The Murder Of Linen is my thirteenth novel and one of the many currently represented by Brown Paper Publishing A very supportive press, any copy of the novel purchased through their site or my own site includes a FREE $5.00 Visa Giftcard. It is also available through most any other source, but does not include the Gift Card.

Publisher’s Description:

Aligning the desire to create with a sense of guilt and dwelling on every impulse in the mind of a poet except those concerned with his work, Constantine Sult fashions a novel that is a stark and explicit portrait of contemporary man.

Alternating between minutely detailed physical description and the referenceless intricacies of thought, THE MURDER OF LINEN follows Wyndaul Dressage as he wanders between his job and various lovers during the course of three days, obsessing over his desire to successfully confess to a crime he has not committed and ignoring his personal obligations and pursuits.

Click here for a review of The Murder Of Linen in Chic Today

Comments by Sult:

…While the novel tends to (I suppose for apparent reasons) be read and reviewed through the filter of dark erotic writing, this was never the specific intention of the work. Obviously I understands that due to the explicitness of certain sections, the idea that the writing is equally as explicit when absolutely nothing sexual or erotic is happening can be glossed over, but the novel was never in anyway intended to be sexy or enjoyable in an erotic sense. I think of it more along the lines of a Lars Von Trier film than an Anais Nin piece…

…This was meant to be explicit, ennui laden, erotic, scathing, boring, dismal and vaguely celebratory all at the same time…

…As a novelist, I do not concern myself at all with making the exact content, events of the piece transparently representative of what I feel they are about. In fact, the more to the opposite of that the better…

…Like many of my novels About Art or About Creation, I skew those points, try to hide them under a lot of banal exposition and, especially in this book, under grime and nearly emotionless detail…

…By the time i was writing The Murder Of Linen, I had all but abandoned composing a plot ahead of time. I had gotten rid of anything except the most rudimentary structure. This novel is in three parts, but they all are stitched as seamlessly together as I had ever attempted in a work, the one picking up right where the last finished off, almost blurring the idea of distinction even further in this way…

…It was very important for me to keep in mind that Wyndaul was a poet. But, he was a poet like myself, one who had no illusions in his mind that he can compose verse, he just would (not that we see any of this in the novel) write down some words that occur to him and then not argue, always be marginally critical of them, but more feel detached than anything else, like they were something that happened like anything else happened, headaches or conversations with strange people on buses…

…It is his desire to be known for a crime he did not commit where his artistic expression can be found. I always kept in mind that he was poet when composing a passage about his, as I consider it, limp and almost pathetic nature to want to overly define, overly control something that has nothing to do with him…

…I’m always terrified when a poet decides to talk about what they say their verse means (even if I deeply admire it). This is not to say that I find poets full of themselves, usually. Quite the opposite. When they talk about their verse, though they always seem like liars to me. Not consciously. Just like people who really want to be defined in exact terms, but at the same time deal in abstraction…

…I actually don’t quite know how to say what I’m getting at. I tend to like poetry, but really dislike poets. I like Wyndaul Dressage and really dislike him, because of that…

Excerpt:

