Post by Jove Belane on Jun 6, 2017 12:00:41 GMT -5
2 - "Cigarettes and Mangoes."
POV: Jove Belane
The excuse was still, “Loneliness is a dangerous thing.”
Russia was a blur. The people, the accents, the language, the fight, the knock out; blurred. Blurred because of this woman with the eyes, the cigarette and mango mingled scent. I had won knockout of the night, but when I looked up, I didn’t see those eyes. She was nowhere in sight.
I should have been walking up to Putin and asking him if he wore gloves when he stuffed his arm up Trump’s ass to the elbow and worked him like a puppet. I should have been looking at the architecture and I should have been spread eagle in the ‘Red Square’, but I wasn’t. I was restless in my bed, wondering what fucking Mariska was up to.
Everything was slowly changing.
Harvey wanted me to move to Los Angeles. Said he had a ‘penthouse’ all set up for me and all I had to do was say yes and I was moving into the ‘big time’, but I didn’t want any of it. I knew that once I took that step, that I’d officially be in Harvey’s debt and I wanted to stay out of that until the day I died.
That little hipster jerk.
I won and I won big. I earned a twenty five thousand dollar bonus for knocking out Bugs Bunny and I had no idea what I was going to do with it. I figured I would have to shell some of it out to Harvey, but he told me it was all mine. He mentioned that he would double it if I moved to LA.
That was still a no go.
I couldn’t stop thinking about Mariska in the same way I couldn’t stop thinking about cancer, thanks to starting smoking again.
Maybe Mariska was cancer. That cancer you can’t get rid of no matter how many pills or radiation you take or how much they cut out of you. A permanent kind of cancer that only calls you home for a little while before you call it ‘home’.
That pencil neck hipster putz, Harvey, he told me to let Mariska go. He told me she was bad news and that I could do better. For one small second, Harvey was absolutely right and just as sincere, but I turned a deaf ear to it. He’d been causing me pain the whole time and I wasn’t going to let him destroy his average.
Mariska made my fire burn.
She was supposed to be a wadded up piece of paper thrown into the trash. That night we met, it was supposed to be meaningless and it was. It was this ongoing bout of ‘meaningless’ I couldn’t manage to break free from. All we shared was an ability to make each other feel amazing in the sack. Outside of that, we were quiet and didn’t have a lot to share other than alcohol and a carton of cigarettes.
I should have butted her out the day we met, but she wouldn’t let me go.
As soon as I knew she was jealous, I knew that I was in trouble. As soon as she knew I was into it, a tombstone was erected.
She was alive only because she was sucking the life out of me and I couldn’t seem to stop her. Honestly, I don’t think I wanted to. I wanted her to keep leeching off of me because it meant I didn’t have to be completely alone and that’s why it was so dangerous. She was so alive, no matter how dead she may have been inside.
Those eyes, they sparkled like the night’s sky and told me that she was just as far away from me as the nearest star. Even if you count Sol, that’s still a long fucking way away.
If you saw her eyes--well maybe you shouldn’t look. For me, she’s Medusa, but she only stiffens one part of me.
You guessed wrong--I’m talking about my brain.
This woman turns me into a big dumb animal, but it’s sticky and it’s good. Furthermore, it feels right. ‘Right’ in an absolutely fucked up kind of way.
I returned home to find my apartment completely destroyed. Like a bomb went off. Someone was looking for something. What? I don’t know. I didn’t have anything worth taking. That woman with the eyes--she and I had emptied all the bottles worth drinking and all that was left was the liquor that smelled and tasted like perfume discarded by an old woman after she died.
Bad.
Everything was ‘flipped’ including my bed. I took a moment to look underneath of it, realizing that I had found all of my missing lighters. On top of that, I was a bit taken aback at how many dust bunnies had collected beneath my bed.
Had I ever vacuumed out beneath it?
Disgusting.
I’m going to assume it was Mariska, in the midst of chain smoking with her leopard print panties in a bunch, looking for something important. With that in mind, it’s good that she didn’t find the bevy of lighters.
