Scotched

"Aye," he said. It sounded rather matter-of-factly and there was very little emotion in his face. June frowned suspiciously at her brother.

"You're an asshole," she informed him.

Julius smirked and had to laugh a bit.

"I know. It's true, though."

June glared and challenged him with a jerky nod.

"Fuck you, be honest now. For real now, Kat, the same Kat, our Kat, has actually really failed and has to spend the next year with us?"

Julius gave an exasperated sigh and threw his arms up.

"For fuck's sake, yes! She failed the test! Now piss off and let me read!" He stared pointedly at June, who made a weird frowny but nearly smiling face and backed away to the door. He kept staring her away until his door was closed again before he returned his attention to the book on his lap. With half an ear he noticed June whistling merrily as she moved down the stairs.

"Freak," he murmured.

Kat was her and her twin brother's friend and she liked her. She was undoubtedly by far the most interesting person June had ever met. Yet she could and would not be sorry that Kat would not graduate this year after all, because it meant that she would stay in school for another year, and this time she would be in June's grade. When she had first heard the news that Kat had failed the deciding test she needed to pass in order to save her English grade to be eligible for the final exam, she had felt bad for her, but that had quickly given way to the joy of looking forward to a school year with her favourite freak as her classmate.

The rest of June's afternoon was spent at the kitchen table talking with dad, and her excellent mood carried over to nighttime and even the next morning.

After stretching luxuriously, yawning twice and smiling at the Django Unchained poster her Kat had given her, June turned over to check the time on her phone and noticed with mild wonderment that she had missed six calls and her inbox was full. That was quite noteworthy, she reflected, because it was supposed to hold a hundred messages and it had been only half full the day before. She started reading:

'I'm sorry. Be excellent.'

June smiled. "Apologising to me? Adorable. Adorable Kat."

The next one read: 'U know that stupid punk rite shes dead man'

Deal (prose)

 Deal


I walked into the men's room behind you and watched with my hands in my pockets and a small cold smile on my face how you began washing your hands and face, checking the black shades around your eyes, and frowning slightly at the natural ones. And then you bit your lips once and turned around to face me with a genial smile.
"Business," you said.
I nodded and pulled a twenty out of my pocket, looking at it, at you, at it... and held it out to you. You took it gingerly.
"Is something wrong?"
"No."
You hesitated and cocked a brow at me, but produced a tiny folded paper from the frontpocket of your sweater and placed it next to the sink. I opened it carefully and squinted at the thin, glittering crust, and threw you a smile.
"I was told it would be complicated with you. But you're actually the easiest of my customers so far." You leaned against your sink and crossed your arms. I smirked and placed the tiny pad on my tongue.
"Why would I be complicated?" I had to grin.
You shrugged. It was haughty, elegant. I dug into my pocket again and found a big one. Tugged it out and held it out to you, casually, between two fingers. You raised your brows.
"I don't have that much on me, man. Sorry."
I chuckled.
"That's for the complications." I slipped the hundred into your frontpocket, and you recoiled slightly, with a frown that helped the acid melt in my mouth and flush downwards, pull me forward, and swirl around in my arms and legs as yellow and green spirals that screwed out of my skin towards you, tapping your chest and arms ...
"Hey. What the fuck are you doing?"
"Dealing. Business." I was probably on you then, pushing you against a grimy, chipped black wall on a grimy, chipped white heater, and holding you to something you never agreed to. What I knew then was that I was feeding on a field of sour strawberry jam that looked like a sea and the log I was straddling was hot and soft, the trees groaned around us and quicksilver iron snaked into my mouth. I followed its trail with my tongue and took a dive into its narrow well, with a screaming rushing in my ears that cleared them for the musical dripping that followed. Like the crystal sobs of a nymph in a cave. I found her and watched her squirm in my hands. There were toxic icicles that sliced into my arms and neck, leaving prickly sensations and energy for me. Softleaved branches brushed through my hair. I sucked on a peach that tasted of air, salt, and metal. Mostly air, very hot wind, and a wisp of wet mist, just before a bird pecked at my lips. My legs ran from me and started dancing in irregular circles in front of me, while soft warm roots pinned the rest of me to a ridged trunk. It was hard and cold. My front was in the sunlight, it burned a little. My dancing legs jerked back and forth, closer to me. I was sitting. What else, without legs? Haha... Grapes on my mouth. Couldn't break them, too soft. A lurching tingle radiated from the point of pressure, there, light shifted, light blue, you sang, a whistle, but only sobs of some subdued, sweet kind, and your eyes were black shades, closed. There were stains on your throat, wide exposed, thrown back, and they moved. They flowed like little snakes. You felt absorbed, but I had a feeling of having wronged you.
"Mornahunned."
"Uh... huh?"
"More... hundred. More, worth, more."
You looked at me, glassy-eyed.
"Than. Ahundred." I gave up.
I closed my eyes and rested my head against the radiator. You kissed me.