THE NEW WAY THAT THE BALCONIES ON THE FLOOR ABOVE THIS WERE COLOURED WAS ODD.  Odd semicircles of this colour.  And then stiff, stiff lines of something. A colour. Plum, he first thinks. But, not plum after another minute.
He felt around on the grungy tile of the corridor, the lighting bad, for the coins he had dropped. Straightened up, still on his knees. Twisting his body around. While he, squinting, looked at the bleed of the floor. Scooting in a circle. Knees hurting blunt. Not seeing the slightest indication of the weight of a coin anywhere.
It didn’t matter.
There, he passes the public telephone, mounted to the wall a few flights up the stairwell. A dead phone. Though he seems to think that he has seen people talking on it. Maybe it just is often out-of-order. He does not keep very careful tabs on the matter.
After a harsher breath at the following landing, it occurs to him that this mood in his thoughts has him wanting to call something, someone, somebody, something Mincing. A Mincing Something. Or, he leans through a door, better a Mincing Little Something. Only general terms of degradation, unsatisfying, fill the place of Something, though. Nothing to match up to Mincing.
What, exactly, Minces? he wonders, at the corridor end. Shifting a cigarette to his mouth. Into this stairwell to continue up to Ernst Jaure’s apartment room.  Anything.  Fuck.
And on the floor, there, there and there are some used adhesive bandages. He can see the daubs of blood on the centre green of one of them. Tilts to the side. And lets his shoulder run along the old painted wall. The lighting in this corridor just dabbles of arcs, afterthoughts, smears. The light a grime that gives him a slight headache. The same type as when it has rained, remained humid, a fetid stale of ozone over everything.
Right on Ernst’s door he dabs, thumps, dabs, scribbles his cigarette. Adjusts at his necktie. And looks back the way he has just come, while waiting for the latch to clink. Gives his palm a lick. And rubs it over his cheeks. A soft of weak facial hair. I have a soft face. You have a soft face, like a girl, he thinks somebody, maybe Jerwile at work, might be saying to him. Thinking it a compliment, maybe. An all in all confusing remark, telling someone that they have a soft face, like a girl. Especially, he chuckle smiles, in reference to some tiny facial hair that, also, is rough on the dirtied underside of his neck.
Ernst lets him in. New rugs and towels are in a pile over on the older of the two sofas. The detestable looking scrub of a sofa. These new towels and, also, rugs, also sheets, also something else and something else, some in green, clear, layered around and around itself plastic, some in clear, clear layered around and around itself plastic.  Lumps, he thinks. Fucking Ernst and his bullshit business.
But, he accepts a pepper cigarette, as he certainly cannot afford these, regularly. Twirls it in his puckered out lips to more appreciate the sting as he sucks in the first tip tap tip tap little drags. Blows out the first pat pat pat beads of smoke. Then, a long inhale, sitting in the low green chair at the desk end, almost with a view out of the window.
The trains around here are fuck, he says, a yawn to it. Ernst not even in the room. More or less a yawn. A sigh. A long yawn to himself.  The trains are fuck. Hardly any seats, any more. And the standing rails are ridiculous to somebody his height and, certainly, more so to anybody taller.
There are some copies of photocopied novels and things set around on the two low tables and the floor by the videocassette players. These shabby. Shabby with old blots of crusts of dribbled milk caked to their black, to the gray of the one with the bright row of lights indicating Play Pause Record Rewind Channel Channel Volume Volume.  He has had a videocassette player just like the one, there. And touches it. Gives the dust and the few old, dead ants on it a caress, while he adjusts at his pants. Idly looks to see if any of the labeled cassettes are pornography, as he, now, has ample opportunity to tuck some underneath of his shirt. Snug in there. At his waist. No. At his navel. Leaving red dents, creases in the sweating skin beneath his belly button.
Ernst is drinking lime milk, warmed. Sits down, blowing on it. The bag of lime flavouring rested in a slug over the cup lip.
The new arrangement of lampposts on Cottlin Street is dizzying. He can hardly believe that it was approved. Especially with the elderly around there. Thinks about this. And the fact that top line of his pubic hairs are itching. Does not feel like scratching. Scratching will only make the matter worse.
Ernst making bubbling coughs, now. Cheeks puffing out. Trying to get a gurgle out of his throat. This because of drinking the milk down, too fast.
And the milk is hot, you dick, he thinks. Ernst needing to lose weight. And to fix that thing he does with his hair. Ugly as it is, at least it could be fixed. Set into place. An uneasiness getting on him about why he even came over here to Ernst Jaure’s apartment room, in the first place.
The clock faces on the videocassette players all say different things.  One says Two. One says Fourteen.  One says One Three Three Three Five Three Six.
