Writing Crash

by Jamie J. Buchanan

I stopped reading and realized that I had forgotten how to breathe. I inhaled, filling my lungs with sweet fresh air, and exhaled strongly as I tried to avoid dizziness. I was caught somewhere between shock and déjà vu.

  I knew this phantom – but somewhere, in the back of my mind only. She existed on paper like the description of a ghost – but I was sure she was real as well. Somewhere in the ether of reality, which I occasionally frequented, there was a woman just like this but I had no idea where to find her. Upon reading these words again I realized that they barely did justice to the memory of her that I had.

  The memory evoked feelings of lust and satisfaction. My penis tingled and threatened to work as I opened up to the thought of this woman. My haze, produced by alcohol, perpetuated by addiction, dulled my shame and guilt.

  My poor wife…if only she knew the truth of this.

  I knew what she would have said but my selfishness and arrogance drove her admonishment to the back of my brain. My self-defence mechanisms kicked in.

  Ignore it Michael, I thought. Do not burden yourself with such thoughts.

  I put the papers down – I always printed hard copies of my work as if the palpable feeling of paper on skin told me that this was reality and it was actually happening. I re-enforced my fears.

  The woman – the character – she would be called something exotic. A name that I would never have heard before. Something that sounds like no one I have ever known.

  Desiree.

  Yes, that’s it…Desiree.

  She leapt off the page like a hologram, yet I could feel her touch. I could feel her skin twitch slightly under the soft pressing of my hands on her waist. I could feel the warmth of her breath on my ear as she nuzzled into me.

  I had never had such a vivid animation of a character before. She felt real, like she was in the room with me. It was if her presence was still here even though her body had gone.

  With the papers face down on the bed, it was like the door had closed after her leaving. Her fragrance still filled the air – the space left behind after her body had left still held reminiscences of physical being.

  She was Marla Singer. She was Emma Woodhouse. She was Katniss Everdeen.

  Had I made her up? Or had I simply written a biographical description?

  Or, more to the point, had I just re-named someone else’s character?

  My head pounded and threatened me with the punishment of a hangover. I knew this was not a medicine I needed. My mind reveled in the perplexity of memory – the confusion created when my consciousness couldn’t decide what was real and what was imaginary. I wasn’t sure if I had made these things up, or written down an experience. Was it fact or autobiography?

  My cloak of denial awaited me as I staggered to the fridge and found a half full bottle of Chardonnay from yesterday afternoon.

  The clock read 11.30AM

  The bottle read…something blurry.

  Lunch.

  Temporary Relief

  Somewhere in my unruly apartment a digital chirrup was emanating from under a pile of unwashed clothes. The muffled sound of its persistent and monotonous invasion into my perfectly formed hangover was amplified as consciousness began to take form.

  The volume increased like the segue between songs, amping up to a point where I could no longer ignore it. The “chirrup-chirrup-chirrup” sound of the phone’s relentless and insipid call to attention smashed around inside my skull – like a two year old child with a hammer.

  I sat up, instantly turning all I could see into an unfocussed puddle. Images swerved and formed, meshing and moulding into shapes of Dali-esque disfigurement. My stomach swirled and pitched, rocking and rolling within my skin as my gastric sphincter struggled to contain the rebellious juices beneath. The muscles in my abdomen ached – evidence of a previous bout of heavy vomiting in the not too distant (but unrecognisable) past.

  The room had an odour…no, wait, not an odour…a fragrance. A perfume! Yes, it hung in the air sickly sweet like an invisible fog. I could taste it in my mouth and I knew that smell from somewhere.

  It smelled like desire.

  It smelled like danger.

  It smelled like something I wanted again.

  My mind wandered to the past to try and dig out the memory that belonged to that smell – why did it invoke such strongly sexual urges in me? I couldn’t remember the clearly violent vomitus eruption that had recently occurred as evidenced by my strained abdominal muscles and acid-tasting mouth, yet that smell instantly took me to a past that I wanted again, and again, and again.

  The sweetness was my heroin – it was my addiction. It was not a drug of choice – I did not choose to be addicted by this aroma, but I was glad I was.

  But the obstinate phone would not give up. It invaded and dominated even my addiction. I wanted that smell so very badly, but I had to answer the phone because the bloody thing was never going to stop.

  I tripped, shuffled and fell onto something soft – or someone soft? I couldn’t tell. My eyes and stomach worked in tandem to disorient me – both refusing to work in the normal way. I followed the sound of the phone, removing items of clothing from the couch as the sound became clearer.

