Lang.’
‘Yes, Roger, hate - we all do. I’ll kill you, Roger - leave now .’ He started shoving him away, at which Roger was affably perplexed. Father was on the edge of sobbing. ‘Get out , Roger!’
‘Something up, old boy?’
‘Get out you bastard!’
Roger frowned and shrugged with a faintly amused incomprehension.
‘Get out, get out !’ choked Father, slugging Roger in the gut and feeling progressively feebler and less effective. Roger sipped his drink and raised his eyebrows.
Four hours later, Roger had been baited as far as the front doorway, in which he stood gazing mildly at the grounds. ‘Lawn could do with a burn, old fellow,’ he remarked, gesturing with his glass. Father was trying to wedge him out with a plank of wood. Roger stood like a rock as Father pushed at his back, legs treadling as though on an exercise bike. Father fired an Elizabethan cannonball which shuttle-gloved upward from the curvature of Roger’s arse-groove and paused momentarily in mid-air before dropping through the stairs like a meteorite. Finally Father, Snapper and poor Mr Cannon ran the length of the hallway with a battering ram the inner rings of which indicated an age of a hundred-and-twenty years.
Late in the afternoon, me and Adrienne heard the snarling of a tractor and peered out from her high sanctuary window. Father was perched stern and resolved as he trundled forward, bulldozing Roger across the lawn with a haystack-lift. As they disappeared through the gate Roger was chatting, sipping delicately from a port glass and hailing the heavens with inaudible laughter.
CORTEXKISS
I couldn’t believe how long it took everyone to realise Adrienne and me were fucking eachother senseless. We’d read about it and now we were doing it, full of mad humour and high spirits. I thought of her anxiously and often, while outwardly appearing to stand idle. I loved her to the very bones in her hair. Talking in glances like identical twins, we drew the scowling attention of Uncle Snapper, who bellowed the observation that Adrienne was ‘a wayward, gamine bitch, smiling with her mouth open and clearly up to no bloody good’. Father remarked that a bit of conspiratorial grinning was only to be expected, but Snapper could only repeat that we’d enough casual insolence to choke a pig. ‘You’re not the first to be bohemian,’ Snapper snarled at Adrienne. ‘I once played a cello on a deserted beach.’
‘I’m sure it was deserted. Instantly.’
Striding this Freudian minefield - a refreshing change from that of my own philosophy - I felt like a Wonderland explorer. Adrienne’s blurred face, sick with solemn beauty, floated through large daydreams. At night we were going at it like knives and enjoying long, fluorescent conversations about our migraine experiences. In her company I found myself uniquely awake, my mouth as dry as a biro. The excruciating bliss of her blotting kisses and sensurround legs left me feeling grand and disorderly. At our occasional resolutions to stay away the gods looked down and laughed. ‘Did you know a semi-permeable membrane can sometimes be only one molecule thick?’ she once asked as we watched a nectar sunset.
‘Nothing surprises me anymore.’
Adrienne was writing a book about irony fractals and what drew out the process was her resolve to sample the text from dreams. I had occasional lucid dreams myself but the skill seemed embroidered into Adrienne’s DNA. She could stop a dream in its tracks and alter its course simply by acknowledging that she was in fact asleep. Within her dreamworld she frequented a bookshop which was full of works that had never been written in the real world. I told her that if she could transcribe one of these volumes the copyright would belong to her - but she could only keep the shop’s image solid for minutes at a time and make a note of a few odd sentences. These she would haul back like interplanetary trophies.
Adrienne’s dreaming practice
‘Yes, Roger, hate - we all do. I’ll kill you, Roger - leave now .’ He started shoving him away, at which Roger was affably perplexed. Father was on the edge of sobbing. ‘Get out , Roger!’
‘Something up, old boy?’
‘Get out you bastard!’
Roger frowned and shrugged with a faintly amused incomprehension.
‘Get out, get out !’ choked Father, slugging Roger in the gut and feeling progressively feebler and less effective. Roger sipped his drink and raised his eyebrows.
Four hours later, Roger had been baited as far as the front doorway, in which he stood gazing mildly at the grounds. ‘Lawn could do with a burn, old fellow,’ he remarked, gesturing with his glass. Father was trying to wedge him out with a plank of wood. Roger stood like a rock as Father pushed at his back, legs treadling as though on an exercise bike. Father fired an Elizabethan cannonball which shuttle-gloved upward from the curvature of Roger’s arse-groove and paused momentarily in mid-air before dropping through the stairs like a meteorite. Finally Father, Snapper and poor Mr Cannon ran the length of the hallway with a battering ram the inner rings of which indicated an age of a hundred-and-twenty years.
Late in the afternoon, me and Adrienne heard the snarling of a tractor and peered out from her high sanctuary window. Father was perched stern and resolved as he trundled forward, bulldozing Roger across the lawn with a haystack-lift. As they disappeared through the gate Roger was chatting, sipping delicately from a port glass and hailing the heavens with inaudible laughter.
CORTEXKISS
I couldn’t believe how long it took everyone to realise Adrienne and me were fucking eachother senseless. We’d read about it and now we were doing it, full of mad humour and high spirits. I thought of her anxiously and often, while outwardly appearing to stand idle. I loved her to the very bones in her hair. Talking in glances like identical twins, we drew the scowling attention of Uncle Snapper, who bellowed the observation that Adrienne was ‘a wayward, gamine bitch, smiling with her mouth open and clearly up to no bloody good’. Father remarked that a bit of conspiratorial grinning was only to be expected, but Snapper could only repeat that we’d enough casual insolence to choke a pig. ‘You’re not the first to be bohemian,’ Snapper snarled at Adrienne. ‘I once played a cello on a deserted beach.’
‘I’m sure it was deserted. Instantly.’
Striding this Freudian minefield - a refreshing change from that of my own philosophy - I felt like a Wonderland explorer. Adrienne’s blurred face, sick with solemn beauty, floated through large daydreams. At night we were going at it like knives and enjoying long, fluorescent conversations about our migraine experiences. In her company I found myself uniquely awake, my mouth as dry as a biro. The excruciating bliss of her blotting kisses and sensurround legs left me feeling grand and disorderly. At our occasional resolutions to stay away the gods looked down and laughed. ‘Did you know a semi-permeable membrane can sometimes be only one molecule thick?’ she once asked as we watched a nectar sunset.
‘Nothing surprises me anymore.’
Adrienne was writing a book about irony fractals and what drew out the process was her resolve to sample the text from dreams. I had occasional lucid dreams myself but the skill seemed embroidered into Adrienne’s DNA. She could stop a dream in its tracks and alter its course simply by acknowledging that she was in fact asleep. Within her dreamworld she frequented a bookshop which was full of works that had never been written in the real world. I told her that if she could transcribe one of these volumes the copyright would belong to her - but she could only keep the shop’s image solid for minutes at a time and make a note of a few odd sentences. These she would haul back like interplanetary trophies.
Adrienne’s dreaming practice
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