Alternative to Plowing

My wife Judith and I nestled in our bed at the end of a laboriously fruitful day of toiling in the field. Despite her modest age of 23 years old, she could still find the energy to arouse me in the most youthful of ways. We were always sure to keep quiet during our recreation as to not awaken our children or the neighbors of Plymouth Rock. I could sense she was feeling rather frisky when she whispered in my ear with the mousy voice I desired, “I want to make you squirm Jedediah.” Her words were provocative as if she were tempting the Lord above with flirtatious hymnals. Admittedly, I was exhausted from the day, however, my body presented itself for the occasion. My little Jedediah stood shrouded by the blanket that we shared in our straw bed as if to praise the heavens above. Judith’s calloused hand traced their way down my tanned and rigid abdominal muscles as she sought to introduce herself to my flesh.

We have recently initiated a cruel trick on the Lord by having relations without the intent of procreating. The scandalous act committed, the sin in the eyes of God, seemingly introduced passion beyond our mandatory commitments that came with the covenant of marriage. Once, on an occasion before this, I conducted the promiscuous act, and as I arrived toward completion, I exited Judith and jizzed in her Puritan blonde hair. Standing over her as a leader in the community and in the bedroom, we exalted glory for the deed. My seed eventually washed away from her curls due to the typical sweat and elements endured over the course of a few physically active days of work. We would giggle at each other over dinner with our little secret. It seemed as if tonight was destined to be a repeat of our extra-marital conduct.

Judith caressed my neck and whispered passionate praise as if I were the Messiah. “Oh Jedediah,” she said, “I want to taste your fruit and milk you as if you were one of the dairy cows outside.” I was electric. Her boldness always froze me, but I eventually found the strength to contribute. “Judith, do you take me to be your lawfully wedded boy toy?” To which she nodded approvingly. She paused with her strokes as she had a defined eureka moment. I opened my eyes slowly and met hers glowing wide with excitement. I had not seen her filled with this much enthusiasm since we boarded the Mayflower. Instead of moving her hands below the sheet, she descended entirely into the cottoned abyss that was our bed. Confused, I asked “What the heck do you think you are doing?” She hummed along in attraction to my cursing as she mischievously smiled and drifted into the dark realm. We descended into hedonism together.

At first, I was unsure what I felt. I pondered which lips she was using for my penetration. I stared at the wood beamed ceiling of our cottage as the ecstasy and confusion overtook my body. It felt wet but not as wet as typical intercourse. I concluded she must be using her mouth by the uninterrupted sounds of slurping and swallowing that were emitted from the sheet tent she was operating in. I was twice over a Pilgrim in a strange land. This must be a sin. There is no way this was normal, but then again, as animalistic as it felt, I had never seen a farm animal do what Judith was doing. I peeped down at the sheet to strengthen my imagination of what she might be attempting. My theory was confirmed as I could make out a fabric sphere bob vertically by candlelight. “Who is this devil in our bed? Do I tell our preacher about this? Should I beg for forgiveness?” All these thoughts stirred as she labored away in the late hours of the night. My back was arched and my legs tingled as if they were losing circulation. “Am I experiencing heavenly comfort or is this a measure of devotion I am not physically prepared for?”

The climax came after what felt like a fortnight. I was impressed that I was still riddled with a boner despite my neuroses. As I felt the familiar release build to the point of externalization, I reached down and tapped Judith on the top of her head. Her hair was damp with condensation and the entire under sheet was elevated with body heat. I shot my ropes into her mouth. I could not imagine the sensation she must have felt as she gulped and gasped at my relief. After enough time passed, she crawled back up my body, shamefully avoiding my eyes and asked, “Dear Jedediah, did you not enjoy my gift?”

I sat with the question momentarily before responding, “Why I do believe that might be the highest form of pleasure to be found on Earth!”

Judith finally made eye contact with me and confidently said, “I do not understand then, you laid dormant and became mute. Not even a smile upon my return to your side. I worry you have become ashamed of my heathen activities.”

Wanting to smooth over any insecurities she may have held, I told her, “Judith, I love you baby. I will eat the forbidden fruit with you any day.”

“Good. We are stuck together, and I wouldn’t have it any other way.” She teased.

I watched her roll over to extinguish the candle that illuminated our quarters. “Judith, I hope you forgive me for not kissing you goodnight. Your mouth just had my seed in it. I hope you understand.”

She giggled and told me, “All is forgiven.”

For the remainder of the night, I stared deeply toward the heavens while my deeply slumbering wife lay beside me. My torment was brought on by the affliction this possessed creature drug into our marital life. I could not get passed the guilt of sin we had committed. I had been led astray by lust. Even if she was my wife, this was Sodom and Gomorrah level treason against Thee. I am at odds with God or my Family. Earth was temporary, Heaven was forever I decided. In the morning I will report her to the Plymouth Rock authorities to be hanged on grounds that she is a witch conducting the devil’s work. Till death do we part, dear Judith. 

Duet

The violins were dueling. 

Soaring to great heights before plunging back to earth in a magnificent swirl of notes and patterns, each vying for his attention. Truly a glorious duet. 

Felix Chapuys felt the old familiar stirring in his chest, not unlike those early days of marital bliss when he was young and invincible and full of boundless optimism. As it was, music had been his only solace since his young bride and unborn child had been mercilessly snuffed out by a runaway conveyance in the thoroughfare, some twenty years before. 

It was a fate that still filled him with anger and disgust at his creator. A being so callous as to rip away Felix’s own heart while also filling his soul with sublime music. God was a horribly cruel master, indeed.

Chapuys twisted the simple gold band he still wore on his left hand around and around as the strings rose together into glorious climax, ripping him to pieces all over again. The violins seemed to know all the secrets of his heart, the confusion of his broken mind. They filled Chapuys with an intense and mournful longing, the past melding seamlessly into the present as the concerto played on and on.

A final, deep unison note pierced the air before slowly, exquisitely fading away. Silent tears fell in tracks down his face, as they always did at the concerto’s conclusion. Chapuys took a moment to savor that first, blissful moment of quiet as the last tone dissipated, returning the room to its usual, colorless state. 

Felix knew if he could, he would play the music in an endless loop, winding the battered old phonograph again and again until his arm gave out from sheer exhaustion. The concerto had to be earned. 

