You never really liked the bite of liquor nor the piss-like quality of beer, but in the name of a good time, sacrifices must be made. Turn 21. Start going to the bar with your friends.

You go on Fridays and Saturdays most weekends but never during the week… Except when you do. Whatever, though. It’s usually always for a worthy cause. You just tend to over-do it a little bit. A lot a bit. Your bar tabs get bigger and bigger with your deepened thirst for booze. That, and the fact that you like to flash your card and say “shots for everyone!” Everybody likes a guy who’s generous.

After a few months of debauchery that never really will amount to much, find yourself a pretty girl, one who knows how to pull your puppet strings and play you any which way. Fall in love hard and fast, become mesmerized by the metronome of her ass as she walks and dances, realize too late that you never had a chance. Your dad will start asking you when you’re going to move out.

Start staying at her house. She lives with roommates rather than a dad and step-mom and that will afford you certain freedoms in the realms of sex and booze and drugs. Come home from work every day to find her a couple beers or shots deep. Of course, you play catch-up.

Wake up three months later wondering where the fuck you are and why exactly your head feels as though it’s imploding and who is this stranger next to you, anyway? You look at your shaking hands. You don’t even know her favorite color.

A shoe screams past your left ear, so swiftly that you hear a soft whoosh before the thud of it slipping past its target. Behind you, the shoe thumps against the wall and a considerably quieter thump rings out as it lands harmlessly on the floor. You envy that shoe, that sponge of sweat, the scourge of nostrils, for the violence of the day is over for it- for you, it has just begun. A split second later, you duck. You didn’t see anything, however the body has a funny way of sensing when an aluminum jewelry case is closing in on its cranium. You’re too hungover for this shit. Who wakes somebody up by throwing a bunch of shit at them, anyway? Your head is pounding where she already hit you with one shoe; either that, or it’s the dehydration and withdrawal from the booze. You tell yourself it’s probably the shoe.

You look at her and wonder how someone could get so angry over something so petty. She caught you looking in her phone, so what? She gave you the password out of the blue recently. She must have had a reason for that because she’s had a different scent about her lately. You knew something was fishy. She’s just mad she got caught fucking around.

A loud crash and the dreaded tinkle-tinkle of earrings and sterling silver chains gets you on your feet. You want to avert your gaze; you just want this to be over. It’s not like you killed somebody. Reluctantly, you look up to meet your assailant’s eyes. The same eyes that used to reflect the moonlight while staring lovingly during love-making into yours were now furrowed under an angry brow and seemed to be spewing sprays of corrosive spittle everywhere they pointed.

You feel the effect of her focused attention- your neck and spine become ignited with the flames of shame. A snake of burning magma slithers up and down, pulsating and creeping. The crown of your head begins to tingle and the very top feels like it’s been blasted with liquid nitrogen, much like the feeling one gets when a dermatologist purges a wart. You forsake the instinct of flight, the one that would have you running out the door and finishing this later (or never), and you look straight into Medusa’s visage. Your eyes glaze over like they used to when your parents would scold you while spraying your face with slaps and spit for spilling milk or being sick. If you unfocus your eyes, it’s like you’re not looking.

“What the fuck?! What the fuck is wrong with you?” her voice breaks a little bit halfway through the last sentence she hurls at you. You focus your eyes again to see her body doubling over and a violent sob thundering through her body. You’ve seen her cry plenty of times, usually over menial and mundane bullshit, but never like this. You’ve never seen anyone cry like this… you didn’t even know people could. Wasn’t she the one that cheated?

At a time when your mind and heart should be voraciously alive and teeming with words, solutions, ways out… you go blank. Your mind is sterile, hospital white and you can almost smell the bleach, though nobody is being saved today. You know you have to say something. The rise and fall of her body’s convulsions quickens your heart as you anxiously scramble through the grab bag of incomprehensible shit for something to say.

Your mind, the paragon of perfection and proper form that it is, confuses the phrases “fucking eh” and “I love you” when they are leaving your mouth and a squeaky, unsure-sounding “fuck you” escapes your lips. Your tone was just as confused as your words, the ‘fuck’ was dripping with frustration and, inversely, the ‘you’ was delivered on a cloud of sweet intentions. You stand dumbfounded for a second, processing what you just said as you watch her head roll up menacingly from her standing fetal position. Within her eyes, you witness the entire hurt of the earth beaming at you with the intensity of the sun’s rays. A rumble erupts through your body, your ears hear a ripping noise, but you know that was just her heart and yours.

You broke them- no, you shattered them to smithereens. Or she broke them. You both broke them? You don’t know.