Fuck.
He can remember when he first saw the large poster of the caterpillar, that time in school. That tremendous caterpillar. Telling him to cocoon himself in poetry.  Grins.
Looks at Ernst’s bare knee. And relaxes into a still not quite relaxed slouch, not exactly wanting his sweat moist hair to press into the chair back, as it will cause his head base to moisten, dampen, sponge, itch.
In addition, Ernst never seems to have gotten the hang of keeping his toes trimmed. He sees, now, a caked, cracked green-into-white ash of the side of the big toe, there. Ernst’s sandaled foot. And it is obvious that Ernst does, from time to time, trim the nails. Just not regularly. But, he knows that he has similar traits. A lot more. Needs to wash his face, for the one thing. Go through these two or three books of scraps and notes he has collected, keeps in his pant and coat pockets. He has no fucking idea what overlooked things he might find in there.
As Ernst explains it, there are several vending machines on the route that he drives. Ernst delivering flowers to public offices and a few private medical practices. A job that he is envious of, at times. Though, not so much. Just the simplicity of it. And the fact that people tend to, probably, be animated when they see Ernst. Maybe have invented some persona for him, without his even needed having tried to build it. Several vending machines along a certain part of the route have been vandalized, rather severely. Nothing graffitoed. And nothing stolen. Just the machines smashed up. Some of them not even operable, to begin with. Just purchased, at some point and left there. Dusting. Filthing. Dusted in the crumbs that seem to build on vending machines, public telephones in basement lobbies, bookshelf corners, a particular clumping of specks of debris.
He smiles. And thinks, immediately, to ask if Ernst was the actual person responsible for the vandalism. Trying to take advantage of him, now. To get the blame off of himself. Not that this would matter.
Ernst, are you the one doing the vandalism?
And, a slurp of the last, saliva thinned, milk, Ernst chuckles an inward, swallowing breath. No, no. Laughs, No. But, what the fuck would you care?
I know.
So, what about it?
Do you know all of the vending machines that have been vandalized?
And Ernst says that he does not.
There is a cooing of the large clock on the restaurant about a block over that scums its way in through the cracked open window. A vagrant spray of soft brown light, too. There must be odd clouds in the sky. An odd sunlight. Some change to the weather.
I could try to find out.
He nods, deeply. Leans back. Scoots down further onto the chair. Crossing a foot up to his knee and yawning. Whistling once, twice, again, again, a fifth time, a sharp, off pitched high note.
Is there anybody suspected? he asks, loving the fact that he did. The use of that phrase. Just like Derik Dolan Furnace in that radio play by Kelmine Rench. The one he recorded, poor quality, onto a cassette, months, months, months ago.
Ernst shrugs an idiot slump of his shoulders and rubs three fingers behind an ear. Sniffs them. Stands. And goes over there. In front of, underneath, the poster of Open That Other One. And the smaller posters and ticket clipping on the wall from shows by Olive Arte and A Pinchier Death By Struggling and Roscoe and Felt Tip Mocker.
It is, he supposes, some pretty good information. So, he tries to stifle the gurgle of disappointment. To settle the coffee nerves that bounce his hands in flap twitches to this and that side of his thigh top. But, irritated, he instead asks Ernst what the fuck about Charolette Randolphe? Ernst giving him a kind of troubled, harsh stare.
Eat fucking piss, mumbled by Ernst.
And he goads Ernst on with Did you just let her off with him?  Are you out of your cunt stained mind?
Ernst down shrugging. Sitting, but way over by the lamp, legs sprawled, sloppy. He can see a long way up into the mouth of the circle fold of the shorts. Ernst’s hairless inner thighs. Red bitten by something. Or, rashed from scratching with sweating summer hands. Probably roughed every time Ernst walked.
Anyway, he thinks that Ernst can get along fine enough without Charolette, who he only vaguely had started setting up to seduce. A flit of a thought of that slight dotted dress in purple she had worn. A mumble of a fantasy he had come up with about her. But, she had been his older sister or something in it. Some relation. His brother’s wife. Or daughter. Some one of these more drolling fantasies. Roles switched. Imaginary. The epitome of worthless masturbation. He often falls asleep to these well before they’re finished. To rumblings of unassociated dreams about just being talked to by this or that person. Or about being at work, a folder open, a drill or something, something not belonging, on his desk, on the blotter, small eggs with eyes swimming around in the well of ink he gets something stuck in. Bullshit dreams. Or he falls asleep with the thin lines of watery semen still settling into the skin and hair of his abdomen. Only when he is alone, though. And he usually wakes and remembers to shower before Claudine shows up, back in from her work.
