SmokeLong Quarterly

The contracts had been lifted. Asian hands, younger than mine, doing the job I used to do. Cheaper. Across the ocean. I suppose.

Shipped and pulled, hoisted like anchors, and now Yoshi, in a homemade T-shirt, iron on letters, a fake English phrase, “My Faborite Things Necessary to Live: Lucky of things to meet it.” No breaks. Bad skin. Breath like wilted turnip greens and soy. Folds perforated cardboard for a fraction of the cost.

My body is still strong.

Out onto the pavement, moving like sharks through warm waist deep water, “Hiring?”

“No, but good luck.”

Body strong. Spirit broken.

Nicky’s pudge-faced cousin knows computers. Says he can fix it up. Says he’s heard of guys out in California with sites that make millions.

“Just get the footage,” he says. “I’ll do the rest.”

Nicky and I buy a digi-cam from the hock shop and cruise the mall.

At first we’re ambitious. Approach plasticene beauties, with smiles on faces.

“What’s your name?”
“What’s your name?”
“What’s your name?”

But only rejections.

“This won’t do. Must lower expectations.”

Ruth. Face like chiseled hemlock bark, legs gnarled and twisted. Her parents must have been allergic to vitamins.

Long hair. Says she’ll never cut it. Breasts in opposite directions. Teeth stacked like warped stairs. Eating chocolate covered pretzels that melt beneath hand warmth.

Grinning as I confront her.

“Want to make some cash?”

Naughty ’cause she knows.

“Maybe. What do I have to do?”

Bring her back to Nicky’s. Place smells like new carpet. She smells like candied fruit. Like Barbie doll dress-up perfume.

Nervous. Hands shaking. Body still strong. Ruth quivers beneath the clothes she’s removing. Wet vagina, smeared against fingers, white skin, red splotches, lungs feel shallow and hot.

Nicky and the digi-cam, hovering around me. Red light blinks like a solitary eye. Bed springs singing soft hymns as she turns over, thrusting her body toward me. Her skin, broken out on her back side. Welts and ash. Trying to hurt her. Grabbing her rib cage and pulling her through me. Squeezing nipples with thumb and forefinger. Hard, but she likes it. Howls like a rabbit dying from something it wants. Shaking her like a dead flower. Petals releasing. Hair. So long. In both hands, and yanking. Think about Yoshi doing my job so it lasts.

Mouth dry. Spread her ugly legs apart like a butcher. Handling meat. Abdomen tight from moving, and sweat softening skin. Momentum.

“You like that?”

“Eh. Eh. Eh.”

A new camera angle. Beneath us. Looking up. Feel the lens on my pieces, as I ebb and repeat her. Mechanics. Simple mechanics. And Ruth bakes from the friction. Eyes closed. Mouth open. Neck turned. Half of her face sinks into the pillow. Her large broken rump hollers at me like ham.

I knew her back in high school. Beta club member. Played violin. Picked up attendance from my Biology class. Read science fiction in the library during lunch. Now, sprawled and sweaty, Ruth wastes beneath me, the way sand moves in the desert with the wind.

Across the ocean boxes draw down the line, and Yoshi’s shirt is fake English. Squid for lunch. Iced tea in a cup the size of something I’d rinse my mouth with. In a country surrounded by salt water.

Water.

Nicky’s knuckles are white, the camera rocks in his grip. His breaths, shallow, and off-center. He slaps Ruth’s back side and she hums her approval. He grabs her like a lump of bundled yarn, and films it. Twists her flesh in his grip. Milk. Vanilla.

Different angles, dizzy from spinning. Head warm. Soft as fennel fronds. Moving like wild flowers when cars pass on the highway. Warm as a baby inside the womb of a sin.

Now she’s erupting. The camera feeds her exposure. Swallowing nothing, from the tip of her tongue. A soft ache piles from the small of her center, then Nicky grabs at her to push her over the slow parts.

“Ayy…”

Now he’s the director. Now he’s got the direction. I’m moving faster. He tells me to move.

My mind. Flickering like lights on the subway. From yellow to nothing, grooved to the track. Hissing. Motion. Panicked from breathing.

Nicky’s eye, in the back of the camera.

“Work it. Fucking work it.”

His lips aimed at her thighs.

I thrust like a piston. The camera watches my venom. Which falls upon Ruth, who lies still, who lies calm.