Section Thirty Six

He was still sat on the floor, staring up at her. "Hey, look, I'm sorry about all this - you want me to walk you back to your place?"
"I don't know. I guess it is a bit late to walk the streets on my own."
Her feet scraped against something on the floor. She bent down and discovered an old battered packet of Marlboros and a Zippo lighter. "I didn't know you smoked."
He took the lighter from her and examined it. "Nor do I. Someone must have left them around. Don't know who. You want one?"
"I've given up." A second's wait. She cupped the crushed packet in her hand. She took a cigarette out. "Give me a light, Walt, baby."
He thumbed the lighter. Sparks tottered across the dark. She inhaled breathlessly. He got himself another whisky. He lit a couple of nightlights on cracked saucers with the lighter. They sat on the floor. Scuffed the powder with their backsides. She smoked. He drank. The clock clanged in the darkness, in the distance. The shutters eased within their constraints.
She took a deep breath. Swung the troll keyring around her finger. Watched the smoke rise straight then shuffle and kink and die.
He sat hunched-up, ill-at-ease, like a baby elephant forced to sit down in a circus act.
She took the cigarette out of her mouth and forced herself to breathe more shallowly. She edged towards him. Playfully shoulder-barged him. Held up the half-smoked cigarette.
He waved it away, wafting the smoke. "Nah, no need to add to my addictions."
"So, what else you addicted to, Walt, apart from that?" A gesture towards the whisky glass.
"Don't know if I am addicted to that. Never tried to stop. But I don't have whisky sours for breakfast, or anything like that."
"So, what else you addicted to, Walt?" she persisted.
"Dunno. Helping people, I guess. Danger too. Sounds kinda pompous, I guess. Trouble. I don't know. I do feel addicted, though, but I don't know what to. Don't feel clean. Don't feel free."
He stood up. Went to the minibar. Put the empty glass down on top of it. Her knees cracked as she rose. He slouched back towards her. Eyes downcast. She put her arm around him. Kissed his cheek. He looked up and grinned. She tickled the lobe of his left ear with her tongue. Hugged him to her. Felt his heartbeat echo deep-down, more deep more down than the building's panoply of giant saxophone screeches and blares and resonances and dissonances.
She stroked the stubble down the side of his cheek. She felt the tightly-spaced night, felt movements afoot. Incursions into should-be-forbidden territory.
He kissed her gently. He lick-kissed the blood-cut he'd made in her lip.
She backed away in her mind. Her feet did not stir.
He caressed her cheekbone. Stroked the neck by the jugular.
She felt the blood swell hot into her eyes. His eyes were clear - not a hint of the bloodshot left.
He slid his right foot forward. She moved her left foot back.
She was tempted to say, "Shall we dance?" She remained silent.
He kissed her more roughly. His tongue stayed in his mouth.
She tried to speak. Her tongue did not move.
He kissed her eyelids. The darkness felt like warmth.
She clung to darkness. She kept her eyes closed.
She sucked his tongue. It had more wine than whisky. She tasted hedgerow berries in his warm breath.

warm wind of Autumn - soft hedge - no noise - I am shrunken beside her - made small by her presence - my bucket smaller than hers - my hands more deeply rinsed in purple - I am all concentrated next to her - I am more intense - I am more compressed - she is strung-out in comparison - she is as air-filled as this hedge - I reach on tiptoe to pick the berries the animals cannot reach - the thorns prick my skirt below the midriff - she is silent on the ground now - taking a rest - 'mind you don't snag that skirt, you won't get another one' - her own big bucket almost full - I know this but don't see it - she is now behind me - I don't know if she smiles or if she frowns - I slowly take the thorn out of my skirt - I stretch again to reach the last few leaves - my foot kicks out and knocks my bucket over - now I'm for it - she stands and circles in - her hand upraised

Naked. Two competing bodies locked in combat. Two world-powers not in retreat from each other. Two bald carcasses. Interlocked and interwoven. Meat and murder in the air.
His skin sulphur. A Lacrima Christi ooze-out through the pores.

"You are my shabby incomparable. And I am still your primate hunchback."

She stroked the unaccustomed chest-hairs. She felt elation and disgust. He groaned and grimaced and rolled his eyes. She tasted strands of nausea.
He banged his head to the side of hers. Kissed her neck-bone gently. There was whisky in his stubble.
She fist-pushed his shoulders from the vertical. She eased to the top of him.
His arse sagged into bedsprings. She knelt above his member.
She straddled him. Her knees pressed into bedsprings. She was knee-cuffed to her position.
She pressed down hard; encircled him. The bedsprings twanged in discord. They duetted in metallic bedlam.
She vampire-kissed his shoulder. She smacked herself back to the upright.

and his warm breath misting her eyes
and the finger-nails in her buttocks

and the bedsprings twanging kerplung kerplung
singing their song kerplung kerplung
filling the room derdoing derdoing

train wheels skipping derdoing derdoing derdoing derdoing derdoing...
"John?"
"Wh-what?"
"Sorry, didn't mean to wake you up."
"I wasn't asleep - I was just sort of musing."
"Sorry to be going, huh?"
"Well, yes. And no. Just drinking it all in again really. Sort of photographing it all in my mind - so I can take it back with me."
"It's been a weird time."
"Yeah. Lots of good times, but lots of pressure, too, I guess."
"Too much pressure."
"Yeah. I'm sorry. Still, we got some things sorted out."
"That we did."
"Thank God we came."
"Thank God we're going."

"Oh, God, I'm coming!" Barbed wire heat ripped up her, stung to her fingertips. The whole bed bounced and scraped.
His warm breath smelt like silage. His knobbly body yo-yoed through her pain.
Retaliatory banging assailed the wall. Retaliatory shouting underscored the protest from the neighbours. A muffled polyphonic cry of anger.
And from him,
ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!
A single plainsong drone.

And a spurt of the hot-yet-cold stuff.
And a numbing of all movement.

And rest and respite.
And calm.

And neighbours shouting "Bravo!" through the walls.
And a sink to moron sleep beneath her.
And the dizzying from bouncing and from drink.

She felt sick. Shafted up on the beach. The hard-shingled sea rising and falling.
She felt sick. The toilet bowl gurgled. It enticed her, yet its smell repelled. She crawled towards it, up and over him, her pudenda scraping his issue over his face. He slept still.
She clutched at her keyring. She stared at the rubberised eyes. Her eyes went to lead.

Sleeptogether.
Two bodies joined.
Two histories merging.
Curled up in sleeptime unity.
Sleep-zoned.
Slaked and squandered.
Mutual exhaustion.

"keep the faith"

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