It demanded to be admired and cherished by someone who was deserving in every way; an eager student who would follow its divine instruction. Chapuys worked tirelessly to be worthy, pushing himself to the very edge in order to live within the music and pass on this knowledge. Inspired, he vowed to do it this very night.

With a determined sigh, Felix Chapuys caressed the skull a final time before gently returning it to its rightful place among the others. Turning away from his masterpiece, he smiled at a job well done.

Felix could feel a kindred spirit, a strange presence watching him from a great distance, already learning. Satisfied, he checked to make sure his blade was sufficiently sharp, before straightening his cravat and making himself ready for the long night ahead. 

***

Lucas backed away from the exhibit as the song ended. 

It was old people music, but Lucas didn’t mind. He may be two months away from his tenth birthday, but his mom always said he had an “old soul,” whatever that meant. The figure’s movements were so lifelike, he swore it smiled at him. It was eerie watching it methodically stroke the plastic skull as the music got louder and louder. The whole thing gave Lucas the creeps and a strange feeling of excitement at the same time. 

The man was one of those animatronic thingies. Lucas could hear the clicks and whirls as it sat dancing around in its chair but the face is what really got to him. It was lined and expressive, different emotions playing out across a wax-like surface. Curiosity getting the better of him, Lucas went over to the large plaque directly beneath the exhibit and began to read.

“Felix H. Chapuys, 1842-1902, was a notorious American serial killer in the late nineteenth century. He is credited for killing at least thirty women over a span of  two decades. It is said that he was driven by intense anger at the tragic loss of his young wife, Julia, who was run over by a Hansom Cab in the early 1880s. Julia was seven months pregnant. Chapuys was a great lover of the arts and music, carving up his victims while listening to his favorite musical selections on a hand-cranked phonograph. On the night he was caught, a “Concerto for 2 Violins in A minor, Op. 3, No. 8” by Vivaldi, had just finished playing as he was surprised by local authorities. The skulls of his many victims were carefully cleaned and stacked in the bedroom, the body of his latest mark still laid out upon a table, awaiting further dissection. He’d already boiled the skin from her head as they kicked the door in and shot him dead, thus ending his reign of terror.” 

Lucas turned his gaze to the headless mannequin lying on the table, goose flesh breaking out all over his body. They really were going for a realistic effect here. Bright red pieces glistened under the lights, fake gore and offal spilling over onto the floor. He could hear the display gearing up for another go as the crank on the old-fashioned music box began to spin. Unable to tear himself away, he hesitated. It was well past lunchtime and his mother would be looking for him.

He risked a final look back, feeling the whirs of the strange technology humming in anticipation, and saw a random tear fall down the killer’s face. A fresh jolt of fear sent him running away from the waxed figure and his crazy, hypnotic music. The opening notes of the concerto rang out once again through the “Hall of Killers” as Lucas desperately searched for the exit. 

A stray thought popped into his head as he hurried past the displays of Jack the Ripper, Jeffrey Dahmer, H.H. Holmes and John Wayne Gacy. It came out of nowhere, in a deep, fervent voice that wasn’t his own. This single, relentless thought would return to Lucas many times in the years to come, taunting him, driving him, igniting his imagination. A lonely, almost ten-year-old boy desperately searching for meaning who found a sudden, inexplicable appreciation for classical music. 

As Lucas burst through Wax Museum doors, he had no idea what any of this meant, but it would all make perfect sense to him in due time. The world would also come to know it, walking past Chapuys to where Lucas’ own likeness would one day stand, the maestro and student entwined forever in blood-drenched infamy. Truly a glorious duet.

The violins were dueling.

Psychoneuroses, Part 4

It was tough improvisational shit he’d sold to Aleister; it was shamanic: coming on strong. Even flea-ridden mongrels like Aleister weren’t guaranteed to handle deep funk action like this gear. Piggy peered into Aleister’s mince pies for reassurance. The bitch seemed cool. Joyfully, Pigsty drifted away; a trackless spore in a hot, humid dusk. Meanwhile, Cecil continued to push his luck, displaying a barbaric propinquity toward taking the piss. Using grotty rhetoric, the pawky manner in which he mockingly depicted community values threw a shitty spanner into the central mechanism of society’s psychical economy; devaluing core theories at the very heart of its exchange rate. Self-proclaimed Royalty; do me a favour! Cecil was simply out for what he could lay his grubby paws on. He couldn’t give a tuppeny-toss about all the fools deluded enough to idolise him. In bygone days, human behaviour mirrored unimpeachable elders, folk trusted digestible rules, and felt safe under the protection of pedagogical politicians hoving flinty principles like Thomas More, or James Ramsay MacDonald; gentlemen of integrity, sinew and fibre, who stood or fell on ancient fundamentals. Ab immemorabili, more martial, but equally legendary leaders flourished: Thor and Odin, brass-balled hairy guys who led from the front; demigods, content, nay eager, to share, even their dying energies, with a beloved natural environment. From those vanished golden-ages onwards, subsequent hero-less governments had been as corrupt as Narnia in winter. Aleister’s revelatory thinking swayed toward regicide, because organically (apart from that soggy-knickered Granny-shagging stuff) Fagan was spot on: any demagogue, quasi-prophet, or tin-pot opportunist seeking to subordinate our painstakingly patch-worked communities had to be dissuaded in the most brutal fashion- lest we poor people suffer. To be ill-governed under heavy manners is to be inspected, spied upon, directed, law driven, regulated, preached at, controlled, censored, and/or bummed by creatures that have neither the right, nor the wisdom, nor the virtue to do so. 

