I wake up at six begging for it to stop. It’s been over a year and a half and I still see her, I still miss her. I know her number by heart. I wish I could just forget it.
We haven’t spoke since the split. I broke down and called her this afternoon. I needed to know if she was over me cuz I’m not over her. What should we do about it? I’ll come crawling back, just let me. Just answer the phone. I leave a message.
I been staring at my phone all day waiting for it to ring. Maybe she’s busy, maybe she’s working. I drive by her work. She’s not there. I try her again. No answer, no message, I don’t even know what to say. I text her.
Nothing.
Maybe I’ll hear from her when I’m stronger.
jude the dude
THIS MARRIED CHICK HITS ME up on Facebook talking about wanting phone sex. I email her, “I ain’t picking up the phone till I get some nudes sent my way.”
She writes, “Nudes? I can’t send you naked pictures, that’s like cheating.”
“What the fuck you think phone sex is?”
She sends me a headless bra-and-panty shot with her phone number. She’s got some big-ass titties.
A few days go by, I’m at some art school dance party in Bushwick, lots of drugs, lots of ironic mustaches. I’m gone off Norcos and ketamine. I don’t know why I mix the two together; they seem to cancel each other out. But I keep on snorting and popping pills. I hit on this chick in front of her man. Not being disrespectful, I just thought he was gay.
He says, “Hey, man, that’s my girl.”
I pat him on the back. “Oh, for real? My bad, I thought you sucked dick.”
I go outside. I’m feeling kinda grimy. I walk down the sidewalk, past the art fags and hip-hop dykes. Lemme call this married bitch, tell her what I want her to do with my dick, let her catch a nut. I dial her number. It rings and rings. Her voice mail comes on. Fuck it, dumb idea anyway. I don’t leave a message. I go back inside and dance around to synth-pop.
A week later, she emails me, says her husband saw our messages. She keeps hitting me up about giving me head. I ignore her. This lady’s crazy.
I get an email from some guy. I open it.
Hey scumbag, have fun letting my wife suck your dick, she’s real good at it.
I just went through this a few months back, getting pranked by some computer tech whose girl tried to holler at me. He had a program that did it for him, called me every twenty minutes and left a message. At the end of the day he calls me, talking through a voice-distortion box, sounding like Darth Vader and shit.
“HEY ASSHOLE, HOW’D YOU LIKE ALL THE PHONE CALLS?”
“Is this Jen’s dude? Why are you playin’ on my phone?”
“HAHAHAHA.”
“This is so fucking lame, dude. She told me she was single.”
“SHE’S NOT FUCKING SINGLE, SHE LIVES WITH ME.”
“Well, I don’t know what to tell you, man, she’s stepping out on you. Better talk to her. Personally, dog, I don’t even know why you still messing with her.”
“I KNOW. I KNOW. I SHOULD DUMP HER.”
“Yeah, I hear you. You sound like a good dude, you deserve better, though.”
I didn’t have the heart to tell him she blew me and swallowed and probably went back home to his house and kissed him on the mouth. Shady bitch.
That blow job’s costing me sixty bucks a year: I gotta pay the phone company for number blocking. I’m not going through that again with the phone-sex girl. I block her husband’s email and tell her to leave me alone.
Fucking with married chicks is a headache. I tell my boy about it; he says it’s bad karma, like if I bang somebody’s girl, someone’s gonna come bang mine.
I tell him, “Fuck that. It’s not karma, it’s cause and effect. Sometimes if you mess with another man’s girl, you’re gonna have to deal with that man.”
There’s no literal universal trade-off. There’s no “you stole my car so your car is gonna break down” law. You do what you do and you live with it. If some shit’s gonna eat you up inside then you probably shouldn’t have done it.
The question is: can I live with banging some other guy’s lady?
Every fucking day of my life. Her cheating, that’s between them. They got the agreement not to fuck each other over.
I just don’t wanna become that grimy motherfucker that these chicks come see when they need some reassurance, so they can go back to their man feeling pretty and shit. And what do I get out of it? A nut? A notch? Freedom? The freedom to sleep alone at night.
