Robert Cooperman

Thomas Bickerstaff Buys Girl Scout Cookies Outside the Wild Weed Dispensary: Denver

“The Girl Scouts of Colorado have decided it’s now cool to peddle their baked goods outside marijuana dispensaries.”—The Denver Post

It’s about time, 
but they’re thinking too small,
like, well, like little girls,
and not a man with big ideas.

If it were me, and it will be,
they’d be selling all kinds 
of munchies, not just cookies, 
but brownies, marinara sauce,
and all of it laced with pot,
plus T-shirts, posters 
of pop stars in Scout uniforms, 
a button or two undone, 
to show some creamy ta-ta’s 
to appeal to stoners, 
who get so crazy on a few tokes 
they need instant gratification.

I almost feel like tossing away
the lid I just bought—or wait, 
selling it to one of these parents 
too tightly wrapped to sneak 
into the Wild Weed 
while their kids flog cookies—
to concentrate, instead, 
on creating a company name, 
logo, a marketing strategy,
and to find suppliers, designers, 
seamstresses, to make tchotchkes 
to my specifications. 

Free enterprise! Capitalism!
Selling everything to everybody!
What makes this country great!

James Burr

Gimp World

It was three months into the global pandemic when the gimps emerged, dazed and blinking, from their dungeon-bunkers. Protected from the deadly virus by head-to-toe latex, air filtered through plastic ball gags, they stared at the derelict tower blocks stabbing the grey sky like scalpels as litter skated down the empty streets, forming drifts under abandoned cars. Contaminated rain drizzled from the overcast sky, flowing in rivulets over their rubber sheaths.

Unaware of the global apocalypse until their Mistress had disappeared and stopped feeding them, the Dom gimps had for a while survived by feeding on the Sub gimps, who eagerly proffered bodyparts to them to consume, engorged genitals straining against their shiny gussets, as the Doms took razor blades to their excited, quivering flesh. But as the weeks had passed, even the Doms could see that the increasingly emaciated and diminishing Subs were not a long-term solution, so they took the decision to investigate the viral wasteland above.

There was precious little food at first – the deserted supermarkets having been ransacked by the normie survivors during the initial outbreak. Indeed, for a while it seemed as if the gimps would also starve away, fading into the past leaving nothing but leather and PVC-clad skeletons as a memorial to their passing. Occasionally, they fended off starvation by discovering small groups of adult-babies, unattended and abandoned within their playpens, and feeding on their milky meat. But once their nurseries were exposed to the contaminated outside air, the adult-babies were quickly infected and their meat spoiled.

But then, when all seemed hopeless and lost, they discovered a group of Furries, like themselves protected from contagion by their multi-coloured pelts and grinning-animal masks. It was a simple matter to corral the Furries and within weeks, the gimps had established Furry farms where the Furries would frolic and mate all day before being lead to slaughterhouses for humane destruction and processing.

With the need for shelter and food now satisfied, gimp society seamlessly organised itself into an efficient, functioning culture far superior to any previously imagined. The Doms gave orders, with an energy that mere competence or inclination could never match, while the Subs acted on those orders, with a sexual eagerness that far surpassed that of anyone who begrudgingly worked for mere wages or status. Gimp civilisation, well fed and efficient, prospered and soon their numbers swelled. But here again, there were inevitable advantages to their culture. Costly education was no longer necessary as all the child-gimps needed to know, sat in their classrooms, row after row of PVC hoods listening to their teacher, was that Doms said what to do and Subs simply obeyed. Similarly crime was non-existent, as Subs did what they were told with a feverish sexual excitement, and if one of them did not do so, then they were clearly a Dom and so a new role was allocated to them.

And so the gimp-settlements prospered and flourished until such point as they grew so much that their borders started to encroach on the boundaries of other surviving gimp groups. The Doms of both sides, accustomed as they were to barking commands that were instantly obeyed, were appallingly ill-suited to dealing with others who did not share their desires and who were similarly ill-equipped for diplomacy. Thus, it was almost inevitable that these disagreements, with opposing sets of Doms futilely screaming commands at each other, rapidly escalated into all-out war.

