The Importance of People

I once believed in the importance of people.  Sure, I’m not evil, wicked, or mean.  But unlike me, some people actually value others over food, money, and time.  And the rare person who values another more than their own life we call hero.

As I sit here writing, 11/20/11, I muse on just how much people are important.  After all, I’m one of them.  I look, though, out the windows, and see traffic, see headlights zoom back and forth, faceless, uncaring of each other and me, who sits in here beyond their imagination.   There are a lot of f-ing people in the world.  In the room right now at Starbucks, including workers, 20 to 22 people are here.  In one Starbucks.  Out of this population, only workers would talk to me for any reason, and their reasons are most likely Starbucks related.  The rest who are non-workers are with their friends, family, and computers (like me).  But this is Morgantown,WV, and I have revisited this Starbucks for the last 3 months nearly nonstop.  I can guarantee you no one is going to sit at my table, interrupt me and tell me their life story tonight.  I would bet more money than I have on this.

Human beings deep down are conflicted with each other, place up boundaries they’ve learned since childhood, and generally stay away from each other’s personal space.  When I say they are conflicted, I mean, they find each other’s company irritating unless they are familiar with the other.  Very beautiful women and famous stars have to hide from men and women, because they will want something as personal as sex with them or something as simple as an autograph.  I too would want privacy. 

So why are there people in Starbucks at this moment, but they’re not all hugging and introducing each other?  It is an unspoken agreement that we do not know each other well enough to introduce ourselves to each other.  Or, the importance of the people around ourselves is absolutely zero in comparison to, say, the worker who sells me coffee.  We all are close enough to talk, but do not.  And I, for one, won’t be going to another table to strike up a life story with someone.

I think I used to get lonely and be bitter about these facts, though it went unverbalized.  Once you have been cultivated with boundaries, you get slightly comfortable.  If I had to say hello to everyone on earth, I would die of exhaustion.  Yet there’s something oddly misaligned, as in the value system that places such an importance on loving one another.  Here one ignores and avoids contact.  Too much conflict, big boundaries, there is no real love from stranger to stranger here.  It is only the stranger in need we help.  If they’re a big boy or big girl, ignore.  Avoid.  Unless the importance of what we WANT from them supersedes the unspoken isolation. 

This is not true of ALL people.  Some people generally do try to reach out to strangers in a sincere way, to help.  I know a girl who helped a stranger with her groceries, for no reason at all, just this morning.  There are exceptions.  And without these exceptions, it would be an even chillier human race.  Without the exceptions of people who don’t think in terms of what can I get from that stranger, we would only be using each other, I say.  Families would disappear, because these exceptions are kind and give to strangers, not because of the return.  And that kindness and giving are necessary for two lovers and then children… well, you know that story.  But yet the truth is that families end up having unspoken agreements to isolate themselves from the rest of humanity.

Sadly enough, it is a world of strangers, isolating from each other, when really so much love could be given.  I daresay, this is a tragedy of humankind.  And only in times of masterful destruction do strangers join forces against a giant force.  They love as the ants love then.  And then back to our family and friends.  After all, you can’t trust anyone until you know you can trust them.

On Wisdom

I wish I was wise, you know?  As a writer and reader, you expect pith and depth and grace and elegance.  You expect to be led by a grandfather or grandmother, who sits on a rocking chair, as you sit on the porch swing, and the grandparent just says the right words—no, not the words you want to hear, but the weight and gravity of very truth itself.

No, I’m not one of those Mark Twains, or Ben Franklin, or even stretching back to the eloquent Roman orator Seneca.  I feel you sort of have to eat your vegetables, wake up early, earn a living, reach a maturity of experience, to say the words that people so desperately need to hear, there on that porch swing, with the sun going down.

Truth was, for me, killed, or rather, I sort of am in pursuit of the corpse of Truth.  And if I find Truth alive, perhaps, then I will be wise, both on paper and in life.  I feel alone in believing that truth was killed long ago.  How could anyone know truth then or now? 