I get a bunch of emails from the phone-sex girl; she stays on me. She says they’re getting a divorce; the emails were the straw that broke the camel’s back. She’s in town and wants to come by the studio.
Maybe you should try and work it out, you got kids.
No dice. It’s over.
She wants to fuck, she wants to cum, she wants guarantees. She says she lost her family for this.
I tell her, “Come if you want. I can’t guarantee you anything.”
She shows up to my job in a miniskirt. She’s late, she left her kids at the hotel. She sits in the rolly chair and sucks my dick during a song break. Her husband’s right, she is good at it. I bend her over the console and fuck her fast and finish quick, then send her back to her kids.
She says, “I’ll be here all weekend, call me.”
“I’ll probably be busy.”
She sees herself out and I get back on the mike. She never did cum and I still sleep alone.
street meat
I’M AT THE TACO TRUCK with no drawers on wearing some sweatpants and a flannel shirt, looking like I just came from the VA hospital. She’s all dolled up, walk of shame style. Shirt ain’t tucked right, eye makeup’s smeared, hair’s a mess. She’s telling me about sofrito.
Some rockabilly Mexicans are posted up on a Honda Accord listening to Morrissey, eating tacos, eyeballing us.
I look back at ’em; I’m still high. Their headlights look like diamonds.
We started off the night with some GHB, chased it with ketamine, and got to fucking. I call it KGB. I think I do it cuz it sounds cool. I like the name better than the buzz.
She’s passing out, sloppy, rag-doll riding me. My ears are ringing. I’m off in my head somewhere thinking about puppy dogs and pussy trying to lose myself in the music.
She grabs the plate of K off the bedside table and sits it on my chest. I’m still in her.
“You want some more?”
I tell her, “Naw, I’m fucked-up. How you feeling?”
“I feel good. I feel like I’m floating.”
“Well, float on.”
She does another line and gets back to grinding.
“Feels good, right?”
“Yeah.”
I don’t feel nothing. I’m numb.
She wants me on top. I try but I can’t. The G’s got me nodding off and the K makes me feel like I’m swimming through peanut butter.
I go down on her till the high wears off, then I break out the 5-MeO-DALT. It’s my go-to fuck-drug. It’s like using a cheat-code on the pussy. I get it from a kid, who gets it from a kid, who gets it from some guy with a lab in China.
You get the body buzz of ecstasy without the emotional attachment. No euphoria, so no shitty comedown, and the next day you won’t be on suicide watch.
I’m sitting on the edge of the bed, scooping the 5-MeO-DALT out the bag. She’s on top of the covers, telling me about how her family likes dancing on the holidays because she’s Puerto Rican.
Puerto Ricans are always talking about being Puerto Rican. The first time I was out with her and her girls, it was plantains and Goya all night.
She licks her finger, sticks it in the powder, and puts it in her mouth. I do the same.
“How long’s this gonna take to kick in?” she asks.
“I don’t know, twenty minutes, a half hour?”
“There’s no way to speed it up?”
“We can snort it.”
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So we do that, too. Chop up lines and take it up our nose. Feels like sniffing swimming pool water. Three minutes later we’re wrecked and we’re going at it again. She’s moaning and I’m grunting, I’m palming her ass and she comes, and we go till the playlist ends then we put on New Order and fuck some more.
Drug sex is great. The only thing better is love sex. But if you can’t get that, drug sex is a nice consolation prize. It’s like sorry you didn’t win the new car but take this blender as a parting gift. Well, I’m ’bout to put my dick in this blender and I’m thinking the only way this could get any better is if we could just get a little more high.
I pull out this glass meth pipe I bought to smoke DMT out of so I could trip out and find myself. I never smoked the DMT because I didn’t feel like finding myself. Right now I’m happy being lost.
I put a scoop of the 5-MeO powder into the pipe, put a torch to the glass bulb, watch the powder liquefy then turn to smoke. I hit it. It tastes toxic, like I’m smoking a couch cushion. I can’t hold it in; I’m hacking.
