Grabbing a broken paintbrush, she swipes it through the air as if in the midst of a drunken duel. After a few moments though, something doesn’t feel right, so she discards the brush and picks up another. This one has more weight to it, but it doesn’t have the length, so she chucks it to the floor, and gives it a kick for good measure. Searching the desk, among the many tubes of paint and the memories they contain rests a brush she’s used only to lift the lid off a can of varnish. The can of varnish in question is now full of dead cigarettes and the odd teabag, also dead. Lifting the brush up, she turns it over in her hand and nods. Like the pen, it is mightier than the sword. Swishing it through the air, the brush is at once a magic wand, and also an erect cock. If she had a cock, she would cut it off, but not after swishing it around for a bit. She thinks cocks look ugly, and yet what a treat to brandish one with abandon; to stick it in someone as if it were a knife. Perhaps that’s why guys liked sticking it in her so much—because they enjoyed the feeling of killing her without the repercussions that come with murder.

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon UK

X and I: A Novel and A Journal for Damned Lovers on Amazon US