Nicholas Alti

Fresh Brewski, Duder

You can’t reverse osmosis now, you soulless 
sentiment of loss, you can’t masquerade my 
oblivion of confusion, you can’t even forget. 

Spooky boo, ghoul fiend, want to slumber party
my little sludge buddy? We can wander back
-wards toward euphoria, collapse in a puddle of 
brackish acid. Tickle each other as we try to
stand back up, but we always fall down, always
liquefy just like and until silence.

You can crush this conversation, you can crush
a palm of grubs, you can crush a bougainvillea 
pink pill, you can crush a future without touch.

No function is fully pooped until I shoulder in,
gagged with a paperweight, open wounds all over,
sporting a rather Spahn Ranch ensemble. 
I cut the music. I scream in the startling language
of actual exorcisms. Nobody makes a sound. 
Yes, excellent. I put on my own music.  

You can crush this fresh brewski, duder, you can
crush any scant savings on bail, you can crush 
cathedrals with the full hymn of your hurting. 

I confess, I’m a part E-Animal: half cyborg,
three-quarters dumpster centipede, endemic
to stratums of critically higher altitudes. Spirit,
who scared you to death, anyway? No biggie,
though, my astral amigo—another data hazard
won’t really my ruined organ mend.

Daniel de Culla

Pentecost Dickshorts

In the happy Spain of my innocent childhood
National, repressive, and Catholic
I believed wholeheartedly
When I looked at my cock
That the Spanish priests
Didn’t have cocks
Because my mother had told me so
Because they were apostles sent by God.
-Son, when we pray, when we sing
When Sunday and holy days
Are a joyful celebration of the day
When we carry in our crotch
The best of life
It’s wonderful to know
That beneath the cassocks of our priests
Lives and throbs the bird that died on the cross.
They are celibate, son
But not the German priests
Nor the Dutch priests, the Swedish ones
Those from France, the English
Those from Italy, the Swiss
Those from Russia, the Turks, the Greeks
Those from Portugal, the Mexicans, the Americans, the Caracas
Those from Chile, Peru, Havana, the Brazilians.
All of them, all of them fuck the same
In their accents, successes and failures
Whimsically
As if the winds were blowing bad or good in their asses.
-But, mother, I, without meaning to
At my Confirmation
I saw Father Cortapichas Pentecostés
A big, pretty, beautiful cock
Similar to my father’s
But nothing like
Uncle Flores’s Dapple-Duck Donkey
Who is a good donkey and knows how to bray well
Like the father in his sermons.
-Son, when you grow up
You’ll see that the member of our priests
Is the member of Christ and his Church
And their motto is to say:
“I hold it high up to the Lord
In mystical silence.”
-So, mother, when the force of Lust
Which is hidden
Overcomes me with its power, and wants to burn
Is it good in the eyes of God
When I touch myself and masturbate?
-Yes, son. When Lust breathes within us
When Love propels us into life
It is pleasing in the eyes of God.
-Well, mother, I want to surpass
Father Cortapichas Pentecost.
Priest, priest I want to be!
Take me to the Seminary of Madrid
So that, while I live
Condemn my cock to eternal silence
Although many saints, while they lived
According to passages from the Santoral
Earned from their cock
A clamor or a resounding scream
Fucking adults or children.
But what I don’t want to become
Is a pedophile priest.
-Fine, my son. Your cock will accompany you
All the days of your life
And will dwell in the house of the Lord
For years on end
Unless, one day
God forbid!
You drop out of the Seminary
And start looking for the whores’ shit
In the Casa de Campo.
-If I drop out of the Seminary, Mother
My cock will be my light and my salvation.
No whore will make me tremble.
One thing I ask of you, Mother:
To dwell forever in your house
Of Carabanchel Bajo.

Pieter Kohler

Plugged

Standing behind her desk, Miranda wondered if students noticed that her gait had changed, even her tone of voice. Earlier she had locked herself in the washroom cubicle, took the package and lubricant out of her briefcase, followed the instructions, inserted the well-greased plug into her ass, wincing when it pushed through the sphincter, pulled up her panties, waited as she adjusted to the sensations, flushed the toilet, washed her hands, and then walking slowly, entered the classroom down the hall, three minutes late. Clenching her buttocks, she didn’t want it dislodged at inopportune moments.