I hand it to her; she lights up and traces the bulb with the flame, evenly. It looks like she knows her way around a meth pipe. This gives me pause. She puts the stem in her mouth, takes a monster pull, and blows out a cloud of smoke.
She hands it back to me. “There’s more in there, if you want it.”
I look at the boat picture on my wall. The water’s moving. My hands are shaking, my mouth tastes like chemicals. It’s seven thirty on a Tuesday night. We’re buck naked freebasing science drugs.
I hit it again, this time like her. It’s a giant load. It feels like someone rang a gong in my head, colors pop, my eyes are twitching, my stomach turns. I excuse myself, walk to the bathroom, and throw up in the toilet. I rinse my mouth out in the sink and look in the mirror. One pupil’s pinned, the other’s the size of a nickel. I’m unshaven; I got bags under my eyes. I’m getting old.
I throw water on my face, go back in the room, and fuck her some more. We go forever and no matter what position or hole I hit, it’s never enough. No matter how deep I dig in her, it’s never deep enough. If I could just push my whole body inside of her I would, just to feel something more.
I finally cum and we’re all fucked out. Sticky and exhausted. She’s laying next to me smoking an e-cig.
“You know, you haven’t been to my job yet; you should come by this week and meet all the girls. So they can see who I’ve been talking about.”
“This week is nuts for me and next week I’m out of town.”
We’ve been meeting like this for months, casual. I don’t need to meet her friends. But I don’t even wanna have that talk with her. I’m too high to have that talk.
So we get tacos instead and she’s giving me the recipe to sofrito and I’m watching the La Bamba Mexicans finish eating their food and throw their trash on the ground. In their own neighborhood, fucking animals.
I get to thinking about my own bedroom with the covers ripped off the bed, the drugs everywhere and used condoms all over the floor.
I’m thinking how tired I am of condoms, how you gotta stop what you’re doing just to put ’em on. I’m tired of the smell, the feel, but mostly what they represent—that I’m fucking a stranger.
She’s still talking but I don’t hear her. I take a bite of my taco, and I don’t know if I want it anymore.
unicorns
I’M AT THE TAR PIT having dinner when this badass chick walks in and posts up at the bar.
We’re all checking her out. Z looks at me, whispers, “Look at her, she’s beautiful, man.”
Hamed says, “Go and talk to her.”
“Nah, I’m good.”
It looks like she’s waiting for somebody. Her head pops up every time the door opens and when it isn’t for her she goes back to playing on her iPhone.
Fifteen minutes go by, and she’s still sitting there solo.
Hamed stays on me. “Go and talk to her, bro. Just say, ‘Hi, my name is Jude, you are very beautiful woman.’ And then she’ll talk to you.”
His English ain’t the best, but I dig what he’s saying.
I go take a piss and I get it in my head that if she’s still there sitting by her lonesome when I get out, I’ll go speak. I come out and sure enough, she’s solo.
I walk over to her and say, “If you was my girl, I wouldn’t have you waiting like this.”
It sounds like some bullshit line, but it’s true. I wouldn’t make my girl wait.
She says, “Excuse me?”
“It’s obvious you’re waiting on someone and they’re late, so why don’t you let me buy you a drink and you can join our table, so you’re not sitting here all alone.”
She tells me she’s good with her water and asks me my name.
“Jude.”
“I know you.”
“How?”
“eHarmony. We were supposed to go on a date, but I was in Spain and we lost touch.”
“Oh yeah, you shoulda called me when you got back. Well, we can hang out now.”
I give her my number, we talk a bit more, then her date shows up. I dip.
This dude. Fucking Hollywood cliché. He’s five seven and dressed like a tool—flaps on the back of his jeans and an overworked button-down.
Hamed says, “What did you say, bro? How did it go?”
“It went well and if she don’t hit me, then she’s into douchey agent types and ain’t shit I can do about that, now is it?”
