Scarlet Letters: Meat and Potatoes

<body background="graphics/background.gif" bgcolor="#FFFFFF" text="#000000" link="#990000" vlink="#666666" alink="#FFFFFF"> <p><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="724"> <tr> <td width="488"><font face="Georgia" size="2"><table border="0" cellpadding="4" cellspacing="2" width="468"> <tr> <td align="LEFT" width="1" rowspan="3" valign="BOTTOM"><font face="Georgia" size="2" color="#CCCCCC">..</font></td> <td align="CENTER" valign="MIDDLE"><table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="440"> <tr> <td align="CENTER" valign="TOP"><b><font face="Georgia" size="5"><img src="graphics/onthedottedline.gif"></font></b></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="LEFT"><b><font face="Georgia">Meat and Potatoes</font></b></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="RIGHT"><b><font face="Georgia"><a href="bios_a2l.shtml#Cordner" title="click for author info">Geoff Cordner </a></font></b></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="CENTER"><b><font face="Georgia" size="5"><img src="graphics/onthedottedline.gif"></font></b></td> </tr> </table> </td> </tr> <tr> <td> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Eddie moved into a squalid little single on Gardner just below Sunset, straight down the street from the Guitar Center and around the corner from Rock'n'Roll Ralph's.  His wife called him from Vienna the day he moved in.  He didn't even know his number yet, so he couldn't figure out how she got it. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">"Hi, Eddie?" </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">"Alicia!  How are you?  Where are you?" </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">"I'm in Vienna, Eddie," she said.  "I'm good."  She paused.  "I'm really sorry about your mother."  Her voice sounded like it always did, hesitant, soft, and repentant.  She was taking a long time between sentences. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">"Eddie, you gotta minute?" </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">"Yeah." </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">"I got your letters, Eddie." </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">"Yeah?" </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">"Well, it's kinda hard for me to say this, but I've been thinking" </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">A long silence. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">"Eddie," she said in that soft, repentant voice, "I hate you.  I really hate you.  And I just wanted you to know that." </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">A week later, Eddie met Lisa.  Lisa was a meat and potatoes kinda gal.  A big-boned, heavy-breasted blonde; she looked like a farm girl version of a Ralph Lauren model; she had a solidity that those models don't; she had muscles, she was sharp, but hers weren't patrician angles.  She and Eddie had nothing in common but sexual attraction. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">It was meat and potatoes sex.  She'd show up, they'd buy some beer, they'd fuck, they'd order in Thai food from Pink Pepper, they'd fuck again. When they were both too tired, she'd leave.  They never went out, they never rented a video. They never really even had a conversation.  They just drank beer, ate Thai food and fucked.  She always paid for the beer and the food.  Eddie marveled at how nonchalantly she'd take cash advances at the 7-11 ATM.  He couldn't even afford the $2 surcharge. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">He had three pieces of furniture in his apartment.  He had a mattress, a TV, and the Sophia Lauren set.  He found the mattress in a dumpster behind the Veterans of Foreign Wars Thrift Shop in Glendale, kinda near the old house he lived in for a month with his first wife before she threw him out.  He got the TV in trade from North Hollywood Bud, who didn't have any money but had a lot of TVs.  The Sophia Lauren set came from Out of the Closet Thrift Store on Fairfax, and as far as Eddie could tell it wasn't a set at all since none of the pieces matched, but the weird Russian Queen refused to sell them separately.  The Queen kept waving his arms around in a dramatic fashion while sputtering out an impassioned monologue in some language Eddie was pretty sure wasn't English, and the only thing Eddie could understand was "Sophia Lauren, Sophia Lauren, Sophia Lauren", who seemed to somehow be at the center of this incomprehensible torrent of words.  Besides his car, the only other thing he owned was a spare car door. He'd bought a '63 Dart from Nicky, who'd once played drums for the Cramps, and Nicky insisted on giving him a spare door, just in case. Most people had a spare tire, but not Eddie.  He got stuck with a spare door.  He didn't even know how to change a fuckin' door for Chrissakes.  The door was in the kitchen, propped against the stove. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">As far as Eddie could figure, he'd come back to LA to die.  He hadn't wanted to come back to LA and he didn't want to die, but that's just the way it was.  He felt totally ripped off.  His mother had just died, and with her went the past.  It didn't sound like Alicia was coming back, and with her went the future.  Eddie had an unconventional notion of time. The way he figured, the future had already happened; it just hadn't happened yet, and so that bitch Alicia had stolen something that was rightfully his. The present was nothing?just a bridge between what had already happened and what hadn't happened yet.  