Then again, she would have taken the lighters--so maybe it wasn’t my glowing eyed succubus?
I realized I hadn’t actually tracked down where she lived so I took to the streets, hoping to find a trace of her. If anyone knew who decided to make a mess of my apartment, it was likely her. Maybe it was her brother and his friends, or worse, maybe it was the devil himself, using my apartment like a mirror to remind me how disgusting I was.
Fuck me, it was bad.
I considered hiring a cleaning lady.
The heat of the sun was muted by the breeze that afternoon. I wore a jacket and smoked like a chimney while I looked for Mariska. I didn’t know where to look so I headed for the bar where we met, wondering if someone would remember her and point me in the right direction. I figured that no one could forget her eyes and her scent. Oh and those tits of hers were unforgettable as she never wore a bra. She had a pretty nice ass too. On the objectification side of things--she was memorable. Personality wise, she’d cut you deep and that wound would never heal.
Madness, this woman. A sudden exit to sadness, too.
Somewhere in the distance I could hear a authoritative voice singing:
“Cops in cars, the topless bars
Never saw a woman...
So alone, so alone.”
I could relate.
The bartender told me that Mariska and her ‘family’ lived in an apartment complex which he made sound much more like a tenement than an apartment.
When I arrived at the place, it looked like something out of a third world nation. I didn’t know what to say. This weird, dumb, and arrogant voice inside my head told me I needed to rescue Mariska.
Yeah, rescue this woman I didn’t get along with who sent guys to beat me up, after she burglarized my apartment. Rescue this woman who gave me her warmth whenever I wanted it and bit me in all of the right places.
Rescue lust and work on the relationship later.
I didn’t know what I was doing.
I pushed my way through the main doors to the place and immediately I was greeted with the smell of paint thinner and/or ether. Maybe cat piss? Cats were a given, likely, but the walls looked like shit, so I didn't figure there were renovations in process.
There was at least one meth lab on site.
‘How does Jove Belane know what a meth operation smells like?’
I haven’t always been a lowly fighter. Let’s keep it at that.
I guessed that Mariska lived on the top floor. Undoubtedly she was the queen of this slum and would live as such--right on top of the heap. The elevator, of course, was broken, so I made my way up flight after flight of stairs on my way up to the top floor. I lost count of how many. I was surprised that I didn’t see the stereotypical trash and passed out druggies in the stairwell as I made my ascent.
I did run into a couple girls, preteen, or recently teen who were smoking and talking about who to fuck and how to fuck. They eyeballed me, but I ignored them.
I was wrong, wouldn’t you know. I got to the seventh floor and heard Mariska.
I felt this disgusting urge inside me--it ran up my chest and into the back of my throat. Terrible--I was looking forward to seeing this woman.
I closed my eyes for a moment and I saw her on top of me. The palms of her hands were pushed into my chest and her nails were digging into my skin. She was smiling at me. Her eyes flashed with an unearthly light--almost reptilian. She whispered that she loved me as she whipped her hair back.
It’s hard to explain why I care about this deranged woman.
I forced my eyes open when I heard Mariska scream.
I stepped out of the stairwell into the hallway and put one foot in front of the other as I drew closer to the sound of her voice.
She was screaming about how something wasn’t her fault and she kept saying she was sorry. Then I heard the unmistakable sound of a flat hand colliding with a cheek. As I stepped around the corner, the first thing I saw was a child in a playpen who had just started crying. I continued my movement and caught the back of a large man who towered over Mariska. Her cheek was red and her mascara was smeared, rolling down her cheeks in long streaks.
The whole scene was the result of a renaissance painter’s brush stroke.
I heard myself let the words ‘what the fuck’ out of my mouth.
The man turned around to face me and looked like he was at least of Middle Eastern descent. Of which, I could not tell you. The ‘American’ in me conjured up the word ‘rag-head’ or ‘camel fucker’ on general principle.
He pointed his finger at me and told me that ‘i was the one’ who ‘was fucking his wife’.
