TITLE jules
RATING pg
NOTES i dunno what this is, i had a really strong story idea but i think i didn’t have a strong idea of how i wanted the language/text to be so it came out a bit weird. i
drew jules too cos i was bored of being on hold to a company on the phone.
it was on my fourth night of sleeping rough that i met jules and stayed over in her little apartment in brooklyn. it was cold that night, and the tips of my fingers turned red and lost all movement in them. it began to snow - a horrible, wet kind of snow that new york got before the heavy fall, and every time a drop fell on my face it stung like a shard. all i could focus on was the freezing wind and the pain, deep in my gut. hunger never felt so savage.
"hey, kid. how old are you?"
i looked up and saw jules. she was beautiful and had dark smokey eyes with dark short hair which fell on her face and dark red glossy lips. her skin was porcelain like snow and as she stood above me, smoking with a guitar case on her back, snow falling around her, i thought she was the most ideal human being i ever saw.
"fourteen."
she laughed wildly, and gushes of white breath came out from her mouth.
"shit, kid, you’re young! where are your parents?"
"um, i ran away from home.” my answer felt awkward and not as impressive as it did on the first day. yet she laughed again, lips wide and chest shaking. she seemed to find my entire situation hilarious. i thought she may have been high.
"man, that’s so crazy, so wild! shit, it’s freezing. where are you staying?"
i motioned here. she looked around the doorway and raised a dark, thin eyebrow.
“are you fucking kidding me? here?" she looked around again and took another drag. "do you often sleep rough outside a dyke club then? you know we don’t like men, right?"
that was when jules took me in. when i asked her why she’d let a fourteen year old homeless boy live with her, she said it was because i was as harmless as a puppy. i told her i could have a knife in my pocket but she said she’d knock me out with her fender jaguar. i walked along quietly.
***
the first thing jules made me do when we got into her apartment was share a bath with her. sitting on the other end of the bathtub, submerged in hot water and watching jules sit across from me, naked, smoking and steam rolling off her damp skin, i felt embarrassed and shy. my eyes must have been wandering because she gave me a light kick under water, smiling again. even without her thick kohl around her eyes, she looked confident and strong.
"want some?" she passed me the cigarette, and i inhaled for the very first time. i coughed, and she laughed again, yanking it away from me. "no more for you then!"
i couldn’t help but stare at jules’ plump chest softly breathing up and down, her skin in goosebumps. when i was undressing i was paranoid i’d get an erection yet now it was the last thing i could think about. the minute i stepped into jules’ flat, it felt like another world - practical, effortless, safe. she had no extra clutter - just clothes, books, ashtrays. as i walked around, i couldn’t help but shake the feeling that something was missing - as if half of the items which should have been here were gone, missing. there were faded outlines of frames which were long gone on the walls, and imprints in the carpet of where furniture used to stand. the bookshelf was half empty too.
"i started smoking when i was fourteen. thought i’d be really cool and impress the older singer of a band in my school i really liked. well..” she paused and stubbed out the butt in a little puddle on the floor. she sighed heavily. “started smoking for that fucker, couldn’t quit after.
"so, you haven’t always been...” i began to say but when i saw a smirk crawling up on her face, i suddenly felt stupid.
"no, i haven’t always liked girls and pussy." she replied in a mocking tone. "sexuality is subject to change, you know? you shouldn’t suppress it or limit yourself.” she took a moment to look at me with pitying eyes. i sank deeper into the hot water. "ah, don’t worry, baby face, you’ll get what i mean when you’re older."
jules now said that she was twenty-one and in a band yet all i could do was look at her half sleeve off-blue tattoo which climbed from her arm and onto her shoulder, intricate and delicate. i kept expecting the ink to wash off in the milk water and turn it a pale shade of sea blue yet it stayed on, firm and tough.
***
i woke up in the middle of the night, wide eyed and missing jules’ heat. even though it was a cold night, jules slept naked, saying she was hot. that was the first time in my life i slept in the same bed as a naked woman and i stayed firmly on the edge of the bed, kept mostly awake by the thought of the naked curve of her white back. now, i stretched and rolled over, glancing through the doorway to the living room. i saw jules standing by a half open window, wearing a short silk chinese red dragon kimono gown, smoking her marlboro reds. she smoked quietly, looking out of the window, barely moving and i felt like i was intruding. suddenly, she rubbed her forehead and sighed.
and that’s when i finally noticed it. as she stood there, with her head in her hands and jet black hair tumbling over it, a silky curtain of strands, i noticed how gentle jules was. she was a huge strong metal capsule which collected everything and anything, letting it completely fill her up until she could hold no more and came to a stop. she was lonely and missing something because if she wasn’t, she wouldn’t need to completely filling herself up. i rested my cheek on my hand and watched her in the dark intently.
she had a long line of ash collecting on her filter tip.