A student sat in the front row, legs spread wide apart to give prominence to his crotch, the white statement in English on his black T-shirt loud and clear: MANWHORE. While Frida at the back of the class read out a passage in her halting English from the assigned story, Miranda wondered what the term meant and how it applied to Reinhardt. Did the youth sell his body? With his Germanic good looks and muscularity, he’d probably have customers lined up. His huge muscles were the most noticeable feature about him, and he wore clothes like the skin-tight T-shirt to draw attention to them. Reinhardt also drove a black muscle car to school, all noise and power; a fuck machine, really. The boys and girls couldn’t resist and Reinhardt knew it. Miranda privately admitted that she wasn’t immune to the student’s charisma. She fantasized about the student fucking her on the desk, her cunt thrumming and clenching around his cock. 

But the T-shirt seemed blatant and rude, even in this age of sartorial provocations. Really, discretion and appropriateness were obsolete notions for these students. Not that she should talk about appropriate behaviour, given the butt plug slipping in her anal canal every time she took a step. Miranda couldn’t quite describe the feeling aside from the fact that she liked the pressure, the up-and-down movement, and images of being tied down, maybe, or panting on her hands and knees and getting fucked by a student. Oh, it would hurt…at first…she had to prepare for the inevitable. Then she brought herself back from fantasyland to the blackboard and fluorescent lighting of a classroom smelling of student sweat and indifference.

With difficulty, Frida finished the passage. Miranda knew that Reinhardt had slept with Frida who wanted to be his regular girlfriend, but Reinhardt regarded love and romance as traps. She certainly knew the lad’s opinions. Fucking was great; guys needed to play, didn’t matter who their partner was; everything was permissible; it was all cool. Sex was nothing more than fun and games unless you wanted kids. Everyone should have fun; blowjobs were necessary, Reinhardt had written in his student journal, or words to that effect. Rough play, also great. The assigned topic was “Love and Sex” in a story of their choice, total freedom of expression allowed. Horny Reinhardt’s entry had startled Miranda awake from the semi-narcoleptic state she fell into when reading student papers. Reinhardt had simply used the story as a jumping-off point to write about his own sex life: about how much he loved shooting his load every day anywhere with anyone; a blowjob a day, at least one, even in the college library; fucking older teachers even, confessions which Miranda suspected the boy had pumped up like his arm muscles. Why? To impress her? To slip his cock into her cunt?

According to his journal, Reinhardt the MANWHORE (was that not also an insulting term?) had already fucked three or four girls and a couple of boys in the class. Everyone knew some professors slept with their students, but unless the students complained, no one else did, aside from the standard clucking of tongues and envious whispers behind their backs. Did Reinhardt ever use butt plugs? Could she safely ask that question?

Her students skittering with hormonal energy, immersed in the entertainment and advertising world of sex, Miranda wondered how they concentrated on physics labs and English essays when cocks crowed and cunts glistened. She struggled to attach herself to the moment, to keep from drifting away in reverie like a canoe broken loose from its mooring, to cut the ties here, to sever herself him from her inauthentic life. She sat down, if only to keep the plug in. Her master Kurt had bought it and commanded Miranda to conduct her last class with the device plugging her ass. Why should she plug herself? Miranda had protested, answered by Kurt’s slap across her face and mocking: like you don’t know, bitch. Just do it. Yes, she had obeyed, for obedience and submission thrilled her, and it seemed natural to follow master Kurt’s orders. And now, the plug secured all the way up, her buttocks clenched and unclenched and clenched again. Kurt had borrowed her car for the day after dropping her off at school in the morning, and Miranda would meet him in the parking lot after class. 

Time dragged. Some days she didn’t think she could go through the routine anymore. Before meeting Kurt, her sense of dying by increments had been tangible, and she would have died having lived an ordinary, unmemorable life. Liberation offered by Kurt and his  electric allure beckoned and led her into a new, transcendent life. She shifted on the seat, feeling the plug like a cock in her ass. Kurt had promised it would happen. Patience.

