Fragment

I don't know what this is - a piece of flash fiction? A short fragment of something longer? It just came to me complete, in this form, after a conversation about how much one needs to say or reveal in order to make something 'erotic'. To that extent it's an experiment, and may or may not reappear in some way in another piece at some stage. Literati among you may be aware there's a passage along similar lines in Pynchon's 'Gravity's Rainbow'.

***

We argued in the nightclub. It was one of those arguments about nothing and something. Maybe it was my fault. She stalked across the dancefloor, hips thrusting purposefully. Didn't come back to our hotel room that night.

Next day she showed up mid-afternoon while I was reading a Thomas Pynchon novel on the balcony. Dishevelled, stains on her dress, mascara streaks on her face, strung-out with quick enervated gestures. Gave me a long tale about drinking in a small bar, giving a handjob to a stranger in the toilets. Drinking until it made sense to her to get arrested, and provoking the police. Said she'd been handcuffed and beaten, sucked them off and they fucked her with their nightsticks. It didn't add up because her bruises weren't in the right places.

But she had a couple of pairs of cuffs in her handbag. And whatever had happened to her, whatever she'd imagined or actually done, the glint in her eyes said the argument was forgotten and she was eager for it to happen again.

Afterwards I left her cuffed to the bed, exhausted, covered in perspiration and body fluids. I poured myself a brandy, went out on the balcony and finished the chapter.