So it was that the various mighty gimp-factions met in an abandoned and overgrown sports stadium to finally settle their differences. Yet as the various armies clashed, it soon became apparent that while the various Subs were fearless (indeed, they obeyed all orders without hesitation and rushed eagerly towards the enemy not only unafraid of harm but actively seeking it), they were uniquely ill-suited to combat. As the various groups met on the battlefield, waving oversized dildos and oiled paddle boards at each other, it soon became apparent that far from smiting the opposing forces, they would instead offer themselves to the enemy, salivating under their masks as they awaited pain and punishment from their foes. Ultimately all sides simply ended up proffering their buttocks to the other, occasionally nudging into them in vain attempts to spur them into action, eventually rolling around on top of each other in attempts to get inadvertently beaten or accidentally penetrated by an oversized rubber phallus.

After a few farcical battles of such embarrassing scope, the various Doms decided that it would all be in their best interests if they simply ignored each other, so treaties were drawn up and new borders established, the boundaries to their respective territories guarded by a specialist force of gimps who would patrol the edges of their territory on Brony-back, their muscular steeds carrying them across their lands on magenta and lilac glittered hooves.

And so, as the years passed, gimp society prospered until one day during the reign of Mistress Natasha Paine II, a Brony patrol came across a group of emaciated normies, recently emerged from their concrete bunkers, the withered, aging remains of a ruling caste from a past age. As was their way, the gimps left them to their own devices, but they watched them from afar as they tried to survive in this new world. They saw how some gave commands but were plagued by self-doubt and insecurities while others sought power over others who in turn chafed under such authority and plotted against them. They saw how factions would form and weak leaders would be killed or tyrannical leaders deposed only to be replaced by others who promised a new way of life which other groups found unacceptable, groups who would then revolt before setting up their own short-lived regimes. Within months the group of survivors had exterminated themselves in a whirlwind of individualism and self-interest, while their own gimp-culture continued to prosper and grow.

And so it was the gimps surveyed the death of the last normie through featureless masks and returned to their own affairs, looking proudly on the world they had built.

And they smiled with zippered mouths as the Geeks had truly inherited the Earth.

Hank Kirton

The Waitress and the Snake

Dawn. Sitting down to breakfast at The Happy Diner for the first time, eating greasy eggs and ham. As usual, I am alone and slightly high. I don’t know why I mix cannabis and caffeine. I get jumpy and my thoughts turn sour. On the other hand, I haven’t had a drink in over a year, thanks to coffee, weed and cigarettes. Technically I’m not sober, yet I am. Ativan helps too. I drop acid on the weekends just to flush out the Jung.

My waitress (nametag: Bernice) looks haggard and worn, but there’s beauty there too. She looks like Charlotte Rampling after a near-toxic bender. I know just from looking at her that she’s dealing with a bad hangover. Drunk sick. Serious soaks can recognize each other. It’s a psychic bond among lushes. I’ve seen the world through the look in her eyes. I can tell reality is hurting her right now. Her service suffers (I have to hunt her down for the check after thirty missing minutes) but I try to be polite and nice and when I leave, I leave behind a generous tip (25%). I want to give her encouraging words. I wish I could slip her a nip to help get her through the misery of her shift. I have dealt with the same agony she’s dealing with countless times. My compassion is hard won. But she’s tough. She’ll make it through. Not all of us do.

I walk home silently reciting a prayer to protect me from the passing cars. There is no sidewalk. I’m on the street, risking my life for a shitty breakfast.

The litter on the side of the street reminds me of my dissipated history: empty nips, beer cans, cigarette butts. I used to drink and drive like a pastime. Just cruising and listening to sad songs on the radio. I finally lost my license and I don’t want it back.

Halfway to my apartment I am confronted by a dead snake. It is a marvelous specimen. It’s a black rat snake (pantherophis obsoletus), big. It had been a powerful predator but it will slither no more. And then I’m struck by an idea. I crouch down and insert the tail into its mouth, making a loop like it’s eating itself. Like an ouroboros. The next person will come upon it and wonder. Maybe the waitress will find it. Maybe it’ll inspire something. I head home.

***

From: Everything Dissolves

Jeffrey Zable

One Time With Jim

“Jim,” I said, “what possessed you to pull out your pecker and wank it in front of all those people?”

To which he responded, “It’s a very fine pecker that has ridden with me on many a storm. That has lit my fire when the sleet of life has chilled my bones. When the back door man has come for me, hatchet in hand, while LA women laughed like hyenas in celluloid nightgowns. And when strange days led me to a spanish caravan on a moonlight drive into hell, I knew that the end was near, and that only by showing what I was made of, would I ultimately get back to the crystal ship and to the lizard king inside. And when people are strange, what choice do we have if we want to survive, and break on through to the other side!”