Where on your route?
Come out with me, Ernst is all of a sudden bright and lisping his tongue into lip crease while he talks.
I have a job too, you shit.
Every night?
Most evenings, yes. You ape.
And Ernst, now with a clear upper hand, shrugs a dismissive wave of a hand. And says that he will try to get some more information, then.  I’ll write down the names of the comers and all.  I’ll talk with Evanel and Scott.  I just don’t want it to look too weird.
And there is a grim flicker of something else in Ernst’s eyes.  Something goblin and perverted.  Something the colour of sodden wood, kept from the light. And he gets the creeps. Asks the time. And, accidentally, though without apologizing, kicks one of the stacks of videocassettes over, one banging clap against one of the videocassette recorders, causing an itching hum to, irritating pitched, start.
And, still, he knows that he is really starting to resemble Howard Stave. Not in the most noticeable ways. Just, at this point, the suggestion of an expression on his face. The ghost of something he has caught little clues of when finding his reflection in unexpected surfaces. Not that a resemblance would be bad. Not to the slightest degree. It just puts him in mind of an artificial world. That he would start so closely to resemble someone he has such a pointed, unexplored interest in. Someone as nobody to him as Howard Stave. But, who is a focal point of things. Certain things. More of a fixation, really, than the girl Anaa. The girl Anaa Minor, who Howard Stave is always bundled up with.  Universally, he thinks.  He is always thinking things like this.  Or comparing the most innocent things to odd, abstract thoughts and feelings. Then, getting upset when he realizes there is nothing poetic, nothing interesting about his comparisons.
And for a few moments the bitter taste of some of this sweetened coffee on his lips, making them feel sticky, making them feel false, rather bothers him. That and bus timetables, the public buses, the shapes of clouds.
He catches sight of some dirt that has been on the fabric of his light, blue and yellow checkered coat for fuck knows how long. He mumbles Fuck knows how long.
And then there are these little, constant little side glances at every reflection in every window. The shop windows as he nears and nears and nears the building where Claudine keeps her apartment rooms getting dingier and more and more covered in signs he cannot read, due to their languages.
But, endless examples, he thinks and vocalizes, slightly. Into the crinkles of air around him. Now distinctly tinged the odour from the restaurant, there. Where the homeless people always seem to gather at midday. Homeless or else people who own and work in the restaurant taking filthy naps in the shade of that little patch of grass, there. A patch of grass. A pole. The enclosure for the dumpsters.  He can think of endless examples in the lyrics of Stella Duske that indicate she is hurried, as well. Artists are hurried. The lot.
None of them really think about what they the fuck do, Claudine, he thinks to tell her. Fucking fuck, Claudine, just listen to the lyrics.
And reams and reams of some elegant thoughts that seem to take so long. Walking. So long to compose. And set to the proper order. And repeated, repeated. Repeating them, under his breath. But, not even focused. Gone.
He knows he needs to get Claudine a new watch, also, before she reminds him. Just now, it would be the perfect amount of time since the promise. Long enough that she has not thought about it, just long enough before it occurs to her and she thinks he has forgotten.
He wants to cum in her hand, again. A streak of cum up her underside wrist. Curling around, a bit, in the soft brown of the lace of hair up toward her elbow crease.
The clatter of the stairs in the train station at all hours is an irritant. Something he cannot ever shake the feeling of. Something that he has, now shuddering his shoulders against some little sudden blow of wind, become so upset by in the last weeks that it sometimes gets him near to crying. That clang. The rasp of the man who hands out the leaflets. Bullshit, bullshit.
And, here, the taste of the chewing gum. He only just now recalls that it is in his mouth. Idly chewed. Idly tucked in between the inside of his top lip and the gums just above his two, dulled front teeth. Spits this at the newly planted seedling, there. The one with the twine holding it to place against the draft of turns of pavement around the corner into the long empty lot by Gaurro’s Parlour by Cesten Cinema Library by Dentist by Discount Cigarettes And Magazines.
The paint on the pavement, here, here, in some places of the lot so old and cracked. Feeble paint. Coming up just barely holding on to the rocks of pavement clipped off by long treads, uneven steps, car tires, the cleaning trucks, the weather rotting the pavement in these ignored lot areas to dismal shit.