  Then I answered it and it was Lee Holbrook.

  As usual, he began this conversation halfway through. This was a disconcerting enough practice when I was fully lucid, but, in my fragile and confused state at this time, it was downright bewildering.

  “So there I was, right, with this girl in her apartment. We’re on the 15th floor of this place, it was about 2AM, and I knew that we were about to start fucking.” Lee’s voice picked up a notch as he settled in to explain his tryst – a night of debauchery that would be undoubtedly embellished, but entertaining none-the-less.

  I’ve known Lee since we were kids, two pre-teen rat-bags who were always in and out of trouble. I was the shy one who tagged along, enamoured by his charm and swagger. Lee was, a charismatic character – part James Bond, part Keith Richards. Lee’s the guy that gets away with things no-one else ever could.

  Many times he had described, in minute detail, his blow-by-blow encounters with a hapless, naïve young thing. Sometimes the stories were just so fantastic that they couldn’t possibly be true – except, they almost always were.

  “We worked together – she was an office temp and as soon as I saw her, I knew that I had to have a crack right? I wouldn’t normally hit on a chick from the office, but she was only a temp and would be gone in a few weeks so I reckoned that she was fair game. A few of the lads in the office had noticed her too and there was no way I was going in there after some of those manky bastards, so I decided to try and get in first.”

  I wanted to tell him that it was God-awful o’clock and could he please fuck off until a more respectable hour of the day? I heard it come out of my throat like a moan from the undead.

  Unperturbed and probably deaf to my feeble protestations, Lee continued:

  “I took her out to dinner to ‘The Aviary’ and few drinks afterwards at the roof-top bar, and we got along pretty well. She’s gorgeous mate, I tell ya.”

  Even through my semi-conscious haze, I knew the rest before he even said it – she was tall, long black hair, slender body, great “C-Cup” boobs. I even knew her eye colour: hazel, with a hint of green. Everyone has a type they prefer and this was Lee’s.

  I sat down on my pile of unwashed clothing, noticing that the sweet smell of my addiction had disappeared as lucidity descended and been replaced by a dankness that was reeking out of me. As Lee continued, I felt the pores in my skin leaking alcohol and excess – my depravity was seeping out of me.

  The absence of Tina was palpable, evidenced not only by my disheveled and despairing disposition but also by the filth with which I had chosen to abide. My neglect extended beyond the emotional, my dependence protracted further than assurance. A blind man could see my loneliness, smell my decline, sense my misery.

  I had no time to dwell – a thank-you for small gra
ces. Lee continued:

  “Mick? Are still listening? She’s actually a pretty funny chick, great sense of humour. Well, of course, I’m using all my good stuff on her – more lines than a prawn trawler as you know! She lives in the city, so we went back to hers. Her joint was one of those apartments up in East Perth, has a view out towards the WACA and Gloucester Park. Her folks are loaded and they rent it for her. A top gaff. Anyway, we get inside the door and it’s fuckin’ on!”

  He’s getting worked up now and I just know what’s coming – a pornographic “blow-by-blow” of the entire tableau. I had often told him that I didn’t really want to know the intimate details, but he was more inclined to give me even more detail if I went down that path again.

  I’m sure that there must be some psychological reason for why he felt that he must tell me this stuff. Was it to brag? Was it an ego thing? Or was it acceptance he was seeking? In more sober moments of reflection I have thought that maybe his re-telling of the stories was his reconciliation – an assuaging of the guilt he felt when he indulged in these trysts. He never held girlfriends very long and, even when he did have a relationship, he was always looking for a reason to break it off whilst cheating at the same time.

  But Lee was also my best friend. I think. To be honest, in my current state of health, I wasn’t 100% sure if I had any friends. Perhaps this was the call I needed most. I realized Lee had continued talking – my reverie was completely non-existent to him.

  “She was gorgeous and she’s all over me like a rash. I’m thinking that I should just have my wicked way and then voom! I’m outta there like rat from a sinking ship. The last thing I needed was to stay the night and then have one of those awkward goodbyes the next day; then more awkwardness at the office…nah, just a quick drunken shag and then get out of there. Thank God, she was up for the same thing!

  “Anyway, the kit starts coming off and were going at it. I’ve got her sitting on the breakfast bar, legs in the air and I’m chokka-block up there. She’s goin’ off and I’m having a great time. I look out the windows and there this bloke in the next building copping a blow job from his missus! I couldn’t believe it! I’m going for it with this chick and he’s getting a blow job from some other tart!”

