I.
‘Victoria, I can’t be in a bath with you. It’s unseemly, a married man like me.’ She looks, head and neck arched above the water, too languidly. How did it come to this? Her toes are pressing against my inner thigh. Not for hurting. The old rhyme begins to rehearse: ‘it is borne in on me that I am, an engine that moves, on predestinate grooves; I’m not even a bus, ima tram.’ She slurs, ‘I don’t see any ring on your finger.’ The hand lifts out of the tub, dribbling. No ring. No finger to wear it with. A memory: ‘Oh yes, a dog did bit my finger from me. He swallowed whole and took the band away.’ She stifles a yawn, regards me coolly now, in the eyes. This is good, I barely know the woman, and may make goodly out of here unharmed if her attentions tire. She emerges wholesale from the water, giantess, bubbles wrapped around her like clouds clung to mountainside, and they slide cartoony down her ruddy body. She is raining water as she steps out. ‘I’ve written a raunchy romance,’ she gestures to a manuscript stacked beside the bath. Thick of pages. Stains of water on the flyleaf. ‘Give me pointers will you when I get back?’ She cargoes away the bubbles and closes the door behind. Lady thinks I need to read unsolicited pornography. Doesn’t know me well. Could be a kinda crime committed here. I try not to wet the pages, the cover reads ‘Untitled Desire’, by Victoria Lange. Didn’t know her name was Lange. Ugly sounding. Like the smell at town hall when the debutantes are done. It begins with the usual: bright young woman with strawberry blonde and a career on her mind meets cologne sweats Adonis whose animal energies throb all-over. She spies him in his office, surrounded by waifs he doesn’t attend to. His name is Gordon. She, Sara. When they first shake hands, an electric zap. He always uses her full name, asserting madly. Surely not for me he’s fuming thusly? Sara asks, demurring. Fills her head with hopes she cannot speak, friends say she doesn’t normally for men. He is a walking abnormality, with abs, she sees them ripple while he changes hurried for a meeting. Large art collector, has thoughts on movements and is sharper than the needly dealer who patronises Sara. ‘How do you like them apples?’ You know, he says, the pre-revolutionary utopia and the capital-forming effects of military mobilisation, etc, etc... Then sex, at last. Pressed up against a hotel door with his hot hips, and his scent and tongue invading. Sara has never been kissed, roughly. Slow sensations of twin tonguing, lunges in the mouth and pressing wet. His hand meanwhile moving in – cock, too, is present. Pushing itself into the prose, with a certain glistening rhythm. She wants to, Sara, moaning. The fingers stiffen the legs, trailing from waist to breast, swelling nipples and cups her, there. Already convulsing and not halfway having it, his fingers are interior, a kind of monologue. Threatens with a good time, then verbal, ‘I am going to fuck you now, Sara Crab.’ Terrible name - that’s my note to give when the big woman comes back. Can’t have Crabs in raunch. Sara cries out and is overwhelmed with accepting invitations now. He is heavy on her, but conducting himself well, like a tram. ‘Come fir me’ he says, with typo. She unwinds at his breathing, empties both in moaning. She feels loosey-goosey after, came twice and counting further, for sure. Feather kisses press post-op on her bare, tickled back, nice spent smells. Reader hopes he won’t spoil it all by saying something stupid about Pre-Raphaelites. Might have wet the pages a little, it makes for hard reading in hot bath. Victoria returns now, an avalanche down the hall. She opens up the room, bubbles no more, only naked. She slowly steps into the water, one long leg and a time, rubbery sound of skin on enamel. She displaces so much when she slides in, I am a pair of eyes above the water. Feel her legs pressing against mine, then knocking knees. She is smiling, happy again, steaming toward me in a wake of her dark submerging hair. I am eyes. I don’t say it aloud. Eyes I dare not meet in dreams. Lights at the end of my tunnels. Like a ship moving over boiling seas, she is coming toward me. What did Saint Augustine say, a prayer? ‘Oh Lord, grant me chastity and continence, but not right now!’ Not now. No, not now!
II.
I remember the day I first learned to whistle. The phone started to ring in the kitchen when I had it, and thought my little toot had caused it to. As if a sound would summon an interlocutor to dialing. What horrible voice would address the whistler if it were so? Natalie lives in the student quarters. Long halls designed by prison architect from Kent. Saved every expense. Not even handles to hang yourself in dorms. She doesn’t want to see me, is hiding, won’t answer calls, but I’m arriving anyway. Two lovers are holding hands, exchanging vital fluids. They cross a green hill to get to their campus in English weather and I’m following them at a distance. They will lead me to Natalie, I am persuaded. What is she studying? I wonder as we three walk triangle, until I get distracted by a large sandpit. Gather a fallen branch and go over to see what’s in the sand. No children? No spade? No bucket? The pit-keeper appears with coffee, and the two lovers have come over, too. ‘What are you doing with that branch?’ the keeper points and questions. Could poke him, the tip is sharp. At this time, I am crazy, remember? ‘Well I’m a poet and might write some of it in there,’ I respond, shrugging toward the pit. The lovers are both excited by poetry, like children who haven’t been beaten. Could poke them both with my branch, can poke whoever I wish. Pit-keeper is now completely frozen, might be an android not programmed for this particular set of events. ‘This is called “Dream of Beiiing Happy Forever” and is the latest news,’ I tell the lovers, and start sticking sand with branch. There are no words, of course. I am not that kind of poet. What I want most is their disappointment, since mine is immeasurable. I was not ready to see lovers this morning. They’ve ruined me! Utterly! My branch snapped! Remember your Altenberg, Carman? You read it in the library by the whistling woman. Her breathing like a telephone cord wrapping around your thoughts. You’re trying to clear them out, remember? One day at a time? Are you facing the nights? There are only two things that can destroy a healthy man:
III.
Sitting on the floor of an address. Tom Cruise is next to me. My Aunt wants me to get a new iPhone but she has been dead for years. Donald Trump is my employer. Elite Guard duties and special ops. He’s always shaking hands, and his tie flaps, flatulent. Someone has zip-tied my hands behind my back. Execution is inbound. Poor Tom is struggling to get out. Gritting pearly teeth, hissing and cursing and making trouble at the end. Me, just let it go. A third person is watching, an awful figure. ‘What’s he struggling for?’ The stranger is curious about Cruise. ‘He doesn’t want to lose everything,’ this is obvious to anyone. ‘Then how’d he get up-tied in the first place?’ the stranger asks, oddly. ‘He didn’t know it would happen.’ The Stranger moves around the back, goes in shadow. Poor Tom. Execution, only, takes time.