Kurt broke into and took over her tedious life. Electrons sizzled in the atmosphere. The leaden sky cracked and sunlight roared through. Wear the plug; it’s a start, bitch. Your ass needs training and a good fuck like any cunt. And so now she was practicing, getting ready. Yes, after showering this morning, directing the full force of the spray up her anal canal, although she didn’t think it could be as effective in cleaning it as an enema, she had inserted the butt plug, involuntarily gasping as the bulbous part squeezed past the sphincter, and pushed gently until all five flexible inches snuggled in her rectum. The flange at the end prevented it from going up any farther. Before dressing for school and driving to Kurt’s place she removed it, washed it, and promised Kurt that she would insert the plug again before class. He seemed annoyed and threatened punishment, which made her cunt wet, but he said this time it was okay. As long as it was in her ass when he picked her up later. 

Miranda knew there would be a larger plug after this one had served its purpose for a week or more, and after that conditioning, something larger still, and ultimately the real thing. A heavily-veined, bulbous headed throbbing cock. Like a soldier, Kurt had said, preparation and readiness were everything. Miranda imagined the size of Reinhardt’s cock; it grew impossibly large, like a horse cock, and her heart beat faster over the thought of it breaking into her like a stallion mounting a mare in heat. Not ideas she should be thinking about during class, she admonished herself. Of course, Kurt’s dick was equally admirable and she loved the feel of it in her cunt and mouth.

Miranda spoke faster, wanted time to speed up, so she could exit the classroom and meet Kurt in the teacher’s parking lot. They would drive back to the apartment and pass an hour or so together before Kurt left for the armory. Perhaps she would have to remove the plug and hoped the tip wouldn’t be covered in shit, knowing she’d be embarrassed in front of the soldier. She would stay at the apartment and prepare for tomorrow’s classes, watch videos, clean the tiny kitchen, and be awake when the soldier returned before midnight, and fucked and spanked her. Miranda’s mouth went dry, and she had difficulty concentrating on marking papers.

She lifted her ass off the seat imperceptibly and pushed down, as if she were fucking herself in front of the dazed students. The discomfort became mildly pleasurable. Some of the students, including Reinhardt, must have a secret life as well, special interests and games, besides ordinary fucking. Well, Reinhardt was not so secretive in his journal, but Miranda suspected more bravado there than truth. He did have muscles, though, and a bulging crotch which she couldn’t help noticing. He wrote that he wanted to star in porn films. Perhaps most of them were still too young, not yet sucked down into the bog of jobs, convenience, compromises, and pensions.

They had not experienced the randomness of death and violence like blood oozing out of smashed heads, bones splintered and crushed, or children’s limbs ripped out of their sockets, as Kurt had witnessed after the Taliban bombed a girl’s school outside Kandahar. The students’ digital gadgets connected them to nothing except mirror images of themselves. Hey, you brain-addled fuckers, Miranda could almost hear herself speaking in Kurt’s voice, connect with this: and she’d bend over, pull down her panties, and moon them with the butt plug plopping out of her ass.

“That’s it for today,” she announced, “have your journal entry written for next class. Be honest. Write whatever you think would interest me, but be true.”

Slamming books and scraping chair legs, their voices released like chattering birds, they filed out of the room, and she noticed how a group of admirers gathered around Reinhardt, the manwhore. Miranda was startled by the wink Reinhardt gave her, as if teacher and student shared intimate knowledge. In a sense, they had: allowed to write freely in their journals without fear of a teacher’s censorship and disgust, Reinhardt had been very free in his sexual confessions. Miranda had commented favourably and encouraged him to write more along the same lines. She fingered herself as she read his journal.