  “You should have waved to him,” I said trying to picture the surreal pornographic scene – a virtual orgy separated by 50 feet of air and glass.

  “I did! I gave him the thumbs up and he looked over at me, raised a bottle of beer, and waved back. A wonderful moment. The chick I was with didn’t notice (and his missus was in no position to see anything), so we both just smiled and continued on.”

  I thought about this for a minute and as fantastic as this might seem – as contrived as it appeared – it would not have surprised me at all if this wasn’t a 100% accurate recollection of events that night.

  “You know,” I said, “somewhere there’s a bloke telling his mate the exact same story.”

  Lee laughed briefly and then replied: “Yeah Mick, but in HIS story, the other bloke had an enormous cock!”

  The line went dead – Lee always knew when to exit.

  Fifteen minutes later I was curled up on the floor of my shower, surrounded by water. My head thumped, my body ached. My bones felt like splintering as I understood that maybe this was what sobriety was like…except I think I was probably still pissed.

  If being sober felt like this, if straight people experienced this torture, then I didn’t want it. Give me the alcohol, the Xanax, the cocaine, the Meth, the dope…give me all of that to avoid this level of agony that speared through my body like a javelin.

  I didn’t understand this pain as my motor skills (or lack thereof) assured me that alcohol still had control of this vessel called my human form. Lee’s call may not have sobered me up in a physical sense, but mentally I needed it. I needed the laugh, the juvenile stupidity of it all.

  As much as that mysterious aroma invoked vague and distorted memories of a desired place and state, so too had Lee’s called reminded me of a not to distant past where I was happy.

  The memory of happiness, of enjoyment without chemicals…that’s the memory that hurts.

  That hurt more than the come down from the gear, the detox from the alcohol. It filled me with more fear than living ever did.

  Tina invaded my thoughts and the dagger in me twisted further. These were the times she would nurse me to health, provide me with the strength to go on, to power through life. Without her here, and with the effects of masking agents and chemicals slowly relinquishing their hold on my reality, my hole sunk further.

  And as I sat on the floor of the shower, the tears camouflaged in the water, my sides ached as I convulsed with the agony of fear. I had nothing to throw up so my stomach simply spasmed as my body tried to reject the poison that I had inflicted upon it. My sobbing and my dry reaching made me feel like I would split open.

  Slowly I managed to get some air into me and calmed myself down. I had no idea if this was my low point or not.

  Later that day I found this. I had no idea when I wrote it but it didn’t seem to bear any resemblance to what I had started.

  Ya fucking bastards! What are you doing to me? Why must I have to suffer this wretched and terrible fate? I didn’t deserve this ya pricks, so why put it all on me?

  And she didn’t deserve it either – she had nothing to do with it. If you wanted to punish someone, if you wanted to take it out on someone, then fucking take it out on me. She was innocent and…oh….

  I get it…she was simply the tool – the vessel within which you could inflict the pain and suffering upon me. You used her, you broke her, so you could make me suffer. There were other ways, you didn’t need to do that!

  CUUUNNNTTTS!!!

  If I find youse, I’ll fuckin’ gut yas!

  This was typed and printed out – the sheet lying on top of the printer. I checked my laptop but there was no file or document with anything like this in it. But it certainly looked like it had been written and printed here. The prose bore no resemblance to me at all.

  But I knew whom the author was talking about.

  The Seduction of Proposal

  “Come over, now” The text said.

  “I have 2CU.” The text said.

  I didn’t think I knew who sent this.

  Then I read the first lines of my next chapter:

  “Come over, now” The text said.

  “I have 2CU.” The text said.

  I looked back at the iPhone and the evidence was there in front of me. I re-read the latest chapter of what was subliminally becoming a subconscious autobiography:

  It was late but the time didn’t matter – Tobias operated on auto-pilot as he controlled his car, driving through the blurred night-scape with a singular vision.

  Her.

  Desiree.

  Lights flashed past him as he drove by electrical super-stores on his way through to the city and the steel tower in which she resided. The dash of the car was a chameleon, switching and flicking from one neon flash to the next, mirroring the external environment as he charged through the night. He had no concept of oblivion, or choice – there was only action and reaction.

  She commanded, he followed.

  He wiped the sleep from his eyes, ducts leaking tears that obscured his sight, merging objects and distorting distance. His spatial awareness, usually acute, was hampered as he struggled to keep his eyes clear. Grainy, sandy, his eyes itched with each blink as if smearing any foreign objects across his vision, not clearing them. Time was irrelevant – the destination could have been three minutes away, or three days, it would have made no difference to him.

