HOT MEAT VERTIGO

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(What is all this? This is the continuing saga of my real New Orleans adventure of spring 2001. A fictionalized account was written and presented as Peaceful Sleazy Feeling. This is the real story, as compiled from my filthy, muck-stained journals of days gone by, and girls done worse. Enjoy. If you're new, then check out the last four or five posts...and learn some fucking patience, 'cause you'll need it.)

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EPISODE V: HOT MEAT VERTIGO

“That’s what Hell must be like, small chat to the babbling of Lethe
about the good old days when we wished we were dead.”
--Samuel Beckett, Embers.

Jet-black raven hair and jet-set powder skin softly framed cheeks hungry for all her pierced, flaring nostrils hungered for: Bad Angel Powder, the Devil’s Parties and powder kegs of sin. Her lovely eyes twinkled with nothing, sparkling in the hollow that her smile so often hid. Pouting post-vamp lips scrunched and puckered often when she’d lost track of her sneer. They knew only how to speak to fools, despite the face she stared through at the time. She spoke often, and mostly when she had nothing to say, though her pierced tongue cruelly skewered my sewer dreams to screw her, it seemed smoke still seeped from the lid… She tagged along for hours…following my groping Id and the swinging chain of a wallet poorly stuffed with change from several stores. Like a sock in the front pocket, heavy wallets are the single guy’s best friend, feeding the libido best when it is roughly just as fat.

If pretention were sold by the ounce, this girl would be a tattooed, fishnet-wearing cartel of Columbian proportions. She chain-smoked cloves, and made obscure references with every sentence. Everything she saw was old to her. Everything was kitsch and cliche'. Nothing impressed her, at least not on the outside. But then, she followed me around with alarming closeness. Clearly I did something right?

I took her for coffee at Panera Bread. She said she hadn't eaten for some time--she was semi-homeless, or "roaming," as she put it. She said she frequently "lived above a chemist," which was a Sisters Of Mercy reference that I took to mean she was staying at a flophouse. So I fed her, like the void that so fed upon us all.

She chattered at me about how she knew this band or that band--all famous international Goth and EBM acts. She claimed Das Ich wrote a song about her, and that she modelled for Propaganda--a major gothic publication at the time. She claimed that darkwave prankster Voltaire sought to court her at a convention not long back. All of it was bullshit, of course. I enjoyed watching her squirm when I mentioned I was a music journalist, and had met some of these people in the past. This, of course, was half-bullshit; I was in fact a rock hack, but I was very much a minor player at the time, and mainly reviewed records, as opposed to conducting serious interviews (at least back then...). But hey, two could play, right?

After coffee, we wandered as the lost souls that we were. She said she'd show me around. "Showing me around" meant that she took me to stores where I might buy her something, but then, she really did have a magnificent rack. Sorry; I just can't turn this one into a morality tale. I was enamored; but she had a certain charisma that bled through all the BS, and even the T&A. With her lively, exaggerated movements, hyperbole-ridden speech, obvious storytelling ability, and endless casual references to everything from Robotech to Kafka, she was the best entertainment that misfortune could afford.

We wandered into some hideous porn shop, wherein she gawked at all the worst possible things. She loved to watch people debase themselves, she said. She loved gay porn, and bondage films. I was surprised to see the store sold scat--being from Missouri, I wasn't accustomed to seeing poo-eating on the shelf next to the Coed Cuties...and again, she gawked and giggled at every tape. She was the sort of girl who'd use the internet just to check out Rotten.com and Ogrish. I was practically ready to propose...

After hitting up a grand old bookshop that looked straight out of the 18th century, a goth/industrial/cyberpunk clothing and accessory place (that also sold porn, oddly enough), another occult shop, etc., I fed her again--this time learning that she was Jewish, and ate kosher. "No seriously," she cackled, "I have a menorah and everything!"

"At the flophouse?"

She rolled her eyes, and sighed, "Yes, even there."

* * *

A curious detail about the main square in the French Quarter: when we visited, it was teeming with psychics, tarot and palm-readers. They had boothes and tables all around. Half of them were gay. I don't know why that detail stuck out in my mind, but it seemed like a worthwhile anecdote at the time.

One such Homo-Nostrodamus was an outgoing, charismatic fellow named Topher. Lydia introduced him as a friend. It took a couple tries for me to catch his name. "Tofu?"

Crossly, he glared, "No, honey...I haven't heard that one!"

All in all, he was the nicest of the locals that I met. He was also the most flamboyant--flaming, even, down to the lisp. He seemed to have a crush on me, also. I was flattered, and tried to ignore it... He was good for conversation, and knowledgable about the town. Anytime we got bored, we wandered back his way. He offered me a reading; I took a raincheck, and carried on carousing with my jet-set junkie Jewess, ever onward.

* * *

Our sex-talks were legion; her tastes in intercourse were thankfully less grotesque than her taste in pornography, to my infinite relief. She spoke frankly of the things she liked, as if to indicate what she just might like from me, or so my ego had presumed... She was also very touchy-feely, and proudly showed off her nipple rings (and more)--usually a good sign, for a hardened misogenistic bastard looking to score, such as myself. And yet, she seemed so distant and detached whenever I made a move. She never blatantly rejected an advance; but she was clearly--bizarrely--cold to the touch, and turned-off at the most. My self-esteem flickered in the sun. What was I doing wrong? What was amiss?

