<u shud cum c me sum time George, bin yonks since I seen ur smiling face> Kelly beseeches one night after stumbling across my name on Planet Facebook. Maybe she’d chanced upon me through a mutual friend, or remembered my name for some reason and decided to track me down. Still, what use is a social media if not for legally stalking or wanting to be sought? At first the presence of Kelly’s name blinking away in my inbox bestows me with an onerous sense of sobriety and suspicion. The strobe-like beckoning of her message exhumes me from the state of sedation, its cajoling an automated shot of cyber adrenaline. It’s not that I don’t like the girl you understand. But for those of us like me, the fine line between ignoramus and agoraphobic drug addict seldom warrants sympathy. Through experience, the prospect of rekindling lost friendship under the influence of potent horse tranquilizer is an exercise in catastrophe – especially where females are concerned. I guess sometimes our loves, our old flames and even our friendships are just better being committed to the shoe-box of memory. Something’s just aren’t meant to be, we move on, I certainly move on.
Kelly is typing…
<u there George?>
I’m neither here nor there love, just merely – existing.
<Yeah sorry, just eating> I lie, picking at the pearlescent residue of chemical scum plastered around my waterlogged nasal cavities. I’m ten minutes into the last line, four years deep into my addiction – my spiritual sentence.
<Hey>
<Hey>
Kelly is typing…
<Do u want me 2 let u eat? We can chat l8r if you want?>
<No, it’s ok>
Either way, it’s kind of nice to hear from her all the same, to hear from someone who’s not verbally garrotting me for drug money. My once lustrous confidence with girls may have waned since we last spoke as teenagers, but Kelly was always a sound lass. We’d slaved together and dinted our dignities working under the commercial Third Reich of the Morrisons empire when we were still fresh out of high school. There was always something between us, she knew it, I knew it – but it was never going to happen. Back then our other relationships had always eschewed us from what you might call life’s “closer intimacies”. I was sixteen and caged, betrothed in some long distant mistake. And like many a red breast, I was prone to lashing out in rage at the angels of my restraint. My fidelity was fickle at best with the cage of commitment often rocked by teenage temptation. Kelly on the other hand would change lovers like a call girl changes her linens. She was never the greatest looking girl on the shelf, but her zest for self-gratification made sure that she never went long without someone filling that hole. Maybe this was why half of the Morrisons staff revelled in rumours that there was something more going on between us. Sure we’d cuddle and cop a cheeky hand full of each other behind the racking in the warehouse from time-to-time, but that was it.
Kelly is typing…
<So how u bin?>
<I’m great thanks, hoping to go back to college. You?>
<I’m okay, I’ll b better if u cum c me tho :-p>
<Maybe, I’m pretty skint at the moment. I’m still trying to write a novel> I throw in there, trying to pervert the path of her pleas.
<Check u. I’m goin into Leeds on Friday 4 a couple of drinks with friends, I can get u a beer or 2 if u wanna cum along?>
<Well…> I begin typing, praying for a power outage. Looking down at the pile of powdered narcotics on my desk, my stash has already depleted more than I seem to have realized. Through some visceral instinct, my yearning quells all other commitments and proceeds to flip through the mental rolodex of drug dealers and potential money sources. I don’t need to look to know that I have fuck all money left in my own wallet, and fewer and fewer places left to pilfer it from. Only last week my mum had busted me on camera taking a twenty from the family’s cash register; I was supposed to be helping out around their small corner shop till I found a job. I’d grown greedy, got myself caught, now I couldn’t even walk through the door without Dad tracking me on CCTV. Bridge burnt, proverbial gun aimed point-blank at foot and trigger pulled. But there is always a way, it just depends how low you are prepared to sink into the stinking abyss. Limitations are all in the mind, and little enthuses the mind like a serious drug addiction.
