Jackdaw Fool

What lasting joys the man attend
Who has a polished female friend

Whurr, The Accomplished Female Friend

This thing right here
Is lettin all the ladies know
What guys talk about
You know
The finer things in life
Hahaha
Check it out

Sisqo, Thong Song

A thong for Juliet. Tonight we’ll be the black lacy bad girl under an American Apparel summer dress. We scrub on tides and oceans Juliet, rich tawny tin o tint, daub everywhere; catch knee backs humming to Fiddy on the stereo, reach our shoulder blades with roller stick and stretch bent back arms.
We bounce Juliet, wall to wall in this pea pod home for petit pois people. We pause before vanity and lay on spiderweb mascara, long thin and crunchy. We look good. We’re quick and careful Juliet, enamelling on itchy eye shadow, green to match our dress my Juliet, above our canyon slung eyes.
Jules, we stretch and stand stock still, posing while the last of our can o tan dries. We touch up streaks and gaps and bare white blotches where the skin breaks through, till we’re perfect Juliet, and cooked all over.
We curl Juliet, we heat and fold rebellious twirls and clumps of flighty split fraught mane. We slip on our dress, slink and lithe beneath a halo of razor wire curls, and we remember granny from below, translucent insects asleep on her head, in their white hard cylindrical cocoons.
We stretch down the lips my Juliet, the tasselled ends of our short short dress, rearranging the strategic trade off between butt and boob. We stretch our stockings long across our chequered sheets, inspect for snakes and ladders. Slink them on Juliet, dark over beech wood bows of calf.
At last the boots Juliet. Leather beauties, black polished to a Martin Sheen, with heel thrust cruel arches to pale foot binding. Sweet penance Juliet, price of perfection.
The finished we twirls in the mirror; hot, Balearic, succubean.
We slip into the taxi Juliet, and the driver fixes us with the stare he would give money; peeling our skirt up in the rear view mirror. We watch the streets go by, the oily mucky streets, the streets that hold us back, home places, slums. We watch them change to the twinkling blinking glory of the evening Juliet, the night come out to dance. Pop into McDowells to meet our fine fair fettered friends.
The clubs are like a game we play, with simple rules but hard and quick opponents. The girls dance, pretending not to notice the boys. The boys stare, pretending to be able to dance. One grabs us Juliet, a tall bellicose brigand, in a uniform we recognise, striped silk shirt, tired chords and lank blonde locks; all chins and wayward inclinations. We shake him off and weave away to hotter richer climes; the tough shook bounty of real men. We find a prospect, well built and unshaven, an ape in leisure suited uncoordination. We slink up real close, sweating the moist night to rust his metal. We move against him Juliet, and toss our curls before him like a veil. The chinned man gropes us back, his fingers in our hair, his breath sharp stinging lush. We know him, we think we know him all smirking and sure, happy happy, he has one of those faces we remember, we’ve seen him somewhere, we can never be sure of such things.

After this evening Juliet, we wake up wet. We wake up sweaty in a strange room under a strangers arm. Not nude, but naked, and our sweat Juliet, is some quick cooling aftersun, soothing the heat under our skin.
We roll closer Juliet. Press ‘gainst the wheezing man bulk on the bed, and shuffle out our arm, in slight hard tugs. We lay there, wiping beads of sweat out from beneath our breasts, out from the pool collecting at our bellybutty. We swing Juliet, ever so slow, so that our feet hit the coarse hair of the carpet, so that the evening scatters moon patina on our darkened skin.
This rich man’s house is quiet Juliet, the bedrooms all mahogany veneered Ikea and neat black-wood framed art. Juliet, we hug our knees close and cradle our chin between them, twin tanned calf soft sisters, bone hard underneath the skin. We unfold to our feet, and walk soft to the open looming wardrobe. Juliet, we silently peel out a thick wool overcoat, climb into it, and lift our sodden hair from the small of our back and lay it outside the coat, shifting against the silk within to dry our back.
A little warmer Juliet, a little safer in the woolly armoured coat, we edge our way into the moonlit hall, and start exploring. The floors are all slick wood, slung together even, tight and flat, parquet black ice under our feet. The hall has four framed posters, shiny news anchors, a little offset, two to each wall, like the walk from the green room of a studio to the flare bright TV stage.
His kitchen is catalogue, all chromed fittings and noiseless sliding cabinets. His fridge is huge, blinking Goliath, packed with rotting chum. Not that we’d eat Juliet, not that we’d ever feed in the house of a stranger.
We settle Juliet, we settle on the sticky leather couch in the living room, before the high slung wide screen plasma, up on the wall above the fake French fireplace, with its faux French coal scuttle.
We flick through the static of the AM. The horror channel, the god channel, the how to use your Tevo channel. We settle on shopping, the red speaker in the top right corner blinking mute.
Hank Hankson, who works in Target off Santa Monica, who used to offer us ‘five bucks for a finger’ in the yard in fifth grade, he’s told us that these plasma screens, they only last for three years, maybe five tops; before the picture burns in, or the plasma leaks and has to be replaced. Maybe Juliet, that’s the point. Nothing worth anything can last forever.
Juliet, on the screen this guy, carrot orange with an airhostess spray tan, wearing clear wet purple lipstick, he’s selling gem cut diamond rings for thirty nine ninety five, act now and get his necklace absolutely free.
And the guy from the bar, Juliet he lumbers over the couch, slams down to gasp behind us, spooning. He lips the nape of our neck, and wordless slips a hand inside our coat, and up our leg, and up inside us. And the guy on the screen, he’s pulling out an earring set, matching gold lame with discretely inset pearls. It all comes absolutely free.

