I talk to him when I’m lonesome like; and I’m sure he understands. When he looks at me so attentively, and gently licks my hands; then he rubs his nose on my tailored clothes, but I never say naught thereat. For the good Lord knows I can buy more clothes, but never a friend like that.
W. Dayton Wedgefarth
Juliet my Juliet, he’s cuming. His fat block hands are on our neck and in our hair, his gobstop tight and wrinkled marbles on our chin. We shut our eyes and shiver, take the load, hard hot and moving, roof of mouth. We run our hands down, up down, up and down his thighs and swivel headed pose. We tongue him as he finishes.
He plops, a walrus to the bowl, his greyface sated, distant, plucks idly beneath the swell of porpoise. Daubs dry the mouth gunk, as we sit back, chinny between picket fence posts. We watch him Jules, we watch wide eyed and whisper, ‘Coaksy’. He’s our man now, long and hefty wilderness of chig. His big grey eyes are yellow in the white. Jelly saucer quick blink monkeys hold us tight. He reaches, harsh and epic, tangles curls to fist, and tugs us close. In belly go his rumbles and let loose, our cheeks tummy tucked and sweltering, funk enormous. Gag Juliet, shake steady and you gag.
Coakes wanders Target with his miss, dollybird keen at his side. She races off, grabs peagreen dresses, holds them up for his inspection. He displays his beneficence, nodding acquiescence to one superfluous purchase after another. “Twirl”, he says, and “Excellent.”
His bit of rough is peachy, a fine dark after dinner mint. The first meathole in years that Coakes has used and not immediately cast off. Her name is Juliet. She is Hispanic, Coakes’ favourite anal ethnicity. She displays the quick temper and inconstant affections of her kind. Yet she yields acceptably at the mere threat of his hand. Next to Juliet, Coakes is calm. He feels an odd stability. Protective even. The girl’s so slight, wicked gorgeous beneath rebel curls. He wants her next to him as he pulls tight turns in an Aston Martin over Tuscany. He wants her sunning on his deck as they power through the last leg of the Americas Cup. He wants to buy her things, twinkly treaclish toys that chicks dig. Sure, he’s had to pull some strings to reel her in. But, for this moment, Coakes is whole.
In lingerie Coakes picks out panties and a peephole bra. Juliet dons them double quick, and opening the change room’s slatted door, motions him inside. In the tight mirrored confines of the booth, Coakes is swollen and fidgety. Juliet fingers his shirt buttons and kisses him. Not on the cock, nowhere near the fetid dumpster of his arsehole. Not even on the milkdud of his furred and cankered outey. But on the lips. soft, delicate, child like. Coakes pulls back, scandalised.
“Hush”, she tells him, kicking off her sandals to stand on his feet. Coakes lifts the girl once, twice. Clumsy steps. Walks her to the corner, hoists her effortlessly to his waist. Juliet runs a hand through the grease lump of his hair, wipes a fleck of spittle from his open lips. Coakes tenses for the kiss that never comes. Opens his eyes. She’s motionless, just looking at him. Right at his grim wide jaw. Right at his thin broken nose. Right at his blood shot, fur browed eyes. Reaching down, popping his belt, she holds his tiny crooked dick. Coakes begin to shake. Right then, a voice. “Excuse me sir, you can’t be in here. There’s no canoodling in the changerooms.”
Coakes drops the girl, turns, cock out of course. Juliet slips free, off and giggling into the store. Coakes is alone with the black. A stout grey haired coon, mid forties, fingering a belt of police tools. Sprays, cuffs, batons.
“Put it away sir.”
Coakes begins to lose control. Raising his palms, he starts to slap, fishlike at the guard. His wrists are limp, and his cock, still public, leaps and twitches with each blow. Over the tanoy, some rogue shop minion has snuck a knife track on the playlist. And Coakes can see all the little balls rolling down the hill, myriad colours. Pepper spray in his eyes. A world in red and blue. Promises made and broken. The floor rises, cold and familiar, hard and heavy from below.
It’s hot. I’m sweating. It’s doing its usual trick, pooling in the pit of my lower back, burning the cracked psoriatic skin there. I shift my weight onto the other foot, the brown moleskin loafer letting out a low grown as the rubber twists. Melody, ungrateful beetle domed creature, looks up from her New Yorker. There. That familiar wrinkle nosed worry as she anticipates a bombardment of faecal matter. Not this time, this time it’s just the shoes.
I smile and pat her on the shoulder roughly, familiarly. Her eyes widen. She takes a sharp breath.
“I’m sorry Dad, it’s just…” She looks down at her feet. At sequin sown Harriet the Spy sandals. I stare back at the road, concentrating. Roughly perhaps, I grab her hand, and yelling “Now”, leap out into the traffic, skimming her across a sea of horning cars.
