My Closest Friends

I'm sitting on my bed, smoking a cigarette, watching an old movie that I don't even know the name of. Jordy is sitting on the floor, indian style and staring at me. “What is this? And when will you quit smoking?” he asks. I don't answer him, I've made a habit of ignoring the questions he asks all the time, he'll ask again, regardless of whether or not I answer him, at least two more times. “Where's Helen?” I inquire. He tells me she's sleeping and says that's how she deals with her frustrations, she sleeps. “It's 3am, why aren't you sleeping?” he asks. He already knows why I'm awake, again I ignore his question. Jordy's short, not a midget or a dwarf, just short, five foot even and ugly. He's so ugly that people don't even look at him, never seem to notice him. Occasionally they'll look down at him when we're in public and I'm talking to him. They always then look at me with repulsion, as if to say “How can someone who looks like you, be around something like him?” at least that's how I perceive the look. Jordy will cuss them, even going to the extreme of physically barring their path and verbally accosting them. They usually don't say anything, they look shocked and find a way to go about their business. “Every one in this movie is dead already, all gone, old age cancer and STD's” he says looking to the TV. I take the last drag off of my cigarette before snubbing it out. I ask about the STD's, is he joking I ask him. He explains that the movie was made in the early forties, people didn't know much about STD's back then, they didn't discuss them out of fear and so they died never having been treated. Even Chlamydia can kill you if you let it go long enough, it even causes blindness he tells me. “I don't think it can kill you.” I say. He frowns at me as he stands up, “It's a bacteria, bacteria kills people, it can kill you.” he states in his matter of fact way as he turns and leaves the room. Minutes later he returns and returns to his seat on the floor. “Had to go wash my hands.” he says as I watch him. I ask why. “Bacteria.” he tells me, I laugh at him. He reminds me of the time I had a staph infection and lost 25 pounds only able to eat vanilla pudding and painkillers. I had a large abscess packed with gauze in the back of my leg. It was miserable, fever, lethargy, and euphoria from the OxyContin. Some people might have enjoyed it. I didn't. Helen didn't leave my side very often, every time I'd wake up in my stupor, there she was. Sometimes Jordy was there too, asking me inane questions, why, if I was so sick, was I smoking? When was I going to get out of bed and do something? Why did I turn off the TV? He was always concerned with the things most people don't think about in the moment. “Isn't there something you should be doing?” I ask him. “Sure, drawing, coloring, playing video games, watching porn, surfing the net or maybe I could learn to sculpt? Is there any clay in the house?” he replies. I tell him that we don't have clay and he should go find some way to busy himself. He pouts his way out of the room at this, leaving me with the thought “If no one ever told you that something was wrong, would it still be wrong?” I shake my head, not entertaining his musings tonight.

Helen comes in and sits next to me on the bed as I turn off the light. “Lonely honey?” she asks. I tell her that I'm not in the mood, which does no good, she lies down next to me and puts her head on my chest. A big sigh escapes her mouth to which I respond "I told you I'm not in the mood, I'm tired.” she doesn't listen, never does, she begins to caress my chest and then down across my stomach, until she reaches it, the part of my anatomy she's been obsessed with for years now. I hear Jordy from the next room saying that I should just give in, let her have what she wants. He's right, she won't let me sleep otherwise. I'd hoped that she'd have stayed asleep, but I really should have known better. Finally I relent and grudgingly make love to her. Once it's over, she tells me that she loves me. I say nothing. “It's okay, I don't love you, but I need you, you give me what I need.” she tells me. I ask what it is that I give her, indulging her desire for conversation. “Attention, physical comfort, orgasms.” she whispers,I don't say anything to this and she continues, “Eventually you'll get rid of me, when you don't need me anymore, don't want me anymore, happens every day.” I ask what she means by that last part, she explains, “People want what they want until they don't want it anymore, everyone's disposable, even me.”. I give this last bit some thought. “So you're saying everything's disposable?” I ask. “Everything.” she replies.

“Everything” I parrot.

“It's a disposable world, disposable, lighters, disposable diapers, disposable cups, plates, forks knives, disposable cars, pets and even people. Nothing is permanent, fixed or forever.”

“Me?” I ask.

“No, me, definitely, but not you, you can reinvent me though, make me someone else, Heather? Elaine? Dominique? Whoever you want me to be. You'll always be you, that's how this works. How it always works.” she tells me.

“I thought nothing was permanent?”

