Ah, dirrty (dirrty)
Filthy (filthy)
Nasty (ho), christina you nasty? (yeah)
Too dirrty to clean my act up
If you ain’t dirrty
You ain’t here to party (woo!)Baby it’s brick city, you heard of that
We blessed, and hung low, like Bernie Mac
Dogs, let ‘em out, women, let ‘em in
It’s like I’m ODB, the way I’m freaking
Aguilera, Dirty
Coakes, past health problems surmounted, had become magnificent. He wore his hair in Princess Leia bangs and his pubise had been shaven into an intricate tribute to the artist formerly known as Prince. Coakes’ proud nipples were the talk of Broadway 11, and his rippling chest had been scanned by WETA for use in a planned King Kong sequel. Coakes’ face too had been restructured. Where swollen jowles had swung like nutless sacks beneath a furred snout, a Vincent Galleano chin held ‘Grin’ by Laura Ashley.
As his batsman Sushi knelt to groom his treasure trail with organic hummingbird wax, Coakes received a call on his iPhone. It was Aguilera.
‘Coakes you beast, I’m still aching after last night.’
‘Listen Chrissy,’ Coakes laughed, ‘if you insist on being double teamed by P Diddy and Puffy whilst Sean Combs burns gang signs into your hag mouth with his hash pipe, you’re going to hurt.’
‘Insist? Iago, you tied me to the chair.’
Coakes yawned extravagantly.
‘Oh dear, another call’s coming through…’
‘Wait!’ Aguilera’s voice grew husky. ‘Iago, hun, I didn’t just call to compliment you on the best night of my life.’
Coakes remained silent.
‘Mr Coakes, I need you.’
‘Ha.’ Coakes snorted, lowering himself catlike, into a steamless white Venetian marble bath, brimming with crocodile tears.
‘I want you to direct my comeback video. I need your vision.’
For a moment a haze of dollar signs blurred Coakes’ vision.
‘Please Iago. I’ll… I’ll let you cut me again.’
‘And…’
‘Fine.’ Aguilera audibly shivered. ‘Your daughter can watch.’
‘I’ll think about it.’
Coakes had paid the GDP of a small African nation to have Melody’s little body smuggled from her prison mortuary. Stuffed and fully articulated, she could be posed in any number of lewd or affectionate positions. But that was the least of the girls new abilities. Right now she was serving as a hat stand, but at the flick of a switch, her bionic nature could become clear. Melody’s glassy red eyes would glow with mechanical fury, as she, shuffling, undead, and possessed of an unsettling strength, carried out her fathers bidding. Coakes approached his cyborg child slowly, hand shaking in his pocket, hovering over the controls of her servo motors.
‘Tonight,’ he whispered, cupping her chin, oddly cold and utterly still. ‘Tonight, we dance.’
Aguilera arrived on set, composed and radiant. Off stage and screen, away from the tabloid cameras, the girl wore neither the Raquel Welch tiger skin bikini that had bought her America, nor the Marilyn Monroe burlesque of her current public image. She was clad simply, in a pair of Jimmy Choos and some lipstick, with which the word ‘Muppet’ had been scrawled across her chest. It was neither chic nor ironic, Aguilera was merely keeping it real. The crew were unimpressed, most had been with the singer for years, and knew the hair, teeth and cunningly engineered legs were all removable. The pop princess was in truth, a stumpy alopecia’d crone; but one who hid her deformities remarkably well. Coakes welcomed her with a kiss on the cheek.
‘Iago,’ she screamed, throwing her arms about him. ‘I can’t wait to find out what you’ve planned.’
Coakes smiled and took a drag from a fat Diplomaticos no 2.
‘You’ll see.’
Coakes began the morning by dressing Aguilera in variety of modest cashmere ensembles, duly filming the starlet as she mimed the lyrics of her hoped for hit.
‘God I’m dirty,’ she sang. ‘Just ludicrously filthy. Almost literally stinking. It’s my sniffling pinky, like a puppy’s snout scrunching. I could do with a dry cleaning.’
Coakes, mortified, sat atop his directorial throne and struggled to think. What would de Sade have done? Complete licence, utter freedom to express his art, and yet, it was all so banal. Greece had changed Coakes, no longer could mere degradation thrill him as it once had. As Aguilera’s body slammed again and again into a concrete pit of baby chicks, Coakes doodled with his iPhone’s ‘Create4me’ software. Throwing a variety of grotesque terms into the slim machine, Coakes hit the inspiration icon, and awaited a response. Finally the machine shuddered and, smoking slightly, squeezed out a single word. Coakes grinned broadly and slammed his grande latte no fat caramel frappachino onto the ground.
‘Of course’, he exclaimed, and raced for the door.
