original fiction: juliet, the dice was loaded from the start.
juliet, the dice was loaded from the start.
original fiction. r. We lived eleven lifetimes together, Grady and I. This was just the first one. 856 words.
"These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume."
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 2.3
We were only two of us from the beginning.
This is before the war, see.
“Will you still love me if I’m dead?”
Grady was a bitch like that, even at ten. She liked to tease about things that weren’t funny.
“You’re never dying. Not ever. I’ll kill you first.”
And she laughed.
-
They drew ten lines between that year and the next time I saw her. I didn’t sign up. My father had just kicked the bucket and I got the old hag (his mother, some tell me) to bail me out.
We were at a party. This is the war. The first one. The parties tasted like cream puff with whiskey hidden in them.
“You look like a virgin,” I told her and she laughed.
She didn’t look like a virgin, she was the finest piece there, she just didn’t know it. The long lines of her, she looked ten feet tall and she only stood five. Well, I wasn’t going to tell her.
I leaned my nose against the top of her head as we danced and I could see the men watch her.
“I’m not a virgin,” she said.
I could always tell when Grady was lying.
-
She was a lamb in the mornings. Well, as much of a lamb as Grady could ever be.
We smoked. It was her first cigarette. She didn’t put it to her mouth, just pointed with it at my bookshelf.
“To Have or Have not, Nick?”
“Have for now.”
-
She signed up as a nurse two weeks after that day. They set fire to that camp.
It didn’t matter, though.
We live eleven life times together, Grady and I. This was just the first one.
-
(There was war number two. You remember this one? Bombs, bombs, atomic.
This one got me before I got the chance to screw her.)
-
I was at a sixties supermarket strolling up the aisle when I saw her.
“Hey, kid.”
She turned. Those hips kept that swing.
“Who the hell are you?”
She was forty with a wedding ring. I put back my head and howled.
“Stop it, you’re making scene,” she snapped.
“You look great.”
“You look wasted.”
“I am.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Whose the lucky guy?”
“Tom Barnes.”
“That stupid prick?”
“That stupid prick.”
“Poor Grady.”
“I have a daughter,” she tells me, soft.
“How old is she?”
“Nick-“
“About my age, I imagine.”
“A little younger.”
“Pretty?”
“Shut the hell up, Nick.”
I always loved it when she started getting angry.
-
I didn’t fuck her daughter.
(You thought I would, didn’t you?)
I fucked her, in her living room, on the couch, with her husband at work. She had fingers around my cock, pulling it in, pushing it out and I hated her like this, all knowing and experienced a mother’s the furthest thing from a virgin and did he ever even make her come?
“Come for me.”
She laughed.
(After, she made me a coffee and I drank it down like its medicine with my head tipped back and I could feel her eyes on my throat.)
-
Next life time, we don’t fuck and she dies nun and I die a whore.
(It was the eighties, see. Line of coke on my client’s ass.)
-
We didn’t make it to Oxford in the nineties. She tried for the Sorbonne.
“Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses, Grady.”
“What are you studying?”
“Economics.”
“Boring bastard.”
“Yeah, well.”
“You’re such a sell out.”
“We do try, to impress you.”
“Don’t impress me. I don’t want you to impress me.”
“You’re not some kind of a feminist are you?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is a bad thing.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I used to know you.”
“Long time ago, Nick.”
This one ended in a car. She was driving.
Bitch didn’t have her glasses on.
(I think she was trying to impress me.)
-
It is 2020. Charles University, Prague.
That’s got a kind of symmetry to it that I like. It’s another classroom.
“Not going to kiss me hello?”
“I don’t kiss strange men, professor.”
“I expected you eight years ago.”
“Did you?”
“The world was going to end.”
“That sounds fitting,” she agrees.
“I thought that.”
People don’t catch on to things like this. I take her back to my apartment and she is so young, why am I not-
“How does this work?” she asks.
“What?”
“The age thing. You’re old enough to be my father.”
She’s got that smirk to it.
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are, professor.”
“Don’t call me that.”
I was starting to get pissed off.
“How does it work?”
“It doesn’t.”
“That’s what I thought.”
She presses her mouth full to mine and we are kissing and fucking hell, it feels like the first in her mother’s laundry room with her moans howling into my collar and her lipstick dancing on the floor.
It feels like the first again. It feels like the last.
(It isn’t. Didn’t I tell you there were eleven?)
original fiction. r. We lived eleven lifetimes together, Grady and I. This was just the first one. 856 words.