“It's your life, your house, your bed, that'll only change if you want it to, you have control. You don't need me, I need you. Without you, I'm just...” she trailed off.

“You're what?” I inquire.

“Sleeping in another room until you want me again.” she giggled followed by a kiss. She sighs again, rolling on her side, I curl up behind her. “Do you love me?” I ask. “Do you want me to love you?” she asks by way of reply.

“Does it matter?”

“Of course, If I love you and you don't want me to, then it doesn't mean anything. It has to be mutual, if one person loves someone who doesn't want their love, that's masochism.” she says.

“And if I do want you to love me, but I don't love you?” I ask.

“Sadism.” she says.

“What if I love you and you don't love me?”

“Is that even possible?” she asks, looking over her shoulder at me.

“Maybe.” I say.

“Then I'd leave and you can find your Barbara, or Pamela or Selina, and they'd love you and you them. For a time anyways.”

“For a time?” I ask.

“Love's just a chemical reaction in the brain anyways, it's not real, not like you're real. Serotonin, dopamine, endorphins, oxytocin and neuroepinephrine secreted by the brain and called love. It always wears off sooner or later.” she tells me.

“So nothing's permanent?” I ask.

“Nope, everything's disposable, even love.” is her answer. I say nothing to this, and she lays her head back down. I hear her breathing slow down as she drifts off to sleep. For some reason her words resonate in me, everything's disposable. I'll have to ask Jordy what he thinks about that in the morning if he's awake. His response should be entertaining, if nothing else it'll force him to stop asking me redundant questions for a while.

I drift off to sleep and I'm walking in a field. I'm dreaming, I know it but can't control this one. Lucid dreaming is a gift I get only from time to time and I always turn them sexual, and they always end as nightmares. With me waking in a cold sweat, blankets soaked, heart pounding as if I've just had an orgasm, only the terror of the dream haunts the rest of my day. I seem to be walking a long time and I see Jordy, sitting on a rock, whittling a piece of wood into the shape of a phallus. I ask him what he's doing and he doesn't seem to register my presence. There's music playing, a tinkling sound, like a child's music box. I know the tune, but cannot place it. The sky is blazingly bright and it starts to rain, with no clouds in the sky. I leave Jordy to his work and continue to walk, in the distance I see a house, small, too small. It looks like it must only be one room. I approach the door feeling sickened as I grasp the door knob and open it. As I enter I see Helen sitting there on a bed, covered in blood and viscera, she's nude and her breasts are smeared with the blood of whatever has been slaughtered here. She looks up at me and smiles, her teeth stained brown and smeared with blood as though she hasn't just been playing with this poor creature that has been slaughtered. I see her reach behind her and she produces a glass filled with clear liquid. “Drink” she hisses at me. I take the glass from her and look at it. “What is it?” I hear my voice ask. “Love” she hisses in return. I drink, guzzling the liquid, it tastes the way rubbing alcohol smells. Despite being a dream, this is amazingly vivid and somehow I actually taste it. My head begins to spin, and I'm filled with a rush of warmth, my heart starts to pound and I feel a stirring in my groin. I look to her again and she smiles at me. I feel the slimy floor with my hands as I fall to my knees, slick with blood and gore. The skin of my feet begins to split open as does the skin on my arms and hands. Tendons, ligaments and musculature exposed and burning, a white blinding pain shoots through me. Everything begins to unravel, muscle falls away from bone, until I am a puddle of my parts, of all that has made up my physical body. Helen moves from the bed over to where my remains lie and she swirls them around with her hand. Scooping a small bit of me to her lips and gargling with it. She spits it out and laughs. She then looks down at what I am guessing is the remains of my skull, at me, or at least what I'm viewing her through. Until now the few words she's spoken have been hisses, now she enunciates clearly “Disposable!” she says with fierce malice on her face.

I bolt upright in bed. I'm sweating, panting, I hear nothing and in the dark of the room, the only light is from my alarm clock. I look to my right to see Helen and realize she's not there. A pillow rests where she lie when we fell asleep. She must have woke up and went off to be about her business of the day and put the pillow there. I know that I won't see her until tonight. That's how it always works. The door opens and Jordy walks in “Everything alright? You yelled.” he asks. I tell him that I'm fine, just another nightmare. He quietly stares at me, he knows my day will be a rough one, the dream will haunt me. I notice something in his hand and ask what he has. “I couldn't find any clay, but I did find some old wood scraps from the shelves you made. I carved this!” he exclaims proudly as he holds up something resembling the shape of a human penis.

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