Home on a Sunday

I got really stoned and decided to hire a prostitute. I had nothing else planned for today, anyway. Well, I decided that I'd never done it and that it was time I did. You know, something ticked off the life time list. Hiring a gorgeous guy for sex, suddenly seemed hot. The going rate seemed to be $200, which seemed reasonable. I can spend $200 in a day on nothing, and never miss it.

I picked a baby nineteen year old with a handsome face, mostly because he was a Virgo - just to see how a serious young man negotiates selling himself. A twenty four year old with a hot, toned body, with the promise of being a sensuous bottom. And an Aussie with a thick juicy cock and a cheeky personality to match, with his own place.

Well. They either weren't answering, haven't answered or were unavailable. I'd have thought hiring a rent boy, in a big city, would have been easy to organise, but, apparently, not. It doesn't seem to be a same day proposition. Things you learn.

Of course, I kept smoking the pot and ended up with, no, not a boner, but an extreme case of the munchies. The rent boy urge passed and the food urge became very apparent.

Fuck it, I headed off to the fish & chip shop. I'd already drunk all the coke in the fridge. And the two ice creams in the freezer. It was a beautiful day out side, sunny with a slight breeze.

Some drunk slag followed me in the door of the fish shop. She was a heavy breather, standing right there behind me, it gave me a chill.

She didn't open her mouth when she talked; she spoke like a Queenslander. The Asian man behind the counter had trouble understanding her.

Her scuffs were once pink and fluffy, but now were grey. They hung off her feet, like some kind of fungus.

"I want half a fisherman's basket."

I wondered if that was half a fisherman, or half a basket?

"Yes, yes, half," said the bald-headed man behind the counter."

"But I don't like scallops, so could I have prawns instead."

Her track suit pants hung off her, making her look kind of lop-sided. It looked like her arse was melting. I stifled a giggle. She looked in my direction.

"You don't like scallops and you want..."

"Prawns."

"Ah. Prawn."

Her stomach hung out under her t-shirt. It was white with blue veins and red spots. It looked like a beer gut.

"That's four prawns. Instead of scallops."

He looked confused. She looked at me, again. Don't look at me, I thought. I should be on top of a rent boy right about now, so there's no sympathy coming from over here.

"Ah, yes, prawn. No scallop," said the shop keeper catching on.

"And I don't want chips."

"No chips?"

Which part of this basket did she actually want?

She had some shiny residue around her mouth, as though she'd applied too much lip gloss on her lips, chin and cheeks. I wondered what it was? It didn't bare thinking about on her paste skin. Maybe she'd just earned the fish & chip money?

"Can I have a potato cake instead of the chips."

"No chips."

"No. No chips. Potato cake." She was starting to pronounce her word phonetically.

Her hair was tied with a scarf; rapped around and pinned. There seemed to be something sticking out of her hair, at the top. Food? Sticks? Beer bottle tops?

"Potato cake."

"Yes, that's right."

I wondered how the five calamari rings in the full fisherman's basket were halved. You can't exactly get 1/2 a calamari ring, now can you? Oh, I guess you can.

"And I'd like that well cooked."

What, I thought?

"Pardon," said the nice Asian man behind the counter.

There was a momentary silence, as there often is when someone says something monumentally stupid. Listen for it next time. If the shop proprietor and I could have come out of freeze-frame for a split second, we would have looked at each other questioningly.

"I'd like it nicely well cooked," she said. She kind of curtsied and touched her face @ the same time.

Someone, at some time had a very different conversation with her, to the one her few brain cells were accessing presently, about having food cooked in certain ways.

Proprietor man simply agreed. What other option did he have?

She just sat and stared blankly out the window, as her food was being cooked, the sun glinting on her shiny mouth. There was absolutely no colour in her face. Her lips were the same colour as her skin...

"Thank you," said the nice, bald Asian man. "You ready."

My head was starting to thump, as I head back up the hill towards home. Pulse rate, hills, you do the maths. What a glorious day. No, really, very sunny, very bright. And at least I could choose the times to be fucked up in it, unlike half-basket alcho woman. And soon I'd be out of it, the sun, that is, nearly home. I shielded my eyes from the suns rays. Nearly home. Splendid. I felt my fingers twitching. Vampire Christian made one of his infrequent appearances. I started to limp, just slightly. Skin stretched from my torso to my arm, like webbing, as I shielded my face from the bright light.

Round the corner, back to my gate.

Beck was leaving next door on her bike. My pointed ears sucked back into my skin. I didn't particularly want to talk, my head was spinning - maybe that last blood... joint I had before I left the house, wasn't a good idea - so I dropped my eyes.

Beck has been ripping out her back garden and replacing it with a veggie patch/orchard. She tells me all about it, one advance after another victory, like she believes I am interested. As soon as I got to my door she was calling.

"Chris, Chris." Fang retraction can be painful if hurried. I covered my mouth with my hand.

Can't avoid her without being rude. Would she notice, now, if I turned myself into a bat and flew away? "Chris?" Too late. I am I to be spared nothing.

"Yes?"

Beck appeared at my front gate.

"A mystery in our back yard." Big, toothy smile. "Seventeen peach pips all in the space of this one, small area." Big eyes. "Mad, hey?" She was doing Miss Marple crossed with Princess Anne, but as a kind of comedy.

Oh please, dear, universe, no. "It's probably a possum."

"Seventeen peaches, in one sitting." Great big eyes. Exclamation. "I don't think so." She might as well have said rightio, or tally ho.

I know you are just going to take any opportunity you can to talk about this. I can already pick the roll you are heading off on.

Oh Beck, I really don't care. "Oh." Big, breath. My pale complexion returned to normal. "I don't know then." Faux grimace. My eyes turn back from yellow to green.

There was an awkward silence, which was the only bit of the conversation I was, actually, enjoying, oddly enough.

Beck looked disappointed, with that hey ho expression plastered right across her gob. I was nearly sucked right back in again. Can't have Beck looking disappointed; I wanted to apologise and to take up the peach pip discussion with gusto. Fortunately, I moved my head around 90 degrees and my whole brain seemed to swoon within my skull, bumping on the inside of the bone, like a dogem-car.

"I just thought I'd tell you." Fallen crest. Enthusiastic, horsey smile sliding right off her face. "For security reasons."

You just wanted to prattle on about your stupid, fucking garden again. Don't give me security reasons. I disengaged.

I turned around and headed inside without another word.

I squeezed the lemon on my fish and assured myself that tonight wasn't new years eve and that I hadn't got my dates confused. I did the 30-days-has-September thing to make sure. Four times.