"These violent delights have violent ends
And in their triumph die, like fire and powder,
Which as they kiss consume."
- William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, 2.3
We were only two of us from the beginning.
This is before the war, see.
“Will you still love me if I’m dead?”
Grady was a bitch like that, even at ten. She liked to tease about things that weren’t funny.
“You’re never dying. Not ever. I’ll kill you first.”
And she laughed.
-
They drew ten lines between that year and the next time I saw her. I didn’t sign up. My father had just kicked the bucket and I got the old hag (his mother, some tell me) to bail me out.
We were at a party. This is the war. The first one. The parties tasted like cream puff with whiskey hidden in them.
“You look like a virgin,” I told her and she laughed.
She didn’t look like a virgin, she was the finest piece there, she just didn’t know it. The long lines of her, she looked ten feet tall and she only stood five. Well, I wasn’t going to tell her.
I leaned my nose against the top of her head as we danced and I could see the men watch her.
“I’m not a virgin,” she said.
I could always tell when Grady was lying.
-
She was a lamb in the mornings. Well, as much of a lamb as Grady could ever be.
We smoked. It was her first cigarette. She didn’t put it to her mouth, just pointed with it at my bookshelf.
“To Have or Have not, Nick?”
“Have for now.”
-
She signed up as a nurse two weeks after that day. They set fire to that camp.
It didn’t matter, though.
We live eleven life times together, Grady and I. This was just the first one.
-
(There was war number two. You remember this one? Bombs, bombs, atomic.
This one got me before I got the chance to screw her.)
-
I was at a sixties supermarket strolling up the aisle when I saw her.
“Hey, kid.”
She turned. Those hips kept that swing.
“Who the hell are you?”
She was forty with a wedding ring. I put back my head and howled.
“Stop it, you’re making scene,” she snapped.
“You look great.”
“You look wasted.”
“I am.”
She rolls her eyes.
“Whose the lucky guy?”
“Tom Barnes.”
“That stupid prick?”
“That stupid prick.”
“Poor Grady.”
“I have a daughter,” she tells me, soft.
“How old is she?”
“Nick-“
“About my age, I imagine.”
“A little younger.”
“Pretty?”
“Shut the hell up, Nick.”
I always loved it when she started getting angry.
-
I didn’t fuck her daughter.
(You thought I would, didn’t you?)
I fucked her, in her living room, on the couch, with her husband at work. She had fingers around my cock, pulling it in, pushing it out and I hated her like this, all knowing and experienced a mother’s the furthest thing from a virgin and did he ever even make her come?
“Come for me.”
She laughed.
(After, she made me a coffee and I drank it down like its medicine with my head tipped back and I could feel her eyes on my throat.)
-
Next life time, we don’t fuck and she dies nun and I die a whore.
(It was the eighties, see. Line of coke on my client’s ass.)
-
We didn’t make it to Oxford in the nineties. She tried for the Sorbonne.
“Boys don’t make passes at girls who wear glasses, Grady.”
“What are you studying?”
“Economics.”
“Boring bastard.”
“Yeah, well.”
“You’re such a sell out.”
“We do try, to impress you.”
“Don’t impress me. I don’t want you to impress me.”
“You’re not some kind of a feminist are you?”
“You say that like it’s a bad thing.”
“It is a bad thing.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I know you.”
“You don’t know me.”
“I used to know you.”
“Long time ago, Nick.”
This one ended in a car. She was driving.
Bitch didn’t have her glasses on.
(I think she was trying to impress me.)
-
It is 2020. Charles University, Prague.
That’s got a kind of symmetry to it that I like. It’s another classroom.
“Not going to kiss me hello?”
“I don’t kiss strange men, professor.”
“I expected you eight years ago.”
“Did you?”
“The world was going to end.”
“That sounds fitting,” she agrees.
“I thought that.”
People don’t catch on to things like this. I take her back to my apartment and she is so young, why am I not-
“How does this work?” she asks.
“What?”
“The age thing. You’re old enough to be my father.”
She’s got that smirk to it.
“I am not.”
“Yes, you are, professor.”
“Don’t call me that.”
I was starting to get pissed off.
“How does it work?”
“It doesn’t.”
“That’s what I thought.”
She presses her mouth full to mine and we are kissing and fucking hell, it feels like the first in her mother’s laundry room with her moans howling into my collar and her lipstick dancing on the floor.
It feels like the first again. It feels like the last.
(It isn’t. Didn’t I tell you there were eleven?)