For example, The Queen of England safeguards sovereignty for a cadet branch of the haunted house of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha; landed gentry poncing off successive populations of the British Isles like a bejewelled tapeworm since 1840. Her Majesty possesses arbitrary powers of pleasure over star-struck subjects, and takes the preposterous title of Supreme Governor on Earth of the Church of England. How mad’s that? Because structurally, amid the white-hot foundry of Christ’s notional Kingdom, there is no private property, no operationally leased airspace above buildings, or on rooftops, capped with newfangled mobile phone aerials; no pride and precedence, absolutely no commercialised motive, and no reward save love. Ah, love. Today schoolchildren are groomed from the age of four; force-fed fairytales daily, stuffed full of ornamental gibberish, and unwise additions, dreamed up by the unintelligently devout, concocting a miasma which paraphrases the lifecycle of a mysterious first-century Palestinian Jew: stuff and nonsense that kiddies must fit onto the same mental map as the lifecycle of a hungry caterpillar (to which, oddly, it bears a striking resemblance). A diabolical cult of the individual surrounds Queen Elizabeth (whose face as designed by Arnold Machin, appears on all legal currency and postage stamps); leeching it large in magnificent palaces with stunning gardens, she’s amassed a vast private fortune, becoming in fact, the richest witch in the world. What on God’s green earth does Fagan see in her? Her every public relations action, no matter how banal, is lauded by a crass, fawning, sycophantic media; dark forces choreograph accompanying, pro-royalist demon-strations. Lurking behind Blighty’s stylised figurehead, a voracious clique of parasitic castrators rule a decerebrated majority, who scribble the traditional mark of inutile illiteracy by one of three names twice a decade (although some unlucky blighters from outside the portcullis, beyond the motte-and-bailey, are procured by palace security chiefs for the dubious privilege of being humped by princes, whilst sky-high on drugs). 

“And now you children of my father’s flock, the stochastic moment arrives to realise the implicatures and insurmountable powers of conviction.” Cecil trumpeted forth mesmerising messages: “…there can be no life without injustice, no living creature can live and thrive without destroying another existing organism. Behavioural battles between one’s instinctual reflexes and conditioned roles, brings painful confusion upon one’s soul! Please yourself people, groove as you feel, follow your nature, let’s all remain real. Come! Gather now; conceive infinity as it actually is.”

Slyly Cecil produced his spellbinding lantern (a theatrical prop billed as a ‘sovereign cognitive apparatus’ over promotional posters dotted around the West End) and proceeded with a phantasmagorical exhibition of suggestive images; projections fraught with terrified mini-mammals, punctuated at intervals by uglier scenes where he performed bestial deeds on an array of plastic inflatables. This cynosure of spectator heed revealed hedgehogs and multicoloured shrews, pulling processional carriages under the yoke of fantastical homorphous creatures (bipedal figures that bore antlers or pointy things akin to mountain goats). All manner of inventive pictures were grotesquely distorted, conjuring up kaleidoscopic sequences of emotional and spiritual depravity, eating into and becoming ever more pressing upon the mindset of an audience agog. Tension grew, lewd ladies cried out in ecstasy, for stark was Cecil’s power. Gross manifestations emanating from CCG’s ingenious implement of lurid exposure formed a veneered pictorial mimicry of humanity, laced with vermin, smut, scatology; painting an eerie irreligious triptych, echoing mediæval exemplars of Judgment Day. Alternative cabaret disguised excavations into evils. Serving no teleological purpose, lionising deceit, and betrayal; highlighting people’s worst traits, Cecil triggered anxieties, disinterring a primordial adversarial fear of ‘others’. FOMO spread across vast ranging horizons. Thatcher’s atavism had won; employing rubrici branded: what’s in it for me? His contemporaries were no longer willing to curb sensory whims and fancies. En masse shunning personal responsibility, compromise and sobriety; wholeheartedly subscribing to brain-worms, sleight of hand, and cheap tricks that Cecil used to corner TGI Friday’s kippered meat market. Afternoon bled into evening; febrile scuffles broke out amongst rebarbative white niggers in the foyer. Aleister espied Piggy’s sudoriferous armpits milling amidst the best of them; late arrivals, as incompetent as they were brutal: an irruption of non-thinking easily divisible boot boys, disaccustomed to harmonious mingling at an after-office-hours soirée. A transitive section of stage-struck punters crowding the auditorium were, by contrast, smitten by Cecil’s spectacle to the point of sensualism. Aleister could feel a collective craving to edge closer to Cecil’s enthralling contraption. Cecil had turned them on big time. He’d spit roasted the lot of them by talking dirty. Now they were ready to bend over and retake it where the sun doesn’t shine. Aleister guessed that promises of requited lust were genuinely scarce fodder for most heavily taxed, hard-working citizens, and now, thanks to Cecil’s adept salesmanship, easy virtue had become a big issue of the upmost primary significance. The gloating horny figure of Curious Cecil Gruff (who jarringly reminded him of his absentee father) pandered to illicit desires, playing upon biblical guilt’s and weaknesses; beseeching volunteers to feast upon the pabulum of his wicked craft. Only a soupçon of sanity survived; it belonged to venerable Aleister, would-be guardian of an adamantine anus, thus not a man to die of ignorance. 

Proper leaders, heterodox ones who care about citizens, set the correct tone, they regulate an equitable agenda -called meritocracy- there’s no inheritance, and the right people are elevated as a direct result of their worth to society from a pool of stakeholders, not just to-the-manor-born usurpers. Direct democracies draw people together: promoting mutual respect, forbearance, and shared faith; not knobbing domesticated animals, or abusing feeble folk in the way Cecil encouraged. His ghastly vision was no better than some dreadful divorced, single, or separated shag-fest, where a winner-takes-all in a cold, friendless, windswept coliseum of malice, mistrust and paedophilia. Deciphering the nuclear consequences of undiluted iniquities free-flowing through this pantomime’s rudderless, ale-house intelligence, Aleister corroborated his heart for battle by swigging the dregs of his pint. Picking up Piggy’s abandoned shillelagh, Aleister tried to get at CCG ‘of the many gross improprieties’ but was hindered in his quest by profane powers. The fluctuating phalange of punters, seduced into chaotic tumult, prevented Aleister from marching unto war. An obsequious horde serried together in anticipation of Cecile’s grand slam finale: a human wave of pheromones, wafting sweat, semen, vaginal secretions, breast milk and urine; women bared their mammaries, whilst grown men chewed on leather belts and tapered cork butt-plugs. “Seekers of saliva hear me well, and duly obey my command! Bend your knees in supplication to erotic plasticity, shaped and finely tuned by the true might of passion” yelled Cecil during his rhapsodical rodomontade “…now hold hands and circle me, o relinquishers of the stoical void.”