Kelly is typing…
<Cum on, it’ll be fun>
<Maybe, I’ll see if I can club some money together for Friday> I add, knowing full well that this is never going to happen. Nope, this isn’t even that sub-conscious, self-convinced kind of bullshit – this is just pure unadulterated deceit spawned by my fear of being stuck in social crucibles. That and an inability to prioritize anything over my pet ketamine monkey – Kevin.
Kelly is typing…
<It’s ok, I can give u forty quid. I’ve just cum into sum money>
Oh? Well, that’s different doll. Please, continue!
<So?>
Suddenly, the restrictive clouds of foreboding clear like the forever shifting weather of the Isle of Skye. Suddenly none of it matters: the throngs of arrogant drunks, the inevitability of awkward eye contact, my sunken and sallow complexion – Kelly. The hungry monkey is all that exists, and he’s horny as hell.
<Sure, could do. You still get high?> Which when translated really means ‘are you gonna be pissed by me showing up and doing precisely what it is that drug fiends do?’ Things have changed, I’ve changed. Would it still be the same rolling conversation that it once had been? With ketamine hydrochloride in the equation, the unlikelihood is a generous 100/1.
Kelly is typing…
<No not really> she replies after a couple of minutes to my dismay, <I got a daughter now, she’s three years old lol>
Seems I’m not the only one with new commitments these days. But this barely comes as a shock if I’m honest. Kelly was always demure to the point of weakness when it came to relationships. Teenage pregnancies and girls struggling as single mothers were all too common around the estate where she lived when I knew her last. But who am I to judge? I can scarcely take care of myself.
<You still with the dad?>
<No!>
<That sucks>
<He’s a div, ran away soon as she was born>
<What a fucker>
We gossip a short while and finalize arrangements for Friday night, her place eight o’clock and then out to some pretentious town bar for bevies.
<What about your daughter, you got a baby sitter sorted or what?> I ask, nose itching to shirk off and make the necessary arrangements to replenish Kevin’s dwindling pile.
<She’s staying at my mum’s place until Saturday. I cud b tempted in 2 a little summat if you’re bringing some>
That’ll do love, that’ll do just fine.
George is typing…
<See you Friday then.>
It’s already dusk by the time I meander onto Kelly’s street come Friday evening. The Belle Isle estate where her directions have brought me to, The Broomfields, is only a couple of miles from the Middleton area where she previously lived. A working class warren of alley-ways and pavements, strewn with bubble gum barnacles and scattered glass. Its tarmac veins plagued by pothole track marks, whilst walls and shop fronts remain defiled by weathered acronyms. Something is burning somewhere.
Knitting my eyebrows against the cold, I turn down a driveway believing it to be Kelly’s. The house’s alabaster skin flaking and gangrene with damp, exposing patches of dark red brick like open wounds. Squinting down at the crumpled paper in my hand, I tilt it this-way-and-that searching for traces of light to check the address. I’m in the right place, a turn of phrase that I’m not accustomed to lately – and not entirely convinced that I believe it now. Raising a clenched fist to wrap on the front door, I’m privy to a slight shift in the ambient chill surrounding me like some paranormal cold-spot. I knock and wait, waiting, peering over my shoulders in turn as wind rustles through a wall of privet hedges. From somewhere inside door hinges wail like cats in confrontation. Noticing the presence of inner illumination shimmering through the frosted glass, I fidget at the origamied wrap of hippy-smack concealed deep within my coat pocket. A small silhouette emerges in the hallway, probing and twisting within the lock. Stops.
“Hiyyya you!” Kelly greets me on the threshold swinging the door open. She’s all smiles, her puckered face beaming a wide beatific grin with cavernous dimples.
“Hello love!” I reply, Kelly tip-toeing to pincer her arms around my neck. She smells of freshly cleaned clothes mixed with a grandmother’s musk. Relinquishing our hold, I can’t help but be aware of how maternal my old friend looks since we last held one another like that. Where there once stood an acne mottled emo chick, austerely garbed in black Slipknot hoodie and an array of black beaded bracelets – now stands a young mother I hardly recognise. A white shirt clings to her slight breasts and the buxom shape of her hips. Extending a hand to welcome me inside, I observe a vintage string of pearls where the beads of black had once encircled.