You keep your eyes shut for a minute. Everything is okay here, behind your eyes, shields from both the light and the dark. You mentally assess your body, sending signals of awareness throughout to see the general state of affairs. You’re basically fine, though you could use a drink.

A sob forces your eyes open after the initial wrenching outburst releases you from its clutches. A flurry of tears and dry heaves escapes your body. They don’t go smoothly- you can feel a ripping sensation in the back of your throat as another snot-ridden sob forces itself out. Maybe two drinks would be better.

“Fuck you, you nosy fuck!” you hear an exasperated, hurt, and confused cry wail out after her words. Either the banshee has finally come to claim your soul or the hole you’ve dug is quickly getting deeper. You don’t dare look her in the eyes; you remember what happened the last time. You briefly entertain the thought of a plea of temporary insanity, but you know in the pit of your gut that you are fucked. Make that three drinks.

She comes from a place where precision and semantics are paramount, whereas you are more of a concepts kind of person. Simply stating that you fumbled your words would be the worst thing you could say. So you go with a “I don’t know… I’m sorry babe,” in the most remorseful tone you can conjure. Wait, didn’t SHE cheat on YOU? You cover your face with your hands as you turn to face her; you will allow yourself the customary peek through the fingers, but to face her directly would be too much. Her face is splotchy and her eyes are ablaze with the glowing crimson of heartbreak and tears. She is shaking. Her phone starts buzzing incessantly, the sweet sound of interruption; the knife that cuts the tension. Suddenly, you feel like you’re going to be okay. Four drinks for good fortune.

She leaves to take care of some business; evidently somebody showed interest in one of her paintings and you are off the hook… for now. She didn’t even so much as say good bye. So what do you do now?

Pour yourself a tall glass of whiskey, of course. Light on the ginger ale. A celebratory toast to another crisis averted. As long as she keeps busy and you keep evading her, perhaps you won’t have to address the situation. At this point in the day, only the true alcoholics drink. That, or retired people. Or the silicon-infused so-cal mothers. Or you. Finish your glass up, smoke a joint to the face, and lace up your shoes.

Luckily for you, or perhaps to your demise, the townhouse you two inhabit rests comfortably in the midst of the bar-ridden downtown area. You walk out the door, though you can’t remember whether you locked it or not, and you make your first stop at Finnegan’s. It’s a local watering hole that has a great juke-box and only the cheapest of booze, so you can get shitfaced for a minimum. The bartender sees you walk in the door and grabs a Stroh’s and a shot of well whiskey that arrive to your seat just as you do. “What’s goin’ on? Little early for you here, ain’t it?” she says in a tone derivative of nonchalance. She doesn’t care whether you’re here early or not, just give her some tips and begone as far as she’s concerned.

“Eh, the woman and I got into it. I got saved by a phone call cuz somebody wanted to look at one of her pieces privately. So here I am,” lethargy dripping from your words, you offer a long story short version to the bartender. The basis of the relationship is not lost on either of you… yet. Perhaps once bartenders become friends, that’s when you become an alcoholic. And the thought passes with the shot and you sit and brood. About what? Nothing in particular, you’re just brooding. Sitting, passing the time, drinking. Trying not to think.

After another shot and the last drop of your beer, you decide you’ve whetted your thirst at this spot and will meander your way through the maze of bars and boutiques downtown. The next stop is a fancier one, “Maison de Boire” where the wine costs more than the meat. But again, you ask for the well. You just want a change of scenery to go along with your booze, but the common denominator is that you only drink from the well. The cheap booze, the crap, the syrup of hangovers and bad decisions. Perfect for the gutter in which you reside. You sit at the bar and the man with the curled moustache tries to upsell you. You tell him no and then don’t tip him; what does he think you are, a normie? Or maybe he’s a normie. You take a shot and move on, you’ve gotten all you can out of this place.

Along your way to the next spot, you realize you might be single. Whatever happens, happens, and you’d much prefer to deal with it while swimming deeply in a pool of liquor than when simply dipping your toes in. With the end of that thought train comes your next destination, Donny’s. Donny’s is where your type hang out, where the other vile creatures roam, the fuck-ups and the has-beens and those who just don’t know where the fuck else to go.

A comforting, familiar aroma reaches your nostrils as you are just about to open the door and you hear your name being called from a car driving by. It’s her. “Awwww damn…” you whisper to yourself, annoyed, the reality of your existence is catching up with you when all you want to do is run away. Oh, well. She takes a sharp right and turns into the parking lot with a little more speed than is necessary and you slowly and reluctantly trudge over to her car.