And the vending machine thing is not a bad idea. Just something he needs a little bit more information to act on. The usual questions. The usual list of five, six questions that he needs to know.  Although, his shoulders stiffening in a jolt of animated thought, he could claim, even immediately, to have only been responsible for some of the vandalism. And now a grunt, downturned head, lip curled, as this would be the most idiotic way to go ahead with things. This would leave an investigation, a genuine one, still open. And if the truth outed, he would look ridiculous.  Added to which, in this he has convinced himself thoroughly that there is only one shot at it. There is no real way he can rightfully imagine that he would be able to just confess and confess and confess and confess until something stuck. Each successive admission would dash his credibility. And, either way, he could not sand the fucking looks he would get. Officer Gaurlette. And Officer Melde. Whoever.
He just skips up the first five of the concrete steps. And readjusts at his coat lapels and coat collar. The sky is a dinge of crusts of clouds, broken and floating to the lip of the horizon, bubbling there, thinning to spit, cemented to place as well as were the walls, brief steel and now just processed wood, he surrounds himself with. Corridors long. Stairwells wide and shumbling. A cafeteria on the fourth story that, he gets the distinct impression, anyway, is never used. There is only ever the buzz of old refrigerators behind the pulled down cages that separate the counters from the tables. And the meandering cabbage smell of old trays and thin plastic garbage bags and a dirt to the air exactly like unwashed seats and unwiped tables. An elderly smell. Empty cafeteria.
He spits and does not quite see where it lands in the dim light of the seventh floor corridor. Touches his palm around his chin, to make certain no line has dribbled there. And rubs at his eye, greased under this fresh grease of the walks sweat, a moment. Knows his eye is reddening pink. Brings his legs hard, fast together. And cracks his back with a reverse C of a click to his body. Head flopping back from the top of his neck. Vision, scrabbling to dark, wheezing back in while he goes through his left coat pocket for the key, not finding it. Finding it in the rear pocket of his corduroy, yellow, soft, pants.
The corridor seems to be getting swept on a more regular basis. This is, as he gets the door, roughly, it always sticks, opened, his last thought before stepping into Claudine’s apartment room. There are hushes of the where the long flat broom is moved through the dust. Curdled hushes into thin piled lines of wood brown near the wall bases.
The typewriter is sounding from around the corner. And the room door to the room is pulled closed as much as it can be. The old twine still dangling from around that brass doorknob with the etching to it like the letter F. Some bronze chipped away to show a frost of white, underneath. The mechanical clap clack of the typewriter keys being thrust, blatted against the machine warmed paper, the hum warmed paper. A din. A real din that he knows Claudine did not hear the door open, though.
So he drinks some of her juice, left out in this textured plastic cup. Eats the side of one of her sandwich halves, though the taste is shit. Some of the meat she has started getting on the cheap from a nearby butcher just because she has, from time to time, seen him asking for cigarettes from people debarking from the early morning trains down near Cistell or Brenwraith’s Centre. He can fucking swear the meat is held together by glue.
This is flakes of meat and glue and fuck knows what else, Claudine.
And he hears the high pitched shriek of how Claudine slips the paper up from off of the typewriter rollers. And the shivering of her arranging a new piece. The dismal violin of her rotating the knob. Getting the page to set straight. And then the clumsy, out of rhythm collapse of keys and letters until she gets a stride. Clack clack, clap, clip, clack, clack, clack, clip, clip, clip, clack. Tiny broken letters hugging and grappling into those words.
He knocked some of the pillows, bed pillows, from the sofa. Then, having sat, put them in a neat pile. And tossed this pile, rather neatly, over onto the lounging chair. Scratched under the elastic of his sock at his shin, a moment. Gave his fingers a sniff. Rubbed his eye and then his ear, leaning back and aiming a sigh, though puckered lips, a squeak and a whistle to it, at the vent in the ceiling corner, the one still adorned with the stickers he and Claudine had affixed there. Little girls dressed in every colour. Imaginary flowers. A cat monster. A wolf monster. Stars with trails of motion to them. A fish monster. A wise fish in glasses and a hat with the letter G on it.
Over there, by the unplugged, smaller radio, were a pair of Claudine’s panties. The orange with stripes of fair, pale green, almost transparent green. On the floor there. Next to, also on the floor, the novel Brown Plauge by Wendel Harrowhigh. He had never read it. Claudine had raved about the first half of it. They had fucked, he  scratches his ribs, at some point. But, is the book really just laying there, unfinished? Or was Claudine now in possession of another copy? A third and a fourth copy? Or does she like to read the thing, laying on the bare wood floor, legs long enough to, probably, reach to the beginning of the carpet, laying next to her fucked in panties? Panties covered with the dirt that settles in with the light through the open window, panties warm and stiffened, no doubt, warmed and stiffen, that if he blew on would let up a poof, a rain, mist of particles that would screw up the even beam of the gray sunlight in through the blind slats, settle like undrunk water, disappear.
