"If you can pull love apart then you can embrace big brother, just like Winston and Julia”
George Orwell
December 1993
I felt unsafe being there, at any moment someone could come over to exact their revenge, moving seemed like a good idea.
Also like many share houses things started out pretty rosy but soon deteriorated into trivial bickering about washing up, food and bills. The whole deal with the heroin dealer bashing didn’t go down to well with Sophie and Ben.
So Michelle and I moved out of the house at Stanley St and into a 2 bedroom unit in Taringa.
I liked helping people so I enrolled in a Bachelor of Social Science degree majoring in Psychology at QUT. In the past few years I had been quite successful in the helping field, helping people get stoned, helping people get huge (gym training and steroids) and helping people get off (stripper, whore).
This was the fourth degree I had started. Prior to this I had enrolled in a BA at UQ and dropped out, and then again the following year a BA at UQ and I dropped out and then I tried a Bachelor of human movements at QUT, which I dropped out of after one semester. I never lasted more than one semester and I really doubted that I would be able to make it. I knew if I was to make it I would have to give my total focus to the task at hand, I was determined that I would get a degree.
Michelle used to slash her arms on a regular basis. I would often come home from University to find her hunched in the shower, with a razor blade, delicately cutting small slits in her arms and legs, blood swirling around her feet as it passed down the drain. I didn’t know what to do, so I coaxed her from the shower and embraced her wet blood smeared body.
Others days I would come home from Uni to find Michelle naked in bed waiting for me and a beautifully cooked dinner with desert in the kitchen. Like me she was a person of many moods, which was why we were not a great combination.
Michelle was very supportive, she cooked dinner virtually every night and did most of the house work. But it was her emotional support that was so important it kept me going, I felt her love. But she wasn’t happy being at home all day with nothing to do.
“The psych put me on Prozac to help with the depression, I know what you think about this stuff, but I just want to give it a try”
“I think I understand babe, I want you to be happy, maybe you should think of work or study to keep busy”
“At the moment that’s the last thing on my mind, I need to get my shit together first, you know.”
“Yeah sorry, I wasn’t thinking.”
At university I let my hair grow long and stopped going to the gym, people mistook me for a girl. Mostly it was women who were the most cruel, to my face anyway.
“You grew that beard so people could tell you are a man didn’t you?”
“What school did you go to a girls school or a boys one?”
We were taught about the history of the feminist struggle I could understand and agree that women had for centuries been discriminated against. The things we were taught resonated with my experiences of growing up with a single mum.
After a lecture one day “So Dave did you like that?”
“Yeah I thought it was a great lecture, it really highlighted women’s disadvantage,”
“Would you call yourself a feminist?”
“Ah, I guess, yeah, I mean I support the idea of equality of the sexes”
But despite my empathy I was still a man. One day while wandering around the University I happened to stumble into the women’s room. As I wandered into the room which to me just looked like a student common area, I was confronted by a small girl with spiked hair wearing docs
“What are you doing in here, don’t you know this is the women’s room, you will have to leave, right now!”
No matter how much I empathised with the feminist cause I noticed it was still assumed that men where inherently dysfunctional and all men are “Bastards” type thinking. I cant think of any examples of where women are excluded from areas based on legislation. There are no gyms that refuse to allow women to train as there is for women (Fernwood Fitness centre)
Its was like all the women who were humiliated by men in the past were relishing the chance to see the boot on the their feet. I can sort of understand how women feel about this, as a child I had seen how my mum was disadvantaged, but I refused to hate myself for something other men had done. The plethora of man jokes and the need to feel that I have something to say sorry for just for being male.
Remarks like “Don’t you feel guilty being male?”
And I said “No I fucking don’t, just because a bunch of men create a social system that involves repressing peoples full humanity, mine included doesn’t mean I am guilty, I don’t agree with sexism ok”
Equality of the sexes, sometimes I wondered if what some women wanted was a reversal of the old order.
