SmokeyJ was no novice to the pleasures a woman could offer. By his seventeenth birthday he had had eight.... and each experience so different, so sweet, so empowering, it became a secret obsession of his. A cat and mouse game that fuelled him with purpose.

His persona, however, was one of a man who would never be so driven by the opposite sex, the outcome being that sex came to him. 

Complacency: the easiest way to get the girl.

As a result he punched well above his weight and left them bewildered, wet and broken - wondering how had this happened to them by him - yet ready to dart back to him at the snap of a finger; nipples hard and backs poised.

Returning from a day spent with Smokey J, blushing and ripe, they would rush to the bathroom, scrub the mud off and pick the leaves from their hair. At dinner they would sit with their families, the normal discussions wafting past them and they tingled all over and replayed the day over and over in their heads. 

Smokey would enjoy their adoration, play up to it. He would notice the effort they made with their hair, their clothes, he lapped up their wide-eyed curiosity as he regaled them with stories of himself. Yes he enjoyed it immensely, until they became a threat to his independence. An invitation to dinner, a rebuke for not being in contact for too long, a whispered I miss you. Tears were the tipping point, replaced by mews and moans as he fucked them away but she’d know the damage was done, they both did. He would politely and subtly drift away.  

Smokey J broke hearts, but could never be accused of mistreatment - he walked a fine line nonchalantly and, in later years, women would smile to themselves as they remembered him fondly. He had opened their eager young eyes, and thighs, and they had blossomed into the sensual little nymphs they had always suspected they might be.

Oh, Smokey.

He’d lost it to his father’s bosses wife, Mrs Gillet-Rousseau, when he was fifteen. He was tasked with driving her home from a dinner and her breath had smelt of champagne and caviar when she ordered him to stop the car and park up on the side of the narrow country road.

He remembers the smudged lipstick on her thin, upturned lips and the predatory nature of her glinting eyes sparkling in unison with her earrings.

She slipped one leg serenely across him, lifted her silky dress above her thighs and whispered in his ear, sit still. He didn’t need the command - all but one part of him was utterly paralysed in anticipation. The deep silence was interrupted only by the clinking of his belt buckle, hands pulling at fabric... he held his breath. Her lace knickers were deftly moved aside before she lifted herself onto him, and he sank into an unfamiliar warmth that he had spent so much time imagining. As she moved her hips forward and up, then back again, finding her rhythm, he found his hands sliding up her slim waist and upper back, the silken fabric enabling his fingers a smooth journey upwards until he was cupping her small breasts in his hands as she lent back against the steering wheel. Her dress began to stick to his palms as they both perspired in the night’s heat. He remembered the dense air in the car smelling sweet, like honeysuckle.

As her breathing broke out into cries of exultation, he experienced a familiar surge in his body, but with increased intensity at sharing it with another. In one deep thrust coupled with an unexpected yelp, it was all over. She lay across his chest, breathing heavily. For too short a time though, before he could absorb the moment she was back in the passenger seat, dress arranged neatly back across her thighs. She expertly lit two camels balanced in her mouth, and passed one to him. They sat in silence, inhaling and exhaling. He felt the new sensation of smoke entering his lungs and filling his body gradually, head rush replacing the previous intensity between his legs and calming his beating heart.

She wasn’t to know that in that car on that summer’s night in 1963, she would contribute to - maybe even be solely responsible for - Smokey J’s early demise at the hands of an insidious cancer born in his lungs and quick to invade his entire, captivating, body.

He hadn’t gone a day since that night without a packet of camels in his top-right shirt pocket, to which he regularly turned to fuel an addiction, fuelled by an experience, fuelled by Mrs Gillet-Rousseau. 

There is a leaving do, for, umm, whats-her-name, in Publishing. It's a drizzly Wednesday and Francesca likes the outfit she's wearing. She's also thirsty.