“You look handsome as ever,” Kelly remarks, eyeing me over as she ushers us through into the living room. The space is still cluttered with the kid’s playthings, crayoned doodles of stick-dogs and purple spaghetti trees. But despite the abandoned Barbie dolls stripped and contorted in the corner beneath a window, the place is still humble with hints of freshly vacuumed carpet, “can I fix you a drink of anything? Tea? coffee? Beer?” Kelly offers, sitting down on the sangria-red sofa before sparking up a Richmond King Size.
“No you’re alright thanks, I’ll wait until we go out,” I retort, shuffling away from the coiling cigarette smoke, “shouldn’t we be getting going to town soon if we’re supposed to be meeting your mates at nine?” the words of motivation strange in my mouth like a beer with too much yeast.
“Yeah I wanted to ask you about that?” Kelly starts with a cloy glimmer of anticipation, “my mates who we’re supposed to be meeting up with decided to cancel at the last minute. Do you still wanna go out, or do you just wanna stay in and we can watch a film or whatever?” Really? I’m guessing that ‘whatever’ isn’t code for Scrabble either? M-U-G six points!
“Erm, well I’m easy – I guess,” already determining my future in the large oval mirror mounted on the adjacent wall, “it’s up to you. I can always get the Ring Road bus home from nearby, right?”
“Really? Awwwww come on Georgie, it’s been way too long. I’ve missed you, you can crash on the sofa if ya want?” Kelly stipulates, sensing that I’ve twigged to her little scheme of seduction, “oh by the way, if you still want the money we can still sort it later. I did promise you didn’t I?”
Smart girl. I’d like to think that I’m not so shallow as to be bought by money, but where’s the point in lying? Of course I am. It doesn’t mean that I want to fuck her or anything, I don’t, but if she thinks that she stands a better chance by treating me like a two-bit crack whore then so be it. It seems a strange concept to grasp I know, a single guy alone with a single girl and not wanting to violate her every orifice with the wildness of a male dolphin – but I have my reasons. Firstly, I’ve never been big into one night stands. Second, I’m sexually paranoid to fuck (all pun intended). Thirdly, all I can think about is piling a large line up my nose and blowing my brains to Strange Town.
“Yeah alright. I’ll take a beer if you’re offering one.”
“GREAT,” Kelly replies, heading through into the kitchen, “I’m gonna grab a vodka and coke, do you need anything else?” she asks handing me a cold can of cheap Australian piss and disappearing again. Well the false promise of a bit of length has already got you this far, don’t settle for the inch – take the goddamn mile.
“Yeah, can I possibly borrow your mirror?” I ask, liberating the wrap from inside my pocket. Poking her perplexed looking face around the kitchen doorframe, Kelly eyeballs the folded drug vessel held up between my fingertips.
“What do you need the mirror for?” she asks, “What’s that you’ve got?”
“It’s ket, do you want a small line?” I offer, aware of Kelly’s milk curdling expression in my periphery as I reveal the crystalline contents, “I did say I was bringing something.”
“God George, I just thought you meant a bit of weed or summat. Maybe a pill or two. I didn’t realize ya meant…well, that stuff.” Kelly replies, absolute disapproval written all over her phizog. I can’t help but feel as though some small justice has been served, the tables turned as Kelly realizes that her little ruse has also taken a drastic turn.
“It’ll be fine, honest I do this shit all the time.”
“Well I’d rather you didn’t to be honest. I’ve heard that stuff is bad news. Real drugs scare me,” she says, trying to take the edge off her anxiety with a healthy gulp of Smirnoff, “but if you really want to.”
Wasting no time at all I dismount the mirror from the wall and set about manipulating a few crude lines. Taking it easy at first, I dispose of a small line about an inch and half in length. It barely even tickles. To the uncorrupted, a dose this size would render them totally twisted and unable to recognize their big toe from their arse-hole.