At university I read the works of Freud and with great interest, I wanted to know whether bi-sexuality was normal. But then I realised well there is no normal, everything is arbitrary, the result of a delicate interplay of complex factors. Human beings are incredibly malleable and can adapt Michele Foucault’s History of Sexuality was fascinating reading, but although I was soothed by the fact that many researchers suggested that bi-sexuality was the natural way of being, I could not help noticing that in our society this awareness was certainly not prevalent.
“If repression has indeed been the fundamental link between power, knowledge, and sexuality since the classical age, it stands to reason that we will not be able to free ourselves from it except at a considerable cost.” Michel Foucault
Research into the sexual practices of humans reveals vast diversity in behaviour. Greek and Roman attitudes to sexuality were very different to our own which are strongly influenced by the Judeo-Christian ethic that the body is dirty and sex is shameful. The word homosexual was not even invented until about 135 years ago. The term Heterosexuality was invented later in contrast to homosexual.
Michelle and I had moved out of the house in Stanley street and we were living in an apartment in Moorak St Taringa.
Years before I had lived at the bottom of the street with mum while at school, it was a funny co-incidence. While living there I had my first orgasm and sometimes dressed up in my mother’s clothes, wearing her panties, bra, stockings and dress and then masturbating. Years later I was continuing the experiment at the other end of the street. Dressing as girl turned me on, I found it exciting. I didn’t want to be a girl, but I liked dressing up as one. I would fantasize that I was a lesbian, ooo how cool that would be.
Occasionally I would dress up in Michelle’s clothes, wearing her panties, stockings, garter belt and bra stuffed with socks. I would then put on one of her mini skirts and it really turned me on. Looking in the mirror I thought I looked damn sexy, the plaid mini skirt with black stockings, panties, and bra stuffed with socks. My long hair flowing over my shoulders I had applied a light coat of make up and lip stick. The effect was quite convincing, I wanted to fuck me anyway.
We did on occasion have sex this way but I think Michelle was a bit confused by this. I would fantasize that I was a women and we were two lesbians having sex., I found it incredibly exciting.
We talked about our confused sexuality, mine and hers. We held each and cried, I told her about Neil and the guilt that this experience had created, she told me about her Grandfather and the guilt this created. I didn’t know what to do with these feelings, neither did Michelle.
It was nearly a year before we had our next taste of opiates. In the intervening time we had continued our pot addiction smoking cones nearly every day, usually only ceasing when we exhausted our supplies. Money was always tight so shoplifting was a tempting solution. Michelle would go to a department store try on some lingerie and while in the change rooms keep one set on under her garments. She would then walk out and later return with the item to take advantage of the store's refund policy which did not require the presentation of a receipt.
Michelle and I went to stay at dad’s place while he was working in Saudi Arabia. He had an apartment at Main Beach on the Gold Coast. While we were there I could not resist the opportunity to explore Dad’s doctor’s bag. To my delight we found both morphine and pethidine in the bag. They were both intra muscular preparations so I injected Michelle in the ass and did the same for myself. In about ten or fifteen minutes we started to feel the first waves of the drug wash over us. Michelle vomited profusely, while I was felt nauseous but did not vomit.
We watched “Dogs in Space”, the classic Aussie drug film, as the song “Shiver” by Nick Cave was played in the scene where a guy overdoses on smack I nodded off on the couch as the waves of morphine washed over me.
I then used every couple weeks on a regular basis without developing an addiction. One Saturday I was walking to the train station listening to my walkman when the news was announced on Tripple J that Kurt Cobain had shot himself, blasted his brains out with a shotgun.
Andrew McGahan’s novel Praise had recently been released and I can remember being totally engrossed with the story. It was the first time I had read anything set in Brisbane about a world that I knew and inhabited. The characters were like people out of my own life and I connected strongly the character of Gordon.
“At least 50% of all domestic abuse and violence against men is associated with woman who have a Borderline Personality disorder. The disorder is also associated with suicidal behavior, severe mood swings, lying, sexual problems and alcohol abuse.”
“The idea that men could be victims of domestic abuse and violence is so unthinkable that many men will not even attempt to report the situation. “
While we were together Michelle and I would fight a lot. Sometimes the fights would become physical with both of us kicking and punching each other. It never led to any significant injuries just a few bruises and scratches. It was usually followed by desperate love making sessions.