Thirty minutes later Coakes had returned, in his wake a grim parade of street men; bleak failed Bukowski’s and Vietnam veterans to a man, murmuring to themselves about My Lai and Ginsberg. At the sight of the decrepit interlopers Aguilera quivered like a plucked bow, and rattled her steel cage.
‘My God Coakes, you beast, you’re going to have me gang banged aren’t you?’ She screamed, rutting savagely against the iron grill of the cage work.
‘Something like that,’ Coakes told her, motioning his Sherpas to cut the girl down and carry her to the ceremonial trough. Coakes stepped behind his directorial lectern and snapped into action, his focus perfect, his vision articulating in real time. He addressed the bums, grinning broadly, epic in an Orson Wells meets Ron Jeremy at an all-you-can-eat and fuck Chinese restaurant/brothel kind of way.
‘Men. They have taken from you everything. Your dignity, your self respect. Your jobs, your wives, your children.’
Several of the men grunted a dim assent, others merely fondled their vast Carl Jr encrusted beards.
‘Boys. This morning you take your revenge. And after, when you are done, there will be whiskey and heroin.’
At this the men began to stomp, an arthritic cacophony of booted feet and heavy tuberculitic catcalls. Coakes raised his megaphone.
‘Bring on the hammers!’
Each man took a hammer and approached the squealing Aguilera, who’d bent over and tied her legs in an agonising knot behind her head in preparation.
Later, as hammer butter rained down upon the warehouse’s dirty floor, Coakes left quietly, secreting the morning’s DV tapes in a pocket of his Donatella Versace chaps, and phoned in a Blackwater airstrike on warehouse.
Directors Cut
Aguilera arrived on set, composed and radiant. Off stage and screen, away from the tabloid cameras, the girl wore neither the Raquel Welch tiger skin bikini that had bought her America, nor the Marilyn Monroe burlesque of her current public image. She was clad simply, in a pair of Jimmy Choos and some lipstick, with which the word ‘Muppet’ had been scrawled across her chest. It was neither chic nor ironic, Aguilera was merely keeping it real. Coakes sat deep in the canvas directors chair. The word ‘director’ was printed on the strip of canvas that served as a backrest. He was smoking a long, thin cigar. Blue grey smoke spiralled helplessly up from his nose and the nub of the brute. Before him flickered a small black and white portable television, a refugee from the 1980’s, with some kind of vile sport twitching away on it. He was whispering throatily into a Dictaphone. Off to one side, Aguilera stood, one hand covering her breasts, smudging the livid pink lipstick. She was trying to get Iago’s attention, saying his name over and over, but he was busy and ignored her.
The room was cold, and huge, and fat lazy fans high above quietly pushed stale air around. “Iago, baby, I’m cold”.
He glanced up at her. “Well, I didn’t dress you”.
She looked wounded and edgy, closer to madness now than when he’d first met her, all those years ago, when she was just another sponge in McDowells, and Bill Hicks had used her anus as an ashtray. Coakes smiled and stood, carefully placing his Dictaphone down on the trestle table. “Christina, who told you to dress like that?”
“I thought… The song, its called Dirtier, so I thought I’d bring it down…” The girl stared at Coakes, confused, trying to hide behind her hands. “I’m sorry Iago…”
She appeared on the edge of tears. Coakes shook his head, and walked to the catering table. He picked up half a grapefruit and squeezed the juice onto a towel. He walked back to her. She was shaking, covered in goosebumps, whispering to herself, trying to rub the lipstick off her chest. Coakes muttered comforting things as he gently mopped her clear with the fruit juice. First her face, then her chest and finally, after having her remove the soiled chaps, he cleaned between her legs. She was still talking to herself, saying his name over and over, weeping lightly. He cleaned her tears again and told her she was beautiful.
Coakes wondered over to the clothes rail, leading her by her wrist. He picked out a clean white panties and bra set, a white t-shirt and a pair of jeans, and a pair of good brown ankle boots. She dressed silently.
“You see, you needn’t dress cheap to look good,” he said, resting his hand on her shoulder.
“What about the video? I thought I should do something really nasty for it”.
“You hired me for a reason. It’ll be good. Very Michel Gondry. Very arty”.
“Will it sell? I need money and I ain’t going back on the streets…”
“It will sell. It’ll be the best thing you’ve every done”.
“So what do I do in it? Do I fight a load of naked chicks whilst frigging with a wine bottle and eating out a pigs asshole…” She trailed off as Coakes walked away, towards a cherry picker, to light another cigar.
He turned, still holding the match, its glow highlighting his face maniacally, ”We’ll just have to see, won’t we…” and climbed into the machines basket. It wrrrrhhed into the air. Coakes raised his loud hailer and began shouting, “Lights UP, Smoke ON, Cameras READY!” He smiled as the warehouse lit up, halogen lights voomped on, and the hiss of dry ice being spread a thick rug of smoke over the factory. A huge central merry-go-round began to move, mechanical Melody built onto the top of it, a faint cry of “Hello daddy!” making its way across the room. The horses, some still just alive, started to move up and down as the poles impaling them jerked to life, their huge still warm flesh greasing the whole ride with dark clotted blood. Surrounding it was the remnants of a New Orleans neighbourhood, transported, residents and all, to South Central LA. Coakes hadn’t fed them in a while, and there were noticeably less children than at first. They began emerging from their shattered homes as the lights went up, stumbling out into the bright halogen glow. Some carried improvised weapons.