Perhaps wisdom is not the synonym of truth.   Perhaps wisdom wins the battle over the biases of men and women that are called truth.  Perhaps wisdom weighs more and is bigger and grander, shining like the sun out there where you and I meet.  Perhaps wisdom is simpler than intelligence, but harder to grasp, to take hold, to believe, to believe in.  Perhaps wisdom is in tune and in accord with the reality of nature, like a Gorilla or pigeon, somehow infinitely wiser than the verbal human.  Perhaps the reason we worshiped animals long ago was not as gods but as creatures of wisdom.  Is a gorilla or pigeon the truth?

  

Days Were Golden

When I was about 6 or 7 or about the age when days are golden and long and filled with fun, the time after school and before bed time, you would find me in the “wee” room.  It was a messy little loving room.  Toys everywhere, table in the center, and eventually a large shelf, with a TV and computer, a Commodore 64—all constructed in maybe 10 x 10 feet, if that.  Our family had called it the “wee room,” just as the Convenient Store was the “wee store.”  I assume it came from Irish origin OR Wee people, the toy people with holes for bottoms.  Nonetheless, there is Irish somewhere in all of this.

But you would find me shaggy dark brown haired, red Izod shirt, and blue shorts, and probably Keds.  Or Kangaroos, I think they were called, had little zippered pockets you could stuff stuff in, like a quarter, per se. I would have my nose to the TV, if I wasn’t playing Nintendo or games for the Commodore.  Literally, my nose was almost touching the little TV in the wee room.  And I was a wee guy too. 

I watched cartoons like Thundercats, GI Joe, Heathcliff, and so many on after school or on Saturday morning.  There were other TVs in the house, one in the living room for grownups, and, eventually, one in just about every room, including my teenage bedroom.   In school, I remember kids who didn’t have TVs, which was confusing.  And like any confused boy he makes fun of what he doesn’t understand.  Like John.  John was a friend of mine, but the fact he didn’t have or wasn’t allowed to watch TV was in fact a funny bone of contention as far as I was concerned.  Just how could you not watch TV?

So I had my nose to the TV, watching all the Gen X and Gen Y goodies.  Stuff that was just original as all get out.  And the commercials that came on—whatever the toy was, I had to have.  I mean, seriously, like kicking and screaming, until I had the latest toy water gun or whatever the fuck.   If you watch a commercial for toys, they really do make it irresistible to be without that toy.  Just ask any 7 year old.

I think by 13 videogames, films, and primetime TV, were my main forms of entertainment, aside from interesting tidbits at school.  Right there, I was with you.  You would find me and Seinfeld smiling and laughing at Kramer, or tears rolling from my eyes with laughter from Al and Peggy’s 5 minute sex routine, that was implied by only a clock.  And if you would see me beat Mother Brain with finesse, you could.  I was in the pop culture thick of 1993 just like everyone else.  And this routine of videogames and films and primetime TV didn’t stop until puberty and friends in puberty.   We would hang out or go to parties or do what school commanded of us.

The myriad of different teenage activities of small town American life soon blended with boredom, horniness, and, eventually, a burning desire to escape the town from which I came.

Around 1995, a book came from nowhere.  Like a note just dropped on the table and I look and nobody’s around.  Like I really don’t remember why I picked up the book, why I desired to read it, or anything of that sort.  It was not school related.  It was Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance.

And now I have a Bachelor of Arts in English, a Master of Fine Arts in Creative Writing, and I don’t watch TV, play video games, or watch many films.  I am aberrant because I don’t do these things.  And there are many reasons I don’t, but you would think me crazy.  I know you would.  A TV in every household, 60 year olds playing videogames, and derivative films sold by the millions.  I’m not going to try to persuade you that any of that last statement is strange or anything.   I will say, however, now, when my folks or friends or whomever are watching TV or go to the movies, I would rather be jerking off stories, essays, and poems.  I’m crazy.  Deal with it.

