Gertrude Street

The rain had started to hit her bedroom windows so hard that Damon thought they might shatter; the hailstones were only just drowned out by her moans. He looked sideways at the mirror and saw himself with her legs wrapped around his neck. He stared long into his own black eyes.

"She should cum soon," he thought "and then I can get some sleep."

He continued to grind into her, adjusting the angles just enough so he wouldn't cum himself. The last thing he wanted was to have her all over him while he was trying to get some rest. Then it struck him.

"You want me to go down on you, you hungry slut. Yeah?" He started to kiss across her chest and down her stomach. He felt a soft palm under his chin.

"No, I want to feel close to you. Why do you do that dirty talk shit? I fucking hate it?"

Damon looked up at Marissa, who had moved into a side saddle position. Her black hair framed a faint film of sweat across her collarbone. She reached across and lit a cigarette.

"I thought you liked me going down on you?"

"I do, Damon, I like it first. Then fucking! That's why it's called foreplay, you fucking numpty."

"I just thought I would change things up, you know, keep you on your toes, and I want you to cum."

"Jesus, we have had this discussion. Sweetheart, your obsession with making me cum is getting weird. You're like a boring sexual terminator. Must make Marissa cum, must make Marissa cum." She made robotic gestures with her arms while taking a drag of her cigarette.

"Oh, so I should just be like every fucking bogan footy head you were with before me. Me put dick in the hole, I splooge, me done, bye."

"No, Damon." Marissa sighed hard. "Why does it have to be one extreme or the other with you?"

"I just don't know what the fuck you want?"

"You do know what I want, Damon; You just choose what you want, more often than not."

The bed fell silent, and the rain eased.

Marissa had been fast asleep for an hour before Damon got up. The vintage standing lamp cast an orange hue across her little part of the sharehouse.

"Why does the hot girl always get the front room?" Damon thought to himself as he stretched his dick out longer in her mirror before putting his pants on.

Damon was still a little drunk, and even though parts of his brain told him that it was frosty outside, there was still enough booze in the tank to ignore it until he got back to his place.

He put his headphones in and pressed play. Hot Hot Heat blared into his eardrums as he started to sing loudly, motion sensor lights blinking into life, chasing him down Gertrude Street.

******************

Eddie had moved from Perth to Melbourne to become a musician. It's all he cared about. His first guitar when he was seven was a Gibson Songbird, and he had his first song on local radio when he was sixteen. Eddie didn't love Melbourne; it had grown on him to the point that he was comfortable. He could play enough to earn money to pay rent and eat, and he was happy with that for now. He did love having a group of equals to have beers with and talk through songwriting and women. Girls here liked art and, therefore, liked artists. Which Eddie very much saw himself as.

The booths at St. Jerome's felt like they could fall away from the wall at any minute. The one Eddie was sitting at groaned in pain when he took his soft pack out of his jeans' back pocket. He lit his Kent and swilled on his half-warm can of Melbourne Bitter as he scratched at his notebook.

"Sorry, I'm late."

"All good; I'm sure you were super busy."

"Cry me a fucking river, Ed, you want a beer? I'm paying, I assume?"

"Yeah, I haven't been paid yet, as soon as it's in my bank account."

"Ed shut up; I'll add it to your tab, you gutter punk."

Eddie watched Marissa lean up against the bar. He couldn't help but stare at the outline of her underwear, clinging to her arse through her velvet basketball shorts that left almost nothing to the imagination.

"There you go." Marrisa handed Eddie a Cooper’s Green, a beer he hated, but beggars can't be choosers.

"Thanks. Did you know Lily Allen played here last Wednesday? I can't work out where the fuck she would have played, it's all so cramped."

"Well, St. J's has jumped the shark when a pop tart like that is playing here; I thought it was meant to be for artists, not millionaires' daughters?" Marissa angrily tossed her Zippo down on the table and dragged her cig hard to draw an exclamation point on her well-made point.

"Marrissa, are you fucking someone else?"

Marissa stared at Eddie through a plume of smoke with a piercing look that Ed thought he could feel a rib crack when he moved in his seat. She took another long drag of her smoke.

"No, Ed, I am not. We have gone through this so many fucking times before! We're together, which means I fuck you and no one else!"

Ed was scanning her body language for any clues that backed up his hunch that she was lying.

"It's just that I drove past the other night, and you said you were out, but your light was on, and I swear I could see two people through the blinds."

"Are you fucking spying on me when we aren't together, Ed?"

Ed looked down at the table and back up again at Marrisa.

"I love you, Mars."

"You love me, but you spy on me when we aren't together and accuse me of fucking around? I'm done, Ed, fuck you and your fucking jealousy; you're such a toxic loser."

Marrissa lit her last cigarette as she stood up, crumpled her soft pack and threw it as hard as she could in Ed's face. The bar's front window looked like it would vibrate out of its frame after Marissa slammed the door behind her.

* * * * * * * * * *

"All I'm saying is I don't understand why band rooms have to suck so fucking hard?"

The Iggy Pop lookalike behind the counter looked over his Beat magazine with a snarl of disdain towards Damon. Ed shot Damon a look that would have split him in two if Damon was paying attention.

"Well, we like it here, man."

"Fair enough, dude", Damon pushed his bass amp into the corner of the room and lit a cigarette.

"No smoking in our band room. Sorry, man."

"Are you fucking kidding? I thought I was auditioning for a rock band, not applying for a silver service job ?" Damon butted out his cigarette on his Orange cab head.

“This is a workspace for us, man. If you want to smoke, smoke outside. Okay, how did you go with the demo we sent you?

“Easy as man, I'm ready to go when you are. Do you mind if I smoke first, though?”

Ed sighed.

“Yeah, man, go for it, but let's get to work as soon as you get back in.”

“Yes, Sir”, Damon slapped the back of his palm to form a salute. He looked like a Ramone doing a Benny Hill impersonation. He then forced open the massive soundproofed door and headed towards the light.

Damon was staring at his phone. When he returned to the room, he quietly placed it on his amp and strapped his bass on. Ed looked up and stopped tinkering with his new riff.

“You ok, man? You look like you got a MyGov email.”

“It’s worse than that; it was a text from the girl im fucking.” He played with the tuning keys of his bass.

“I’m sorry to hear that Is everything ok? The bass is in tune, by the way.”

Tears were starting to pool at the corners of Damon's red eyeballs.

“I thought she was the one man, im sorry this is embarrassing, but I did, and she just sent me a text on the day she knows im auditioning for you guys; it's just so her, you know?”

Ed, sighing, sat down on his Vox AC30 amp “What did she say?”

“She said that she has chlamydia and that I should get tested, even though she thinks it's me who gave it to her. It couldn't be me because I only sleep with nice girls, you know what I mean. Seems like Marrisa wasn't that nice after all,”.

Ed felt a shot of cold electricity run from his brainstem down to his arsehole.

“Marissa? What’s her surname?” Ed felt his stomach rise into his throat as he spoke. He closed his eyes, waiting for the response.

“DiMauro.”

“I fucking knew it, I knew it would be my Marrisa. You were talking about you cockstain, but I just had to be certain, didn't I!” Ed was standing now, his knuckles turning ivory. The last thing Damon saw before blackness was these knuckles heading towards his face at the speed of light.

Ed stood over Damon's slumped body on the floor, his hands shaking.

Lee, the band's drummer, stood and leaned over his kit. “I assume he's not our new bass player?”

“No Lee, he’s not our new fucking drummer”

* * * * * * * * * * * *