Another Night at the Smell

It was a fucking hot August night making me thankful I had air conditioning in the car. The mere thought of being crushed into that oppressive storefront of a venue had my balls dripping in a Pavlovian sweat. Despite the cool air blowing in my face as I drive up the Harbor freeway, pit stains began to emerge in full view on my baby blue hammer-and-sickle tee. It’s one of those nights.

The two lines of coke didn’t help things any. Neither did my Aquafina bottle filled with gin and tonic. But hell, everyone was going to be sweaty in there. I was going to be sweaty AND happy.

I park my car on the street, and pay the homeless guy two bucks to look after my car. I walk down the dilapidated alley armed with my Aquafina bottle and a lit cigarette trying my best to put on a disaffected face despite the excitement brewing up inside.

I step in and pay the $5. The heat of the windowless building suffocates me for a brief moment, every bit as bad as I anticipated. For some reason there are a ton of people just hanging out in the entranceway, a foyer of sorts. They’re talking with friends, looking out into space with all of their weight on one leg, a jaunty stance that evokes the Nirvana line, “Here I am now / Entertain me.”

I walk past all of that and towards the back of this foyer. An empty ratty ass couch sits right next to the hallway that connects to where the musical magic happens. It was a couch I once claimed as my throne when my friend Tamra’s band Cold War performed several months ago. I was very exhausted that night and couldn’t bring myself to move from that spot.

“It looks like the queen hath arriveth,” a voice coming out of the bathroom says. It’s disarming: I can’t tell whether it was mocking or just a simple declaration. I can’t even tell if it was directed at me.

I look up and see a tattoo down a skinny veiny arm, a shock of black hair, a Smiths tee (how fucking predictable at a Xiu Xiu show) and gray Dickies. The smirk on his face is just as disarming as the tone.

I can’t utter a word. All I can muster is a squint, a quizzical look and a swig of my gin and tonic.

He plops down next to me, yanks my Aquafina bottle and takes a giant swig. Part of me wants to slug him right in the gut. Who is this skinny ass motherfucker? I can take him out right now.

Part of me wanted to rip his shirt off, straddle him and feel his hard on pressing against my ass and stick my tongue down his throat so hard he choked to death.

Instead I do neither and stay staring at him like an idiot.

“What? The cat’s got your tongue,” he antagonizes as he moves ever so closer to me. I can feel my breath getting shorter and short, my heart beating faster and faster. Not knowing how to process everything I so wanted to put my fist through his face.

He keeps approaching inch by inch. My heart keeps beating faster and faster. In a matter of seconds his face is inches away from mine.

“I wouldn’t get too close if I were you,” I finally manage to mumble.

“Or what?”

I grab his head. For a brief second, I didn’t know what to do with it. The wall was right there to put his head through. Instead I force a kiss.

The only taste is lust. There is no such thing as a proper kiss, a proper way to proceed. There is only him and me and our limbs, as clumsy as they are.

From the kiss, every wall crumbles. I straddle him trying to gain the upper hand. He fights me to take control of the situation as our mouths are connected like a freakish Siamese twin nuclear experiment gone awry.

We slide down the couch onto the floor laughing, slithering our way into random legs, completely succumbed to that carnal thing we were taking part in. He spits in my mouth. I pull his hair. We are oblivious to everything around us as we became a tangled mess of arms and legs and hair and saliva.

Somehow we wind up outside in the alley.

“Oh yeah, keep it up,” I hear him say. I look down and see my hand down his pants.

He climbs on top of me, and he gets more frantic clawing me. His eyes are closed and the desperation in him to get off bubbles up to the surface.

As I jack him off and his spittle falls to various parts of my face, neck, shirt, a sudden wave of clarity hits me. What the fuck am I doing?

Just as the self-consciousness hits me, he stiffens. That oh so familiar warm and wet sensation floods my right hand. And then the hate. At that moment I really wanted to kill him.

Sure just moments ago my tongue was jammed down his throat. I was moaning as he pinched my nipple. I subconsciously stuck my hand down his pants willingly.

But as the pheromones cleared out, I regained some clarity. I saw this cocky dipshit motherfucker who I knew was not going to reciprocate. Again, what the fuck am I doing?

I pull my hand out of his pants intending to walk back into the Smell and watch Xiu Xiu as they got ready to go on the stage. But seeing two stray pubic hairs on my palm set me over the edge.

I shove my hand to his mouth and wipe off as much of his cum off of my hand. I stand up and leave. I get back in my car, do a couple of lines and realize my bottle of gin and tonic is still in the Smell.