Aleister wished to scream aloud in his eagerness to halt Cecil in his cloven tracks, yet was lost for words as an ominous shadow menacingly upstaged any notion of gaining attention. A teeny maelstrom of pastel hues appeared, pullulating into a racy nimbus over Cecil’s brightly painted, carnival style headdress, spraying out across the mosh pit like an expansive roman candle; showering mere mortals with star-spangled fairy cum. As the dust settled, an awesome three-dimensional monstrosity superimposed itself onto Cecil’s spot on the thrust stage, endowing momentary invisibility upon tonight’s barnstorming artiste: this gossamer Luciferian countenance, with an erect filamentous appendage sprouting from its brow, totally stole the show. “What does he do for an encore? Shag minors!” Fagan’s gravelly voice startled Aleister, conveying the impetus required to aim a well-deserved haymaker at Cecil, striking his target so hard that Piggy’s knotty walking stick snapped in twain. Before one could utter ‘hocus-pocus’, the garishly tinted bounder vanished in an acrid puff of smoke. Accusatively, a stranger demanded: “What the fuck are you doing, you nutter?” Bunches of bug-eyed Muppets stared daggers at him; they may have purchased council houses, but none had the Aristotle to confront Aleister mano a mano. In panic they pointed at him with large foam fingers. Poltroon bastards the lot of them, yet their consensus was remorseless. Aleister just couldn’t get a grip on what was occurring. He was so out of synch with the picture, it wasn’t funny. Was he the guilty party? Is that why spars blanked him? Fagan had seemed contrite, and other acquaintances had given him short-shrift. Someone could’ve warned him if he was edging off the rails & out-of-fashion. Now, who would visit him in clink- young Conservatives? Not a chance. Aleister could no longer handle this level of peer group rejection. At his feet lay CCG, at last bloody well mute; sprawled across the stage in fancy dress, shards of his technicolour Woolworth’s porch lantern scattered across the deck. A resident ship of fools was about to up anchor and mutiny, so he needed to scarper. He swivelled swiftly, nutted some character on the schnozzle, then was on his toes out into Leicester Square (the pungent stench of refuse contorted his expression); it was full of mad dogs with ticks, stretching muscles in his lower jaw as he roared back at them. He howled ripe obscenities, growling like a giant wolf from some Norse saga stuck in his head since the infants. His stature increased until all else appeared to shatter in his wake. As he raced through the green, hundreds of pigeons took flight in unison as if they were all tiny rockets; ICBMs, part of a first strike initiative aimed at destroying our planet. Blindly happy, in the depths of their ignorance, the population deserved mutually assured destruction: liars and cheats every last jack. Look! There’s the Devil. Where? There. How do you know? Listen my friend, the light from that bulb up there in the white asbestos Artex ceiling hit the Devil, and bounced off onto my retina; quantities of microscopic sensory things miraculously tingled in my mind. It was them telling my brain cells, no? What? You’re imagining things; you’re rather gonzo aren’t you? Am I bollox. 

Sprinting through Coventry Street and beyond into Haymarket, Aleister visualised that resistance was pure futility. A Route Master 12 fast approached, its number symbolising cosmic order; he braced himself to sacrifice the prospect of a virtuous life, to the mirage of a high-minded death. The omnibus hit him so hard it felt as if a fireball had exploded inside his hairless chest; he could hardly breathe. A massive bout of haemoptysis started to fill the airways of both lungs. Coughing, Aleister slowly drowned in his own blood. Energy dissipated from his being, his peripheral vision occluded; other senses seemed to operate autonomously, all of their own accord. As the world revolved around him, up above he noticed Fagan’s drunken face leering down. “Life ain’t fair Aleister, not for you or me leastways. Sadly, the likes of us see, across this big bad globe, we’re suffered: solely to be exploited. Even my mate Trestle-table the filth was fucked over. They dropped him like a hot potato when they discovered he was bent. Truth is- he was disposable see? His corruptible tendencies had gone undetected during routine security screenings, then, right on cue, the OB terminated his career: after twenty-nine frigging years! Oh well, every guttersnipe knows that manmade hierarchies are about princes and whipping boys, winners and losers, punishments or rewards. Still, you done good son. You realised we can’t let insolent twats like Cecil Gruff take liberties, and that he had it coming. I’d have done the same matey; only you beat me to it. Those yuppie wankers lapped it up like powdered pussies. As if Cecil was the greyhound’s undercarriage or some kind of fucking Sumerian deity. And the English working classes, this lost generation of uncivilised souls, socially engineered straight out of barbarism and direct into decadence, fought amongst them-selves as usual. Fuck ‘em. Still you got him; the means justify the ends OK. Now stay calm mate, I’ve brought a tasty reward; in recognition of your fortitude. Nothing styptic I’m afraid.” After chortling and wobbling a bit, Fagan gradually genuflected; holding tightly onto Aleister’s hand. With due care and attention, he produced a small wet pink object from his torn hip pocket. “Ere me now, I extracted Cecil’s sesquipedalian tongue. I’d have tampered with his greasy orifice had the opportunity knocked, but you know, been there done that.” 

This tribute, delivered in a final act of innocent albeit demented compassion, soothed Aleister; as death engulfed him, his last selfless wish was that his lifetime on magna mater’s terrestrial sphere, hadn’t been spent entirely in vain. And if a repository for his immaterial soul had indeed been preordained, he hoped that his crushed body would at least, as a rite of passage, be reincorporated into the cycle of life as sustenance for stray dogs, urban badgers, jackals, and foraging swine, if not fed to eagles, birds of the heavens or fishes in the deep blue sea. Regrettably, he feared his cadaver would be clinically dismembered. Selected organs would be legitimately employed by scientists involved in pathological research, others reaped purely for profit; sold abroad illegally, by un-Hippocratic medical practitioners trading corpus components. Boiled in water that’s been saturated with numerous herbs containing tannins, black-market shrunken scrotums thus preserved, are proudly worn as amulets by handmaidens of Hanbi, going about their murky duties. Deconsecrating screaming infants, innocent babes in arms, wrenched from impoverished families; torturing impuissant souls dredged from the substratum of an intercontinental social pyramid, to harvest adrenaline glands for adrenochrome, at the behest of an ancient and illuminated order of orgiastic priests. This is wisdom.

