The Mark

The house winces in the bitterness of the night. The air smells of damp cardboard. I sit in front of the tele in my flannel pyjamas hoping to see some boobs. Or to spontaneously learn Russian so I would know what the fuck is going on. Brenton is in the garage, rattling and shuffling and making the racket of two horses going at it. Mum and Dad are out see, so we're making the most of the lack of authority.
What are you doing?
His head shoots round like a startled rabbit. Then he slaps this stupid fucking smile across his face, as if he's just had his little fella sucked, or something.
Check these out.
I look over at a pile of crusty old magazines.
Nudey mags, he whispers like he's just discovered the Holy fucking Grail.
I snatch one up and it's as stiff as a wobble board and cracks as I pillage through it. Inside it's all skin and hair and breasts. I pick up another and begin riffling through it, wide eyed and intrigued; dick tingling. Then I stop. Blood runs like a freight train straight for my little fella. In front of me a woman sits, leaning forward and pulling at me with those lighthouse eyes. Her brown billowy hair falls just short of her dark nipples; her boobs hang forward like water balloons. Elbows on her knees and legs askew, a bush of pubic hair perches above her pink, fleshy bits.
Shit.
We hear the drone and clanking of the ol' V Dub. I rip the page out, stash the box, and before the old folks are in the door, drunk and giggly, I'm in bed with the sheets whipped up around my chin. After I hear the creak and thud of their door, I flick on the lamp and pull out the sweaty scrunch of glossy paper. Rubbing out the creases, I admire the wondrous woman: those perfect lips, juicy thighs and wanting eyes. I’m lost in her naked treasures. I watch her unfold before me. I can smell her sweet nectar and feel the heat radiating from her rude bits; yearning for me. Those eyes; lasooing and pulling. Pulling, for me. I feel her smooth, liquid skin, leaning forward I take her in my mouth; her all. Probing and pollinating, I feel her claw and pull and want; for me. We melt into each other. My breathing is hers, and hers is mine. Those begging breathes; for me. Pulling and wanting and pulling. I penetrate her fleshy clefts and traverse along her ridges, as she pushes into me, and pulls in a whirlpool of lust and want; for me. Pulling. Wanting. Needing. Me.
But then I hear myself give a pathetic little sigh, like I just saw a hot chick step in dog shit; all high to low. And she is gone: sucked into a blackhole, and I'm left in emptiness, with my eager hand wrapped around my angry, red dick. And shame. The stink of it fills the room.

For months she was never far from my thoughts. I loved everything about her. Her hips. Her small belly button. Her nipples, like small, round seashells. I noticed things nobody else did. I knew her better than anyone else. Like: her eyes weren't the blue of a first glance, but had traces of green and splinters of hazel surrounded the iris. And: she liked the beach, on account of all the sand and water in the background. And then there's the birth mark. It's on her left calf, but is cut off because of the angle of her leg. The visible half looked like some unknown continent, but I go wondering about the other half. Probably in the shape of a rose, or a heart or something. I would fall asleep at night wondering about it, hand jackhammering away, like it was going out of fashion.

Right! Which of you mongrels was it?
Brenton and I were in the yard mucking around with a footy; we let it drop when we felt the tone in his voice.
It's revolting. This shit. He holds up one of the rudey mags as evidence.
I try not to notice those deep eyes and fluid skin. We just stand there, austere and solemn, as he lashes at us with his words; spit flying from his raging mouth. Then he gets all low and disappointed. That's when you know you're really in for a ride. A truck load of guilt pulls up and he spoons feeds us full of the shit.
I don't want to see this shit again. Her wanting eyes, held aloft, look down on me with a glossy smile.
The box of pornos went missing after that; I checked the garbage for weeks. I even snooped through Dad’s sock draw, but only found massage oil and condoms. It wasn’t until after he died that I found them in the highest cupboard, stuffed behind the suitcases. Sneaky prick.

I didn’t feel the touch of a real woman till I moved to a neighbouring town to study. Emilie’s hair hung straight and brown, kissing the small of her back. She had slender legs and small breasts. Her face was handsome, if a little masculine, but at night she would give me those wanting eyes and we would melt into each other.
We got married: a nice house, in a nice cul-de-sac, the urban dream; but split twenty years on. You’re too insular, she’d say. Whatever the fuck that means. Now I look out the window over the shimmer of the meandering river, the sun sliding from the sky in an orange yolk; and I look back over my years like a shepard. I think about Emilie and the good years we had together. And the bad. I think about the kids who still visit occasionally. And sometimes I’ll find myself thinking of the girl from between those glossy sheets, in all her intoxicating, naked beauty. I remember the hold she had over me, and I the feel nostalgia spill through me. But know when I think about her she seems like a mirage. The birthmark which took the form of a rose, now is just a brown blotch. Her beauty, is still poignant and intoxication, but somehow fake, or forced. She was just dream, an ideal that I clung to with one sweat little hand, and beat at with the other.