Questions

            There's this question, a couple questions really, that are always slipping into my brain; it started as random, occasional musings and now the question is my philosopher's stone. I have found the ultimate question. You probably don't think it's the ultimate question, you probably think this is a stupid question. But when any question is always in your mind, it's the ultimate question.

            I'll be sitting in a bar, just chatting with a friend about the next World Cup, and I'll look at the bartender, and like opening a beer with a lighter: POP! My friend will be saying something about who looks promising and I'll be posing questions to myself. Her hair could be a short dark brown, covering her ears, with bangs that fall just a little in her eyes. She could be tall with a frame like an Arab princess, biggest around the hips. She'll wear a button up shirt that hangs open a little at her breasts, and my eye will try to sneak through the fabric's folds and find something in there.

            Or I am walking home from work, smoking a cigarette, and I see a girl walking with some tall guy, and she's wearing a short and tight skirt with boots that look like leather, with a little heel to them, in this cold weather, it's crazy. I'll look at her legs, they are tight, the skin looks soft and the questions just flow in. I wonder.

            It could be the skinny blonde with the straight bangs at the party. She has a lip piercing. And I'll be sitting on the couch with a big expensive beer and she'll be taking hits from a joint being passed around, and I'll look at her eyes. They are big and pretty and green but her eyelids naturally sit low, it's not the weed, and they make her look like sex magic. I wonder about her with intent.

            The question is a little different when there is intent. It's almost less interesting. I so often find myself thinking of the question about a random girl I saw on the street, rather than acquaintances or romantic interests. This question is scientific, it's a mixture of business and pleasure, it's this quest for enlightenment and this tedious, torturous, study of humanity. I can't really see how this could ever be useful to me or anyone else, and still I do it. It's not a compulsion, it's something different, it's a reaction, a reflex, like kicking out your foot. I can't stop it or start it, it just happens, like the sun rising and setting...I don't have control over that.

            The question is pretty indiscriminate, age, race, height, weight, socio-economic status, it doesn't care. It could be asked about your girlfriend or sister or mother or daughter, the question doesn't care, even though sometimes I do. Sometimes the question even gets asked about boys, usually about boyfriends of girlfriends. It's usually about what kind of stupid face the boy you're with, or your boyfriend, makes. Seems like boys always make a stupid face. I try not to make any faces. Think about all the stupid faces you probably make and don't even realize it.

            What's really interesting about the question is that I rarely get a definitive answer. Almost never in comparison to how often it's asked, maybe one in a hundred thousand times that I ask the question do I actually receive a firsthand answer. The rest of the time, I make up the answers or am just perplexed and clueless. There is a lot of second guessing that goes on with answering the question without any evidence, it's all hypothesis and theories and fiction. It doesn't usually take long, usually it's quick, a few seconds, to formulate a rudimentary idea of an answer. It takes the longest time when there is intent involved or when it's a few seconds of seeing a person. Those take longest because one has so much mystery, is so fleeting, and the other because more and more information comes to light.

 

            So you probably want to know what the question is, or maybe you already have an idea what it is. I feel like it's pretty obvious, maybe that's just because of who I am. Maybe you aren't like me, maybe you don't get this question, this so often scientific question popping into your head a hundred or more times a day. Maybe you're not the kind of person who imagines all these minute details about people you won't ever see again, people you haven't even met. I feel like I am the same as everyone else though, maybe different because I admit that I'm the same as everyone else, it's some kind of self-referencing paradox. Anyway, that's not the issue here, the issue is the question. You're going to be disappointed when you hear it, you've probably got lofty ideas in your head right now, of this or that, it's really the other thing. What is this girl like in bed?

            I know.

            I know.

            Who is this pervert? Just walking around all day, not even mentally undressing, actually picturing people having sex...wondering exactly what they're like. Are they wild? Are they shy? Do they like sex? Not so much? Do they love sex? Do they love the act, the idea, the touching, the skin, the sweat, the wetness, the heat, the orgasms? All that?

            What are they like!? It's so obnoxious, that a major part of a person's personality, or the expression of it, is behind closed doors.

            How are they on top? Do they know how to use their hips? Do they like kinky things? Do they cum? Does it take a lot of work?

