Dorian shoved a falafel into his mouth while walking down Stanton Street, distracted by a vibration in his pocket. He pulled out his phone to find a text from Althea:
CAN YOU PICK UP DINNER?
Looking down at his half eaten Turkish treat, Dorian rolled his eyes.
Slipping a box of rice noodles into his plastic basket in the Asian grocery down the block, Dorian's pocket vibrated again as he reached the Chinese ladies at the checkout isle. Another text from Althea:
MIDDLE EASTERN?
"Oh, give me a break," Dorian said out loud, as one of the ladies passed the noodle box under the barcode scanner.
As Dorian walked down the Essex Street sidewalk, a gorgeous young barista with a spiky Afro, hollered from her takeout window.
"Dorian!"
He turned to see her familiar cherubic face, and she reached out to gift him the iced espresso she'd just finished crushing for a customer.
Dorian smiled broadly.
His groceries hung on the back of his chair as Dorian and the barista laughed it up, snuggled in at a neighboring bar, sucking down enchiladas and sangria as she raved about the pair of cum goggles that the guitar player from the Deadly Condiments had given her a week before. Dorian didn't even know what cum goggles were, but he liked the sound of giving her a pair. An attractive male bartender-model leaned in towards their conversation, his eyes on Dorian.
"But it's really the bass player from the Deadly Condiments who makes me want to cream my panties," the barista was saying.
"Mine too," the hunky bartender articulated with a slight effeminate curl of the lips.
They all laughed. Dorian's phone vibrated on the bar as he ignored yet another communication from Althea. The screen lit up with the words:
I'M EATING.
In the barista's bedroom, four jugs of sangria later, Dorian found himself entwined between both the coffee maker and the bartender, underneath her combed cotton sheets.
Strewn on the floor, his cellphone was poking out from the pocket of his pants. He couldn't see the screen, but he was faintly aware of it vibrating through the denim, shifting a couple of millimeters across the barista's floorboards for a second nagging time. Nor for that matter could he see who's mouth was on his cock now, but in that moment, he was completely unconcerned with either unknowable variable. And in fact, the mystery made the sensation encircling the head of his prick that much more exciting.
If he had been able to read the text, it may have succeeded in communicating to him the depths of Althea's abandonment:
SUGAR? I SAVED YOU SOME FOOD.
Instead, he found himself wedged underneath the barista staring into her gorgeous green eyes, her body lilting up and down from the force of the brawny gentleman purifying the tail end of her bowels with his considerable girth, the lower extremities of which were slapping against Dorian's own nutsack with a force that almost hurt. He was faintly aware of the opening theme to Saturday Night Live seeping in from the living room as he came harder than he had in months.
Dorian woke at dawn wishing he could have slept longer. He pushed the Barista's arm off his chest and climbed over the bartender to reach for the floor. He picked up his phone to check the screen. Althea's last reach-out of the night had come in around three and now sat prominently on the screen:
YOU'RE A FUCKING ASSHOLE.
Dorian winced.
Brutally hungover back on Ludlow, Dorian climbed the sixth set of stairs in yesterday's clothes, feeling vaguely ashamed of himself as he tried to reconstruct the night and figure out just how gay he was. He fumbled inside his pocket searching for his keys, his eyes closing into two tired little slits as he shoved the key towards the lock.
But something was wrong. Hard as he pushed, the end of the key wouldn't enter. What the fuck?
He dipped his throbbing head. A small soiled envelope with the words 'HELLO' scrawled in pencil sat at his feet.
Was this a new key from the super? He wondered why on earth Ndusen would have changed his lock without any warning. Had Dorian gotten some notice he'd either ignored? And what was Ndusen doing, changing tenants locks in the middle of the night?
The questions were hurting his head. All he wanted was to lie down. So he bent and picked up the strange little mail dispatch.
"Hello," he replied back to it as he ripped open the envelope. At first he couldn't see anything, so he pressed the sides in. Dorian let out a yell. The envelope dropped to the floor.
A tiny decomposed face poked out from the torn sleeve. Dorian was dizzy, fighting the urge to puke all over his own front door as he kicked at the envelope and the minuscule skeleton of a dead rat slid out onto the welcome mat. A baby rat. No larger than a thumb.
It was coming in waves now, but he had to stop the impending discharge at all costs. The idea of having to clean a pile of puke encircling dead baby rat seemed so much worse than what he faced now.