In Target I am buying shirts. There are too many stains on my old ones, ketchup mostly, and I’m gearing up for awards season. The roof is low and ribbed above us. The metallic hum of strip lights, the fans, and the moaning fridgeador of the cool room where you inspect the latest harajuku treds, deafen the piped muzak. Stretched back the length of football pitch are racks of clothing, colour coded, with pants and shirts and ties of every hew bunched together, an unwound rainbow.
“So, what colours do you like?”
I look down the rails and squeeze my shoes again, another loud rasp. I flash teeth at Melody, and for a second she smiles back. Cunt. She looks so much like her mother.
“I like purple and gold, imperial colours.” My voice squeaks high and girlish. This time she laughs.
“Don’t be silly dad, come on, lets get you some vertical stripes. Chap magazine says that vertical stripes flatter the larger gent. Research on optical illusions backs it up. American Scientist ran a paper back in June…”
She continues in this vein as we trundle down endless rows of identical clothing. I grab shirts and ties at her suggestion, tossing them into the cart. Occasionally I nod, every now and then venture a grunt. She tugs my sleeve. I reach out and grab something off the rack, in my hand a crotchless pant. Her voice breaks through my reverie, nervous, desperate. We’re in the lingerie department.
“Coakes, do you really wear intend on wearing those?” I want to rake that smirk from the smug little whitehead. My bumbles are not for her amusement. They’re teams of subwriters to note down, to rework into precious spooneristic wit. I breath back from ten. This is quality time.
“No sweetie. They’re for you. For all your help.” I hold them to my face, give them a sniff. “What do you think, will they fit? Are they clean enough?” I ruffle the pants in my hand, inspecting. “Some nasty ladies try them on in store, leave their filthy pubes all over them.” I’m panting now, anxious. Something’s wrong, she’s still not happy.
“Perhaps not these, other ones.” I reach for her hand. Melody’s face is vacant, she’s gone somewhere. Women… I haul her further, shoving the cart in front of us with angry thrusts, grabbing fistfuls of early learning bras and French knickerbocker glories. Here we are at last, in corsets.
“Take a look at this…”
Time passes. I’m outside a cubicle, watching the piles of soiled, rejected pants, in case they move. She emerges, my princess. My voice is high and clear as I say.
“Boy do they fit. Look who’s growing up fast.”
I make her twirl for me, if I were pretty I’d twirl too. This is our finest moment together. I smile, not looking at her face. How fortunate she is to have a hipster dad like me.
Melody cowered in a corner of the booth. Sweet Matilda Joslyn Gage, her father needed help. He was in the middle of a florid breakdown. He wasn’t himself. It was much too cold in here. Melody was all goosebumps, the hair on the back of her neck marching in rows. Perhaps it was more than just the air conditioning. Maybe it was that gaze. Breath, Melody forced herself to think, where was her shirt? Outside, not far from the cubicle door. She could hear her fathers deep and throaty breaths. Don’t let him in, she thought. Don’t let him come in again. They’d been having almost a good time together, picking his shirts. He’d listened. Where were her shoes? Where were her hello kitties? Where were her own damn pants.
“Come on, try another, fuckin’ choose!”
It wouldn’t be so bad, if he didn’t made everyone in the department watch. If he hadn’t called out, ‘Look at them, bigger every day. Daddies little Paris Hilton’. Melody could smell Coakes’ body odour, like a rancid public pool. Think, she told herself. This was one of those moments a well read girl was properly prepared for. Greer had written, ‘we are programmed for survival amid catastrophe,’ she would get through this.
“Don’t be such a Mennonite. Try on that nice lacy one again. I’ve think I’ve figured out this camera function. I just paw at the screen, right?”
Photos. The internet. Text Messages. Her internship with Senator Obama. Melody hunkered down, peering under the next stall. A rotund woman smiled back, tying her shoes.
“Hello dear.”
“Hi.”
She swung in beside the woman.
“Nice to meet you.” The lady held out a large hand.
Melody shook, motioned ’shush’, and pulled herself under the next stall along. Further away from her father.
Minutes pass. I’m feeling lonely. Inconsiderate cunt. She can’t leave me here in the woman’s section. I’m a man. I have a penis. I check. Come on. I drum my head against the cubicle door. Come. The. Fuck. On.
“Are you nearly ready for you close up honey?” Silence. I think of something fun. “Melody,” I yell, bursting in, camera in hand. The stall is empty. “Melody!”
I feel like fucking Nicholson in Shining. Is she hiding? There such a mound of corsets I can’t tell. I bend, paw, sniff through the heap. Christ she smells like her mother. Minutes later. A big black hand on my shoulder.
“Sir, sir you can’t be in here. What are you doing?” Silence. “Backup…”
“Melody!”