xX... just a little song fic, my first attempt at one (I think...). It is set to the heartbreakingly beautiful song He Loves and She Loves (music: George Gershwin, lyrics: Ira Gershwin). This version is from Audra McDonald's amazing album Happy Songs. At first, I thought this song called for a happy, old fashioned love story. But than I realized that today, love is neither. So the story you are about to read is violent, sex ridden and dark. Laced with irony. REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW, oh yeah. and... Enjoy! ...xX
A senator. Shit, a senator. That's what I was. A god damned senator.
Chilly November Thursdays...
Step out of the Capitol into the parking lot, approach the Mercedes. Black, sleek leather interior. I stopped obsessing over it a while ago. When you have the best of everything, things lose value. When you have some Mexican you pay 30 god damned bucks an hour to manage your car, you don't even touch it with a rag. Hell, I'd ram it into a pole to get my money's worth.
A senator. Right. How the hell did I ever get there? Washington, DC. Big shot now, right? Wall Street I coulda seen, but DC? The town of liars, cheaters, stealer, murderers, and a million bums who'll do all that, only to find they needing to lie, cheat, steal and murder to keep their place.
Wait. It's a fucked up town. Why didn't I say that? Sometimes, damnit, I'm too wordy. It's what you get when you're a senator. You've got to make a point, but drag it out for hours and use lots of big words. If things in DC were less fuckin wordy, maybe people would watch C-Span every now and than. I'll admit it too, I TiVo some shows on C-Span, but only to look intelligent when the CIA finally decides to go through my life.
The fact that no one's caught up with me yet is astounding. The justice system was set up to bring criminals to justice, but here, in DC. Everyone's who's supposed to be dishing out the justice, needs a little themselves. Did I mention that DC is fucked up? I might as well just through in the entire justice system. And our government. and all the damned senators, governors and who knows fuck not. And the citizens. Humans. Humans are pretty god damned fucked up.
Anyway, I push my thumb into the gear shift and, Sheila (what I've named my Mercedes) hums to a start. Her sound is soft and comforting. I buckle up (I do have SOME fuckin morals) and start down the freeway. I don't really know where to go. The heater hasn't warmed up so I breathe and notice the steam that comes out of my mouth. It's at times like these, when the heater hasn't warmed up, when the over isn't where I want it, when my Polaris in the pool isn't working, that I feel vulnerable. Don't you tell any one that I fuckin said that or I'll fuckin kill you. But I don't have control over every thing than, There are things out of my mindset and control power. But the heater clicks on, and the moment passes. Where does one go? Not home, I don't think I could face my home. A huge one story ranch-house type place. Modeled to look like the Aspen we don't get to enough. It's friendly, there's probably a fire on, and a good meal on the table. But that disgusts me. That would make me sick.
A senator. Right. Nice wife. Nice kids. And a girlfriend...
Now that I have found you
I must hang around you
Though you may refuse me
You will never lose me
"Hey baby..." I hear my voice coo into my razor phone.
"Hmmm?" She moans. I picture her right now. Pale skin, dressed in her lace panties and bra, sitting on the edge of her bed for one. Lonely. She waits for my phone calls. She lives through me, damned hermit.
"Baby I'm comin' over..."
"Over what?" she giggles naughtily.
"Baby save that for when I'm over."
"I'm warming up the handcuffs." She says, going into her husky, lush, men-using voice.
I hang up and, feeling so good of myself, turn on my XM Radio and I can stand to listen to Howard fuckin Stern go on and on about crime in the Senate. So he has it right, but he's too fuckin weird.
She lives in a dinky old apartment building over a crummy Chinese grocery in the part of town that "us" don't go into. She long ago stopped asking herself where it all went wrong, she just is. Maybe it was the illness, crippled all of her social skills. But probably not. Whatever it is, she lives a putrid existence in relative squalor. And I love it.