***

Psychoneuroses, Part 1

Psychoneuroses, Part 3

Manny’s extended family (a loud bunch of perfidious, po-faced, holier-than-thou, hypocritical wheeler-dealers) started as mozzle and brocha speculators who struck lucky. Establishing a London variety business during Soho’s vaudeville era, they grafted to nourish a lucrative customer base, and thereby curry favour with potential backers, to whom they pitched investment opportunities via a network of far-reaching, transterritorial transcultural channels of communication. Backed to the hilt, during World War Two they were able to boast, like the Windmill Theatre, ‘we never close’. Embroidered into the red-light districts’ bohemian tradition as a cool metonym for emancipation, as the swinging sixties dawned, the Klein’s (alongside competing cut-price facsimiles) were on hand to cash in. The K-mob became synonymous with navigating censorship and regulation, as parliament tacitly sanctioned Soho’s erotic cabaret boom: customers were obliged to pay fees, and join clubs as members an hour before admission. Thereafter, mischievous neo-Rabelaisian entertainment was permitted under law. By enthusiastically promoting liberation, lies and ersatz rebellion from the tight closets of inhibition, pimping-up revue bars and befriending the repressed, Manny’s family had won renown and favour. Alack, plebeian popularity doesn’t pay utility bills; hence, the bottom line means being admired ain’t worth bupkis. Not ones to rest on their laurels, the Klein’s remained sharp enough to excise flagging old comrades: dropping en route the functional mantle they’d worn as pansexual rights activists. Conversely, having cornered London’s hardcore porn cinema market, freedoms now required paying for; every customer was appreciated, no matter how rancorous. Or, as pontificated by Manny to Aleister (on his final relapse, just a few nights prior to his sacramental inauguration at West End Great Synagogue), over last-order beers in the French House: ‘’…you see collectively, we understand the technicalities of this world intimately. No one else has the beginnings of a clue. Without shame, we pretentiously relish explaining our expertly authorised view of what’s unfolding, as designed by our powerful clients; on whose behalf we issue whiny rejections whenever any dissenting voice speaks out. It’s all smoke and mirrors, obvs. History’s been knockabout fun up until now. If the truth be known, we’re deployed as an integral module, part of our masters’ ultimate authority toolkit, arranged to control public narratives, perpetuate obedience; keeping society suppressed by dint of cultural supervision.’’ Once again, Aleister had been well over the eight, so the lion’s share of Manny’s self-promotional spiel went in one ear, and out the other. Currently coming down around high noon (as per his custom on Freya’s day), in preparation for a critical night out ahead, Aleister was practically sat upright on the wagon. Thusly, temporarily, conflicted clouds cleared; turbid illusion cleaved, and momentarily, lucidity was suffered to intromit with his feelings.

“Manny! I ain’t seen you for ages you old bender, how’s it hanging?”

“Chambré to tepid, mon ami.”

“Tell me about it. I thought we were forecast to be basking under a hot sun regular now the ozone’s been depleted.”

“Don’t even go there, the climate’s one thing about this city which will never change.”

“True. What’s happening?”

“Man, I’m busy boyo. I’ve acquired all of Uncle Moses’ clip joints, peep shows, pop up massage parlours, along with his Swollen Gash™ topless kink kiosks; and I’m developing an avant-garde nightspot. We’re naming it ‘A Symphony of Expensive Contradictions.’ It’ll be the nuts.’’

“Whoa! That’s some itinerary.’’

“Well its business feller, not casual soul-laundering. However, there are perquisites; for one, it keeps me engaged in absorbing hobbies: know what I mean? How about you rude boy: still riding psychotherapy hobbyhorses, or solving trolley problems?”

‘’I weigh a person’s worth not by financial assets, but in their quotient of individuality, if that’s what you ridicule. But no, my intermittent disposable income doesn’t afford ongoing clinical indulgences, so I’m stuck with the difficulty of destiny over the ease of narrative. Left to independently question and challenge, the un-intellectual human condition homo-sapiens blindly follow, sans patronage.’’

‘’Splendide mendax on a shoestring; blimey, that’s more of a rivka, than a brifka. Stand on me Ally Bally; it takes a real trouper to admit that they’re badly cast in a revocable tragedy. I warned you already. There’s no future in poverty; crying over unremittingly bleak situations, without scope for cognitive entertainments.’’

‘’There’s a marathon of drudgery involved in signing-on for a pittance; however I keep faith in Raimundo Pato, theatrical agent extraordinaire.’’

‘’Charing Cross Ray’s looking after you, is he? Well, good luck with that schnip! What are you doing in between working days?’’

“Laxing dude: spending too much hard-earned money.”

“Splendid stuff, we must hook up- your shout of course.”

Immanuel K, with his costermongers’ God complex, was no more than a wide boy: too reliant on the dark arts of vice, hype and spin to foster credibility; Aleister had no intention of flyting with him, so he allowed Manny’s barbed comments to slide. They’d grown apart to loathe one another, but in the great scheme of things, this upshot was a bagatelle. Both chaps smiled courteously. Their enforced separation had plainly contributed to stifle a candid conversation. Bored, Manny’s morose minders shuffled; distrait, staring vaguely at some passing object. Halted, as if frozen; yet still, life’s frenzied momentum raced through muscular, bondage clobber-clad bodies: causing each tit weight to jangle nervously, like flies in a spider’s web. “Totally: it’ll be a mercy mission, won’t it? You’re working too hard.”

“Better to live as a blazing meteor, than die old gracefully.” Manny replied, and with a smirk added ‘’It’s a distraction, innit? The divine, as manifested within the universe, is my guiding light.’’

“But mate, apart from cavorting with toy-boys, to what purpose? Or don’t you care?’’

“I’m occupying my atoms so intensely; they’ll refuse to leave me. Life’s one big party dude, and that’s purpose enough for me.”

“Yeah, right cock, but like, what’s the end product?”

Through bored amber eyes; distrustful, assessing, imperious, Immanuel fixed a vulturine gaze on his dishevelled interlocutor. “Does God’s vengeance end? I think not brother. Historical consciousness keeps mutating: suck it up. Relinquish your neurotic orientation to sew loose hems; trust me. Anyway, let’s groove on, because it’s time to move on.”