We always feel beautiful, don’t we Juliet? In the mornings, in the hazy sun mornings, walking down strange streets, returning to the land of screams.
We get the bus, it takes forever, but we don’t mind, we like the view; whispering through Encino, Fairfax, West Adams. Ma’s awake, cold coffee and cigarettes shuffling before her on the table. She’s fat, and her eyes are drained of colour. Juliet, one day we’ll look just like her.
‘Well, have a good night?’, she asks. ‘I hope you did. I hope you had a great old time. ‘Cause your father and me were worried to death. You nearly killed us.’
We walk to the dishy sink, and look out over the wood walled back yard, and the brown scruff of the dog, curled up like dirt, asleep in purgatory.

Juliet is looking top totty today, TTT, yes we are. Jules sinks our teeth into this sweaty burger, its glossy juices mucking up our makeup. Jules watches ourselves glutton in the mirror. We chew, chew, chew at the malty salty meat, suckle up the grease, slosh the hefty lumps of butchered gristle round our apply cheeks, and swallow down the filth. Coaksey’s here all chub and grim stop eating eyes. He grabs our hands and spits into our mouth.

“Your such a pretty girl, don’t ruin it. Daddy knows your gonna sick that up. Sick it up for Daddy.”

We can taste our lipsticks blueberry metal bite, it’s been laid on thick, and Juliet, oh Juliet, it’s rubbing off on the meat. Jules, our face in the mirror’s like a clowney face. Juliet, clown whore, Juliet, lady boy.
Our foundation’s burger wiped in a ragged circle round our lips, dripped clean to a glistening skin beneath. Juliet, we’re chugging greedily, pumping the meat inside, choking the buttery, fatty fat fat fat. Swallow Juliet swallow.

Body slam, he’s kneeling over, we’re on the floor. Straw in his mouth, sipping syrup thickly, his jaws masticating words. His fists in the air again, I smile. “Fat bitch. I’m sorry. Please stop eating, you’ll be ugly, everybody’s watching. No one likes a fatty.” He says this, suckling, breathing syrup heavy through his chub chub cheeks. Yes Daddy, you are right of course.

Juliet, we’re finished, it’s all gone, real gone. The glisteny oil bloated chips, the calorific pulpy burger, lathered in salad cream mayonnaise. On the floor we watch it slip away. We burp blood.
Juliet, we wipe our grease grim hands off on our cheeks, we stand up in this shitty burger bar, this lardy temple, in front of all these nobodies, and we smile smile smile.
Coakesy watches as we walk to the little girls room. Click click click. We walk Marilyn Monroe, because Some Like It Hot, we walk Loran Bacall in the Maltese Falcon. We swing Juliet, we swing and we sway,
We pop into a cubicle, a half doored steel walled crematorium.
“Guffing,” he says “Guffing Dank,” and “Yeah bitch puke.”

Juliet, he holds our hair up, sore tight to a neat pony tail. We kneel on these bleak stained tiles, we hug the bowl, slick with grubbed deposits. He rubs at our back, helping it come. He whispers “There there, Sugertits.” And “Yeah”. Juliet, we lean in over these tides of septic burgery eruptions, and we purge Juliet, we purge!