If the human race is
Full of happy faces
It's because they all love
The wondrous thing they call love
My wife said, on our first date, that you've got learn to separate love, from lust. Brainy old bitch. But, in a way, she's right. So what is this? Love? Lust? Both? All I know is that when I'm with her. I feel like an old-fashioned man. A man who's strong and a man that women need. Maybe it's because she's so weak and frail and desperate that she comes to me and empowers me. But I am a man when I'm around her. I am totally in charge of our love making. I tell her what to do, she does it. She does anything I want and I leave when she's sleeping. She's not a hooker, or if she is she's the worst hooker ever, but I always leave some money on her bed. 100 bucks maybe? Crazy slut needs it, and she earns it.
"Hey" She says when I buzz her, "come on up." I climb the 5 or so flights of stairs, tingling in anticipation. She opens the door, clad only in a thin kimono. I see the outline of her body as it clings to the fabric. She offers me a martini. Something she never did before. I've had a fuckin hard day, so I take it and swig it down in one swift motion. The glass smells faintly of something unnatural. Probably the olive. She giggles and removes her kimono. Her milky white body in front of be in all it's glory.
"Hi" I mumble and lead her to the creaky bed...
He loves and she loves
And they love
So why can't you love
And I love too?
I don't know what the hell she put in the drink put I'm out like a light just after I enter her for the first time. Whatever she put, though, It wasn't enough. When I feel the icy cold touch of steel against my body I jerk up. She's holding a shinning dagger above my back. She looks surprised to see me awake.
"What the...?" I fumble around, still woozy. "What the hell did you put in the drink?" I ask, my voice rising. Her pale, collected face is starting to fracture and dissolve into frantic tears.
"What the FUCKING HELL did you PUT IN MY FUCKIN DRINK!" I holler at her, getting up and looking for my pants. "FUCKING TELL ME!"
"I'm sorry." She whispers.
"Oh?" I mock, "sorry?" She nods painfully, "Well are you sorry for drugging me? Or, just now, attempting to murder me? Take your FUCKIN PICK YOU PILL!"
Now she's broken and on the bed, sobbing. "I don't know! I don't know!" She wails, "I hate you! you know that? I fucking hate you. You live this life... full, exciting, I don't even leave my apartment. I'm a fuckin recluse and you treat me like a whore. And..." she stops, calming down, only quivering slightly, "I'm not... I'm a person... and you. You. you're a pig."
Birds love
And bees love
And whispering trees love
And that's what we both should do
Calmly, I get up and pull down my pants. I stand there, waiting. She obliges, though she's sobbing. After a minute or so, I push her away. Her tears are getting me all wet. "Pig?" I whisper. "Not a whore?" I yell at her, push her down onto the bed, take her knife and plunge it into her back. She flinches a little. But not much. "Not a whore?" I throw 50 bucks on her bloody body and get dressed, grabbing my coat. She whimpers. From which world did that whimper come from? Suddenly, overcome with humility, I pull the covers up over her and take out the knife. "It's cold for November" I whisper and walk out the door.
I always knew some day
you'd come along
We'll make a twosome
That just can't go wrong
Hear Me...
I'm feeling vulnerable, as I speed down the freeway and wait for the heater to warm up. I didn't pay 100,000 fuckin bucks for a lame piece of fuckin machinery! The calm and collected hush I felt as I had left her apartment and gotten into my car had disappeared. I had killed someone. No, not someone, I'd killed someone who'd loved me. She'd loved me so much that she couldn't bear for anyone else to love her, to make lover to her. So she tried to kill her. I murdered a spirit. I scream as I drive down the freeway, curse, scream, and slam my fists into the steering wheel. Suddenly I see it, a mega-church. The kind of money-gobbling-god-fearing cover up that pretends to preach Jesus but really preaches membership fees. It's got a 24 hours chapel. I veer quickly off the interstate and pull up to the 24 hour chapel. It's tiny, barely room for three people, with low ceilings. A mini-church. Complete with pews and an altar. I insert my dollar in quarters into the slot and the door clicks, unlock. I enter the church. It's cold, no fuckin heat, but serene. It's the first place, in the whole 23 shit-laden years I've been in Washington, that I really feel at home. I sit in a pew and start to cry, my tears hit the hard wood floor like mini-anvils.