The final fight we had was a bitter exchange of venom and violence. The night before we were watching “Betty Blue”, the lead characters included a highly emotional but sexually magnetic female who reminded me of Michelle, and a struggling aspiring writer who I could relate to. It was the Easter break from University and I was working on an assignment.
“Why the fuck cant you just leave the dope alone for a while?”
“What the hell are you talking about, please Michelle I’m trying to study.”
“No you fuckin listen to me, something has got to change.”
“Look, I don’t have time for this shit, I need to study, leave me alone!”
Michelle craved attention and couldn’t stand to be left out, it was like she was jealous of me studying, and she did this just to grab my attention.
With that Michelle lunged at me like a hyena, screeching slapping me in the cheek, scratching my neck, and cutting my lip. I responded by grabbing her and throwing her on the ground.
I then sat on her chest and pinned her arms to the ground, and shouted into her face. ”What the fuck is wrong with you, I am trying to study bitch, cant you just leave me alone.”
I let some spittle dribble out of my mouth and drip onto her cheek. Michelle was screaming by this time I slapped her across the face. She became hysterical, I got off her and she jumped up and ran to the kitchen.
Following her into the kitchen, I knew what she was after. She stood there eyes wide, carving knife in hand ready to strike. I knew she was just bluffing, it was a desperate act by a cornered women,
“I am going to fuckin kill you, you fucking bastard. “
She lunged wildly at me with the knife, but it was a weak attempt and I was easily able to grab her wrist and wrestle the blade from her grip. She was crying, I tried to embrace her, she pushed me away and ran into the bedroom.
We had exhausted our enmity for each other, there was only shock now, but there was no making up this time. Michelle called Sophie and she came and picked her up and she went and stayed at her place.
The neighbours called the cops but by the time they arrived Michelle had already gone to Sophie’s place.
“Your partner Michelle has advised us that she was assaulted by you today..”
“Yeah and did she tell you that she attacked me.”
“No, all we know is that she wants to lodge a DVO against you.”
“Is that right, well maybe I want to lodge a DVO against her.”
The cop looked at me, I didn’t believe my own words and it was obvious the cop had doubts. Men are not victims.
After the Michelle moved out I felt very isolated.
Michelle had attacked me first, as she had done before, but I was the one who was issued with a DVO. But there was no good trying to assign blame, we had both done the wrong thing there was no doubt about it. I just wished I could take it all back or make it go away. I wished that I had been able to walk away.
But maybe I can make it go away, I can go away. With that thought in mind I stood on a stool in the bathroom with a noose around my neck. I had opened the man hole in the ceiling and tied a rope to one of the rafters and now stood contemplating my next move. I remembered all the other times in my life I had toyed with idea of suicide.
Five years ago I was knealing on the verandah of the house my grandfather built at Corndale. I had my .22 magnum rifle in my mouth and one bullet in the chamber. I placed my finger on the trigger and closed my eyes. I hated the idea that I might be gay. But I didn’t do it.
Another time I had gone to this same house in the middle of the night. Missy a chick I had a crush on was losing interest in me, plus I still thought I might be gay and so death was the next logical step in my mind or if not death then a least some good old self pittying ritual of self destruction. I parked my Datsun 1600 out the front and went to find the garden hose. I placed one end of the hose in the exhaust pipe using some cloth and masking tape to secure it. I then pushed the other end of the hose through the window of the car sealing the window with newspaper and masking tape. I then sat in the driver’s seat, shut the door, pressed play on the tape as the intro lead from Metallica’s Fade to Black resounded through the car. Next I took a deep breath as though it would be my last, started the engine and closed my eyes.
After a few moments I noticed that there was a distinct lack of deadly carbon monoxide coming from the hose. I looked down on the passenger’s side of the car where the hose was resting on the carpet. Instead of emitting deadly gasses a stream of water was steadily pouring out.
Without thinking I grabbed the hose and pushed it out the window. I realised that I had failed to empty the water from the hose. But I also realised that I didn’t want to die, because they often say that if you don’t want something you will give up when faced with small challenges. I just wasn’t motivated enough to kill myself, I needed to get more psyched up if I was to pull this off.