  Any distance or time travelled = pain.

  The pain of anticipation – the seduction of proposal.

  I can see the apartment block in my mind and I wondered if I had been there? I recalled Lee’s tale of the girl in the apartment and maybe that was what I could remember?

  Desiree’s apartment was a glass and
steel post-modern style desert, devoid of atmosphere and attraction. Floor to ceiling glass panels showed glimmers of greens and blues as they refracted the lights, low voltage down lights recessed into the stark white ceiling. Chrome mirrors reversed rounded reflections off the framework of furniture – twisted versions of Tobias’ face gawped back at him as he noticed their stares, quizzical and astounded.

  From the thirteenth floor they could see over half of the city, lights blinking and dotting the darkened landscape. He noticed that the hills outlined only the sporadic spots of illumination, the contours lost in the nightscape. Join the dots, create the topography.

  The freeway snaked away to the south, twisting and bending as it hugged the riverbank. Red lights tailed away from Tobias, leaving him in their history and heading out into a future they thought they knew.

  Who really knew what their future held anyway?

  Towards him, white headlights meandered, lane changes occasional, indicators even more rare. The freeway looked peaceful from up at this height – silently providing a gently wandering thoroughfare for the weary traveller this late at night. The blacktop shone with a yellow hue, reflecting the street lighting that lit the way and kept the night at bay.

  No sound penetrated this apartment, the hum of the city, the high-pitched whee-whar of emergency vehicles were the stuff of memory only. Below, on the freeway, he could see the flashing lights of an ambulance weave in and out of the relatively pedestrian traffic as it sped its way to or from an accident somewhere. Perhaps a heart attack, perhaps an overdose? In the quiet of the room, the sense of urgency they wanted to portray was completely lost – the red/blue flashing lights unwittingly provoking a Pavlovian response in Tobias for arousal.

  Tobias felt his pulse quicken, his heart rate increase. Breath became shorter and the familiar stirring in his groin returned as he watched the ambulance disappear over a small rise in the road. It was out of site but its revolving lights reflected off the surrounding buildings, a mobile nightclub thundering down the lanes.

  “You feel it too, don’t you?” She said, her presence behind him sudden and unexpected. Again she ran her hands under his shirt and onto his bare skin, fingers tweaking his nipples, nails scraping the skin.

  The words rung in my head – amnesia broken. Was this a story, or a recollection? I lifted my shirt to see the red track mark welts fading under the hair. I could taste the sweet scent of perfume in my lungs, on my tongue, in my pores. Reading these words made it all come back to me in a flash – the apartment, the glass tower above the mayhem of the city-scape below.

  My brain is mush – the level of decadence and indulgence had blurred memories and fantasy, turning each into the other. I couldn’t tell if the words were autobiography, diary or even written by someone else. The thought that some mysterious puppet master had written this so that I would play it out did cross my mind – a predetermined fate that my weakened state was helpless to resist.

  But the scene was so strongly imprinted in me – a memory that had to be true. The details were what gave it away. And the scent – that perfume that enveloped me in a warm and loving embrace. It was lustful, desiring and dangerous.

  And I knew I wanted more.

  I stopped reading – if this was a memory and the words were a diarized form of prose, then I would already know the rest of this.

  I thought…I remembered. My brain struggled, juggling fragments of reality and creating an ill-fitting jigsaw. Some pieces thought they fitted, but I knew that they were wrong. Then it clicked.

  The story gave way to my memory, recent bouts of sobriety had increased the powers of recall. I stopped reading the story and closed my eyes, listening to tale continue in reverie.

  I remembered my arousal multiplied as I saw the ambulance rise up the other side of the dale it had disappeared into. The woman tugged firmly at my nipple as the lights increased. This “Desiree” of my memory was vague, an amalgam of drunken trysts and third person recollections from Lee’s fantastical hedonism. I had no idea of the girl’s name or any discernable detail.

  Katrina? Simone? Renae?

  She remained incomplete in memory.

  Resistance was low – hell, it was futile.

  “She” (read: Kate? Bree? Laura?) did not wait for an answer – silence was compliance.

  I could smell her scent in the air, my nostrils filled with her perfume, her sweat, her essence. I could hear her voice in my head:

  “With every swerve through the thinning traffic, the driver takes more chances, cheating death with each turn of the wheel. He’s on the edge of control, the tyres are squealing with each twist of the steering column, each press of the brakes.”