          

A Letter to the President

Dear Mr. President,

I write with hopes to persuade you to think about the state of government itself.  Perhaps, you love the way the government is run by each branch and each state.  I won’t point out one single flaw with the U.S. Federal and State government.  This letter is not to point obvious things.  When you shower, drink your tea or coffee, or make a single decision, I want you to ask yourself one single question, and before I get to that question, I want you to understand that everyone looks to you in the world, whether they should or should not.  You are the most important individual on the global stage, and hence bear the graying burden of responsibility for yourself, your representation of the government, and your people.  So with this all in mind, I want one question to be asked: Is this elegant?

When we all first learned Mr. Albert Einstein’s famous equation, E=MC², we learned the end formula, as you know.  Maybe you know how he derived the formula, maybe you don’t.   Mathematicians, scientists, physicists, and so many in the math and science fields can explain how Mr. Einstein came to his formula, and can explain what it means.   This is not a lesson in science or relativity or anything such.  The importance is when confronted with a long series of equations, ideas, calculations, and so much more, that make up a problem, it is of the utmost importance to simplify and reduce to the most elegant formula, equation, solution.  Precisely, what Mr. Einstein did with his mass-energy equivalence.

A word on the primary sense of the word: elegance can mean fancy, tasteful, etc.  However, Mr. President, if you have studied math or science, elegance means something vastly more substantial.  It means taking a challenging problem or theory and solving it cleverly and simply, such as the example with Mr. Einstein I referred to above.

Ronald Reagan said something like: a government big enough to take care of all the needs of its people is big enough to control them or something like that.  Rhetoric from political parties uses words like “big government,” “small government.”  This rhetoric gets us nowhere.  What I think is a better term, Mr. President, is, you guessed it, “An Elegant Government.”  If a government is to solve problems, cost, employment, the global state of affairs with certain countries, should NOT come into play FIRST.  Approaching the problem, the first question should be: What is the most elegant solution to this problem?  And if you, Sir, do not know the elegant solution, find the people who would know the most elegant solution.  And then solve it.

If you have followed me thus far, I thank you for your attention.  I want you to think about all the myriad ways theoretically and pragmatically the government works, from taxes, wars, to laws and bills.  If you have to walk out into the woods, and contemplate the state of the government itself, please do so, and I’m sure you know where this is leading.   Do you know with certainty that we have an elegant government?  Would you publish this state of government in a paper now and win the Nobel Prize for it, like Einstein and his formula?  If this answer is no, then what’s the question?  Not how to make the government bigger or smaller or, even, better, but the possibilities of its elegance.

The Constitution is Elegant, which is why we Americans have followed it.  It is paper, though.  Why should an elegant political document do most of the work, while the government does not all of it?  Why does it need to depend its reputation on Amendments and Amendments alone?

I am no mathematician.  I don’t do everything elegantly all the time.  But the burden of one of the most powerful countries does not rest on my shoulders.   It rests on yours and the many that surround you.   Don’t think bigger, smaller, better, efficient, or anything else, I say Mr. President, think elegant.       

The Deal In 301

                                                            The Deal In 301

Kirk placed the TV on the stand, the Playstation 3 and DVD player underneath, alongside the Nintendo Wii, and X-box, only an older generation.  Kirk didn’t play X-box as much and had stopped following the brand and its games.  But there was one soldier game he liked.  They got it right with this one.  You could blow the soldiers in half and cartoon-like they would walk a few feet in opposite angled directions, until slumping over.  After reorganizing the disks and boxes and reorganizing the boxes on a shelf, in order of genres, Kirk went to the window, slowly lowering the blinds.

The apothecary colors of leaves obscured, but did not hide all of the scene three stories down.  Parents and their sons and daughters were lugging bags and trolleys of hanger bags, boxes, and wide crates that would careen the trolleys and make straight lines to the door difficult.  This was Guenter Hall, one of about five of the major dorms, the dorm with the coolest RAs, so told.  And this was the very first day you could enter and after the weekend was the very first day of college classes.  Kirk was excited on so many levels he channeled them through organizing his dorm room, which was a bona fide single room and score.  And he didn’t have to pay extra for it either.  No bullshit with roommates.  If he wanted to talk to someone there were characters lining the hallway, and a few of them were hot too.  He’ll have to be patient and catch them at the right time, he thought.

