Chapter two:

 

 

My apartment is small, but it’s clean.

I like my things neat and orderly. I like to know where everything is.

I put my things away when I’m done with them. I dust, I vacuum, and I mop my floors. I bleach my toilet after I take a shit and I keep my windows clean and shiny.

Cleanliness is next to Godliness, they say. But I say fuck God. What does He have to do with anything? I just like things to stay where I put them; I like to know that things won’t go missing.

I kick my soaked sneakers off at the door, and then I bend over and put them on top of the rusty radiator.

Hopefully my sneakers will be dry by the morning. I notice there’s a hole in the side. I don’t want to have to buy new ones. I like my old ones. I like each scuff and stain. I like the way they are faded in the middle, yet the color is still bright at the edges. I like how comfy they are and that they are stretched enough for me to be able to slip them on and off without untying the laces. I hate wasting time with unnecessary things like tying laces.

I’m dripping all over my floor and I make a quick exit through my living room, with its secondhand furniture and faded wallpaper, to the bathroom, with its cracked mirror and chipped tiles. I drag my clothes off and put them in my hamper.

I dry myself with my only towel—first my face and hair and then my arms and chest, and finally my legs and feet. The rest of me I let air-dry. My dick is the only thing I like to feel wet.

I can pretend I’m inside her that way.

Walking back through my apartment, I go to my bedroom and I grab a hoodie and sweatpants. I shiver when I put them on. The soft burgundy material gives me goose bumps as it slides over my cold skin.

I’m hungry, so I go to the kitchen and I pull out a pan and grab a can of soup from the cupboard. It’s minestrone. I don’t really like minestrone, but I like the idea of it. It’s a mix of everything and nothing, an odd combination of flavors and textures that don’t really go together, and yet people still make it and buy it and eat it.

And it’s bizarre, I think. I wonder why they eat something that is so conflicted.

I don’t know, and I can’t work it out.

So I buy it. And I eat it. And I try to work it out.

Perhaps it reminds me of myself—so muddled and conflicted in a world less ordinary. Or perhaps it reminds me of life, and how nothing really makes sense. How blacks and whites, and males and females, and animals and humans and any other combination you can think of all mix together in the large soup pan of life, and it shouldn’t work. But it does.

Somehow it just fucking works.

We are the people. And we are all different. But we will make this work. Even if it leaves a bad taste in the mouth of some and not in others. Because that’s life, I guess. When it all boils down to it, life is just one giant accidental fuckup. We all fell in the pan and we try to make it work the best we can.

A baby starts to cry somewhere down the hallway, interrupting my thoughts, and I frown. Because maybe I’m completely wrong; maybe my thoughts are all total shit and nothing really works at all. Maybe, in the grand scheme of life, we’re all just fakers trying to make it through.

I look down at the pan and I tip the minestrone in it, and while it’s cooking I stare out the window at the black, washed-out world, and I think about a lot of things.

I think about work, and I think about my wet sneakers. I think about the lady with the stroller and how she should have smiled back at me and how her kid will turn out to be a spoiled jerk just like she is. I think about the crying from behind the doors. The wails of anguish that evaporate out the windows like steam.

And then I let my thoughts drift to her.

Red is the color of memory…

I only let myself do it once a day, because any more than that and I’ll crumble—a shattering I can’t come back from. I’ll fall apart knowing that I can’t have her. The desire for her is too much. It always was.

The itch for her is strong today. There’s been too many things which have irritated me, and I need her soothing balm to help me relax.

I think of her face as my hand slips down my pants. I’m still wet where the pants haven’t fully absorbed the water yet. Still wet.

I think of her hair and the way she twisted it around her fingers.

I think of her eyes that had a spark to them.

Her fire that engulfed me.

Her voice that lured me.

Her, her, her…

I cum in my hand abruptly, and I stop stroking myself.

I swallow down the shudder that wracks my body. It is both my undying desire for her and my disgust with the mess. But for her it’s worth it. I clean myself up and turn off the stove, and I pour the minestrone soup into one of the chipped bowls that I have. I forgot to buy bread, I think as I make my way back to the living room. I forgot to buy bread because of the rain, and the bus driver and the rude woman with the stroller.

The bed upstairs begins to bang against the floorboards as I spoon some of the soup into my mouth.

It tastes like shit.

The bed thumps.

Another mouthful and I grimace as I try to work out the complexities of the taste.

Thump, thump, thump…

It’s a full-on liquid meal of pasta and vegetables. Perhaps that’s why people like it, I think.

Thump, thump, thump…

Because they’re lazy, and can’t be bothered making a real meal.

Thump, thump, thump…

Or maybe because they’re indecisive. They can’t decide if they want soup or pasta. Either option would make sense, I guess.

Grunt, cry, yell, groan…

I spoon another mouthful in and grimace. But it tastes so bad; surely no one is that indecisive.

Yeah, this soup is the world. Looks confusing and tastes like shit. It rots in people’s stomachs until they have to heave and heave and throw up what little fucking humanity they started with.

I glance up at the ceiling. The banging has stopped, but my light fixture is still swaying and I can hear murmuring. Muted footsteps as they get dressed. Maybe they didn’t even get undressed. Maybe he just bent her over the bed and let his pants fall around his ankles. Seems the quicker option. That’s what I would do if I were banging a woman like her instead of coming into my hand and thinking of her.

The soft click of her door and then footsteps come down the stairs. I put my bowl down and go to my door. I look out through the peephole, watching as the man leaves. He glances at my door, his cheeks still flushed from sex and shame. I note the ring on his finger and I tut at him. He frowns at my door and then turns away, and I wonder if he heard me.

The thought makes me smile.

It’s only a minute or two later and she comes down the stairs, her skirt so short I can almost see her ass cheeks. Not that I’m looking. I like my women classy. She doesn’t look at my door, but continues on down, and I notice that her legs are still wet from the rain outside.

I smile again, knowing that I was right. He must have bent her over the bed.

But hey, who the fuck am I to judge? At least they had each other, if only for just a few minutes. At least they weren’t alone. Like me.