On another occasion I stole one of my Dad’s prescriptions looked up hypnotics in the MIMS and wrote out a script for Rohypnol for myself. I did it after Jody the chick who loved pot had rejected me, or not so much rejected me but that she seemed to be interested in someone else. There was nothing between us but I had wanted there to be but could not bring meself to make the first move. So of course suicide was my only option.
I wrote a suicide note took about 10 tablets and waited to die. The drugs began to take effect and I became unsteady on my feet. I thought I don’t want to die and rushed to the toilet, pushed my hands down my throat and forced myself to throw up. Then I blacked out. I awoke to find myself in a hospital bed with a drip in my arm. Unfortunately or fortunately depending on how you look at it I had not done my research cause it turns out that Rohypnol will not usually kill you unless mixed with other shit
It was 2am in the morning I was standing on the balcony at my mum’s second floor unit and I had tied a rope to the railing and put a noose around my neck. I took a deep breath and jumped. The next thing I felt was the rope digging into my neck and my feet hitting the ground as a section of the railing from the balcony crashed down upon me. I broke my ankle and had some severe bruising but otherwise I was alive, failed again.
By this point I was really starring to get depressed about my inability to kill myself, I mean I had some good plans, but I just wasn’t able to stick with it. What I needed was an Anthony Robbins style suicide psych up course, I mean wasn’t this guy the king of motivation, of getting people psyched up, maybe he could help me.
A large number of male suicides take place immediately following separation, yet there are no services for men following divorce only women and children. Furthermore, research has also shown that a large proportion of suicide attempts are related to issues of sexuality.
Enough of the “This is your life style” reminiscing, I thought back to the task at hand, what would it be life or death, I had the power, to choose, and as it happens I chose life. Now you may recall that in “Trainspottting” the lead character chooses life, but this was not what I chose.
I chose life with drugs, I thought well if I am going to fucking kill myself I can do anything it doesn’t matter. I might as well have fun while I commit suicide instead of just feeling like a failure. So heroin became my treatment of choice and if I just so happened to OD all the better. And if it all became too much, the thought that I could just kill myself seemed to provide some reassurance.
I thought I would not be able to live without Michelle and I felt terrible guilt for my abusive behaviour. I would often abuse her emotionally and occasionally we had minor physical altercations (usually initiated by her) but I felt very guilty about all of this and wanted to punish myself, because while she may have initiated the physical contact it was me who responded.
At the time I didn’t have any money or contacts to get heroin, this was very early in my experience I had only been scoring in Nimbin. But I was stoned on pethidine I had pilfered from my father’s supplies. While deeply relaxed I cut a series of deep incisions in both forearms using a razor blade. I pressed the blade hard against my flesh and with a swift motion slid it across my arm. At first it didn’t hurt, then it stung as the flesh opened up and blood began to trickle out.
Looking back now I can see that it was certainly not a very effective coping technique. While it did seem to create some sense of release it created a nasty mess and left me with scars on my arms that made me look like a maniac.
“So how did you get the scar on your arm?”
”Well I was in Africa and this lion jumped me and scrapped its claws down my arm”
“Motorcycle accident compound fracture, you know nasty one, bone sticking out and all”
“I was tortured by drug dealers”
“In Bangkok had a fight while buying 5 kilos of hammer, got jumped”
It was all bullshit, I couldn’t tell people what really happened I felt like a bloody fool.
Pethidine lacked the same kick that smack gave but for me it was better than nothing. If you take too much Pethidine it causes convulsions and in the quest of a greater high I kept injecting the pethidine and eventually found myself shaking uncontrollably. As I shook blood was scattered from the deep gouges that had been carved into my forearms, it created a pattern similar to that achieved by the great American artist Jackson Pollock, using the famous drip method.
He painted on huge white canvasses that he would lie on the floor and walk over dripping his paint in wild swirling patterns.
“When I am painting I am not aware of what I am doing”
Jackson Pollock
While I was slicing and dicing my arms I felt a similar sense of dislocation.