While he was lining up books in order of usefulness and of sentimentality, outside, practically right outside his window, down the sidewalk was a DJ, and it was like major on the ear drums, even with the window closed.  Not Kirk’s style, so he tried playing some heavy metal over top of it, but it just made a chaos of sounds and annoyed further.  So this was his chance to step out of his room and make some poignant conversations with some not-so-undeveloped girls two doors down.

What is that racket?

Where are you from?  This sounds good.  College already is awesome.  She was sort of grooving with her hips to the DJ.

Uh, yeah.

Go back to your Judas Priest.  Didn’t they like wear makeup and pants too tight for their small balls?  Hehe.

Then she started on her iPhone, typing faster than the beats outside.  A microtyping at a rate Kirk hadn’t seen in high school.

He walked away, head down, but then quickly realized his head was down, so he brought it back up quickly, which knocked the books out of a mousy girl’s arms.

Oh sorry.

It’s ok.

He was back in his room, as if it were a haven for decision making.  He had all weekend, not really talked to many people yet, and was deliberating over his next move.  It wasn’t dinner time yet.  In fact, there was a good four hours of dead air.  He would hate to play videogames on the very first day in the dorm.  He could walk around the campus and just “get-to-know” it, like the library or something.  And then he thought what he really needed was to meet some cool people.

And then out of the closet stepped a woman, late-20s, in a bikini and thong.

What the fuck?  Where...

Kirk, I’ve come to see you, I’m your dream girl. 

That…you…are.  He shut the door.  She was a little taller than him, but just smooth all over, in a deep rich tan.  Her face was symmetrical, with hazel eyes.  Her dirty blond hair was to her shoulders.  The bikini barely covered her enormous breasts.  She walked over and sat on the bed, like she’d been there before.

Wait, what’s the deal?  Are you a ghost?  An angel?  Where’d you come from?  Why are you “my dream girl?”

Come over here.  He did so.   Touch my breast.   He did so, and it felt perfect.

I’m real.  But there is a deal.  The deal is no one else can see me.  I can’t read or write or do math or anything at all, but just BE.  Be here for you.  I can’t leave this room, until you move to the next place, and then I’ll follow.  And you, you don’t have to do anything.

Kirk’s eyes were sort of swirling counterclockwise in thought, with all the phrases that were being thrown at him by the most beautiful and sexy woman he had ever seen in his life.   And that she was his? In some weird dorm room only deal.

The DJ was more ambient by this point, and someone knocked on the door.  Kirk stayed silent, wanting them to go away.

Kirk! It’s your mother.  You forgot one last thing.  She was screaming through the door.

He opened the door and she stood half his height.  You probably haven’t tried your laptop yet, but here’s the plug for it.  I wouldn’t embarrass you on your big day, if it weren’t something as necessary as your laptop.

Kirk looked around and the woman in bikini was sitting right there, and, like she had said, her mother didn’t even notice that he was sweating from some kind of angelic being in the room.  She didn’t see her.

Thanks, Mom.

Oh, and I brought you cans of soup and Ramen noodles, the college student’s gourmet.

Thanks, Mom.  I know we only live about 10 blocks from here, but please call first.

Well, aren’t we cold, sheesh.  Just like camp back in ’04, I embarrassed you by simply fishing one day with the counselor.  And your father was talking to the head counselor.  It was just too much for you.  Someday you’ll get over those types of quirks.

Thanks, Mom.  I love you.  You’re the best Mom in the world.  I will call you after class and tell you how it went.

Good, dear. Remember, college isn’t about girls and parties.  It’s about knowledge and understanding.  The former will pass, the latter never will.

I hate that former/latter, shit people pull, Kirk thought.  And a voice in his head said, I want your raw meat soon.  And Kirk looked over at the bikinied woman just sitting, intent on him, long, thin legs crossed properly.  And he noticed the spiked heels for the first time.  Jesus, was she a hooker angel or something?

Well, bye, Kirk kid.   Bye, Mom. They both made the sign of a phone at each other, a tradition since about sophomore year of high school, when she bought him his first phone.