            See how many little questions are in this question? It's compounding.

            Do they shave their body hair? Are they confident with their body? Are they a timid, do they let go of reservation when they're in moments of ecstacy? Are they more passionate when they are drunk?

            There are just so many questions, so so many. It's not that I want to sleep with all these girls, some sure, I would, others not at all...I just wonder about them.

            I guess, I'm really just wondering if they're like her.

Something Something Laundry

You come through the door slowly, awkwardly pushing it with your shoulder. It's true, you're a little more drunk than you thought when you were sitting down. Your stomach feels a little upset, stomach or intestines, something like that, but it isn't from the booze...you wish you were used to it by now. It's true, you've been dealing with it for over three years, you remember how Holden Caulfield would hold his gut when drunk, pretending he was shot. You wonder how Holden died, or maybe he just lost his memory and started living with some gorgeous blonde European girl and her family, they hid him from the Nazi's, but since he couldn't remember anything, he just stayed on and they fell in love. But Vincent would never know that, that's kind of sad. Your friends, two brothers are now hanging out in your minds eye, sitting around arguing about money owed for a motorcycle, you say a silent prayer for the elder. You catch yourself halfway through realizing that an old habit like that is hard to kick, you know there's no god but you find yourself accidentally speaking little wishes and hopes to no one in particular, they used to be directed at god, now no one, and that's the same thing.

The room is pitch black, but the light switch is easy to find and brightens it right up. It's pretty clean for a college bathroom, really clean, that's refreshing. You lift the toilet seat with only a little internal apprehension. Your pee is clear. In basic training, your friend told you, there's a chart above the urinal that helps you determine how hydrated you are. You are well hydrated. You wonder what the darkest color is...brown? Wincing a little you flush the toilet. As it swirls you imagine ashes filling the bowl flowing like that water, you don't know where that came from. You run your left hand under the cold water of the faucet, and look at yourself in the mirror. Davey Jones Locker. You just lost the game. You fix your hair a little and do another keybump. Checking your nose. It feels good in your nose. You think of your ex-girlfriend as a sixteen year old doing lines in a well decorated, clean house, drinking wine coolers and snorting coke, your head shakes involuntarily.

The music hits you on exiting the bathroom, it's too loud, trying too hard to reach it's way from those shitty speakers to the deck. There are a few people in the kitchen sitting at the table playing Pente, you decide to come back to get a round in after a cigarette. You wonder if you'll be better all coked up. You wonder how they can stand the loud music, and decide to wait two cigarettes. Exiting the back door, you hear laughter and a little smoke and smell hits your nose. You call your nose your olfactory gland, but don't know if that's exactly right, it's probably close though. You're hungry and the burgers smell good, but you don't want to eat them, and veggie burgers are too processed. You light up a cigarette to suppress your appetite. It tastes good, but your gag reflex seems angry at you, you realize your teeth are clenched and relax your jaw. You look for the root beer and the corona you left. They're by the chair you were sitting in. There's a couple guys you don't really know in and around that chair. You look around for a second, you can see the circle and some hospital or another, you'll never bother to find out which. Also a lot of houses and back yards, someone is watching There Will Be Blood on a projector a ways down the hill. You wish it was No Country For Old Men, 'Always is to the party concerned.' 

You walk through and bend down to pick up the bottles, and the bag with the Red Stripe in it, excusing yourself quietly. You unclench your jaw again. When you were young you couldn't handle the dentist, you gag too easily. You got over it, but haven't been to the dentist in a year, you tongue your chipped molar. You need some root beer. It's warmer than you'd like, but you know it wouldn't be good even if it was on lots of ice. It helps though. You go sit in an open seat, on the what could possibly be called a couch, next to Patrick. He leans over, really close,

"OK, OK, here is the Lil Wayne line of the moment: I smoke a blunt while I'm getting brain. I put my finger in her butt while I'm getting brain. What? I'm lil Wayne." You laugh a little, it's a pretty awesome line, at least the last part. It just sounds so cool. He bums a smoke. You light it up for him. And tongue your loose filling. You drink more Corona, your stomach or whatever is feeling a little better after peeing. You don't want to feel like shit all night, a little wave of anxiety rushes over you. You press the GABA pressure point in the skin between your thumb and pointer finger, you think it works, but maybe you're on coke. You want to talk but know you have nothing interesting to say. You keep your mouth shut. It's false, you have a lot of interesting things to say, but you don't want to annoy or freak these people out. You're a little upset, and sigh a little and drink a little more Corona, it's getting warm.