‘’Wicked, I’ve got places to go, people to meet; sayonara Special K.’’

What’s that bustling atom malarkey all about? The impulse of an elementally active person to act is so strong, that it stultifies them from acquiring knowledge for the sake of apprehension. Just how did Manny Klein intend to blaze brightly in his dotage? And whatever happened to grace, friendship, honour, and serenity? Aleister was confused. Having acted intuitively all his life, he now found it nigh on impossible to think straight; psychological experiences steadily degenerated, visceral doubts multiplied. Much of this deterioration was a result of his disastrous addiction to adulterated angel dust. Assuming Aleister had once cherished continuity and cohesion, his life was now, in contrast, an ungovernable slide show of no fixed time span. Maddeningly, Aleister couldn’t fathom who was operating the projector, or where to find an emergency exit; some heartless tummler was evidently savouring a jape at his expense, and whomsoever it was, must pay. At the comedy club Aleister and Piggy (his anosmic dealer), snorted lines chopped up in the bog; sharing a splash of toilet humour and doing the Spanish fly deal, before Pigman was called out to strut his stuff. Wired, Aleister parked up at the bar where he met Fagan, langered on Nelson Eddy’s earned from his morning’s collar (running around Seven Dials for film production companies). The thin, delicate-looking figure with close-cropped hair that had stood in the dock a year before was a changed man: quietly confident, having bulked up in the prison gym. Mickey wore his unwashed hair in a ponytail, tied back with a blue ribbon; sporting stone-washed 501s, and a baggy white t-shirt bearing the slogan Frankie Says Relax in big black letters. On stage Piggy was first up (plying his Lorcán the Lovable Leprechaun shtick), but died horribly. Even Fagan heckled; stitching his mate up by intermittently screaming ‘Cobblers!’ By contrast, Aleister continued to feel awkward in the heaving venue; it burdened him with its fuggy claustrophobia, making him feel unusually aggressive. Worse still, the next act waiting in the wings was some gauche twerp named Curious Cecil Gruff; a wretchedly conceited squirt, artfully half concealing what appeared to be some type of magic lantern. The coy way in which Cecil postured bothered Aleister no end. Who did he think he was? Jack the fucking biscuit? These ultra-negative first impressions combined into a kind of supranatural sensorium, retained, or rather translated by a wounded hunter-gatherer within, multigenerational memories, and random imagination. Sensing his spars discomfort, Piggy ambled across, hoping to rub balsam over Aleister’s storm-tossed forehead. Piggy respected Aleister’s honest independence, but all the paranoid instability worried and depressed him. “Whatcha think: the big time, or late night Channel Five material?”

“Magic Pigsty, absurdly optimistic as always buddy; don’t give up your day job. How about this dodgy Cecil chap- you know him?”

“No; nor does anyone else. I bumped into him in the green room earlier. Curiously, he confessed to being a failed conceptual artist, but gruffly stressed he’d learned his lessons, and nowadays stands before us as the self-proclaimed king of multivalent comedy.”

“FFS Pigster, Equity shouldn’t hand out union cards to the likes of Cecil. His sorts tout angular collisions, rough ragged edges, raising voices of wrack and ruin. Amoral disorder oughtn’t to be assimilated into the federation of performing arts. Cecil’s idea of merrymaking is a monstrous anomaly, and best omitted. Look, I know this sounds Radio Rental, but I’ve witnessed Cecil’s repertory of treachery erenow, in my previous Mesopotamian existence; around the time a great famine gripped people in Babylonia, and settlers from Uruk conspired with Šamaš-šuma-ukin to plot evil.”

‘’Have a word.’’ Enough! Piggy’s clients were prone to puerile enunciations, so he remained silent, sipping maraschino via ruby red lips; just about every situation is sanable. As far as Pigsty was concerned, each chap’s concept of sub-consciousness was an extraordinary piece of storytelling, trying to present ways in which structural systems have explanatory force- simultaneously unknown, yet effectively present. The key question remained: what the dickens did Cecil represent to Aleister? Piggy gave him a gentle squeeze on his inside leg, and smiled. Piggy was a flirt, a proper card; a doughty lemon squeezer. Aleister was glad of Piggy’s playful company; it steadied him. Equanimity calmed Aleister, fending off eternal verities tampering with his mneme; carefully turning around to wholly admire Piggy’s glabrous countenance, possessed of soigné parity to Parian marble, he responded: “Your round innit geez?”

***

Psychoneuroses, Part 4

Psychoneuroses, Part 2

After old Mrs Fagan died, her singleton son grew increasingly obsessed by the notion of a wholly exposed, crudely infibulated woman as head of state; it agitated and aroused him in equal measure. What otiose limp-wristed protection was afforded Her Majesty, by the tightly-wrapped Prince Regent? Fagan ceremoniously placed QE2 on the same questionable pedestal as his own mother; a trophy for vile men, offering little or no emotional support to their booty. Mickey envisaged Elizabeth Regina mounted posteriorly, and forcefully fist-fingered, before being brutally sausaged Greek style; crass libidinous fantasies deranged remaining particles of sense, rendering him unsure whether to fuck or fight his Glücksburgian adversary. Forever a romantic, when push came to shove, inspired by Ken Russell’s audacious Women in Love, Fagan settled on stripping-off for a tipsy bout of Japanese-style wrestling amid the firelight of the Duke of Dunedin’s bedchamber. National press reports stated that Fagan was gallantly tackled by dapper footman Phil McCavity (since retired), a queer chap who was oddly reticent concerning his personal involvement in the drama. London Lighthouse carers insist that McCavity wouldn’t say boo to a goose. Fagan would though: hissing loudly, a noble savage; lightly polished by interchanging moody goods on behalf of antiquarian operations down Camden Passage market, whose traders were enamoured by the cut of his jib. It was a ragtag and bobtail cash-in-hand confederation, but he’d been earning a few quid at the time, so it was right mauve him rocking the sloop, what with three million unemployed. Directly preceding his iconic faux pas Fagan had inadvertently violated an Islington Council byelaw. Tipped-off, Housing Association policy and procedure staff complained about his grunting pet (it transgressed his tenancy agreement); Fagan swore blind he didn’t harbour one, although a particularly cynical girl-next-door insisted she investigate. Behold! No fish or fowl, while Mickey, without a trace of embarrassment, boasted that the theriomorphic-like din resulted from his beasting a string of high-maintenance erotopathic lovers. Not one to be duped, the nosey neighbour insisted she put his explanation to task; so doggy-style, Mickey howled like mad, banging her so hard he got a ruddy nosebleed (earning himself the sobriquet Rudolph). Still unsatisfied, the dopey tart opted to sue him for noise pollution via the Borough Council’s pro-feminist local authorities. 