Evidently someone had seen her collection and thoroughly enjoyed it; so much so, in fact, that they wanted to buy it out. For over twenty thousand dollars. And it looks like she made it. And after her beaming regurgitation of the wonderful news she’d received, she lets you know that it is one hundred percent over between the two of you. And that she cannot wait to see what the future holds for her. And that she hopes that you can climb out of the ditch you seem to be occupying. You ask her to take you back to the apartment because you forgot something and you want to bring it with you to stay the night at your dad’s house. You’ll get the rest of your shit later.

Say that she fell down; slipped, rather, across the slick mahogany floor. Tell the officers that she was charging at you like a wild animal and you have no clue what happened but that she had stupidly used some furniture polish to clean the floors and they’ve been a slip trap ever since. Tell the officers about how she cheated on you with the guy she shares her studio with; you found out after you went through her phone and that you saw a paint-imprint of the man’s monstrous cock across her ass cheeks as she slipped her clothes off and slid into the shower, trying to sneak by you before you could see. But you knew, that day. You knew every day. She smelled different. Today was no different.

At the bottom of the jagged set of polished stairs was a rag doll that seemed to have been stuffed with jam like a jelly piñata, oozing out the innards that were meant to keep her body going. The woman- the girl- the artist- the prize- you see the life has escaped from her eyes. And you start to tremble a little bit. Not with fear or anxiety or sadness or anything negative like that, but with a brimming sort of energy that gives you a swift vibration, as though the lines that define your field of vision were slowly melting and everything were melding together- the great “oneness” that all of those Buddhists like to so avidly discuss. You ask yourself… Is this enlightenment?

The sight of her contorted body gives your stomach a butterfly-wing flutter, the electricity coursing through your veins gives you a tingling sensation near your reproductive chakra, the sacral chakra, and suddenly you feel consumed with lust. Ne’er would she produce you a living offspring, but if you hurry, she might be able to take something with her over to the other side that would be your little shadow prince of the abyss. Your pants grow tighter around your waist and you feel a surging pulse echo louder and louder with the drumbeat in your ear.

You stand perched on the top step, looking at each change in elevation that separates you from your spoils of war. The first seven or eight are relatively clear of anything unusual aside from a divot here or an impact crater there, however on the ninth the gore begins to show. You walk down the eight steps and you stop. The blood on the ninth looks like it was splattered carelessly like by a child doing jumping jacks after immersing their hands in a crimson colored paint or a hemophiliac with a bloody nose’s sneezy aftermath. You bend down and run your finger through some of the still-warm liquid and raise the finger to your mouth. You rub it on your lips as though it were lipstick and swirl your tongue around seductively to lick it off. Tastes like copper.

Down just a few more stairs you see her face was wrinkled in pain and confusion when she fell. When you pushed her, she didn’t even have time to shout. She walked out of the bathroom while still buttoning her pants and before she knew it, you immediately gripped her by the arms and held them tightly to her sides as you swiftly slid her to the edge of the staircase. Her final words were locked in her throat- the last sound she would ever make aside from the bone-crunching thud would be the air escaping from her lungs in the form of a death rattle. And you are going to fuck it out of her, even if it’s the last thing you do.

The white robe is polka-dotted with red now, a final artistic endeavor for your sweet, lovely, cheating, lying girlfriend. Probably the most impactful one yet. Her breasts hang relaxed to the sides of her torso and her pubic hair is trimmed in the popular landing-strip style. Her face is unscathed but the back of her head is a mess- a chunk of skull had become dislodged in the chaos and had broken off, leaving a nice gaping hole from which blood did leak and brains did protrude.

You slowly unbuckle your belt as your heart races faster and faster. She’s never looked so sexy, you tell yourself. Nor so peaceful. You should have done this a long time ago. You unbutton the pants and unzip them, pulling your pulsing member out and letting the pants fall to your ankles. You spread her legs apart and spit on your hand, rubbing the wetness on the mushroom tip and you fall to your knees. From this angle you can hardly tell she’s not breathing- well, aside from the blood leaking from the back of her head. You rub yourself on her wings before you thrust yourself deeply inside. You rock back and forth and back and forth for a couple of minutes and take her breast in your mouth. You cum almost immediately.

They say that the man always craves the teet- that he wants to reenact his relationship with his mother through his sexual perversions. That he always reverts back to the status of a babe. Your mother, too, died of a freak accident, though hers was a falling chandelier. And they never thought to give her a rape kit. After all, who would defile their own mother so?

The circle has fulfilled itself. You should probably call an ambulance now. You start dialing as your seed drips from her flower down to the floor. She moans.