They had even enjoyed provocative conversations in Miranda’s office where Reinhardt, responding to her probing and questions about the entries, relaxed and spoke his mind and spread his legs wide to allow his teacher to admire his crotch, which he sometimes touched, although Miranda tried not to direct her eyes there. Reinhardt seemed willing to cross boundaries, to demolish the limits, if granted permission. Intimations slipped out with his words and flickered in his eyes. You should write more about this in your journals; Miranda had praised his frankness. Improve your English. What would Reinhardt think if he knew that his teacher, with her ass plugged, was on her way to a soldier’s apartment, a soldier who was her master? Would Reinhardt like to play with them? Would he bring Frida and would want Kurt to fuck her? Did she shave her pussy? Would Reinhardt wear leather boots? Deep-throat his professor, if Kurt gave his permission? Piss on her face and tits? The questions remained unasked, but Miranda still hoped for answers. All boundaries splintered and shattered ever since she met and submitted to Kurt. The word enslavement seemed to be more and more accurate, and Miranda whispered it like a confession of love.

She fancied taking risks with Reinhardt the manwhore. Ask the youth openly: have you ever thought about fucking me? Rumours abounded. She had heard about one or two colleagues sexually involved with Reinhardt. That Reinhardt was into anything. Did he dominate them? Did they submit willingly and joyously? Do you get boners in class? Is your cum heavy and luscious like Kurt’s? Maybe she should introduce the two. After collecting her things from his office and stuffing her brief case with student papers, Miranda stepped out and the butt plug slipped; she could feel it pop out of the sphincter. She reached behind and touched the flange of the plug inside her panties: yes, it was slipping out. She pushed it back in. 

Two hours max, the instructions said, at the beginning. It was a flesh-toned acrylic plug, shaped like an arrowhead, smooth and round, but tapered so the narrow part slipped past the sphincter with least resistance, discomfort beginning as the thicker part squeezed in. 

In the parking lot, Kurt had his arm outside the driver’s window, flicking a cigarette. Once she sat in the car and buckled, the butt plug secured against slippage, Kurt took another drag before starting the engine. He wore an army-issue T-shirt and Miranda admired her master’s biceps. 

The soldier switched the gears and the car moved into the road. Miranda stared at the boot pressing the accelerator. It needed to be polished. With her tongue, if master desired. Go with the fucking flow so I flow with fucking, Miranda recalled words from Reinhardt’s journal. Kurt squeezed her knee, and looked directly at him.

“You wearing it like I told you?”

“Yes, sir, I am.”

“Good. You can play with it in your ass while I’m driving. You have my permission, bitch.”

Miranda clasped her hands, the butt sliding up as she pushed down on the seat, and nodded yes; she was doing what the soldier allowed her to do. She worked her buttocks, slowly fucking herself. An image of Reinhardt’s heavily-muscled arms holding the wheel of his car, the famous fuck machine, blocked out any compunctions. Lifting and lowering her ass, up and down as if she was actually fucking herself on Reinhardt’s relentless horse cock, feeling it, feeling it, getting used to it, and then Kurt replaced him and trained her like a recruit. As Kurt drove to his apartment, she imagined Reinhardt unbuckling his belt, pulling down his jeans, bending his professor over the hood of his muscle car and plugging her ass with his horse cock, plugging it with her master Kurt’s permission. Kurt gripped Miranda’s thigh and squeezed. She began breathing heavily and moaning. He blew smoke out with the words: 

“You’ll always belong to me, bitch. Keep fucking yourself.”

Doug Hawley

The Gymnast and the Night Demon

Jane was sitting at her table thinking dark thoughts about herself when the doorbell rang.  She cautiously looked though the peephole and viewed a pleasant looking dark skinned man with a package in her porch light.  Something about his appearance made her feel safe, so she opened the door.

The man introduced himself “Hello, I’m night demon Jerome here to help you.”  Jane started to laugh at this absurdity, but stopped as she saw Jerome change in appearance and get much larger.  The man or thing before her now was over seven feet tall, muscle bound with hair sticking out of his clothes.

Jerome apologized for his subterfuge and explained “I knew you wouldn’t have let me in if I came in my natural appearance, so I transformed.  Do not worry, I will not harm you, I know your problem, and will solve it for you.”

Jane couldn’t think of a rational response, so she said “Sure, my problem, you’d solve it.  First, what is my problem, how do you know what it is, and how will you solve it.”