Kirk needed extra-locks, he thought now. One wasn’t enough.

When are you gonna fuck me, Kirky?  The bikini was talking to him.

Right after you tell me your name.

She paused and then said what would you like my name to be?

Ava.

Good.

And they did it all evening.  He skipped dinner.  And then they did it all night and even into the early morning.  Ava didn’t get tired, but Kirk would, physically.  And whenever Kirk pulled away for a moment to catch a breath or relax a second, Ava just pulled him back into the fire.

Ava, I was hungry at about 3am.  I need to eat breakfast.

I’ll be here, always here for you, Kirky.  Just in room 301.

Kirk kicked his feet together in the air as he walked down the hall and toward the dining hall.  Should he tell friends about this?  Oh wait, he hadn’t a single friend.  It was only the second day.

So he got in line, they poured the grits, he asked for toast and scrambled eggs.  He decided to sit with a kid who was by himself and quietly reading a fantasy book.

Do you mind if I sit here?

Hester does not mind.

Wow, fantasy, never tried the genre, but Lord of the Rings was a good movie.

Hester hears about Lord of the Rings every other day.

Sorry.  You liking this particular book?  What’s it called? “The Wrath of the Sorcerer’s Imp.”

Hester has done three fourths of it in a Dungeons and Dragons campaign.  The rest is good though.

Good.  Well, Hester, enjoy the reading.

Kirk sprinted as fast for 9 in the morning as a guy runs, back to his room, back into the arms of Ava.  Who just ate him up as if he were ice cream.  They fucked for another 24 hours.  When she said anything, all she really talked about was sexual in nature.  But it was good sex talk.  Like, wow, I know I’m hot, but your dick won’t even fit in my mouth, or your nuts taste so fucking good.

In those words, Kirk’s ego was climbing through roofs and, in bed, he couldn’t get enough of her.  By the night before class, they were slow lovers inspecting each other.  He wasn’t a bad looking guy, but he wasn’t symmetrically ready for runways.  Kirk thought that maybe if he just turned on his lamp, and really just scanned her from head to toe, there’d be an imperfection.  But there really wasn’t.  She was practically enhanced digitally for him, but made of flesh and bone as a woman.

Can you get pregnant?

No.

In the real world, most, if not all, circumstances have some kind of justification for another.  If you are a sex goddess who is here only to please me, then, at least out of fairness, you ask for something in return.  A trade.  It’s what money and favors and even most friendships are based on.  You mean this is your sole want or need is to please me, to fuck me night and day.

What makes my world turn is your giant cock and hot white cum, Ava said. And anticipating it only wets me more.

It was like straight out of a porno movie, but here she was.  And Kirk couldn’t get enough of it; hell, he was at the age where if it weren’t for Ava, it’d be his hand and just as many times too.  Kirk was a compulsive masturbator.  When he was 16 and 17, he marked down every time he masturbated, on a notepad.  He filled up two notepads.  It wasn’t like Ava was asking some 60 year old with a heart condition something he couldn’t give.  No, she was Kirk’s and all Kirk’s.  When they slept together, she gave him a massage at first, as he dozed off, and in the morning, you would find her holding his penis and he wrapping his arm around her in a bear hug.

Today was first day of classes and the backpacks were walking up and down the sidewalks.  Some rolled their bags, but by-and-large, boys and girls had their books in hand and backpacks on.  A few women and men were in suits for what you could tell were business classes in graduate school.  Or maybe law school.  Other kids looked just plain weird, Kirk thought.  And then he remembered Hester.  A group of withdrawn a-hygienic kids walked awkwardly toward the Arts and Science building.  Some packs of boys walked together (Fratboys), and groups of girls (Sisters) were dressed up.  So what you had, Kirk concluded, was college, from geek to freak.  We were here to learn and move forward.