He put an arm out to stop the spins. The cold wall steadied him, and he took a deep inhalation. This wasn't really happening, he consoled himself. None of this was real. But the itty-bitty carcass was undeniably still there when he looked back at the floor.
Dorian spun round, suddenly feeling there must be eyes on him. That he was the butt of some macabre practical joke. Or perhaps this was a message. A death threat. But from who? Ivan the hoarder next door, watching from his closed-circuit camera? The kid from the pizza shop? Even Althea crossed his mind before he realized just how absurdly stupid he was being in his nauseated state.
He knew exactly who'd done it.
Looking like he'd just scraped himself off the sidewalk out front, Dorian ambled into A&D Dress Co. feeling rather out of place among the re-imagined vintage stylings in the candy-pink boutique. He walked towards Althea who sat behind her laptop at the counter. Helping a customer at the mirror, Dwyer gave Dorian a strange look; something between a friendly warning and a bitter spoonful of spite--he couldn't tell exactly which was winning out. Dorian did his best to ignore Dwyer and carry on towards the counter.
"There's something wrong with my front door. I can't seem to get my key in the damn lock. Can I go take a shower over at your place?"
"There's something wrong with your head." Althea said. She didn't even look up from her screen.
"Oh yeah, I'm sorry about dinner last night."
"Dinner? Oh, I'm over dinner. In fact, I'm over this entire charade."
Althea began to tear up.
"What are you talking about?"
"You and I both know this just isn't working out anymore."
"It's working fine."
"I think I'll come back," the flustered customer said as she handed a flared gypsy skirt back to Dwyer.
"The way you act. The things you do," Althea said.
"What did I do? I didn't do anything."
"I don't ask much of you, Dorian. I know we're little more than friends with benefits, but--"
"That's not true."
"Who you trying to kid?"
She was so flustered her Tennessee drawl was peaking through. So damn cute. It made him want her--her and her shower--all the more.
"Are you asking for space?" Dorian said, the words sounding a tad more desperate than he'd hoped.
"No. I'm asking you to remove yourself from my life."
Althea looked away as the tears began to flow. Dorian was genuinely shocked.
"OK, then. I'm gonna give you some time to think about this."
Dorian looked at Dwyer for help, who attempted empathy, adding a little gritting of teeth for effect, providing zero relief.
"So that's it then?" he said to Althea. "You're breaking up with me because I didn't respond to a couple of your texts? Am I getting in the way of your dancing plans with Razor Rozycki, and this little tearful pantomime is just an inconvenient hurdle you feel you have to hop over first? Be my guest. I don't give a shit who you see. I'm a modern new-age guy. I get it."
Perhaps it was a defense mechanism, but his mind had already started to wonder elsewhere anyway. For some reason the sight of Althea's tears evoked that very first time he'd made a girl cry in his bed. Freshman year at college. Halloween. Her name started with an “L”. She was all slutted up in a little devil's costume, with sparkly red horns poking out of a headband, and somehow they'd lost all the other Star Wars characters and goblins, and found themselves alone sharing a pitcher of cheap draft, talking about her painfully recent breakup. An hour later they'd ditched the off-campus pub for his tiny dorm-room bed. A couple of thrusts, and that's when the waterworks broke. The timing couldn't have been worse. Why couldn't she have cried it out at the bar? Her tears tarnishing a perfectly good sexy Halloween costume for the rest of Dorian's life. Tears that hadn't even been for him, but for the last jackass. Her high school sweetheart. Try as he might, Dorian couldn't remember the last time a girl had shed any genuine tears for him.
And that's when it hit: what he felt for Althea really could be called something genuine. Althea was the closest Dorian had ever come to the thought of popping out a litter of Dorian juniors. But, he knew he'd never be able to kick the tight-muscled hot-flesh machines that walked past his front door every night by the dozen. Who were all too happy to have a bonafide (if increasingly stale) art star helping them dodge the rats and macho rabble rousers that barely figure out how to fondle their own cock, let alone please a young woman approaching her sexual prime. No, it was just too easy down here, where a different stranger could be straddling you seven nights a week with just five simple words at the pool table: "wanna get out of here...?"
Yes he did.
The tears were really beginning to roll down Althea's puffy, and somehow strangely renewed cheeks now, making her look less like a woman on the cusp of middle age and more like a pubescent school girl, his reflection glinting in each tiny drop of brine. He likened the sensation he was having now to a bad hit of ecstasy. This breaking up crap was never part of the male/female experience he particularly relished, but with Althea it was nails on the chalkboard.