“In the order that you asked:”

“You are a high level gymnast – made the Olympic team, in the Olympics and other tournaments, you’ve placed second or third, but never a first.  Because of the discipline required your menstrual cycle is messed up.  You’ve never had a serious romantic partner of either gender, and because of your appearance you are only hit up by perverts, mostly old males, who want sex with someone that looks like a prepubescent boy.”

“I found out by listening to you talking with other gymnasts about your problem.”

Jane interrupted “How did you do that?  I’ve never seen anyone like you before.”

“As a night demon, I can take several forms, as you should know.  During daytime, I disappear.” 

“The package I brought in is the beginning of your new diet.  I learned that you will retire in a year at twenty-five.  While you follow my prescribed diet, your body will transform to that of a sexy mature female.  It will make gymnastics a bit more difficult, but you can still compete until retirement.”

“I thought of two more questions.  Why should I believe you and why are you doing this?”

“In order that you asked, again.”

“Isn’t it more likely that I’m telling the truth than that I could do the shape-shifting you observed?”

“I’m one of the good demons whose purpose is to bring sexual healing to deserving humans.  Not that we don’t enjoy our job.  We frequently treat ourselves and our projects to rapture.”

Jane wasn’t a believer yet, but she had a request which might convince her.  “Can you change back to the man I saw at the door?”  He did, and she said “Please hug me on your way out.”

Jerome complied and pressed against her body with his arms around her waist.  The heat of his body and the erection she felt through their clothes gave her a full body orgasm.  Fifteen minutes later, he was gone and she found herself dazed on the floor.

Around a year later, Jerome came back to visit Jane in the original form she had seen him.  The new Jane was a happy beauty.  Jerome told her “Looks like the diet worked.  You are radiant.  How about the romantic front?  Afraid I’m had too many other projects to check in.”

“There are two guys who are serious about me.  Joe is a baseball player who strikes out in bed sometimes, but when he is on, he hits home runs.  He swings a big bat.”  Jane chuckled at that.

He is really good about getting me warmed up.  We experimented a lot and we know where the hot spots are.  We are both into nipples and necks and some other places I don’t want to tell you about.”

“Ted is a Yoga instructor who is an expert at all of the best positions.  He can do a slow burn or white heat.”

Jerome smiled and said “Sounds like my work here is done.”

“Not until I’ve thanked you appropriately”.  Jane led Jerome to her bed.  After a couple of hours of moaning and groaning, and friction leading to fire, Jerome departed.  Jane woke up the next morning thinking about a decision between Joe and Ted and whispered “Thanks Jerome”.

Noel Negele

The many depressions of life #2

My schizophrenic grandmother 
has lost her passport and her birth certificate.
She married when she was fourteen.
She bore her first child at sixteen,
it was no biggie back then.

Her age now is anybody’s guess.
She’s mid-relic level old
like a miniature of sorts,
made of wax and wrinkles
and as far as eye sight goes 
she barely sees halfway
across her extended hands.

She lives in a house 
barely livable.
She still washes herself with buckets of water,
a woman a century old,
and never leaves the house anymore—
a house with rotten wooded floors and tore up carpets
and leaking roofs—
A slow poisoning of sorts happens in that house.

One night she wakes me 
from a drunken stupor.
She looks petrified 
even in the dark.
“Can you hear them coming up the stairs?”

It’s a dangerous neighborhood.
I am alarmed.
I go outside shirtless—
nothing. The dead of night.
Some cicadas—
the unbearable heat.

In the dark she heard voices.
Wouldn’t let her sleep
so I always left the television set
on in hopes the noise of the T.V
would drown some of the disease 
that kept talking to her from within.

Ludicrous conspiracies
she wholeheartedly believed in:
“They’re fixing me to get married,
I can hear them through the window,
I’m not stupid! For Shame!
In my age? 
Your grandfather’s grave is still warm.”

My grandfather died 
twenty five years ago 
and I’m pretty sure they’ve dug 
him out and burned him.

You only rent that hole in the ground.
It’s a question or whether 
you want to rot first or burn straight away.