“Bloody Hell, ma’am, what’s he doing ‘ere?” A shrill alarm was sent ringing around the City of Westminster by HRM’s flummoxed chambermaids, given the screaming abdabs, having stumbled over Mickey, supposedly supping from a carafe of half-inched Californian riesling. How exciting! Let’s face it; Fagan was in no fit state to endure the resulting ordeal. That very morning he’d been involved in a heart-rending family squabble over the ownership of a second-hand cut-and-shut motor, aspirated a leaded lungful of mouth-siphoned four-star petrol, and for reasons best known to his-self, was masquerading as Rudolf Hess. No sober assessment of his condition would have adjudged him capable of scaling spiky railings, climbing burglar-proof drainpipes, or least of all, leaping from roof-to-roof like an orang-utan. Tell me, just how conveniently did Fagan elude Buck House’s 24/7 security? And what precisely defined his shady, sadomasochistic relationship with wrinkly Prince Philip? Whose bruised sphincter, rumour had it, was treated by that venal, royally benighted arse specialist Dr. David Croft: famed as an entrepreneurial quack pioneering the high-specification production of platinum ring-holes, for celebrity coke addicts. In a futuristic John DeLorean world of powdered cocaine-cum-cosmetics, malleable monogrammed DDC rectal accessories were the last word in reassurance, for syringe users, aiming to keep bugles clean, and septa intact. Word-on-the-street was, that the grand old iron Duke had been corn-holed and felched, until his puce tuchus resembled the sort of swollen Jack and Danny seen hanging agape behind a West African baboon during Guinea-Bissau’s rainy season. Of course, it was a cover up; although Fagan confessed to several prison psychiatrists, that he’d toasted better genitals. So, whisper from that whatever tenuous conclusions you fancy. The Old Bailey certainly did. 

“You are not ‘ere to see ze peeping show I ‘ope?” Brigitte smiled ear to ear as her sultry French accent wafted back into his mind; triggering an amatory frisson that stirred his loins. Momentarily intimidated, he rose to leave without tipping; laughing off her dolorous suspicions that he was tuned into videos featuring adult content, and the rest (obscene publications, showcasing teenage call girls absconded from foster care- running away from Oldham social services). On the hoof, Aleister nonchalantly cased the joint -eye eye- wandering past replica nude statues (including Auguste Rodin’s Le Baiser), and a grandiose art nouveau mirror. He cast a bitchy moue at his faltering baroque reflection- begging the question: did he resemble an unbalanced pervert? If so, he’d best buy a pick-me-up. Aleister daren’t appear unhinged or worse (creepy) in Heaven- his preferred destination. There geezers dress to impress, by camping themselves up a class; competition is bristly stiff inside that grand celestial residence, where a kiss without a moustache is like an egg without salt. Yuk! 

Opportunely Piggy, now his dealer, was due live on stage at the Divine Comedy Store’s Friday matinee; he was odds-on to hold a few banging party tricks up his ropey sleeve to loosen Brigitte’s resolve. K-I-D, mum’s the word. Aleister decided to procure something special to slip into mademoiselle’s café latte, in the course of a future assignation. Shame he needed to date rape her, as he didn’t consider himself a misogynist. Aleister liked ladies well enough; not the wicked ones who found him wanting, but he balked at his latent notions of punishing, hurting, or damaging them. However, he failed to see women as equals, soul sisters, or trustworthy friends. Through his grimy doors of perception, the second sex represented objects of desire; dolly birds, some of whom he’d been able to train up & domineer for while. Brigitte possessed several serviceable aspects sweet enough to buoy his horribly warped tri-sexual mind. If only she could button her quivering lip, and turn an amenably blind eye to his eccentric affairs of the flesh; he may even propose to her: anything to leave a lump in her throat. Strolling along Gerrard Street he chewed a chunk of Peking duck, formally deciding that he could never endure monogamy on account of his innate needs, to wit: bimbo’s, priapic saunas, peppercorn rent boys, Qabalistic weekends, ritualistic blood drinking sessions etcetera; hobbies of a type so essential for a relaxed middle age. But young Brigitte, despite her femme fatale façade, was, in Aleister’s estimation, well-nigh prim and proper. Add assertive female to practicing Roman Catholic, teetotal or, (God forbid) virginal, and who needs it? He wanted desperately to love and be worshipfully adored in return; the problem was, where to start? Aleister reckoned the glorious day was fast approaching when he would subscribe to a competitively priced Filipina marriage agency; a flourishing Oriental avenue of commercial intimacy: open to post-prime Occidental bachelors, widowers, and/or divorcées. Perhaps it was one instance of a missed opportunity, where those innumerable, inscrutable Chinese have erred? Granted, tiddlywinks constitute rising stars within our rough tough adaptable species: fitted to survive amongst strangers as segregated immigrants, or, thanks to Beijing’s mushrooming economic leverage, to lead a global mercantile system; but in eugenic terms, they’re junk people. Spawned from a passé imperial culture, informed by screeds of dynastic court archives; traditionally square looking, and businesslike. Not at all to Aleister’s flighty, eclectic taste; the source of which remained a mystery. 