Of course, the rigors of our asinine courtship only brought my ever-throbbing weariness that much closer to the surface. I remembered my conversation with Mark The Drunken Master earlier. I was tired. Not physically...but emotionally, I was winding down. I was getting sick of playing the field, and I knew it. My lascivious urges often put me squarely in denial of this secret truth; but that truth remained, ugly and militant--somewhere inside, I knew this needed to end. I missed Nightshade, though I practically ran from her every chance I got back home. Oh yes..."home." What was home to me? I never knew. Once, I slipped and referred to her house as that. It was Freudian slips like that which scared my commitment-phobic mind. I wasn't getting any younger. I needed to grow up and settle down...right? The flesh craved flesh, while my mind was in a state of moral vertigo...dizzy at the prospect of my dwindling youth.

But then I saw boobies, and that was that. Having a penis does that to you.

* * *

Our travels landed us at the Virgin Megastore--the same one seen in Dracula 2000. She scoped around for a place to sit. She had sort of camped out by the magazine rack, which was in a somewhat open area at the time (the store was much more cluttered the last time I was there). I thought it would be cute to drag one of the lounge sofas over by the wall she was leaned against. There was room, and no one was around... I hoisted it up over my shoulder and plopped it down beside her. She rolled her eyes again, beating her chest. "Ooh--you Tarzan big strong man! Way to go, Danzig!" Truth be told, I was hardly cut--I didn't exactly eat right, but I did work out an awful lot when I was tweaking; my physique wasn't too bad. It wasn't quite a compliment she'd dispensed like so much hateful Pez, but I naively took it as one at the time... But really, she was fantastically unimpressed.

She oggled the new issue of the aforementioned Propaganda. She winked at me, and said, "I might be in here!" (Of course, she wasn't). She moaned and cooed at all the pictures of the frail, wire-limbed goth boys--wispy, pale, and hairless. Here I was, addled-but-masculine, and toting sofas over my shoulder...while these she-men she stared at could scarcely lift a tissue to their oft-penetrated arses. "Ugh," I said, "what do you see in these geeks? They don't even look like they could grow a proper goatee, much less functional genitalia..."

"I know," she glowed, "it's so hot!"

I sighed. I just didn't get it. Then she started to stare at me... I thought she was staring at my necklace, but no...she started undoing my shirt buttons. "OH YEAH," I thought with zipper-rusting glee, "it is ON!" But alas...

Her face turned to an expression of queer and cruel surprise, if not purest horror. She placed her finger square amongst my forest of chest hair. "Eeeeeeeeewwwww!!! You're...ugh...so...furry! Eeew! Ew!-Ew!- Ew!-Ew!-Ew!"

Well, that took the ol' confidence down a notch...

She made a wrinkled whiskey face, and scooted away, turning back to her fantasy androgynes. I got up and pouted behind a battered Rolling Stone until we left.

* * *

Lydia said she had to make a call; we agreed to meet back in an hour at an absinthe bar in Pirate's Alley. Listless, I went to visit Topher again.

Topher kept calling me "honey" and "Mary." I hated "Mary" so much, that I overlooked the "honey," more often than not. But doubtless, he was fun. I figured he could cheer me up...

"What's wrong, guy? Lydia got you down?"

"Well, what do you know," I smugly smirked, "you really are psychic!"

"Hmmph. Well...I don't know why you'd want to waste your time on a tramp like that..."

"I thought she was your friend?"

"Oh, I love her to death...but trust me, you do not want that girl..."

I sighed. "Well, actually...yeah, I do. I admit it...it's total lust..."

Topher grimaced in frustration. "Well, if you just want to fuck her, that won't be hard--the damn girl spreads like fucking margarine..."

"Not for me, apparently."

"Well, you're not exactly her type, seeing as you don't look like a 12-year-old boy...but trust me, get her high, she'll fuck you anyway..."

My ears perked up. "High? Hmmm..."

"Oh, she's a total junkie, babe. Buy her some dope, and she'll fuck you 'til your cock drops off--and trust me, it might..."

"Really?"

"Yes. Really. But I don't know what you'd want with her anyway...honey, you can get better..."

"I don't know, Topher; she's awfully...colorful, you know? Not to mention beautiful..."

"Oh, she's pretty, honey--I'll give you that," he said, swishing his hand around in limp, fluid movements, "but she is sooooo eaten up. I mean really...a girl like that won't be pretty for long..."

"I guess I should get it while the gettin's good, then, eh?"

"Get you what you want, Cassanova," he sighed, "but honey," he paused for a moment, shaking his head, then looking deadly serious into my eyes, "triple-bag it, ok?"

I nodded, and left to find her.

What to do now, I thought....whatever now?

* * *

Again...the drugs...it always goes back to the drugs. Everything is about the artificial joy. Truthfully, this was yet another burgeoning thorn in my side...life in the drug scene, and my increasing chemical reliance had become a burden to me. It certainly didn't bring me much in the way of happiness or fullfillment. It was yet another thing that I was itching to back away from...did I really want to do this to myself again...even on vacation? What kind of loser has to get a girl stoned to have his way with her?

As I reached the Pirate's Alley absinthe bar, I pondered my predicament. Is this what I really wanted?

And then I saw her.

Lydia slinked up beside me, serpentine. “So tell me...whatcha want to do, Gothy-boi?”

“Chug coffee and absinthe, and pretend that I’m a Gothy-Man.”

She smiled. "Something on your mind?"

I breathed deep, and felt my id returning like the Saviour never did. Uneasily-yet-resolutely flicking on my inner bastard, I smirked, "Yeah...let's have some fun. I think I have an idea..."

(What was that, up above...was it Heaven's mocking thunder once again? Oh really--what could go wrong with this...I did it all the time...right? Right, oh mocking Heavens? Wait...no...not that laugh... Could it be the angels muffling a guffaw?)


TO BE CONTINUED...