We’ve implanted fake 
surveillance cameras 
all over the house. 
All her five children live abroad.
We’ve persuaded her 
that no matter what, 24/7
we were keeping a close eye on everything.

It seemed to help her.

“Look at my phone” I told her once
and she leaned closer to look
and I said
“Can you see? I’ve connected the phone
with the camera in the room and now
You can see the both of us.”
She leaned closer, still. 
She’s so blind she smiles and agrees.
“Yes, yes. I can see us.”

Sometimes I’d catch her knitting 
and stop midway
staring at something at some corner of the room
or another—
staring with disgust on her face 
Something despicable,
something to be dealt with.

It isn’t the disease that 
torments this poor creature
the most,
it’s loneliness.

Most of the time she lives alone
with the voices 
and the inadequate medicine
or inadequate pension 
or those buckets filled with water.

Last time I’ve seen her
she begged me to stay one night longer.
Begged. But I had to go.

She said
“You cry and you cry and you cry
and then you run out of tears
and you just stare at the wall.
What else is there to do?”

Some people will never be happy 
as others will
and if some people can live
way past the age they should—
some live a tragic amount more.

Judge Santiago Burdon

None of This Makes Him Real

The gate slowly opens after a loud buzzing sound, the guard says what they always do, don’t want to see you back here again, next time he won’t get caught, he walks into freedom, free with nowhere to go, 56 bucks all in singles in the pocket of pants too tight, no one to greet him, no one’s forgiveness, he knows he doesn’t deserve, should have pissed before he was released, now pissing where he stands.

Looking up at the sky, shadeing his eyes with his hand, deciding it looks like rain. Remembering his highschool girlfriend, backseat romance, can’t understand why he has this memory now, his mother will remind him how he ruined his life, ask again why he dropped out of college? 

He and his little sister haven’t talked in years, can’t think of the reason why, it was probably something he said, but most likely money he stole, his bus is at 10 tomorrow morning, has a shot at a job as a painter. if he can show up on time.

All the signs say no sleeping in the bus depot, rent a cop gives him a glare, he steps thru doors to the outside, cars splash puddles when they drive by, his socks get wet from the holes in his shoes, everything he owns amounts to nothing packed in a garbage bag, a cop car slows down checking him out, the cop gives him the once over, he tries not to make eye contact, finds a small smile in between raindrops, good to know it hasn’t been lost. there’s a liquor store on the corner, he’s got nothing to lose, knowing none of this makes him real.

Maia Brown-Jackson

Play depressing songs by female vocalists

Sometimes things are shit
and you can’t make them beautiful
and you can’t see a way to grow from them
and goddamn it you just hurt.

You ache with the impotence of your humanity
and you cling to some diminishing, recontextualized concept of love
and you just have to wait.

You just have to sit with dry tear ducts
because you trained them too well for too long.
You think, I’m cold, without
the energy to get a sweater
and you stare at the wall
and say, “Alexa, play depressing songs by female vocalists,”
to which it responds, “I can’t find any depressing songs,”
probably because some grotesquely rich techie
is afraid someone might sue them if Alexa knew
you might not feel one hundred percent perfecthappyamazing
and hadn’t done something about it.

So it’s silent, inside and outside your head,
just this heavy, bright grey,
like one hundred percent humidity
that never erupts into the storm the weather channel promised
but instead of the whole, unending sky
it’s just imprisoned in your brain
which is too polite to ever erupt so it’s just haunting you
because this world can just be really shit.

***

Previously published in Our State of the Union by Moonstone Press, 2024

M.P. Powers

eudaimonicus, a.k.a. sir happy                 

I wish our generation of carping
coddled 
identity-crazed poets 
could be as disdainful of their own 
persons
as the greek philosopher anaxarchus 
who after being thrown
into a mortar and clubbed with iron pestles 
said to the tyrant nicocreon “pound the sack 
that contains anaxarchus 
but you will never 
pound anaxarchus.” 

“chop his tongue off!” nicocreon replied
to which anaxarchus
(who I am quite sure had never attended
a poetry reading
on zoom) 

bit off his tongue 
and spit it 
at the tyrant.