Let me list my crimes for you (in the legal sense, not moral):
1. Insider trading
2. Accepting Bribes
3. Murder.
4. ...what is this? Fuckin confessionals? Let's just say the list goes in for 6 more.
Lost in my thoughts I don't even notice when the door opens again. It's only when the person speaks that I'm jolted back to the cold, hard, dearth November in DC.
"Fred?"
I look up, and do a double take.
"Kathryn... I..."
"Fred what're you doing here?" My wife rushes towards me. As usual, she is dressed to the nines. Even for a jaunt to a 24 hour chapel. What is SHE doing here, that's the real question. Regardless, she comes and sits down next to me, "They're looking for you, Fred. Gina caved, she told all. They came to our house, scared the kids shitless. Where the hell have you been?"
"Dead" I croak, unable to find words, communicate. For the first time in my DC career. Everything is simply worded.
"Dead? Fred what the hell are you talking about? You're a wanted man. Do you know I've been worried sick about you? You didn't come home last night. Where the hell were you? Now, I find you, at 10:30 in a crummy 24 hours chapel in god-knows-what neighborhood. The police are after you, are you going to say anything? Fred!"
"Dead!" I moan, my eyes not leaving the alter. I cannot bear to look at her.
"Dead? For god's sake Fred, make some god damned sense! Something you haven't been doing in 5YEARS!"She hollers at me, getting up and slapping me square across the cheek with her fashionable hand bag (it cost me 3 fucking thousand). "Do you know what people say?" she hisses at me, "They've been saying that you cheat on me. Not only do you have one mistress, you've got a whole damned harem of them!" She slaps me again, I've ceased to feel pain.
"Dead. Dead. Dead. Dead Kathryn. She's dead."
"Dead? Who's dead?" She stops and rushes towards me, "The report on the radio said you were also wanted for murder, but, I just assumed that was inflation. Tell me, Fred. Who's dead?"
"Kathryn, I killed her."
"oh my god." she whispers.
"You weren't there for me. You left, retreated into your world of Ladies Lunches and soccer games. I needed you and you'd assimilated"
"Maybe, just MAYBE, if you'd stopped fucking you're damn mistresses for a minute and CAME to one of those soccer games! MAYBE I MIGHT'VE BEEN THERE!"
"You deserted me!"
"You deserted ME! And you lied! You lied to me!"
I spit,
"Don't spit in a house of god who heathen." she hisses.
"Oh don't play miss high-and-mighty with me you slut! I know what you do! A drummer in a band?"
"You hired a private detective? What about privacy you paranoid freak!"
The screaming gets progressively louder, the room wants to explode,
"Maybe if you didn't give me cause to!"
"YOU'RE A CRIMINAL! A CRIMINAL!" She cries, hitting me two times, "You broke the law. I ran to someone who cared when you stopped." She calms down, "Tell me, who did you kill?"
Do I lie? Fuck that'll make it worse.
"A girl..."
"You're, lover?" she gulps.
I nod.
"Who was she? Did I know her?"
I nod again. She groans.
"Who?"
"Years ago... before... before the ... the ... disease..."
She sits down.
"Summer?"
I nod.
I lean in to kiss her. We can be a family again, I've been freed of the pain, and she's been freed of the hate. We've all been fucking freed by this diseased chick that I killed.
And than the door blows down and the police rush in. Kathryn screams as the push my face into the cold wood and handcuff me. She jumps on the men, screaming, let him go! let him go! But the laugh and push her hard against the stained glass. The haul me away, my last view is Kathryn, blood trickling down her chick as she gets up from the floor. She smiles at me, knowingly. She waves and mouths,
"I love you"
He loves and she loves
And they love
So won't you love me
As I love you?
xX.. WELL? REVIEW REVIEW REVIEW! ...xX