“Pethidine Hydrochloride - If the dosage used is substantially higher than that recommended convulsions can occur even in those patients without a past medical history of convulsive disorders”
www.themediweb.net
After a while the convulsions subsided and I was able to able to calm down. I turned on the stereo and put on a Jeff Buckley CD, I skipped forward to Lover you Should Have Come Over and pressed play. Blood dripped down my arm and onto the play button. As the first chords of the song filled the room I had visions of our happy times together and I cried, the tears streamed down my face. I rubbed my eyes spreading the blood from my mutilated arms over my face and shirt.
Jeff Buckley went for a swim and never came back, I wished I had gone swimming too.
Two weeks later I went to visit Michelle where she was staying in Prospect st at West End. The visit was OK but there was a distance between us that I was unable to breach. I wanted her back, with my head I could understand why she didn’t come back, our relationship was fucked, but my heart was inconsolable. Even though I knew we weren’t right for each other I could not seem to let her go. Just like a fucking junkie again, except this time my preferred drug was Michelle.
“So, Dave I think it’s about time that we hit the road, don’t you?” Matt was a friend of Michelle and mine but since we had broken up, Matt was siding with Michelle.
“Ah I guess, do we have to leave now?”
“Yeah its time”, Matt jangled his car keys.
“Nah man, lets stay a little longer, hey.”
“She just asked me to take you home mate, you are really fuckin pissed you know.”
“So fuckin what, she’s my girlfriend I’ll go when I fuckin please! Hey Michelle you don’t want me to leave baby, I love ya, come on lets have a fun time like we used to”, rising to my feet I walked over to embrace Michelle.
“Please Dave, we had a nice visit, lets leave it at that”, Michelle said pulling back from my embrace.
“Come on man, just calm down, don’t make a scene its time to go”, Matt stepped into to steady me as I stumbled backwards.
“Fuck off cunt, I’m staying put “, pushing Matt back I stumbled to the floor.
“Dave cant you see she wants you to leave. “
“Get fucked, what the fuck would you know cunt, hey, she’s my fucking girl, so keep out of it or I’ll smack your fucking head in”, I began whimpering, rage and anguish mixing together, tears streamed down my face.
Michelle walked over to me, and at first I thought she was going to comfort me with a hug, at the last moment I realised she had approached me for different reasons. She brought her right arm back and slapped me across the side of the head as hard as she could. I was stunned.
I felt the pain rising in me, the rejection, the sense of abandonment was terrifying. It set off a cascade of emotions, as memories flooded my consciousness and sent me spiralling into despair. The combination of valium and beer had shut down the activity of my frontal cortex, the rational thinking part of the brain, so I was running on primitive instinct.
When I was a child my family were moving house. In the course of the move my parents got into an argument and I took a fall straight through a pane glass window. I had massive plastic surgery to repair the damage. My mother held me in her arms for 8 hours while we waited for surgery. Somewhere deep in my psyche I associated getting hurt with receiving love and so my unconscious thought process was to connect these two events. Now as an adult reeling from the trauma of my separation with Michelle, I thought that by wounding myself I could once again regain the love of my girl. It was a step up from what I had done to myself when Rita and I broke up.
Or that’s the reason I decided seemed most plausible otherwise I just had to accept I was fucking crazy.
I ran from the house and down onto the road. “Why the fuck cant you love me, I need you baby, please come with me, baby please!”
I saw a beer bottle on the road, I reached down and broke it in half on the bitumen. Without hesitating I used the jagged edge of the bottle to slash a 20 cm gaping wound in my forearm. All this was done without conscious awareness. I looked down at my arm the blood was gushing forth, I realised what I had done and I was horrified. The shock brought me out of my drunken stupor. I took off my shirt and wrapped it around my forearm to stop the blood flow.
Looking back it seems like a rather foolish thing to do, and I would strongly discourage anyone from doing the same. I mean it did absolutely nothing for my situation, I got a bloody great scar, it took weeks to heal, everyone now thinks I am a nutter when they see my arms, and I will never achieve my goal of being a famous forearm model.