Then, for awhile, he sits. The silence of no typewriter keys hitting. Just the wobble of the hum of the machine. And then, after awhile, the powder soft click of Claudine turning down the power switch. Some scratches of her chair moving. And he hears her sigh. And say some things to herself. The pads of her bare feet shuffle around a bit. A soft slap of her giving herself a strike. Maybe on the neckside, maybe the thigh, her ass, maybe one of her forearms or her abdomen. Though it does not have the echoing thump of a hand to the abdomen. And she snorts and says some more things to herself while he stands up and makes some adjustments at the window blinds. Coughs and generally makes some noise to indicate that he is there.
He will, actually, in a moment, act that he has been caught by surprise. That he had not been able to tell, from in this room, that Claudine was finished with her typing in the other. This, so that she does not feel embarrassed or shocked at his presence.
In fact, he is holding a cassette, reading the song listings from the red plastic, when she says his name from around the corner. And he answers her in a made up voice. One of the ones that he uses all the time in telephone messages and things.
When did you get here?
Her hair is always looking changed, just because of how the shape of her face changes. Her hair up. Or to one side. Or wet. It always looks freshly cut. Her eyes set higher, either higher or lower according to how it laces down through the divot of her cheek, the rise of lower lip.
Just a few minutes, ago.  And he lies about thinking he saw Maurice in the corridor.
No, I’m certain that Maurice is dead and arrested for his own murder, by now.
He clicks his tongue. A smile. Maurice, he says is a pest and a mocked up fuck hole.  Something gets in his eye and he does not continue past Fuck Hole.  Also, he does not show an outward reaction to the fact that she is only wearing a shirt, not even panties and not a long shirt, though the sight of her pubic hair, especially when she just moves around naked or in only a shirt, no intention of arousing him, gives him a deep erection that he briefly touches when he turns to look at the desk, readjusting the sit of his penis and feeling the obstructed tickle of his urine at the base of the shaft.
I have to go to that party in a few days, she is saying, clearing some things from the kitchen counter, putting them into an uncalculated pile on the table by the television.  Did you still want to come?
She still has some red markings from the chair she sits in while she is working on her ass. One of the larger moles on the rear of her left leg covered by a calm red smudge.
He says that he still, certainly, wants to come to the party. Has images, brief, of some of the tall windows of a party he once went to with Carolina in his mind. Drapes. Drapes.
Stands up and talks. Making some circles in the air with his hands. Going on, again, about how he is disappointed that the man at the clothing shop lied about being able to get him a rough silk coat in his size.
We can get it tailored, she offers, kissing him in passing.
And he lets a breath out. An eye blink. Lightly touches at her back through her shirt. Steps in close, as she has stopped moving, arms around her, hands circling her hips, draping in front of her, fingers twining locked, the sides of his closed thumbs brushing the lift of her pubic hair. And he taps his nose against her neck back. Her hair pulled up, sloppy. And absently moves his groin against her in semicircular rubs.
Tailors, he says. And asks if she is going to be writing all day.
Maybe.
Alright.
Still hugging her, the two of them step. He guiding her, she smiling and chuckling and he knows, well aware of where he is leading. She asking him Where are we going?  Sort of sighing, as though resigned, when he presses the fronts of his knees into the back of hers to guide her, knees into the folded bed sheet, onto the sofa. She, arms stiff, gripping her hands to the top ledge of the sofa back, slowly, as though not even paying attention, moving her hips side to side while he pulls back from her far enough to undo the front of his pants.
I think I might be getting a new job, she says.
And he, making Mmn sounds of listening, says Which job?
His cock out. Pants just lowered a bit. Just down around his thigh middles. He can feel the cold of his belt buckle against his skin, where the belt buckle dangles loose.