The present was nothing, and suddenly that was all he had?nothing?stuck on a fucking bridge from nowhere to nowhere. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">"I hate you Eddie.  I hate you.  I just wanted you to know that." That fucking bitch, that soft voiced, hesitant, repentant bitch. She and God had fucked him.  Fucked him.  This was desperate shit.  It was fucking sad what they'd done to him. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Eddie didn't fuck Lisa.  She fucked him.  And that was okay.  The way things were, getting fucked was pretty much what Eddie did.  He was used to it.  His role in life was just to lay there and take it.  At least he enjoyed getting taken by her. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Eddie couldn't start drinking until 3 in the afternoon, and this was starting to give him trouble.  The reason he couldn't start drinking until 3 in the afternoon was not because he couldn't afford it, although he really couldn't afford it, but because of the whore.  The liquor store was on Sunset, all the hookers lining the sidewalk looking for some business lunch action, and there was this one whore on the corner, next to Resurrection Guitars; she looked about 18 tops, but a worn out 18, tottering around on her high heels with a desperate jones, somehow managing to look funereal in skintight fluorescent lycra.  "She's on loan from the dead," Eddie thought to himself, "just like I am," and he'd shudder </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Right about noon he was about to enter the liquor store, looked behind him and saw the whore on her corner underneath the Resurrection sign.  This guy walked by with a puppy, and she squatted down and started playing with it; the puppy jumped up and licked her face, and she came back to life, became the little girl she should've been, she was alive, her flesh had color, she was happy, she laughed, she was youth, it was achingly beautiful.  Eddie stood there slack-jawed; he felt a yearning surge of hope.  And then the guy tugged the leash and pulled the dog away and that tug of the leash robbed her of everything she had left.  She stood and she sagged and she withdrew into herself with a psychic death rattle that swelled into a monstrous pulse of raw desperation; Eddie could see it surging across the street and down the block, straight toward him.  "Oh fuck", he said, "Oh shit!  Jesus fuck!  Shit!"  His eyes were popping outta his head.  He barely ducked into the liquor store in time.  He struggled to regain his fake cool, bought a six-pack, strolled into the back parking lot as quickly as he could and guzzled one down just outside the door.  Whatever it was that just happened was too fucking close for comfort.  Eddie was sure he'd barely escaped death.  Now he had to stay inside until the whore was gone, no matter how bad it hurt.  She was death. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">He was still kinda shaky when Lisa came over. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">It was meat and potatoes sex.  She was the meat and potatoes and he was the plate. She'd push him on his back grab his head and mount it.  There was no seduction. She always had coarse stubble -- everything about her was coarse, even her beauty, and she really was beautiful.  His face would get abraded.  She'd grind and push and rub and grind and push and after a while she'd come with a grunt and a gasp and a hard sudden thrust, and after the second or third time he figured out to push forward on her ass at the crucial moment so that his nose would slide into the wet softness of flesh and not be smashed by the stubbly hardness of bone. Her substantial clit would slide down the bridge of his nose, which would end up deep inside her; he'd feel engulfed, and she seemed to like that. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">He couldn't sleep without being fucked.  He'd doze off for a few hours and then wake up in a pool of cold sweat.  The sheets would be soaked, the mattress he pulled from a dumpster behind the Veterans of Foreign Wars Thrift Shop in Glendale would be soaked, it smelled bad, and in the morning he'd drag it onto back porch and let it air out and dry in the sun.  He was too depressed to eat and he couldn't afford to anyhow; what little money was left over after buying beer was needed to wash the sheets again before Lisa came over. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">The mornings were getting harder.  He couldn't summon up any of the anger that used to get him out of bed.  The anger used to fuel him, and the alcohol was the oil that kept the shit from seizing, but Eddie wasn't very fuel-efficient anymore; he was running on fumes, he was burning oil. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">He relied on her for everything.  He didn't even like her. He thought she was vulgar. Her breasts were too big. He wasn't really into blondes -- he thought they had no class. But she brought him food and beer and fucked him, and he needed that.  "Oh man, I hope I'm not falling in love.  She's so not my type."  Lisa was his sustenance. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">He always thought of her in terms of food.  She had a substantial clit that would swell up in his mouth. He preferred to think of it as one of those baby carrots because he was more or less a vegetarian, but in his mouth it was a little piece of meat.  She would thrust it in there.  