Coakes looked down at Aguilera. She was weeping again. He sucked deep on the cigar, and flicked ash down on the back of her head. She’d remember that from McDowells. “Everyone set?” He looked around the warehouse at the various camera crews. They sat precariously on platforms suspended from the rafters, rope ladders pulled up and a Tazers readied. The blank faced men, porn pros and wildlife documentarians, chorused “Yup yup” in monotone voices.
“And roll”. Aguilera stood, unsure what to do, staring at the monstrous merry-go-round, the screams of the dying horses washing over her. Coakes raised his megaphone and yelled towards the New Orleanians, “First one to fuck her goes free”. They surged forward, some undressing at they did so, comically tripping over their own trousers. Aguilera remained unmoving, terrified at the wild eyed hoard.
“Ok, release the dogs”.
She looked round, the beasts slathering toward her, wedging her toward the mob. The intro to her song began on the PA, soul shatteringly loud, and she began to weep, near breaking point already, started to run, lipsincing along, the consummate professional, trying to get away. She rounded the first of the broken woodchip buildings as the dogs piled into the men, tearing at them. Some turned on the dogs, attacking them with clubs and hatchets and fists and nails and teeth. They were hungry. It came to the chorus, “I’m dirty, wearing a hat, its made of scat, or maybe it just smells like that, I once saw a dead cat, I’m just dirty like that”, and on and on. Coakes sat high above, watching the various camera angles, smiling, smoking. He let out a long happy fart, like a victory trumpet, and scratched at the dry skin on his back. Melody turned faster and faster, spraying horse blood out, and Aguilera climbed onto the back of former Arabian stallion, now just meat, a cut above her eye, some blood on her new blue jeans. She mouthed along with the song, smiling, terrified as the huge mechachild screamed “FATHER! I‘M COMING” over it all, turned faster and faster, the brutes and fighting dogs wrestling to get aboard, a blur, as the last of the horses died, spraying shit into the scene, drenching the singer. She wept again as the beastly merry-go-round broke off its moorings, and careered into the buildings, flattening some of the hoard of men and dogs, destroying a church, which seemed constructed out of shopping trolleys, slamming into one of the supporting pillars, causing the whole warehouse to groan as it juddered onwards, Aguilera still singing, “I’m Dirtier, sour cream that makes you scutter” slowing as a bum, half dog chewed, pulled himself onto the carousel, only to be thrown off by a sudden bump that left her hugging the dead horses neck, her white t-shirt drenched in blood, and Melody singing along now, massive mechavoice still child like, “I’M DIRTIER THAN PARIS, LINSEY LOHAN OR MOLASSES. SHAKEN OR STIRRED YOU KNOW HOW MY ASS IS. DIRTIER!” and Coakes laughing, smoking, smiling, farting, half a hard merrily trickling onto his khaki trousers, the camera men grim faced pro’s still on the job, the dogs dead or dying, the poors the same, the mad spinning ride still bizarre and wild, a mechachild dervish, and the music, pumping bass and thumping beat flying hard faced from the PA, and Aguilera finally thrown from the merry-go-round, through a plywood wall, face first, her neck bending, legs twitching as a hairy, funky old blues man pulled off her jeans and began to ram himself home, all fat greasy and unwashed, laughing “I’m free, I’m free” as a dog bowled into the back of him, biting through the neck, splattering blood on the wall, chewing at him, and another began to lap at Aguilera’s jazztart; her moaning slightly, regaining consciousness enough to reapply her lipstick, bucking her hips against the dogs tongue until, annoyed, it bit her, and howling she blacked out, “and cut!”
Coakes looked around the warehouse, exhausted, dimly aware of sirens drawing closer. He casually shot the dog eating Aguilera with a tranquillizer dart, and yelled “Ok everybody, clear out. Hand your tapes over and fuck off before the cops arrive”. The cherry picker slowly descended and Coakes hopped gently over its side, and walked quickly over to where his star had fallen. He gathered her carefully in his arms and carried the unconscious girl to the waiting ambulance. The camera men were filing past the table, dropping rolls of film and fat memory cards onto it, picking up sacks of silver, leaving, grim faced, nodding respectfully. Coakes gathered their recordings together, walked back to his car, a fresh cigar alight between his teeth, wondering if Aguilera would survive. Wondering whether he’d just made the first ever snuff music video. Wonder whether once again, she’d win an MTV award.
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