She pouts in the mirror of the ladies toilet a few minutes before everyone plans to leave, and dry-shampoos her hair for one last time. The powder remains floating around in the room as she leaves, eventually settling on the windowsill and the toilet seat, and some on the sink. There's also a smattering of it on the floor. 

How does one drink with one's colleagues? Francesca hasn't been there that long, and she's super parched.

The trick is to get on to two rounds, Francesca goes to the bar with one person, and they order, she then drinks that first elixir within ten minutes - tops. It’s a thirst, and it’s unquenchable. There’s nothing worse than trying to chat to colleagues when all you can think about is how soon you're going to have the next drink in your hands. Am I right? Well, Francesca thinks so... She gets fidgety and she can’t look them in the eye, her attention darts to other people’s drinks; how are they drinking so slowly? Her colleague has barely sipped her way through a finger of her G&T, whilst Fran's Bloody Mary is finished, done. It’s warm glow is coursing through her limbs, and she's in need of another instalment. She eyes the bar. So close. But to go alone attracts attention, raised eyebrows... 

Yes! Francesca gives too many fucks people! But she drank earnestly with two male colleagues a month or so back, and they keep reminding her, and the rest of the office, about her uncanny ability to surge through double the booze they did. She wonders, do they remind Craig, from Sales, about that time he got a handjob under the table at the office Christmas party (from Alan, also in Sales)? Or Lara, in HR about the email she accidentally sent as a 'Reply to all', with a picture of someone's tattooed butt-hole. Not hers though! She swears! Apparently Francesca's ability to neck a few pints after a long, hard Monday is more important to share out loud; in the cafeteria, in the lift, in meetings (internal and external).

She is pigeon-holed in a conversation right now - she's nodding - she thinks it's about the database, but she's not so sure... She can’t just stop everything mid-sentence and leave for a lonely bar trip? Can she? 

A late-comer turns up: ‘drinks anyone?’ They scan the drinks and their eyes come to rest on Francesca's glass, hosting a straw, celery stick and some melting ice, tarnished with the gritty red remnants of a thirsty, thirsty girl. 

"Same again, Fran?" 

"Oh!" She looks at her glass, surprised, "go on then!"

Meanwhile, her initial bar partner is further down the table, only three fingers in. When they glance over fifteen minutes later Francesca has just polished off what is in fact her second Bloody Mary, disguised as her first. And now it’s her round and they move on to G&T’s.

It is about the time in a relationship where the chemicals kick-in a little stronger, last longer; phenylethylamine, norepinephrine, dopamine.

I’m high. High as a motherfucking kite on that shit. Moments apart have started to become a paranoid comedown. Not unfamiliar, usually something ridden out alone, no one's fault but my own. But this - this is your doing! And you can give me my quick fix, take it away in a second. One text, phone call. 

Give me my dope you bastard! *Winky face*

Check, check, check. I silence your fictitious messages, as if that might help me forget I’m waiting for one.

I writhe around not sleeping. A moment of fuck it lands. My stream of consciousness, vomited your way. Your problem now. 

Phenylethylamine, norepinephrine, dopamine.

In the light of day I see my dignity destroyed in those words. Self respect, as a river, flowing out of me, into the ether, to land in your phone, in your hands. I have given you the power. 

You were cool with it though, this time. OMG! 

I’m an addict.

A problem shared… The concoction of concern and disgust on my mother’s face makes me retreat into my shame.

“Well, I really think you should get yourself some counselling, darling”

That’s it.

My self-respect further diminished by your silence, I still. Reach. Out.

Phenylethylamine, norepinephrine, dopamine.

It’s a foursome, babe.

Hello fellow Prosians (Prosaics?)...

So pleased to stumble upon this platform via my very talented acquaintance @PaulDChambers - I've already read some incredible work on here and excited to experience more. 

