘we’ll do what we always do’. She was right, but half of the enjoyment for me was the visualization and organization of an idea. Fixing this towns wagon would take more energy than I had to give her, distraction is all she wanted from me, ‘my plan all along.’ She kept quiet under oath. I tried on her a tired line, rubbed my eyes and walked to the bathroom. Hearing her following, I slammed the bathroom door in her face, locking myself in against her intentions. She hammered at the door, trying to serve her warrant for my destruction. She was a romantic, I was a realist. Her emotions rainbowed red to blue. I fell for one of her kinder pleas

Thoughts: What a fool! (This is the game we play)

I cracked open the door, peaking out of the gap like a child checking for ghosts. She smiled, whistling her bangs out of her eyes, blowing her sweet breath right in my face. I relaxed and backed away from the door. As I stepped aside to let her in, I saw in her hands my collection of notebooks, My printed world. Details of every conversation I’d had with myself the last ten years. Every dream, doubt, dirty faced dilettante, or dying poet met, described in my own neologisms. proof of my dedication and observant nature, Obsessive and lonely. Covered in visions I’d need to see again from years of crawling thru the mud. Without them I would be broken, an Alzheimer’s patient continually trying to remember ugly faces or unfamiliar names. I’d be forced to a laconic paraphrasing of the past. her smile told me she knew this. She slid them behind her back and slowly moonwalked away from the bathroom. She squealed seeing the worry in my eyes. Her free hand came up to her chin, curling a finger at me, inviting me out to her. She waited to devour me like a zombie. I remained silent, knowing any word could inspire her to act unforgivably.

I Leapt out of the tiny room, holding a smirk, hoping that would diffuse her. She bit her lip in excitement and ran around the bed to the other corner of the room. Her eyes grabbing for anyway to escalate this, picking up the lamp, crumbling the table and fired it at my head like a dart. I ducked as it smashed the wall, breaking the bulb and falling into pieces on top of the carpet. The room turned a dull neon, everything colored mold. I looked up from the floor to see her eyes wide and round as pool balls. Her cheeks strawberry red, wearing a face drenched in the enjoyment of my concern. A medusa daring me to stare. She bounced the notebooks off the ceiling, each page tearing out and floating around the room, a plane dropping flyers, and jumped onto the soft mattress between us, sinking to her knees. The girl ripped her shirt open, firing buttons around the room like bullets, exposing her breasts, full and awake, aroused by her itch to tempt me, swollen in desire. I could feel my heart beating in my fingertips. My pulse bumped to every end of my body.

The lunatic, my love took a step on the bed and jump on me like a monkey searching for a tree, wrapping her arms around my neck and with all her weight dead and crashed us to the ground. Our lips bolted like a safe. I tried to sit up, but she held me down, a fresh body on broken glass. The shards sliced my back, pierced from a quiver of arrows. I became numb but alive as we tried to press ourselves into becoming one person. I was forced to hold my breath. our teeth bit at the others, her fangs each time tearing my lips, filling our mouths with blood, old black lipstick, tastes of cheap wine and Chinese cigarettes, all mixing together to murder our senses. My body, a boat, rocking side to side, rubbed blood into the floor, spilling a masterpiece. We were drowning in a pool of ecstasy and plasma. My mind would not commit to comment on what to do next.

Sitting up, using me as a saddle, asking, ‘You Still have work to do?’. Blood smeared on her chin, eyes shining like coins at the bottom of a swap from the dim moldy light left hanging above. glossing her Lush, deep iris. She had her hands around my neck. She would be a murderer in another life, maybe even this one. I would be more careful than electric. Waiting for my answer she gave me a tiny grin and tightened her grip. ‘Well…?’ fearing her pleasure, my instinct to survive reminded me to tell her what she wanted to hear, ‘she is capable of anything’. A voice chocked in my voice.

Thoughts: This is why I love her.

I reached out and grabbed her arms and pulled them down, a plane crashing on the runway. We kissed again, resuscitating our lust, clawing away at my shirt, digging her nails thru my shirt and tearing my skin with each frantic scratch. I was becoming a bloody mess. A man who had lost a pen knife fight.

Thoughts: was I lucky to be alive?

She jabbed her thumbs into my pants and pushed them down until I was exposed, then guiding my hands deep into hers. Four hands pulling her pants down over her hips. This seemed to be a biological imperative. Animalistic, not intellectualized, but mindless fury. She bit my neck, turning me into a vampire and guided me inside her. A native in the rain forest. I was home.

Minutes later and it was over. ‘You came so hard, I might have triplets’. she joyed. Glass, blood, and semen stained the pages of my broken genius that covered the floor, littered like a teenager’s room. My torso resembled a possum attack. I could feel every wound, split open and starting to scar with each winded breath. she exhaled to the depths of her lungs and with a beatific smile laid her head on my ribs, listening to my heartbeat to see if she had ruined me. Seconds later turning haughty, upset that I had survived and seemed to be returning to normal (whatever that means) she hopped up and disappeared into the bathroom. I laid there, a corpse, quiet and alone, loved but not liked. Blood, not paint covering me. I thought ‘I still have plans to make’. No one was getting out of this town alive, I’d make sure of that, but for now, I’ll just lie here happy to have someone who likes to hurt me, That needs me. The chartreuse glow of this room seemed beautiful for a moment, but it would soon be ugly again. For now, I do not worry, no hunger or hate for oneself.

She walked out of the bathroom in a dull white robe stolen from the last hotel we stayed. I ask her, ‘now what should I do?’ Sitting down on the bed, quickly becoming hypnotized by the flame of the T.V. ‘Who cares.’ she answers, picking up the revolver. The proper negation of our love.