While his physics class, the first class, a weeder course he’d heard, Kirk was interested only in part.  He was good at math so that wasn’t problem.  Some of the more theoretical work behind the math was slightly a problem.  Kirk had a problem, like many others.  Only not with math, but with combining words and math together in a symbolic understanding.  He’d taken the SAT and the IQ test and when it came to parts where you translate math to words or words to math, it was pure air in his head.  He’ll consider a tutor if this is the professor’s line of teaching.  And then, after his only class for the day, he ran to 301 and flew from the door to the bed where Ava, opened arms, caught him, kissed him sweetly, like a girlfriend, but then fucked him like a pornstar.

And this routine went on daily.  After class he pounded Ava, who was truly enjoying the sex.  Class, sex, food, class, sex, food.

Ava, why don’t you eat, poop, drink water, or do anything human, Kirk asked.

I’m not human.

Then what are you?  Where were you before you came to 301?

I was in a very dark place, and they instructed me on my duty.

Who’s they?

Not sure.

Where were you before that?

I was in Iceland about 20,000 years ago.

What?!!!

That’s all I know.

So you are a ghost.  Or a witch.  Or, I don’t know.  But you’ve died, reincarnated as my sex thing.

Well you weren’t my first.

Wait, so you’ve been a sex slave to multiple men?

And some women.

What happened to them?

Oh, different things.  I was gone though.

You make no sense, but does any of this make sense?  No.  So why ruin a good thing?

The phone rang.  It said HOME.

Hi Mom.   Yes I know I didn’t call you after the first class.  I’ve been preoccupied with so many things now.  The Ramen are good.  How’s Dad?  Well, sleeping rhythms are tough to stick to.  Any particular reason you called your only son?  Ah, I can be by next weekend.  Ok.  Hugs and kisses, bye Mom.

Ava was sucking on his cock the whole time, and, by now, Kirk could have been a pornstar.  He just enjoyed watching Ava, the reincarnated sex slave.  She was mesmerizing to look at, not just in the body, but face as well.

So while the week flew by, sex, class, food, Kirk realized he was probably living some sort of dream lifestyle most guys would trade body parts for, but, also, that he really didn’t pick up on friends, parties, gatherings.  His social life was Ava, his Mom, and random people.  Was Ava a figment from hell or something, in the form of pleasure?  He would suspect these thoughts of her, but she was so thin in her thought process, that she was neutral in the way of conniving or anything.  Kirk asked her one time, what 1 +1 was.  And like she said at the beginning, she didn’t do math.  She didn’t guess or anything.  She just said, Isn’t that math?  One time when Ava wasn’t looking at him, which was rare, he took a pin and shoved it into her arm really hard.

Ow!

Blood flowed from her.  He pondered.

That felt so fucking good, she said.  Do it again.

He shoved the pin in her arm and more blood flowed.

Hit me in the face, she said.  Real hard.  All I feel is pleasure, no pain.

I don’t know, Kirk said.

Ok.

All you feel is pleasure, without pain?

Well, the pain’s a split split second.  Then it’s just pleasure.

Do you feel anything else?

No.

What about love?

No.

She started crawling toward Kirk, showing her breasts, which were irresistible.  So they had sex three times.

Kirk was on his laptop one day, with Ava around his neck, feeling his thighs.  All Bs.  How the hell did I pull that off?  I mean I did study, but this is good.   Ava, I wanna shower with you, go turn on the water, but I’m gonna call home first.

Mom, I got all Bs.  It’s great, isn’t it?   Yes, and they could be Cs too.  Stop expecting too much of me.  Bs are grad school and job resume solid.  Yes, I’m about ready to jump in the shower. I thought I’d call and give the good news.  Bye.

In the shower, Ava cleaned him like a concubine, then they were rabbits once more.  After stepping out of the shower, Kirk noticed that Ava’s reflection was opposite his, as in, his left eye corresponded with the mirrors and so too did the right.  Ava’s symmetrical eyes were such that, in the mirror, her left eye was where her right eye was, and vice versa.  Same with her tits and legs and whole body.  Very odd, Kirk thought.  He looked at her, but she was mesmerizing as ever, despite the weird reflection.