"Look..." he started.
But he knew when things got this broken, they rarely bounced back, beyond an ill advised "for old time's sake" fuck.
And now Althea just stared at him through her deep heartfelt sadness.
He couldn't take it. He pivoted and exited the store.
As he sat at his kitchen table watching Ndusen rip out his deadbolt, despite his best efforts, he couldn't seem to stop his memory banks from serving a smorgasbord of lost days with Althea--mostly of a sexual nature, like the dirty choose-your-own-adventure stories she used to tell him while he pulled on it, or the fact that she could come from anal sex. But cloying sappy things as well. Pizza and streaming in bed on Sunday mornings. A Bear Mountain road trip upstate to a friend's cabin. Heading to Red Hook for key lime pie, but staying for all-night drag queen karaoke at the Hope & Anchor. He had to do something to put an end to this agonizing tribute, get his mind somewhere else--anywhere else--before he crawled into a ball on the kitchen floor and died.
"Hey Ndusen."
Ndusen removed one of the deadbolt screws resting in his mouth.
"Yes?"
"I don't want to interrupt you."
Such a stupid thing to say, considering he already had.
"What is it?"
"Well, maybe it's none of my business--"
Ndusen looked up at him.
"But I wanted to know," Dorian said, "if you ever heard anything about what happened to Sal Agnelli?"
Ndusen fingered the unopened lock housing, still encased in plastic on the floor.
"I was never told anything by the police, if that is what you are asking?"
"Oh, yeah I guess. They didn't tell you anything?"
Dorian almost felt bad pressing the issue with Ndusen, as if he was in some way insinuating that Ndsuen had something to do with the disappearance. But it was either that or let the parade of sickeningly sweet reveries creep back down mental main street.
"You're the one who made the report right?"
"Yes."
"Why?"
"Because Mr. Agnelli went missing. His apartment was not touched. But also… he was not there. For many weeks."
"And you knew something was wrong? That maybe somebody'd done something to him?"
Ndusen cracked open the plastic, pulling out the new deadbolt. He began fitting it into the empty circle in the wood. He didn't say anything for a long time. Dorian wasn't sure if this was because he was concentrating on the work, or carefully measuring his response. Satisfied with the lock's position, Ndusen picked up his screwdriver to begin fastening it into place.
"Did somebody do something to old Sal, Ndusen?" Dorian asked again.
"I felt that might be. Yes." Ndusen finally said. "So I brought the matter to the police."
BEHIND THE KEYBOARD
I’ve had so many break ups and my day… so this chapter was really easy to write. A ton of unpleasantries to draw on, as any girl who was with me before my wife can attest I was more interested in sewing my wild oats than locking anything down. It made for a great late adolescence (into my late 20s) but I’m not sure I’d recommend it to my kids especially in the upcoming agence of super syphilis.
What I will say is it was wonderful getting to know as much as I did about so many mostly wonderful women. Intimacy is a strange beast, especially in our modern detached era, and I can safely say I’m very happy with where I ended up as a result of all that exploration. Poor Dorian still seems to be floundering and perhaps he’ll never be happy.
Or will he? Guess you’ll have to read on to find out!
Yours In The Chain,
Doug Karr
SPECIAL THANKS to my wife @zenmommas for years of support during the writing process, @ericvancewalton for his trailblazing, inspired collaboration and incredible guidance, @andrarchy for his mind blowing insight and friendship, @bakerchristopher for being an inspiration as a human artist and bro, @complexring for his brilliance and enthusiasm, Masie Cochran, Taylor Rankin and @elenamoore for their skillful help in editing the manuscript, and to @opheliafu for the fantastic illustrations she created exclusively for the novel's launch on Steemit and to Elena Megalos for her wonderful character illustrations. I’d also like to thank Eddie Boyce, Jamie Proctor, Katie Mustard, Alan Cumming, Danai Gurira, Stephan Nowecki, Ron Simons, Dave Scott, Alden Karr, Missy Chimovitz, my dad Andy Karr and late mother Wendy, and everyone else who helped lead me to this moment.
I am a Brooklyn based writer, film & commercial director, and crypto-enthusiast, my projects include @HardFork-series an upcoming narrative crypto-noir and my novel Dwelling will soon be premiering exclusively on Steemit, and you can check out more of my work at dougkarr.com, piefacepictures.com, and www.imdb.com/name/nm1512347
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