“Makes perfect sense to me now!” I responded, and handed him back the bottle.

Kelsey Marie Harris

And That is How I Was Reincarnated As a Unicorn

I finally discovered
the end of the rainbow.

I fastened it around my neck
and coaxed the leprechaun
into my chocolate starfish,
creating the perfect storm
of anal rampage and
erotic asphyxiation.

I masturbated
with such rapid force,
the skin from my penis
rubbed off in my hands.
This new element of pain
sent my pleasure sensors
into hyperdrive.

I ventured into a realm
incomprehensible
to mere mortals.
My eyeballs froze and
shattered like ice and
blood spat from my ears.

I reached an orgasm so massive
I spontaneously combusted.
Pink mist and ejaculate
coated the clouds.

Judson Michael Agla

Bastards and Bullshit

The flaws were evident the last time you’d laid out the blue-prints; your numbers won’t change, no matter your rage, your infrastructure had no structure at all, it was crumbling over everyone, showers of proverbial concrete. It was the whipping pole of the meek when the metal meets the meat, and these bricks won’t fucking eat themselves.

The ravens watched as the systems fell apart, talon scratches where they were perched. People were feeling cheated and ass-fucked; nobody wants the goddamn continental breakfast anymore, they want frittatas and they’re willing to kill for the taste of parmesan. Your gears were misaligned and the bolts holding them were cheap, third rate, and cost effective. The whole clusterfuck of bad decisions eventually came to its fruition and took half the city with it; the ravens glided overhead blinded by the shock wave of dust and industry that burst out of your war machine as it imploded on itself.

How do you expect to keep the people subdued; there’s pitch-forks and shovels rising in a dense mist of words like revolution, insurrection and revenge. You’re exposed and weakened; we’ve got the angry masses ready to butcher whoever winds up on the business end of their tomahawks. The ravens watch the macabre massacre; unable to tell the story of the world and how it cleaned itself of all the bastards and their bullshit.

Tim Frank

Totem

After they’d fucked, Eugene drank in the experience with all his senses by wallowing in the damp patch, swaddling himself in the sweaty sheets. Sitting on the edge of the bed, Shelly strapped on her bra, collected the money from the nightstand and stuffed it into her purse.

“Hey,” he said, “let me take you to dinner. I want to treat you like the queen that you are.”

“Mister, you know the rules,” she said, rising to her feet.

“Fuck the rules, we belong together. You just took my virginity; we have a special bond now. In fact, come to Bali with me. I’ll buy the tickets now. We can make love on the beach, drink cocktails from coconuts, leave this world behind.”

“You’re sweet but please, be realistic.”

“I am being realistic, you’re the love of my life. I’ve never felt this way before.”

“Promise me, the first girl you shag in real life? Don’t marry her. You’re a sweet guy, don’t sell yourself short.”

And with that, she tramped out of his room, adjusting her G-string as she made her exit.

“Shelly!” Eugene called after her.

But she was already gone.

Eugene thought about her all day at work. He was twenty-seven and a successful lawyer. He had the odd fair-weather friend, but love had always eluded him. Now he’d been hit by the thunderbolt. However, he wondered if he could ever defile Shelly again – she was just too perfect. But he couldn’t resist visualising the sweat dripping over her porcelain skin – slowly down her neck and onto her pendulous breasts. No, he had to see her again and have her once more. After just one taste, he’d become addicted to her moist lips and creamy thighs. Clocking off from his job in the city, he decided to pay a visit to Shelly’s massage parlour in Soho, after first shovelling down a heavy Chinese buffet followed by several pints of cider.

As he entered the parlour there were a few men seated in the waiting room, perusing hardcore porno magazines, glazed expressions on their faces. Eugene approached the reception desk, occupied by a middle-aged woman wearing varifocal lenses. Eugene asked for Shelly.

“Sorry,” she said, “she’s busy. But…”

“I’ll wait,” Eugene interrupted.

“…we have many other beautiful young ladies for your delectation. Here are some photos.”

“That won’t be necessary. I’ll wait for Shelly.”

Eugene squeezed himself in between two of the other customers. One of them, with a pencil thin moustache and a cravat, leaned in conspiratorially and whispered in Eugene’s ear, “Shelly’s really something else, isn’t she?”

“What?” Eugene said, “What did you just say? Who the fuck are you?”