The funny thing about Ava, Kirk thought, was that one would think the sex would get monotonous based solely on itself, but in fact the opposite occurred.  Our sex got better and better each and every single time.  And Kirk did start strangling her, beating her in bed, taking sharp objects slicing her, whipping her with various whips and paddles.  And she just squirted and came and bled and howled in dorm room 301.  When Ava had an orgasm, RAs would have known, had she been of this earth, and it was almost a wonder, if SHE wasn’t in heaven or something.  All pleasure, no pain or sorrow.  Geez, Kirk sighed.

Ava.

Yes, Kirky.

We have a major problem of the toppermost priority.

What’s that?

We can’t have a threesome, can we?

No.  The girls you bring can’t see or touch me and I’m confined here.

Damn.

But you can do anything you want to me, naughty or nice.  Think about all the other girls.  They won’t let you shred their backs with nails.  They won’t let you do anything at all.  Oh god, just let me see it?

Kirk takes off all his clothes.

That’s just so fucking hot, Ava said and jumps on him.  They had sex.

If this were a movie from the forties and it were about Christmastime or something, a picture of a calendar would show the pages of months and years fly off.  Graduation had come and gone.  Kirk was working now in the city, and Ava had followed him to his apartment.

But Kirk had some issues not only while working on plan designs for new constructions, but just about everywhere in his life.  While he had moved from a college town to a huge city, in order to do more work in his field, he always took the long way home, just thinking about things.  Pondering about what a life without a figment sex slave would be like.  The sex was at its peak too.  Kirk was the sex god really and Ava was the sex underling.  Every time he reached the apartment complex, he looked up and saw her in the window, as if she were a dog waiting for her master.  It almost appeared like she did a little circle like a dog does when they see their master way down below.

On the walks home, he would look at Latino-looking women slapping their husbands’ faces, men in the bars, all in rows, watching the latest whatever, emo kids skateboarding by, suicidal guys who look like they couldn’t get a date, so they too walked aimlessly by, beautiful women staring at him as he went by, and so on and so urban.

And it wasn’t like Kirk wanted an emotional relationship, or mental stimulation, or even just another pretty face.   Ava satisfied him.  Or did she?  Maybe he needed to be single and not having sex with a figment sex slave.   Maybe he needed friends and a plain old girlfriend.  Or maybe he needed a variety of women and just go on dates.  Whatever it was, he wasn’t happy, and he knew if he told something like that to Ava, the best she could do is sexually please him.

So once he got off the elevator, Kirk went to apartment 301, opened it up, and Ava was sitting in lingerie, like a good sex playmate.

Kirky want to play?

Nah, not in the mood.  Jesus, I turned 27 a week ago and I feel like I’m 100.

Poor old man, need a little girl to cheer you up.

Ava, please.

Ok, but it’s been a week now.

Since when do you keep count?

Look, I really didn’t wanna have to tell you this, but, as a being not of this earth, the only way I can, well, stay here, is through your hot white milk, your cum, Kirk.

Jesus, common law practically married us a few years ago in some states.  Why don’t you speak up about this shit?

Well, so far, I didn’t think I’d need to.  But you are blocked, not physically, though.  Just everything else, right?

Jesus, since when do you know anything about emotions?

Just come for me one more time, will you?  It’s what’s called the ascension.

Is there some book on this crap?  Take my cock, Ava, let’s fly you to the moon.

And as Kirk was coming into her, as she sat on him, rising and falling, she rose up above him and the bed.  She hovered there for a minute, and then became so rottingly dead looking, Kirk closed his eyes.  And when he opened them, Ava was gone.  A few minutes passed and a silence grew.  The loneliness was so palpable, so foreign and alien, that Kirk’s first instinct was that he had made a mistake.  9 years with a sex slave at my bidding, despite being a ghost figment.  And I traded her for what? FOR WHAT? Kirk screamed, then shed a few tears.  And he began to remember the ways she looked at various points throughout all these years.  Then he thought about the sex, which steadily grew better and better.  But what did he remember of the sex?  Bits and pieces of 9 years.  That’s it.   Kirk went over to his laptop, flipped on iTunes and played The Greatest Hits of the Temptations.  The first song to play was “My Girl.”  And Kirk was out by the third track.