Strange Cravings

By: Rosalind Black

#1 Nothing’s Bullshit

Cowering branches wept as the steeple shamed their russet death. October wind swept through the wrought iron cross; below hung black expressions of sacrament, water stained green.

She never understood why this religious eyesore should cast judgement on autumn, the way that giant black erection penetrated the tree, as if it had the right to fuck with nature. It broke off from the brownstone church, like a huge blackhead on a sunburnt cheek. Just below the looming phallus rested a granite crucifix at the head of the building. It was short, compensating by eerily resembling a target.

It seemed gratuitous; the sex and violence provoked her into thinking that maybe Jesus was impressed by that extra crucifix. She thought that perhaps, he would be like a cat to water.

She liked gratuity.

Huddling for warmth in the bland, bluish-beige chill of an empty classroom, she sat alone. She didn’t know who she was waiting for, and she didn’t expect to be greatly moved. Nature moved her.

The cheap plastic clock displayed noon. From her angle it seemed parallel to the church’s raging boner. Two hands and a boner.

A soft giggle descended, and a shadow broke,

“What’s so funny?” He asked as he walked brusquely across the head of the room. His face was narrow, almost feminine; his thin, pink rose lips widened above his pale half-moon chin in a smirk. The steeple, reflected off the violet sheen of his eyes seemed secondary, shrinking beneath the wavy charcoal of his hair. Like looking straight into a lunar eclipse, his striking locks outlined his escarped cheekbones.

“Nothing.” She replied bluntly. As his slender body slid like a stream into the adjacent chair, she saw herself in his eyes, secondary. And stultified.

“That’s bullshit, Annie.” He chuckled. She hated being interrupted.

“So what are you doing in here?” He eased out in a slouch and a pucker.

“Inquisitive…” In a moment her lips parted again,

“Fuck, I’m bored. What’d you come in for anyway?”

“Because I saw you.” He grinned like an asshole. The sun was falling.

“What do you want with me?” Legs parted, pointed directly at him, her voice fell below a whisper. In the mirror of his eyes hers were darkling.

“I dunno. I guess we could just talk.” A tremor struck his lilt from a pulsing tongue. She leaned back liberally, her hands floating from breast to thigh to knee. She seemed parallel to the big black steeple.

“We could just talk. How many people do you think are doing the same thing?” A shadow cast over her cheeks.

“You mean, talking?”

“Yeah. Right now.” The knight rolled his eyes indecisively and with absolute puzzlement. He replied,

“Fucked if I know. A lot?”

“A question for an answer? Are we playing Jeopardy?” Something in her chiding cadence stiffened him.

“Praying?” He could have sworn he heard.

“No, playing. Praying is meaningless.” And her sinister smirk felt like a cigarette.

“Uh, whatever. Um, how many people do you think are praying?” His voice became as close as white noise under a softer giggle.

“Right now?" She puffed out.

“Yes.”

“Hmm, fucked if I know. A few too many.” Soft cynical poetry. He, personally, had no gripe with churches, no care for conflict, no opinion to show for his ethics class, cold, blue, empty. But that cigarette smile made him want to.

“So, how about that kid this morning? That was funny, huh?” A nervous tic of a smirk tried to cross his lips. It leapt onto hers, loosening her grip on them.

“I guess I admire his honesty. It’s sort of rare… Hmm, what do you think that steeple looks like?”

“Uhh, oh come on!” He sniggered. He leaned back again pensively, asking squarely,

“So you’re gonna tell me that to believe is to fuck yourself?” Soft cynical poetry.

“Your words. But I guess, speaking of that kid, it’s all got me thinking. Maybe we’re all screwed. The hole just gets more exciting with the times. But at least some without the steeple have the balls to call it fucking.” He stared at her, muscle hardened, sweating in the chilly room. He could only grasp the minor half of her criticism, but the passion of it left him glowing. At the lowest frequency, the shadows of his face danced to tell a story,

“So I guess, if we’re going to die anyway, then why bother coming all over life? Maybe,” On the cusp of it, “maybe,” brows furrowed, narrowing in, “maybe we should have the stones to kill the institution?” There.

“How many people do you think are out there fucking? Right now?” Annie’s fingers danced across her belly while her lips formed such a phrase.

“Um, a lot…and I wouldn’t mind being fucked for knowing.” That same asshole grin.

She leaned inward, toward the knight, her lacy tank cradling her chest.

“I bet they’re dousing the system in rebellion. Even the devout.”

“Uh-huh. Totally.” He nodded under staggering breath. So typical, so usable, what a fine and unusual acquaintance.

“Fuck you is in the title! The institution –these walls and every catechism falls down when people do it! And the system, it needs that, doesn’t it? It can’t live without it! Doesn’t it turn you on?” Her voice was a constant crescendo, heavy with breath, killing the dead air.

“So it would be like a political statement?” The tremor returned; this was the willing raising his bloody love. And she’d been looking down the whole time.

“And doesn’t it turn you on?” Her back arched as she leaned further in. The depth of a heart-beat was too high for the latest timbre of her voice, like spreading gravel on a concrete staircase.

“You’re so different, Annie.” A chuckle brought her back to the bloody knight. He was armed for a revolution he didn’t give a stone’s worth about, and the star-crossed sensation of desire ate him through. But he couldn’t see a cliché from ten miles away.

“How right do you want to be?”