Shelly’s pimp overheard the conversation and, wanting to avoid any drama, appeared at his office door and motioned for Eugene to join him.

Inside his office, the pimp leaned back in his swivel chair, reached for a chewed-on cigar, and said, “I hear Shelly has made quite an impression on you.”

“I guess,” Eugene said, all cagey, wringing his hands.

“Listen, it’s fantastic you like her so much, it’s what we’re here for. However, we encourage our clients to spread the love around and not get too attached to any one of our girls. We’ve had problems in the past with some, let’s call them, insane clients, you see.”

The pimp smiled devilishly, his teeth all jutting out at random angles.

“Hmm,” Eugene said, “you’re her pimp, right?”

“You could call it that.”

“I’ve been wanting to talk to you, because the thing is, I want Shelly.”

“I understand, I do.”

“I mean, I want her to be all mine. Forever.”

“Oh. Well, now…”

“Hear me out. I can make it worth your while, I have plenty of money and I’m willing to splash the cash. I’ll treat her right, I promise. The truth is, I’m in love with her and I want to marry her.”

“Well, Eugene, your experience is quite common. Shelly is a lovely girl. All our girls are lovely, however. I’m sorry to disappoint you, but I just can’t give you what you want. Simply no way. How about this, why don’t you try Jasmine, seeing as Shelly is otherwise occupied? Give her a test run tonight, and I promise your obsession with Shelly will be cured by sunrise.”

“I don’t need a cure. I don’t want a cure.”

The pimp sighed and said, “Let me do you a deal. Have Jasmine tonight and I’ll fix you up with Shelly tomorrow. Then we’ll see how to proceed at a later date.”

“I think I’ll pass and just see Shelly tomorrow.”

“Why don’t you at least meet Jasmine and see how it goes? You have nothing to lose and everything to gain. You don’t even have to do anything; it will be a way of passing the time until you see Shelly again. Trust me, I know about these things.”

“Well, I guess it can’t do any harm. Just this once, mind, seeing as I have nothing else to do. Because I warn you, I won’t give up on my Shelly, she’s burnt into my soul. Do you have a picture of this Jasmine?”

“Of course,” said the pimp, flicking through a laminated sex menu and then sliding it over. The page was labelled “Jasmine the Exotic Girl of your Dreams”. Despite the elaborate lighting and a loose red slip draped over her body, Eugene could tell she was pretty much anorexic.

“She’s lost a lot of weight recently,” the pimp said, “used to be over two hundred pounds. Some guys go for that, other guys go for the opposite. Either way she’s a real firecracker. You like her?”

Eugene analysed the photo, squinting.

“Yes, yes, I think I do.”

Jasmine’s room was located on the third floor of the massage parlour, and he was welcomed by the scent of strawberry lube and cinnamon incense as he entered. Jasmine was seated in an armchair in the corner of the room wearing a satin dressing gown with her crossed legs exposed. There were the soft sounds of whale song playing from the Echo Dot.

Eugene took a seat on the bed and played with his pocket pen knife.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I don’t really know what I’m doing here, my heart belongs to another.”

“Relax, I don’t want your heart. I’m just here to show you a good time.”

“It feels wrong.”

“We can talk for a bit if that makes you more comfortable?”

“I’m in love with a girl who works here, Shelly.”

“Ah, Shelly,” she said, “popular girl.”

Jasmine stood and slid her gown off, stepping out of it as she approached Eugene. The light hit her in such a way the loose skin hanging from her belly was revealed.

“Let me take your mind off her…”

She straddled him, loosened his tie and unhooked her bra. Her tits were somehow floppy and shrivelled at the same time.

After a period of fumbling around, Eugene finally said, “Stop. I’m sorry, but I can’t get it up. This wouldn’t happen with Shelly. I don’t know how I could have betrayed her.”

Jasmine rolled off Eugene and wrapped herself back up in her gown.

“What the fuck is the deal with Shelly, anyway, huh? I mean what’s she got that I haven’t?”

“Well, she’s just so beautiful and kind and gentle. She’s just the perfect girl.”

“Really.”

“Yes, and I feel we’re made for each other, you know? Soulmates.”

“Right. I get it, I get it, you’re hooked. What do I care? I didn’t lose all the weight for your approval. I’m sure you’re eager to see her as soon as possible, then.”

“Of course.”

