THE HUNTER AND THE HUNTED
The bar wraps around the edges of my world and zooms off into the next room. Empty drinks scatter its gleaming polished surface. My face is reflected as a blur in the mahogany. The room is crowded; people sit and stand in twos or threes. Everyone is hot and bothered, pulling at their collars, pulling at their partners, pulling at their seams. A din of noise makes its way across the room like the glug of a beer down a parched man’s throat. We are all dehydrated, thirsty. Thirsty for drink, thirsty for air, thirsty for closeness. Thirsty for care. Glazed eyes everywhere.
I am alert. I sit alone at the mahogany bar, studying the grains in the wood, fingering the rim of my glass, half full. Or half empty. It would depend who was looking at it. If I were to look at it, however, I would say it was half empty. Drained of sustenance and taste. The ice cubes have melted, but I am still on the rocks. And they cut into me, jagged and uncaring. I am searching for something. Perhaps a jug, so as to full my drink once again. Quench this thirst that parches me. The thirst of desire. Many men have come up to me tonight, offering to fill my drink, my bed, my desire. I have coolly declined. No balding man with thinning blood and a desperate tremble in his lip can fulfil this deathly hollow. I am looking for someone specific. How to find him when all I do is observe the ground. I shake myself out of the reverie that clings to me like wet clothes and scan the crowd of expectant, slurring ghosts. A man walks through the door. He wears a black fedora, a gold watch and a hard jaw. I am glad I have taken my eyes on the journey, for he is a sight to behold, and exactly what I have been searching for. His eyes are shaded by the brim of his smart hat, but I still see him looking around. I gather he is meeting someone, and that he cannot find them, because his shadow eyes glance at his gleaming golden watch and his broad shoulders heave a sigh. Perhaps he has been stood up? Poor thing.
~*~
I scan the crowd for an easy lay. They all look the same to me. Mutton dressed as lamb. I don’t have much time before I must get back to work. Energy builds, brick upon brick, one wrong move and my tower will topple. My confidence will waver, and I will go back to the grindstone more frustrated and let down than ever before. I am weighted by the world, which rests squarely on my shoulders. I am weighted by the gold and leather of my belt. I am weighted by the money I seek, make, spend, and make some more of. I am weighted by my clients, who ride me all day for the best deal THEY can get. And I? I am left saddled with nowhere to go. So I have come to this bar, on the corner of the street I work on, to find a place to unload all my weight. I am here to find, fuck, and finally forget. But everyone is coupled up, sweaty, smiling. In no need of a tall, dark and handsome stranger, If i do say so myself.
I look at the time, which trickles away too fast. Like sand through a broken hourglass, I am. Riddled with holes, punctured by invisible shards of glass. Empty.
I look up once more, still hearing the metallic tick tick tick of my wrist watch, mocking me. A time-bomb ready to explode. I make my way to the bar, wheedling through the flock of sheep, baaing in protest. I reach the oasis without much fuss and to do, and order a whiskey, on the rocks. I sit down and swivel my stool around, nursing my drink in one hand. Next to me sits a young woman. And she is alone. And she has a pussy and a glass half full of clear liquid. I decide she will be my prey for the night. I close my eyes to channel the charm I once had, before I sold it to the devil, along with my soul, for the chance to make my weight in gold. I didn’t know then that the gold would take the form of chains. Shackled, I am. To an empty cause. I clear my throat and pour out my words carefully, equally measured and as smooth as my drink ‘May I refill your glass?’ she eyes me sceptically, her grey blue eyes darting around my person. She seems nervous. I introduce myself ‘Let me introduce myself, so we are strangers no longer. I am Wallace Greene. Would you tell me your name, and perhaps join me for a drink thereafter?’ she smiles, and her posture relaxes noticeably. And what a posture. Slim in frame, with long black hair overflowing like gossamer about her shoulders, tickling her half moon breasts. I watch them move as she breathes a, ‘Nice to meet you, Wallace Greene. My name is Jennifer, and I’m parched.’ She smiles sweetly and I am taken. I signal for the bar man. He takes her order and refills her glass. It overflows and spills onto the bar, sticky, it drip drops to the floor. She leans over and takes a sip without picking up the cup. I admire the curve of her back and her audacious bad manners. ‘Thanks’ she salutes me, and we chink glasses. The sting of whisky is welcomed by my empty belly. ‘My pleasure. I couldn’t help noticing you, all alone at the bar, and looking so lovely. I thought to myself, now what’s a nice Jewish girl like that doing sitting alone at a bar on a night like tonight.’ ‘What’s tonight like?’ she asks ‘A beautiful one.’ I reply stoically ‘I hadn’t noticed whether it was beautiful or not. And how do you know I’m Jewish? Or nice, for that matter?’ her voice is a soft, sweet melody, and I know she is nice just by hearing her ask the question, as if it were a song I had known in adolescence. I ignore it, nevertheless. I do not want to waste my valuable time using our mouths to make small talk. I want her mouth around my cock. I feel it throb angrily at the thought. ‘You haven’t noticed how beautiful tonight is! Why Jennifer. That will not do. Finish your drink and I will show you just what you are missing!’ ‘Now I am intrigued.’ She giggles, and blushes, and I can almost see her as a school girl, innocent and fresh, not knowing how much pleasure her body can withhold, still oblivious to her curves and her giggles and what they do to men such as I. sick men who long to fuck the innocence right out of girls like her. She gulps down her drink, makes a face and stands to go. I am almost surprised at how easy this has been. I came, I saw… and soon I shall conquer. I down my drink too and offer my arm to Jennifer. She takes it, blushing all the more and we head outside. Soon she will have my head inside. I snigger at my inside joke.
~*~
The night is fresh and clean compared to the dingy bar, with its dark orange glow. Outside, everyone and everything seems alive, awake and enthusiastic. And I too feel the same, for I have a man at my side. A stranger, so he is. But I feel no danger here. I know he is about to full my thirst and therefore I feel safe, content even… he guides me around the corner and into an alleyway. I am pleased that we are alone. No more noise. It is blocked out by trash bins and thick brick walls. I sigh in relief, relishing in the silence, my eyes closed. He comes closer still and brushes the hair away from my eyes. I see his eyes are no longer shadow, but substance. Warm and brown and creased with age. His breath smells of spirits, ghosts that haunt me, beckoning me forward. I lean into his hard form and kiss him sweetly. He moans, pushes me against the wall and has his hand up my skirt all in the flash of a car driving past. I am so thirsty. I am so whet. I let him push his fingers inside me. I give him that. I have been waiting so long to relieve myself of this ache; I can wait a moment longer. He is so close we could have been one fat mess of a man. Perhaps, to cars passing by, that is what we looked like. One lone man, leaning into the wall, too drunk to stand up straight. Moaning to high heavens, cursing his luck. No passer-by would be the wiser, or want to stop and help. After all, as a rule, we humans are a self-involved bunch of sour grapes, ripe for the picking. I put my hand into my jacket pocket; feel the blade press against my fingertips. They shake with antici…pation. I take the hilt of my knife in my grip and at the same time, bite his lip, tugging at it, emitting a sigh of relief, release. At this, his go-ahead, i plunge the sharp point into the soft flesh beneath his ribcage, lovingly. He moans ever louder, his lips still glued to mine. I dig the blade ever further until heartfelt, wet and sticky blood starts to pool in my hand. Warmth envelops me. I yank my trusted weapon from his heart and feel his body crumble, lifeless, at my feet. I kick him away, as his soul darts forth, shocked and wide-eyed, and lick my fingers clean. I am thirsty no more.
Fiction This 