Aleister supposed that his sartorial bent toward dépêche mode was rooted in the days of Pearly Spencer, and tragic second-order observations founded while orbiting creation on his very own lonely planet. During Aleister’s junior year three, Pearly earmarked his old lady on one of her excursions to Brent Cross shopping centre. A haunted, milky-white escapee from Northern Ireland’s sectarian troubles, Pearly was employed as a liveried bouncer in Mothercare; incendiary eye-candy with access to the retail facility’s inner sanctum. Giggling, they’d eagerly disappear together through a doorway signposted ‘staff only’, to fornicate behind a clutch of industrial wheelie bins (positioned in a designated waste storage area, along a poorly lit service corridor). Abandoned, snivelling wee Aleister was left traipsing around the well-stocked mall. Unsupervised, pressing against laminated glass exteriors fronting interchangeable shops; mixed-brand department stores, fashionable clothing boutiques, electrical retailers, on-trend accessory vendors, or luxury goods emporiums hosting award-winning Provençal face cream concessions: whichever. Aleister stared inside like a piqued Martian. Exhilarated by the non-stop abundant varieties of FMCG, but deflated by consumerisms inconsequentiality, Aleister grew up to conceptualise existence as a shaggy-dog story. Defiantly, he recollected window-shopping as a fond childhood memory, his mother’s carnality not so much; or her wuthering post-coital gawp from hooded eyes that neither knew, nor cared, about the developmental damage being done. In time, trips to Hendon’s materialistic funfair petered out; perpetually liquored up, Pearly lost his clip-on neck tie, his job, and his studio flat on Childs Hill. Ultimately, Aleister’s mother’s girlish infatuation withered as Pearly metamorphosed, into an impotent homeless mendicant, lumbered with untreatable cirrhosis; sleeping with rats in shop entrances down Kilburn High Road.

Looking up, Aleister was struck by dyspepsia, and another blast from the past. Across the pedestrianisation stood Immanuel Klein, a player who purported to abhor all things ci-devant. He hadn’t changed: a buzz fed through the grapevine asserted that he was still a cunt. Aleister and Manny first met as high school boys selling imported designer schmutter across two local trading Lanes (Leather and Petticoat), working for Lillian Skry & Ronnie ‘The Knocker’ Zucker, whose Uncle Joe Arzi’s influence reigned supreme over Camden’s, and Tower Hamlets’ licensing systems; controlling market inspectors, and subletting stalls. Manny fell in love with couture stock, and in due course became a right fashion victim; philosophising on the topic with all the brio of an art-house radical (a radical wanker naturally). During his late teens he’d formed Futurist Punx, a heavy rocking four-piece musical combo that extolled beauty in strife. They jumped into bed with louring Brigadier Robert d’Alby, a scary ex-forces cove turned small-time impresario for fledgling voices panegyrising insubordination. A genuine brute, the cigar-smoking brigadier was pretty mixed up. Possessed of archetypal officer baggage, viz., horse-haired duelling scars, pent-up aggression, institutionalised homophobia; mindless desires to assault anyone, or anything deemed officially dishonourable, on behalf of manly ideals. Manny insisted the end justified macho means, opining that d’Alby’s intriguing personality compelled exertion. A complex egg: BRd seemed to seek a noble form into which he could pour his volcanic energy. An accomplished cubist; he and his easels simply disappeared one day, never to return. Without the insensate brigadier at the tiller, Manny’s ensemble petered out. Aleister recollected a few trite lines from their one and only 7” single entitled Post-minimalist Self-Portrait: “We shall sing of the thrill of danger/Flying fist-fuck up the arse/Courage, movement, hard rebellion/Sniffing glue, in Regent’s Park.” It was pompous tosh really. Thank you! 

The Brig booked Futurist Punx on a tragic tour of shite gigs, at workman’s clubs spanning the London Boroughs of Camden, Westminster, and Brent; awkwardly on the bill alongside traditional Irish ballads: Dubliner’s tribute bands for the most part. Manny boasted that he and his conjoint collaborateurs were waking punters from feverish hypersomnia; he glorified cruelty, thuggery, seven drunken nights, and wild injustice, but shat himself and ran for his life after being glassed while exiting the ladies lavatories in Cricklewood’s Production Village. After that moment of self-discovery Manny gave up on being a front man, and segued back into the supporting cast of his family’s extensive business interests. As part of a tribal initiation ceremony, Manny solemnly swore not to fraternise with former associates hailing from families or enterprises unrelated and/or unaffiliated to the Klein’s expanding empire for a complete lunar year. Manny kept his promise for the most part, only lapsing in a couple of lunations; first up, tripping on brown blotters during a summer’s twilight, over a Hampstead Heath night-swimming weekend. Under the influence, Manny confessed to Aleister that perceiving himself as an expendable, landless, fungible itinerant, in a suicidal stratified society feverishly cannibalising greed, fear, and malignant narcissism, had brought him to his senses. He accepted he couldn’t survive alone in Cuntish Town: that listless dive, peopled by dawdling vagabonds. Aspirational London’s galaxy of burnt-out wannabees, where genuine pretending passes as an adequate mode of existence, and lowbrow participants are deceptively orchestrated on behalf of ruling élites (for the sorry sake of fading public-minded perceptions) by arch-facilitators, activating media-managed biases to foment prejudicial egodystonic sensitivities. Recounting that he’d pursued a safety-in-numbers logic, and joined a mercenary gang; strategically allying himself through his bloodline to Albion’s Premier Grand Masonic Lodge: an institution that aggregated supernumerary groups of abominable opinion formers. As a party to which, his tribe pretended under warrant, to present pragmatic balanced solutions to travails faced by ordinary folk tholing their humdrum lives. Adding in peroration, that he’d lost all his honest, salt-of-the-earth mates; but out of necessity, he’d changed. Manny petitioned for righteous understanding, and forgiveness; appeals that were rejected by Aleister, who couldn’t, and wouldn’t confer his imprimatur. Nowadays, made-man Manny weltered amidst an orgy of sensual gratification, surrounded by heavies togged up in black leather, rubber, and shiny PVC. They were his disciples; hook, line, and sinker. Body harnesses, panic snaps, and meat tenderisers eradicated any notion of revolt. Their overseer, whom Manny jocularly dubbed Jack the Rimmer, a hefty mouth-breathing automaton, was responsive to his masters needs alone. Kept firmly in check by a remote-controlled erection trainer, and subdued by double-bar nipple clips, Jack’s enjoinders were slurred due to a fetish for adjustable velvet tongue gags, but he dealt severely with backchat or obstinacy within the ranks: lashing out with his customised sauna whip, that, along with a latex executioner’s mask, constituted his vestments of office, and tools of domination.

***

Psychoneuroses, Part 3