He could almost give her a little blowjob.  She would fuck his face.  He'd get stubble burn. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Eddie didn't believe in God, and was starting to hate Him too.  Eddie sat on the floor of his apartment, rolled in a ball, rocking back and forth, bloodshot eyes all bugged out, arms wrapped tight around his knees, pouring sweat, gaze up at the ceiling, beyond which were the Heavens, and mutter "Chickenshit asshole."  He wanted to scream "FUCK YOU GOD!" but didn't for fear of drawing attention to himself.  It was too embarrassing.  The Marshall had been by two nights ago with eviction papers.  She seemed almost apologetic when she handed them to him, and Eddie was grateful for that.  It wasn't her fault, she was just doing her job and he was just doing his, getting fucked up the ass by life.  It was the fault of his landlady.  Fat ass bitch.  She was just bitter because she couldn't get laid.  Bitter fat ass man hating bitches.  More of God's handiwork.  And of all the guys in town, she had to take it out on him, probably because he was an easy target.  He'd already decided he wouldn't fuck her even if his life depended on it.  "I have principles," he said to the TV, and then muttered "Not that they're doin' me any good."  He rolled his eyes to the ceiling. "Cocksucker" </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">She'd sit on his cock, he'd feel the heavy flesh and the hair stubble and get hard, she'd smirk and stuff him inside her and start pounding.  She'd lean forward, dig her fingers hard into his shoulders or biceps or pin his wrists, her blond hair covering all of her face but her open mouth, gasping, intent, sweat would roll down her face, sometimes she'd catch the drops with her tongue, or they'd drop onto his face or chest or slide down between her heavy breasts; it was a hot summer and she'd be soaked, her hair would be wet and if she tossed her head back drops of sweat would fly across the room.  She'd pound and push and grind and then come with a grunt and a gasp and a hard sudden thrust.  She'd lean forward and kiss him with her sweat soaked mouth, and her sweat soaked breasts would rub against his chest, and then maybe she'd slide forward, he'd pop out of her, she'd sit heavily on his stomach or chest, take a long slug of beer, look down at him and smile. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Here's what God should've done.  He should've taken Eddie aside and admitted he'd fucked up.  He should've said "Eddie, all that church crap?  All that turning the other cheek, do unto others, that shit?  Forget about it. I was young and that was just wishful thinking."  Eddie would've nodded, because it made perfect sense, and because, hey, God was speaking and you gotta listen.  "Eddie, forget about doing good, standing up for what you believe in, what's right and just.  I fucked up.  That shit will get you nowhere.  You gotta sell out hard and fast, Eddie.  What you gotta do is this: drink, shoot dope, lie, steal, fuck your best friend's wife up the ass and make him watch while she squeals and begs for more, make him call you Sir and thank you and suck your cock clean when you're done.  Enjoy using it while it's there and leave before it's gone."  But God never sat Eddie down for this little man-to-man, and Eddie wound up the guy sucking his wife's shit off someone else's cock, metaphorically speaking, so far.  What very little dregs of anger and hate he could muster he directed at God.  "Chickenshit asshole," he muttered. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Pounding away, she seemed completely absorbed in her own pleasure, but she knew just when to ease off, slow down, slide long and slow so that he could feel the stubble rub against the head and then the shaft of his cock on the downstroke, and always, always the grunt and the gasp and the hard thrust down beefy bone and stubble slamming against him, jamming him as deep inside her as she could pull him, and then a muscular vaginal squeeze that held him hard and fast and he'd come.  She was milking him.  She was a farm girl.  And then she'd sit there, sweat soaked and heavy, look down at him, take a slug of beer and smirk while he twitched and shuddered beneath her. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">Eddie sat on the floor rocking back and forth.  He'd glance at the ceiling, mutter "fuck you," glance at the clock to see if the whore was still there, 10 minutes since he'd last checked, two hours to go, glance at the damp wad of beer money, and then rock some more. </font></p> <p><font face="Georgia" size="2">She was a meat and potatoes fuck.  Nothing fancy, but all he had for sustenance.  She brought him food, she brought him liquor, she took him inside her and pounded him until she was nearly satisfied and he was nearly spent and then with a grunt and a gasp and a hard thrust, she'd suck him deep inside her meaty sanctuary and consume him. </font></td> </tr> <tr> <td align="CENTER"><b><font face="Georgia" size="5"><img src="graphics/onthedottedline.gif"></font></b></td> </tr> </table> </font></td> <td align="CENTER" valign="TOP" width="226">  </td> </tr> <tr> <td width="488"><font face="Georgia" size="2"><table border="0" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="2" width="474"> <tr> <td align="LEFT" width="8"><font face="Georgia" size="2" color="#CCCCCC">..</font></td> <td align="CENTER">  </td> </tr> </table> </font></td> <td align="CENTER" width="226"></td> </tr> </table> </p> </body>