In the shower, beads of water fall like rain. The sound they make against my skull is thunderous and erotic, like the soundtrack to the beginning of a doomed love affair, or the booming footsteps of another crisis which will lick me for weeks. Scrubbing beneath my armpits, I resemble that rat that went viral. The one they filmed washing on his hind legs beneath some manky ol’ tap like he was a pauper given the chance to live the life of a king. The breeze through the window tickles my balls. The heat of the shower, nauseating yet seductive all the same, melts away my fears about things which aren’t real. I’m whipped into a state of frenzy. Like a dog in heat or a South-American narc two minutes from having his face peeled with a box cutter. I contemplate masturbating. I think about what it would be like to look up at the sky as a comet hurtles towards Earth. I think I’d quite like it. No more celebrities. No more working for peanuts. Just sweet oblivion as the mother of all releases delivers me to a state of being tied not to pleasure but unbecoming. Spitting out mouthfuls of soapy water, I gasp and gasp some more and contemplate how a man’s spirit can be measured by how much he’s willing to lose in order to keep safe the visions that give meaning to his life. If he has no visions he’s as defunct as the spunk that spurts from my cock.

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