He had a foot in height on me as he stepped towards me, but I was completely calm. I paid attention to my breathing and was comfortable with my surroundings. The only thing that seemed quizzical at the time was the whole ‘wife’ part of his statement.
I shrugged it off.
Mariska, the harlot succubus who stole my heart and filled the void with cigarette smoke was married?
Bitch.
I felt bad for thinking of her like that.
Instant karma occurred the moment I drove my own flat hand into his cheek and followed it up with the trailing elbow right into his teeth. A couple yellowed shawarma grinding teeth went flying as I kept moving forward, putting him right onto his back I fell on him, pinning him down to the floor with my chest into his knee.
I looked up at Mariska and asked her if she was really married to the guy. She sniffled and nodded her head, yes.
Bitch.
It still felt wrong to say.
The child crying, the bleeding husband, and crying Mariska aside, I had to take a moment to think about myself. Selfish, I know, but I was born and bread for selfishness. God bless the USA. I wanted Mariska, bad habits and all, but I didn’t want the baggage. Furthermore, I wanted Mariska purely because being inside her felt good and when we were really drunk, we’d dance. I liked that. It was good enough.
Was that kid Mariska’s kid?
I pulled Mariska to her feet and held her by either arm. I felt like shaking her. She fell into my chest and sobbed against my shoulder and I knew that mascara was going to tattoo my jacket. I placed an arm across her back and wondered who was going to settle down the screaming baby.
She told me she was sorry and when I asked her why, she just cried harder.
It was too much reality.
I let Mariska fall to the nearby couch and I turned my attention to the screaming child. It appeared to be a little girl and she was filthy. I felt my heart drop a little bit and honestly it was the first time, in a long time, that I was reminded that I had a heart. The little girl was clinging to the bars of her crib and she was screaming hard. Red in the face, tears in the eyes, and even some snot rolling out of her nostrils.
I didn’t know what to do, so I started making faces at her. I saw a chink in her crybaby armor, so I started doing ‘jazz’ hands and blew a raspberry. I kept up the show and she let a laugh escape her lips. Soon she shot me a smile and rubbed her eyes.
I looked into her red little baby eyes and I saw baby versions of Mariska’s eyes.
Doomed child.
She reached out for me, so I pulled her out of the crib and held her to my side. By then, she was laughing and smiling--like nothing bad had ever happened.
I turned to find that big man of Mariska’s was upright and had a gun in his hand. The gun only shook slightly as he aimed it at me, so I knew he was at least half serious about what he was going to do next.
He told me that where he ‘came from’ I would receive one hundred lashes for what I had done. He swore at me in some language I didn’t understand, but understood it enough to recognize it was meant in a threatening way.
I asked him if he was the one who turned my apartment into an even bigger mess than it was before and he nodded. I asked him what he was looking for and he told me he was looking for a picture of me. He said Mariska wouldn’t tell him anything about me--that she was protecting me.
I tried not to be obvious as I watched Mariska approach him, just off his right shoulder--the shoulder attached to the arm attached to the hand holding the gun.
I asked him what it was going to take for him to put down the gun and put an end to the lunacy all together. He thought for a moment before cocking the hammer back. He could only scoff and threaten me more.
The child felt heavier in my arms, so I asked if I could put the kid down before he made that iron talk. He said he didn’t care because the kid wasn’t his.
Imagine that.
Mariska revealed that she was brandishing a glass bottle--she held it up over her head. When she slammed it down into the man’s head, it didn’t break, it just made a terrible hollow thud when it collided with his skull. He staggered a moment and turned to face Mariska and immediately unloaded a round into her chest. Mariska fell backwards and slumped to the floor. The man turned to me and all I could do was cover the child’s ears as she screamed and cried. Before he could fire, the man fell to his knees and flopped face first into the floor.
The kid cried and for a moment I wondered if I was going to join her.
I was pretty sure Mariska, with her cigarette mingled with mango flavor and those eyes, was dead.
Those beautiful eyes, would never open again.
END.