"I don't know what the point of Corona without lime is," you say to Patrick.

"Word. What the fuck, you know?"

"Oh, I know."

"Yeaaaaa," he says opening his eyes wide at you, smiling. You laugh a little, and so does he. He takes a pipe being passed around and hits it. He moves it past you to the person on your left, you appreciate this gesture. It's thoughtful, he knows you don't smoke, and so doesn't offer. That's real fucking decent of him. He's a standup guy, you'll miss him. You, atop a wave of admiration, look around the deck. It comes to mind how much you like decks, they are just all around awesome. Your friends and strangers are standing around smoking, drinking, cooking and eating burgers, laughing loud, cracking jokes; it's almost too bad you never got to endure the suffering and pain of war with some of these guys, they feel like brothers, or maybe better. You imagine having a brother is not as good as having good friends, too much fighting and territory and property issues, seems a bit obnoxious. Good friends are better. Patrick says he wants a strawberry milkshake, his second favorite thing that's pink. And you laugh a little harder than most because you came up with that, and feel good and clever. Everything is pretty good, and pretty clever. It's a little colder than you'd like, but warmer than the past few weeks, and that makes you happy. You're wondering when you'll start heading out to the party. You drink a little more Corona and stand up to talk to Everybody's Uncle.

"Yo, buddy, how's the burgs?"

"Smell that?"

"Smells pretty good."

"Pretty damn good."

"Pretty damn good, indeed." The phrase 'get your dick wet comes to mind'. "You part of operation: kiss pretty girls tonight?"

"You know it. I'm going to jump up into that gorgeous blonde girl I saw last week at the bar."

"Oh? You're going to trip over your own boner and fall off the deck." He laughs.

"You almost ready to roll?"

"Red Leader, standing by." You laugh, and walk inside patting him on the shoulder, finishing the last of the Corona. Pente is still occupied of course. You walk up to Jack and put your hand on his shoulder, you wish you'd brought your rootbeer, you unclench your teeth. He looks up and tells you he's in trouble's garden. You look at the board. He isn't. He is one move from winning. Your jaw tightens, but you don't say anything. It's a gentleman's game, you will tell them afterward. He doesn't make the right play. The game goes on. You point at the board and counting on it not making or breaking the game you, speak a random line in your head. Unclenching your jaw, you wish you had your root beer. You wonder how many people know why you have it.

"Only men brave enough to wear that duster is Cheyenne's men." The players look up at you with skeptical half smirks, you put you finger on the spot where Jack should have played and smile. You decide to take a piss and unclench your jaw. 

You come through the door slowly, awkwardly pushing it with your shoulder. It's pitch black inside. You find the light switch easily. You watch the ash swirl around the bowl down into the pipes. You look at your face in the mirror, fixing your hair a little. You take the sharpie from your pocket and draw a broken line across your cheekbones and the bridge of your nose, under the eyes to the ears first, then from each side to the center. You feel anxiety pushing through you, kidneys up and back down. You sit down on the side of the tub. She is thousands of miles away, looking very pretty, with big gorgeous eyes, choking down the cum flowing into the back of her throat. She's probably making little noises as he curls his toes and grabs the sheet. Or she's screaming loud as he pounds into her, hand on her tit, his mouth open. She's being loud and making a stupid face. Your gag reflex is very upset, and you're worried you might throw up. You unclench your jaw, but there's still a knot in the back of your throat. You're worried you'll throw up, and wish you had your root beer. Your eyes are wet, ready to drop. But you inhale through your nose and push things away. You put your sleeve to your eyes, dabbing away wetness as you close them. Your other hand is pulling out the small bag from your jacket pocket. You chop up two big lines on your ID with your useless library card and blow them off the edges of the card. You stand up and dab your eyes once again. You open the door, and heading for the big Red Stripe in the bag, you dab your eyes again.