Casey Renee Kiser

Ohh Snap, Now Add it Up!

Oh, I fell in love 
with a broken calculator-con man
It was sure a high
price for cheap, apocalyptic love, man
Well yeah, that’s ok, you know,
‘cause I’m a holy rubber band

My heart stretches so far til’
I snap back…

I can say cheese and 
quickly become a sneaky soul’s mousetrap

Not fuckin’ with the glue babe,
I snap back…

While that headlock is 
permanent, it’s mildly satisfying
Still, only when his 
mouth is shut does he ever stop lying 
Greed is holy like 
swiss; make a wish; get rich or die trying

Oh Big Daddy, I’ll be 
your first last wish

Scott C. Holstad

Tiny Fearsome Hurricane Force

Surprised I knew her language was Tagalog, she asked me out, so we met at Barley’s in Knoxville’s Old City for pizza and beer. She was so tiny she got drunk on one IPA and we had to go to Java City over on Jackson Avenue for coffee to let her sober up for the drive home.

We only kissed that first night, but that led to many more nights. She was a 23-year-old in-demand stripper, a single mother, and she wanted badly to be married. It took two weeks before she let me come to her place in the projects behind barbed wire fences and patrolling cops, but after that first time, she wouldn’t let me leave. She clung to me and passion ran deep. She was a goddamn tiger in bed, a lover and fighter. When she fought, storm clouds gathered and she was wicked fierce. But Holy Christ, these were the most violently explosive orgasms in history and that girl was the horniest person I’d ever met. She needed it at least five times a day and was always wet no matter what or where. It seemed like Heaven, at least for awhile.

(Yeah, I knew I was in it for all the wrong reasons… I’m not proud of it.)

After eight months of passionate tussling, of my continued refusals of marriage, of my telling her I wanted only an uncommitted relationship “for the time being,” having just been burned in a very long-term, decade-plus relationship, she apparently ran out of patience and told me out of the blue that she was moving to Michigan with an old boyfriend to get away from me and the city. An old boyfriend who was her son’s father. 

She called me at my new job and asked me for cash. I barely had any money – I’d been broke as shit for a year. I’d moved across the country at a bad time and hadn’t found work doing crap. Hell, I’d been staying at her place in the ghetto, braving both the cops and the bangers, sharing her mattress on the dirty bedroom floor. However, I’d recently gotten a crappy gig bouncing at a biker bar for $6 an hour, working very late nights and getting a few bruises for my effort. I wasn’t a huge guy, but I’d always broken other people’s bones faster and easier than they broke mine. 

Still, broke is broke. I told her I didn’t have any cash, but she said she knew I must have some money. She said “Just give me some – I’m moving. I need some cash, baby.” With flickering lashes and the whole show, which worked on me every damn time. Kicking myself for being such a sucker, I told her to meet me in the big Walton’s parking lot, now next to a freshly razed old supermarket.

She drove up in her purple Kia upon seeing me standing by my ancient black once-sporty Nissan. She got out and I asked where Cam was. 

“With Steve,” she said.

“Already? You didn’t waste much time. You just told me about this last weekend!”

“Well, he’s got a new job lined up in Michigan. Plus he has a huge cock and is pretty awesome in bed.”

“Shit baby, when did he get into town?”

She admitted it was about three weeks ago.

I said, “So you’ve been messing…” and didn’t need to finish the rest as she casually nodded yes.

How long had she been cheating on me? Was dick size the culprit or was it commitment issues? Shit, how huge was it? Like Ron Jeremy-sized? She was barely five feet tall, less than 100 lbs. I thought we were a good fit, so to speak. I realized I really didn’t want to know the rest.

Whatever. I sighed and handed over my last $300 in cash, leaving myself with literally a dollar and three quarters. I emphasized it was only a loan. She snatched the bills from my hand, got back into her Kia, looked back at me, said “Thanks” and drove off.

I never got my money back, in fact never saw or heard from her again. But then I wasn’t surprised. She wanted to get married; by God I hope she did.