“Dunt it sting?” Kelly enquires, her face twitching vicariously as she watches me sit back and wait, “what does it do?” she quickly follows up, not allowing me the much needed minute to recline before answering her initial question. I explain that sure it can sting sometimes, but only if I’m lucky.
“Usually means that it’s gonna work properly if it does. You sure you don’t want one?” I ask a second time, secretly overjoyed at her rebuttal. More for me then. After five minutes of relentless inquisition, I decide that enough’s enough. Fuck this! I sure as Hell didn’t come here to give you a lecture, watch and take note – your answers are in the post love. Taking my tools, I scrape together two of the pre-cut lines and merge them into one single monstrosity. Its ludicrous length scars the surface of the mirror as a vapour trail tarnishes a cloudless sky. Chugging the rest of my beer for extra boost, I cough and splutter my way through the huge slug of tranquilizer as my nose gobbles it up the snorting tube. Seconds later the astringent taste is oozing down the back of my throat and I know straight away that I’m in trouble. There’s little warning given before the unexpected surge of acrid stomach chunks have reached the door of my mouth. Wobbling like a new born foal covered in afterbirth and vaginal juice, I ricochet up the stairs heading for what I can only hope is the bathroom. On route, I urgently try and keep the volcanic chunder down by tilting my head back and hoping that gravity will do the rest. It doesn’t. The vomit erupts from between my pursed lips like a punctured water pipe, splattering the wall’s minimalist shade of beige like a Jackson Pollack painting. Somewhere Kelly is saying something, screaming maybe. I make it to the tiny boxed room where the toilet is sitting in the dark, already I’m feeling the contracting of my guts trying to exorcise the rest. In a moment of puzzlement, I crouch down and proceed to void my stomach like an opened dam. I forget to lift the lid of the toilet first. I barely even notice.
Kelly tries to lug my dead weight down the narrow staircase. This time gravity is there to help as my legs fail beneath me as basic coordination and motor skills fall under siege. With my head and neck swaying limp as a flaccid cock, smashing my forehead accidentally into Kelly’s face as we stumble at the bottom. She hurls some sort of abuse at me. Slumping back onto the sofa, the whirlwind of anaesthesia continues to suck me further and further down into the sinking depths of the cushions. Something is heavy, shuffling. What’s happening? Oh no, no, don’t do that. Somewhere she’s conquering me, as though an enemy storming a sleeping foe. Fingers are busy, meddling and tugging at the clasp of my belt which offers little resistance. Upon realizing that my jeans have been mercilessly ragged down around my lifeless knees, I vaguely sense something warm yet cool kissing the exposed skin of my crotch and inner thigh. Something is wet. Everything fades in-and-out, the abandoned Barbie dolls in the corner, Kelly grinding and groaning, pounding her pulp down on my traitorous member. How? Why would you let this happen? As the front line of her teeth smash hard against my own, I struggle to breathe as her lips snuff out my silent protests. The sundry stench of cigarette smoke and the rancid tang of lingering vomit is that Catholic Hell of brimstone and torture. I make my prayers to the heathen gods to rupture the geyser in my stomach once again. Oh shit, no, no don’t you fucking dare! Something is dripping, I barely feel a thing.
I wake up in Kelly’s bed the next morning, my mouth glued to the pillow as I come around. Vague memories and grim flashbacks now: the Barbie doll victims, the rush of bodily fluids and the blackness I’d been cast into, lost. Kellly is still asleep. Searching for confirmation, I brush away the dark hair that has fallen across her face and brow. Why did I come here? Looking down to where the pillow of Kelly’s hand lays beneath her cheek, I ponder over the pearl bracelet that she wears even in her sleep. What has happened in her life, where the bracelet came from? In the soberness of morning, I watch in silence as the room lightens and shadows fade.
strangefastmadness 