“I think I can help you, because if you love her so much, it’s only reasonable I tell you where she is right now.”

“Would you?” Eugene said, unable to contain his excitement.

Eugene followed Jasmine’s directions to a run-down motel on the edge of town and booked himself into a room. He didn’t have a plan and decided to let instinct guide him, knowing the love between him and Shelly could not be denied.

It wasn’t long before Eugene picked up on the loud moaning sounds, which seemed to be coming from several doors down. With some sense of trepidation, he went off to investigate, following the noise as it grew in intensity.

Creeping along the balcony, he finally arrived at its source.

“Oh, Shelly!” a man’s voice called out.

Eugene peeked through the gap in the curtain. Two men were kneeling opposite each other on the bed – old men with turkey necks and balls hanging low, slapping back and forth as they both laid into the woman on all fours in between them. It was hard to make out in the dimness of the light, but one of them had something tattooed upon his wrinkled, saggy ass.

…S
…H
…E

…Shelly?

Despite all evidence that this was in fact his Shelly, Eugene had still yet to see her face. Maybe there was still hope that it wasn’t her in there. Maybe it was just some other whore who also happened to be named Shelly, presently getting shish-kebabed by a couple of geriatrics.

Several sustained groans later, the old men rose from the bed and staggered off into the shower together. It was only then that Eugene was able to verify the identity of his beloved, who was now busily wiping their loads off her face.

He bent over double and puked up his Chinese buffet right there on the spot, retching with brutish force.

“Hello?” Shelly called out. “Anyone there?”

She covered herself with a sheet as she rose to crack the door.

Eugene wiped his mouth and tried to compose himself before she could undo the chain. Slowly standing up straight, he was confronted by the sight of a horrified Shelly standing there before him.

“Shelly, we have to talk…”

Half an hour later, police sirens blared through the neighbouring streets as they advanced towards the motel. A smattering of customers loitered in the parking lot. They maintained a frosty silence and gawked at the old man sprawled upon his back, stomach gutted, innards unravelled in a bloody mess. Two policemen arrived on the scene and rushed to his side, one of them quickly reporting into his radio that he was dead. They reached for their batons and tasers and followed the entrails, leading them to the open door of the motel room.

The room was pitch black and the lead officer flicked on his torch, methodically sweeping it back and forth through the darkness. Quickly he zeroed in on a pair of bloodied feet upon the carpeted floor.

Moving the light up the man’s body, the officer gasped at the sight of his mangled crotch, before finally shining the beam upon his face. Stuffed in his mouth was his own cock and balls, blood and cum mingling in a gory pink froth as it dribbled down his chin.

The officer took a deep breath as he reached for the wall switch and flicked on the lights.

Eugene sat up from the blood-soaked mattress with a grisly smile upon his face. Beside him was Shelly, lying naked on her back. The girl had been completely decapitated.

“Hello officer…” Eugene said, holding her head on top of his like a totem pole.

“…have you met my fiancée yet?”

Casey Renee Kiser

Dead Weight

When I see cuts on their wrists,
I know that we could be tight
Otherwise–
I’m hard to know, full of fight
And I doubt I wanna know you,
Stop pulling on my dress!
If I’m breathing, then
I’m always down to confess
Blooming underwater–
wise enough to drown daily
Surface once a year to prove
I got the guts to hang on, barely

I can’t fix you
That’s something I must address
The blame game–
don’t come at me with that mess
I said
Stop pulling on my dress!

Scott Halperin

Oogling

She’s always wearing
some kind of mini dress.

Today it’s leopard print
and she wears it well.

She walks with more direction
than I’ve ever known.

Each step a precise
thing of beauty.

She caresses the universe
with her axial sway.

All eyes are pulled in
her direction.

Gravitational fields pull
to the sway of her hips.

Her curvers are silent,
but when her heels click past…

I’m glancing out the back
of my cubicle, dragged
by some kind of force
greater than me.

Mark J. Mitchell

Late Surrealist

First, his fish wouldn’t start.
It coughed out tiny diamonds
the precise color of her eyes.

He ran for a public balloon
but it floated off as he reached
the only cracked pyramid nearby.

Walking along Pudding Street.
shoes covered in lovely butterscotch,
he couldn’t make time behave.

When two snakes hissed open
he tangoed—solo—to his desk
to find a lunch of lunar paperwork.

Until the moon swallowed its last cat,
he melted fossilized vegetables
and prayed for a plaid taxi home.