Sophie came down the stairs to see if I was OK, she was holding a towel and offered it to me. Which I thought was strange because I was bleeding, not off to the pool for quick dip.
I thought that now they would help me, I was wounded and needed love; they would see that and help me. Not bloody likely, what they saw was a raving lunatic who needed to be put down to avert any further suffering. Unfortunately euthanasia of psychotic humans is not widely practised in Queensland, though I do hear the NT is making great strides in this direction.
I ran back up the stairs and stood on the veranda. “Help me Michelle, please let me in, I need to see you, “ I yelled while pounding on the door.
“Dave get the hell out of here or we’ ll call the cops, do you understand!”, Michelle shouted at me.
“If you don’t open the fuckin door I’m going to smash my head through this fuckin window! Open the fucking door! Please, fucking hell, please, I’m sorry…..babe!”. As you can see my negotiating skills needed some work.
“We’re calling the cops Dave; they’ll be here in a minute”
Michelle and her friends were terrified by my insane behaviour so they locked the house and rang the cops. In the meantime I ran down the road and hid in some bushes on the side of the road. I didn’t know what to do, the blood had soaked my shirt and was now dripping down onto my docs. My mind was lost in a valium and alcohol fuelled delirium.
After a few moments I stepped out of the bushes and started to walk towards the Mater Hospital. Blood had now soaked my shirt and was steadily dripping down my arm. I began to panic, I was worried I might bleed to death. I started to run down the street, banging on doors. I felt like Rambo, missing in action, but I was more like a drugged fucked Bambi.
“Please help me I need an ambulance, please somebody.!” But the doors remained closed to me
I continued to run down the street swerving and as I came to an intersection a taxi stopped in response to my frantic gestures.
“Please I’ve been cut I need to go to the hospital, can you please take me?”
“Yeah hop in mate.”
The taxi driver dropped me at the Mater and would not accept money for the fare, I thanked him.
I presented myself to the emergency room and they stitched up my arm. It took 58 stitches to repair the wound and the doctor on duty asked me if I needed some pain killers I said no.
I watched the doctor thread the needle through my lacerated flesh. My arms were a mess. The wounds that I had made two weeks ago had only just begun to heal and now I had added another layer of mutilation. Once the stitches were on the doctor bandaged my arm.
The doctor asked “How did you receive this wound?”, and sat in stony faced silence while I related the details of the incident. He was not impressed and showed no sympathy, only contempt for my situation. But it was pretty silly cutting and blood doesn’t actually solve any problems, it just creates a new one, pretty bloody obvious right, but try telling that to me.
Once the stitching was complete I was left alone on a bed. I sat there for a few minutes and then decided that I would go back to the house where Michelle was staying. I left without a word, like a ghost.
By the time I walked from the Mater to Prospect terrace in Highgate Hill. The cops had been and gone. I walked up the street and stood in front of the high set Queenslander. I walked up the stairs and knocked on the door.
“….”
I panicked and ran up the street, it was on slight incline and I had a head start on the cops, but a vision of me being tackled into the bitumen made me stop. Three cops grabbed me spun me around, restrained me and slapped on the cuffs. I was bundled into the back of a paddy wagon. The handcuffs dug into the wounds on my forearm.
“Somebody help me they are fucking bashing me the cunts, please some one help me, get me the fuck outa here”, be now I was totally hysterical.
“Sucked in you stupid fuckhead it serves you right, I hope they smash your fucking head in!” Michelle screamed back.
I heard her words, and it hurt to realise just how much she despised me. Yet I felt that I still loved her, I wanted her back. I was so out of touch, it was pathetic.
The cops took me to the PA psych ward. I didn’t stay long. After going through the admissions process and being taken to the psych ward, I asked if I could go out for a cigarette. I ran out the back of the hospital and escaped over the back fence.
The next time I saw her we were in court. Michelle had taken out a restraining order against me.
After the initial break-up we spoke again on the phone. But according to the restraining order we were not supposed to be having any contact. Despite this we enjoyed convenient sex. We hadn’t seen each for weeks and then spent the night in a local motel fucking wildly; it was the only place we could go where no one would find us. I think she felt guilty for going back to the guy who had roughed her up.