  I felt my erection mount against the belt of his jeans, busting to be freed. The pressure increased the sensuality. It returned to me after a hiatus that I dared not recall. “Her” (read: Belinda? Angela? Rebecca?) hand caressed my chest and stomach, warm and smooth, spreading their hold.

  I think I asked: “Who’s in the back of the ambulance? Is it a teenage son of a wealthy doctor who’s overdosed on heroin? Or maybe someone had a heart attack whilst driving, careening their car into the fence and coming to rest facing the wrong way?”

  “No,” she replied. “It’s us. You and me – we are in the back of the ambulance and you’re inside me. Your cock thrusts in and out as I hold onto your hips, pulling you in deeper and deeper. I feel like you’re going to split me apart. Your hips smash into my pelvis, pulling it wider and allowing penetration more violent. You’re above me, your arms pinning me down, your breath in my ear.”

  She took a large breath in, cool air wafting past my neck as she inhaled. Her scent, that addictive airborne elixir, it invaded me once again – clawing its hooks in me and holding me tight. The soft smooth sensuality of her voice continued.

  “The ambulance sways left and right, soft suspension bouncing plastic filled bags off the walls of the cabin and onto us. You struggle to hold onto the gurney, your arms straining under the forces that threaten to throw us to the floor of the van. I feel your triceps burning, taking the weight and holding you in place. One of my hands is on your arse, the muscles clenching and relaxing as your passion mounts.”

  I couldn’t be 100% sure those were her words but, as I closed my eyes and transported myself back in time, the transcription became clearer. She continued to whisper.

  “I’m as wet as I can be, I can feel the waves coming as you take me to the place I love. Your balls tighten and you explode within me just as my muscles clench with ecstasy. The ambulance arrives at the emergency department as we separate, our fluids still fresh on the gurney. The cabin stinks of sex – the sweet aroma of post-coitus satisfaction that is a tonic for the soul. You can feel it can’t you?”

  “She” (read: Antoinette? Gabrielle? Kelly?) whispered in my ear, the moisture from her tongue coating the tiny hairs on my flesh. Her sultry growl filled me, consumed all sound receptors…nothing else mattered. The ambulance had disappeared and she leaned against my back, her breasts pressed against me as she ground her crotch into my thigh. Her hands dropped to my belt buckle, the tips of her fingers gently brushing the head of my enlarged penis. Orgasm imminent.

  “Look over there,” she said and I could see her large plasma screen TV. On it there was footage shot from the side of the freeway. There was no sound, just the grainy black images of the occasional car passing by an accident. I could see people climbing out of an overturned Van – a beat up old Nissan thing that looked a total write-off. Sticking out of the rear of the van was the rear end of some small hatchback car which looked like it had driven straight into the back of the van – invading the cabin and destroying all in its path.

  “What’s that?” I asked, thinking that it couldn’t have been the occupants of the ambulance we had just seen. This looked like it had been filmed some time ago.

  “I shot it earlier tonight – the accident happened just before I arrived on the scene. It made me think of you.” He
r hands rubbed the outside of my jeans and my eyes wanted to close.

  “Yeah?”

  “Notice – those people getting out of the car? See that guy’s cock is still hard?” She rubbed a little harder, I tightened further. “Notice – her breasts glistening in the streetlight? See the small specs of blood on them.”

  She rubbed harder against me, a sexual grinding that would only end one way. “Notice – they are scrambling for their clothes, one guy is in agony, maybe his arm or shoulder is broken?” Her left hand pressed my balls tighter; I approached the cliff.

  “She” (read: Monica? Naomi? Kylie?) knew exactly where I was. “Tell me,” she said. “Tell me what you see.”

  I remembered providing a response.

  “I see the people leaving the destroyed vehicles like sperm from a spent cock – spewing raggedly across the scene. They are sexual demons, they were all fucking inside one of those cars I’m sure – the air would smell like sex and petrol and burning rubber. There’s a 4WD now, collecting them. They pile in, scooped up, their spent bodies limp and malleable as they contort to get through the doorway and into their getaway car.”

  Closer…closer…

  “And the last one in?” She asked as she pressed one last time.

  “I know him!” I exclaimed as I came, my underused penis no longer able to hold off the overwhelming passions she produced. “She” (read: anyone except Tina) moaned in my ear, a small involuntary squeak escaped as well and I thought maybe she had come too.

  The sight of the ambulance and the crash scene, the smell of her sex, the aural velvet of her voice in my ear. Her closeness, her sexuality…it was too much.

  It was therapy.