And she tells him about an interview she had over the telephone while he, gripping the length of his cock with one hand, presses the tip of it into one of her buttocks and then the other. She shifting. Spreading her legs more and arranging her hands against the wall, arms bent, her elbows against the wall, her whole forearms and her flat palms against the wall. And she pauses, just briefly, in what she is saying. Moves one hand from the wall. Licks it, twice. Lets a coin of spit out into it. Reaches around and rubs this moisture over her cunt. He then licking two of his fingertips and doing the same. Saying, Get your fucking bitch hands back on the wall. Relicking his fingertip. One hand steadying the head of his cock, it pressing into the curve of her ass, using the wet fingertip to spread the lips of her cunt open.
What job?
And he, having a bit of a bother with it, gets his cock in her just a bit. Knows she is stiffening  and so grabs the turn of her neck back with his wet hand and says What fucking job? Don’t move, Claudine. I’m going slow.
Go slow, she says. A pleasantness to the tone.
And it crosses his mind that he, all in all, has no desire to go fast, as this would make him ejaculate in no time at all. Added to which, the sensation of needing to urinate is distracting him. And he does not want to lose focus, feel his erection slacken before he can get into her all the way.
He gets his hands in beneath her shirt. Then removes one. Using both to grab her breasts. Hard. One to the skin of them. The other through the fabric. Through the fabric pulling hard on her nipple. She arching her back, presenting her ass more upward. He shuffling his feet in place, knocked back a bit by the force of her movement, rethursting into her.
Feeling that she is much wetter, now, tells her to fucking stay still a minute. Fucking stay still a minute. Feels his feet sweating in his shoes and is aware that, at least he hopes, as long as the sensation of needing to urinate does not get the better of him, he will be able to fuck her for a good while without fear of being worked to orgasm, as the sweat that has sunk to his body all day deadens a lot of the sensations in his cock. Though, now he also is very committed to fucking her in just this position. As this very same laced sweat on him will cause his erection to slacken the minute he pulls out, even if just to change position.
So, he curls one hand around her face, covering her eyes and starts on a rhythm of fucking her. A few soft strokes into her and then a more forceful one. His cock all the way in. Upping and upping this until he is just pulling the length of himself out of her, completely and then thrusting it in all the way. A slap to her ass with one hand while he does. Telling her that she is a fucking whore and he is fucking her like this because she’s been slutting around in the apartment all day without pants on.
You like when I slut around with no pants on, she says, breathing heavily. Enjoying it. He can tell by the writhe to her hip. And now she is asking him to let her get on top.
Not right now, he says, pulling her hair. Telling her Not right fucking now claws both of her breasts through her shirt. And then, abruptly, pulls his cock out of her. Slaps her ass and tells her to get on top of him.
Yeah?
She must have been wiping her face, at one point, wiping the line of sweat that is forming at her hair line, the hair matted to one side in a curl.
Once she is on top, she fucks him with her eyes closed, head turned off to one side and tilted forward at the end of her taut neck. The lines of tension and her whispers of fuck words little hisses.
He almost immediately feels the tickle of his cock hitting the very back of her cunt. Feels her grinding into the tip of his cock. Curves of her hips becoming dots of her hips. More of a shudder than even an up and down motion. And even while she starts cumming, he cumming a second or two before her, stiffening his lower back and grabbing her biceps, pulling down to keep her from pulling too far away from him in her last throes, she asks him if she can cum.
Can I fucking cum?
Her face is a twist. It seems to twist both ways at once. And the moan she makes is only high pitched for an instant.  Then becomes a coughing pant of Fuck while she, stiffened, shakes her body hard a last few times. All of a sudden eyes opened and climbing off. Sitting back against the sofa. He feeling another strand of semen slip from his cock while she does. Head flitting side to side. And he can see her in blurs, with her eyes wide opened looking up. Leaned back. Pulling her shirt front down, stretched, to wipe at her cunt. Pulling it up to wipe at her face.
He is shifting his tongue around inside of his cheek. A dampness of cigarettes. A tart of the candy from earlier. Walking. Still worried the clouds might end up breaking, keeping the day from just bleeding out, overcast.
She gives him a push, knuckles into his ribs, Stands up and gives his shins little kicks with her bare toes. He looking at her though a pouting flutter of his eyes. Pretends to turn his head, bored with her. Asking if she doesn’t need to go take a piss or something. She kicks him a harder kick, her toenails a bit jagged, scratching him on the turn of his calve. And is talking as she walks over toward the bathroom, flicks on the lights. But, it is an echoing dull of talk.
A train sounding in cracketing thuds over there. Out the window. Out there. Past the unfinished stadium. And the half of the old theatre that has not yet been torn down.