On other occasions we went to Mt Cootha and screwed in the grass on a blanket.
Michelle then went on a drug fuelled fucking frenzy, screwing every bloke that came near her or so it seemed. This included s few of my friends/acquaintances, which was nice.
I caught up with Michelle a year after we had separated. Matt her new boyfriend was a young skater boy. He was only 16, Michelle was 22 at the time.
“Yeah we were really wasted, and both lay down on the bed after having a hit. I crashed and woke up a few hours later. Matt was just completely still, and I noticed he wasn’t breathing. I shook him, but he didn’t respond. It was pretty freaky, I didn’t know what to do, I just fuckin panicked man, then I realised I should ring an ambulance. “ She sighed and looked at the floor
“I tried to give him mouth to mouth while I waited, but he didn’t respond, eventually the ambulance dudes arrived, they gave him Narcan and all the rest of the shit, but he just lay there. “ She described the event as though it had happened to someone else. Heroin creates a sense of detachment that allows people to deal with difficult issues in a manageable fashion, or maybe it was that she just didn’t give a shit.
Matt died in bed next to her after OD on heroin and valium.
“Born slippy” by Underworld was playing on the Radio, while Michelle and I lay bathed in the warm glow of heroin.
After breaking up with Michelle I met Persephone, who was in my class at uni. She was into feminism and heroin and so we hit it off pretty good. Her father was Lebanese, while her mum was Caucasian, she had this beautiful dark skin, jet black hair and finely sculpted cheek bones. I went over to her house to score some smack for Michelle and but instead I ended up fucking Persephone and leaving Michelle waiting on my door step. It seemed like sweet justice to me after all Michelle had fucked several of my friends and associates, and we were not going out any more so I had no obligation to hold back.
Persephone had some good heroin contacts. Prior to meeting her I had to drive to Nimbin to score, now I could get on locally. Meeting Persephone was crucial to my development as a junkie. We used to score from Dave a guy who lived in a boarding house in Spring Hill. The classic seady junkie, later he moved in with Bongy and they both sold smack from the same house near the Mater at Woolongabba.
I can remember going to see “Trainspotting” with Michelle after we had broken up. We saw the film in the city and on the way home had an argument, I left her and went to a boarding house in Spring Hill, to score from Dave. Watching the movie made me want to use.
Like most of my girlfriends, Pesephone reminded me of my mother she had an overt sexuality, and it oozed from every pore. She also worked as a prostitute on a part time basis to fund her University studies and heroin habit. There was this one client a big fat old truck driver who saw her couple of times paid cash and it was all cool. Then he asks her to spend the whole weekend with him for $3000 which she does but the catch is he says he has to pay her by check. Well she agrees to this deal spends the weekend with him does all sorts of heinous shit with the dirty old bastard takes his check for $3000, gets all excited about all the smack she’s going to buy, goes to cash it and whoops it fucking bounces, doesn’t it . But I mean really what can you expect, who pays for sex with a bloody check.
Persephone told me how she had sexual relations with her mother as a child.
“Yeah my mum is dyke, and when I was a little girl she would play with me and kiss me intensely on the lips, sticking her tongue into my mouth, I liked it, it felt good, it wasn’t till I got a bit older that I thought it was odd.”
Persephone also had a girlfriend Amy and I recall staying over there and fucking Persephone. She had her period but I still went down on her, I was her hero.
The next morning Amy came over and I woke up to find Persephone and Amy engaged in a passionate kiss. They had a long standing relationship.
I felt a little uncomfortable lying in her bed while they kissed so I got up and went into the bathroom. I looked in the mirror and my face was red and swollen up and my eyeballs were bulging out of my head. I had had another allergic reaction to the heroin.
“Beastiality man, yeah, I have done it, I mean not done it but, had an experience with it, I got licked out by a dog, “at this
“I feel the pain of everyone and then I feel nothing” , Dinosaur Jr rang out through the stillness and this was my quest.
“Screwed us both again”, they sang.