When I left that night she hit me.
It was kismet. We weren’t even supposed to hit the Tar Pit that night. I wanted burgers. Z talked me into going there, and I see her all pretty and lonely sitting at the bar playing on her phone. If her date would’ve showed up on time, I never would’ve hollered at her, but he didn’t and I did and we reconnected after linking on the Internet the year before.
It was like one of those romance movies where the rich guy’s cruising the streets in his Lotus, looking for hookers and he finds a white one with all her teeth and he buys her some new clothes and dusts her off and then he sees her as the pretty woman she is and not as the whore she’s acting like and they get married and live happily ever after.
I fucking love romance movies. They give me hope. Deep down, I don’t believe any of it, but I want to. I want to believe in that shit the same way I want to believe in wizards and unicorns.
What I really think happens is you find a girl, get married, get divorced, and pray she doesn’t rape you for half your shit. That’s all I know.
But that’s not all I wanna know. I wanna learn something different. Maybe some lady will pick me up, dust me off, and see me for the man I am and not the whore I’ve been acting like. So I was stoked when I met that chick in some serendipitous, what-are-the-odds type fashion.
I hit her to hang out that weekend.
Nothing.
Maybe I’m being too desperate, calling her when I say I’m gonna.
I let it breathe three weeks, hit her again.
This time with the text bullshit. I fucking hate texting. It’s soulless.
I text her anyway, let’s get up.
We make tentative plans.
I’m looking sharp.
She blows me off. No call. No show.
Fuck her.
She hits me the next day with excuses.
Whatever, it’s cool.
I saw the dude she went on a date with.
She was at the bar waiting a half hour on a midget in distressed jeans and embroidered shirt and you gonna blow me off!?
So much for kismet. Sometimes coincidences are just that. Life is life and movies are movies.
And these romance movies are about as bad for my head as porno flicks. I got as much chance of Pretty in Pinking my way into getting a girlfriend as I do of performing bukkake on a Japanese schoolgirl.
I’m gonna find a woman I’m crazy about and that I gel with and get along with and all that shit, but I know this—when I do find her, some days she
’s gonna get on my fucking nerves and some days she won’t and it’s gonna be some work and they don’t show that in the romance movies.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna go look at some porn.
gingerbread man
VAUGHN’S IN THE CAR WITH Rachel when they pick me up at LAX. Vaughn heard me talking about PCP on the air and wants to get dusted. Rachel wants to go to a dance party. I been dancing all week in New York. The last thing I want to do is hit some fucking art-fag dance party with a bunch of youngsters downtown.
I say I’ll think about both, but I’m lying about one.
Rachel hits the party. I end up getting sushi with Vaughn and Alex. We let the chef choose what we eat. I eat the face off a shrimp—deep-fried, headfirst, let’s go. I offer a shrimp face to Vaughn, he don’t wanna do it.
He’s like, “I’ll smoke some sherm but I don’t know about the shrimp heads. Their legs are freaking me out.”
I’m like, “Just eat that shit face-first, like you’re a motherfucking monster. Merk that shit.”
He goes in. I’m mashing some eel. Chasing it with green tea and Advil; my tooth is killing me.
After sushi we stop at this art show. I run across the street to holler at my boy who works the door at some trendy bar. I go there mainly to chop it up with him, but also to feel superior to these fucking hipsters on line vying to get in. When I’m running back across, I fart and shit myself midstride.
I don’t even know it. I’m in the art gallery talking to some dude that recognizes me from Jenny Jones when I feel something wet running down my ass cheek. The bathroom opens and I clean myself up, stuff my boxers in the trash, and rage on. Whatever, I’m falling apart.
We decide we’re gonna smoke the PCP at Alex’s, and he’ll watch us and make sure we’re good. We’re driving down the street banging “Born in the USA.”
Vaughn’s hyped; he keeps saying, “We getting dusted.”
I’m driving on Hollywood looking for a head shop, with Alex’s shih tzu on my lap; I’m looking for some herbal cigarettes to smoke.
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