Love fantasy fiction, horror, anything set in the 60s or 70s and dark comedy. Can't beat a good dose of erotica too ;-) Big fan of Easton Ellis, Jay McInerney, Hiromi Kawakami, some of Chuck Palahniuk, Margaret Atwood. I realise how male-heavy that list is and am really keen to read more female authors. 

Writing for me means many things, sometimes it's the only outlet for a stormy mind, on other occasions it's about the creation of a separate experience I have never lived, and never will - writing and reading enables an exploration of that world. 

Sometimes it helps to pen real experiences that have perhaps been painful, and seeing them on the page seems to ease the pain and turn it into something I can be proud of instead. I can often read back and find a lot of humour in some of my terrible decisions and impulses, which makes it all okay, right? 

Please do get in touch and send any recommendations my way. I've written one post but my mind is whirring on more (always).

Thanks,

Kristina

Running. In this heat. This summer was glorious. Full of hope.

It’s been hot, long and hot. Now the storm is edging in… taking over. It hit yesterday and that wasn’t the last of it. Fucking. Mr Cranwood.

I thought that would open up some sort of adult world for me; martinis and wearing a big man’s shirt and nothing underneath. It didn’t.

I think he went into teaching to remain in perpetual childhood. For all his muscle, his dick isn’t that big.

Bunny. She’s driving me mental. All these plans; University, winter skiing in Aspen again, next summer abroad together. I can’t tell her the truth. I can’t tell anyone.

I can hear my mother now. That asinine voice of hers: ‘But what do you mean Gerard? What do you mean done for?!’ He didn’t even comfort her. Neither did I. She just sat there, sobs eventually waning into an exhausted tremble. She’s drifted around silently since. Sometimes she just sits there, staring into the distance. I can’t work out whether she is genuinely mute with shock, or whether this is a form of demonstration to express the extent of her suffering to my father. Either way, it’s pathetic.

I’m sweating like a pig. Mr Cranwood keeps jumping around like an idiot. He’ll be way ahead with the boys soon, muscle and testosterone fuelling them ahead. He won’t even check that the rest of us are still here. Maybe it’s a tactic to make us scared. Worried we’ll get left behind we’ll panic-run ourselves into a coronary. The strong shall inherit the earth. Well enjoy, boys, because us ‘girls’ are lagging behind and you’ll realise you have no reason to show off once you get there.

Maybe I should get a job? I’m seventeen. I could try modelling. Acting. It seems like too much hard work. I am exhausted alone by playing ‘Jackie’ for my classmates. Jesus Mr Cranwood is annoying. He put his whole hand in my mouth last night, a big grin on his face as if this was some sort of achievement. I let him. I opened my mouth and stretched it wider for his intruding fist. I don’t really know why. Fuck it. I can drive. Before they take away the cars and the jewellery, the nice clothes and the silver, I’ll shove as much as I can in the boot of the Jag and just speed off. I’ll drive to France and start my new life there. What’s stopping me?

Should have paid more attention in French class. When you’re young you think life just moves along a specific route. Predestined for you but not limited to you. It’s everyone you knows’ path, and you talk with your friends about that path, feeling like yours is unique to you as an individual, but you’re too dumb to realise you’re all talking about the same empty fantasy. You’ll be popular in school, you’ll fall in love, you’ll get married, you’ll have sex, have children and just… be happy. I never questioned that, but then, Mr Cranwood. Embezzlment.

This whole added layer of ‘the path’ as something completely random, uncertain, has started to appear in the distance. The future is massive. Twisted. Is it even there? 

What meaning does my future have? What form? We are all haunted by the monster that is money. We are trying to catch it, to grab more of it so that it doesn’t consume us first. I love money. I get a buzz from the crispness of a fresh twenty pound note. I smile inwardly  at the sturdy comfort of pound coins rubbing up against each other in my pocket. More of it means more of me. I can be big with money. I can expand and spread. I can laugh and I can drink martinis in the afternoon, and Mr Cranwood can eat my fucking hand.