It crossing his mind that he may not have locked the door. But he actually, having tensed to stand, relaxing, actually, honestly remembers having turned shut the latch and even done up the base bolt. Picks up his feet and lets them clap down in tiny steps. Eventually pulling his pants up. And only standing, getting something to drink from the kitchen faucet, drinking from his hands, when he cannot adjust his pants well. His underwear having rotated somehow. Gotten bunched off to one side. The tag of it a blunt scab pricking against his hip bone.
Are you taking a shower? he pops his head into the bathroom, she sitting on the toilet, to ask when he hears the shower issuing into the stall. And she, her knees blunt together, elbows on them, arms crossed at the wrists, hands coiled around each other, looks up at him and nods. A strong scent from her body. The tin of the sound of her urinating. And then he wants to know if he can look at what she has been writing lately.
Lately it’s just some shit, but go right ahead.
Is it the thing about the glass thief?
She stares blank. And he swallows. Thinking it might not have been her. Claudine might not have ever been writing about a glass thief. But, in the next moment she has apologized. Stretches her hands, still awkwardly wrapped and gripped, forward at the end of her stretched forward, still wrapped awkwardly and coiled, arms. And a nod of Yes, yes, yes, yes.
It is about the glass thief. Only now, it is about someone who knows the glass thief and is planning to rob him.
Fuck, he says.
His favourite is her story about the woman who makes magnets. How she has so much trouble with the classes she takes. Makes magnets, makes magnets.
Claudine’s little work space is not cluttered, anymore since they took that afternoon to shop for these stackable cardboard bins. And she has spent, it seems, a lot of time in labeling each. Decorative labels. All very imaginary looking.
And this new manuscript is stacked by the typewriter. The typewriter that, switched, on drools heat and vibrates. Warms the entire fucking room. That chatters its teeth onto the page. Spit spit spit.
There are coloured pencils out, stacked like logs, a few this way, a few that way, similar to those toys he used as a child. A high little fort of coloured pencils. This is new to him. He has never known Claudine to use coloured pencils for anything. But, he takes up a dull red one and taps it on the typewriter side. Carefully tried to set it back onto the pile. Then, just sets it to the side. Knowing absolutely that if he went ahead, insisted to himself that he try to set it correctly to the pile, that the pile would most certainly topple.
Touches some of the dead keys of the typewriter and inhales deeply. Notices three pairs of sandals by the waste bin. Most of the books on the stout little shelf, there are crooked. The larger volumes are still crooked. Tangle piled on the floor next to the record player with the paper plates and old foam cups on top of it.
Really, he finds that he is no mood to read anything and just paced around for awhile, listening to the mumble of the water through the closed bathroom door and around the corner and to the titter, like rainfall, of the feet walking in the apartment above.
Went to the window of the parlour room. And looked across the way. At the pitch dark windows of the narrow office buildings. The mish mash of umbrellas of the shops, down there.
Wants to find some way to retaliate against Martin Hidden, but knows he won’t come up with anything, really. Takes an awkward swallow and knows that there are some changes being made to the schedule of certain programs he has gotten accustomed to watching on the nights he takes on Marian Cusp’s shifts. Like tonight.
Fuck it. It all may have already changed. So, he needs to buy some new book to read. No. Bullshit. He needs a notebook. And to plan all of this out. As this vending machine thing is viable, still.
Though, he wonders if he can somehow work it so that he can take responsibility for that fire. This being the entire thing. Vending machines, he mutters in his thoughts, all being well and good. But, something like the fire or that retirement community having its windows stolen, like in Claudine’s story, that would be something. It all needs to be proven, though.
I’m the one who stole the windows from the retirement community.
How will he even make his confession?  Does one walk into just any police station and say I’m here to confess to whatever it is they claim to have done?
He wonders how interesting it might be to bus into another district. To bus two days out. To some adjacent area. To confess to something there that he claims to have committed, here.
Ridiculous.  And too much.  Too much trouble.  Though, it might even lend the thing a certain credibility. Just because he went so far out of his way to make it awkward.
Claudine had dressed in a yellow sweater and a pair of thin gray slacks. Told him that he was welcome to come out to eat with her.
I need to get to the train.
Why’s that?
Work, work work.  I’m taking Marian’s shift at Delmesset.
Claudine nodded.