by Jennifer Hawk
First things first. I am a thirty-seven-year-old woman, I live alone, and I don’t have a drinking problem. Actually, I don’t live completely alone. I have a few cats, and I watch the TV a lot. I don’t really have many neighbors, but I have a group of friends that stop by to see me and have a few drinks. I really should count my blessings.
The other night, Tuesday, I was sitting on my bed with my cats, and the phone rang. It was after eleven, but it didn’t surprise me too much. They call a lot at night. I thought it might be Pisho, and I was right.
“Hello, Pisho,” I said.
“Hi,” she said back.
“I’m just sitting here with the cats,” I said. “Did you want to come over and sit for a spell?”
“Thinking about it,” she said. “Can I bring someone?”
“Of course,” I said. “Three’s company.”
“What’s on tap?” Pisho asked.
I had to think about it. “Let me think about it,” I told her. I ran through the cupboards in my mind. “Corona, Samuel Adams, melon-flavored vodka, Cuervo, Guinness, Jägermeister, Kaluha, Southern Comfort, some pinot, and…” I paused to think some more. “Goldschlager, Southern Comfort, beer, and I think some gin or Midori. I’m not sure. It’s in a green bottle.”
The dial tone came, so I hung up. Pisho was on her way, and I had to clear the living room. I like to clean a little when I have guests. Cleanliness is next to godliness.
* * *
Pisho showed up with a young man that I didn’t recognize. I brought them inside, and I could tell they’d already been drinking.
“This is Nathan,” Pisho said. She urged him toward me.
He was young and angular, maybe younger than Pisho.
“How old are you?” I asked him.
“Twenty-four,” he said.
“Oh,” I said, slapping my butt. “A young buck.”
Pisho snickered a little and pushed on Nathan’s shoulder again. He was a little short, but good things come in small packages. He took a step toward me, but he didn’t look up, so I couldn’t see his eyes. He was as shy as a schoolboy.
“Give our hostess a kiss,” Pisho said to him.
He looked at me. He had eyes bluer than the sky and deeper than any ocean on Earth. “Maybe a little later,” he said.
Pisho snorted. “Then how about some cocktails?” she said.
“Yes, yes,” I said to them both. I had to break my eyes away from Nathan. His lips were like rose petals, and his hair, strands of gold, copper, and some other precious metal I couldn’t remember. He was magnetic, hypnotic, and I was drawn to him like a moth to a flame.
The kitchen was spic-n-span, and I poured three drinks for us. They were Southern Comfort and cranberry juices, if I remember right. That’s called a “Scarlet O’Hara” in the classier places. I couldn’t quit thinking about how shy Nathan was, and how Pisho was sweet as pie for bringing him over. I tried to think of something to break the ice.
“Here’s mud in your eye,” I said, handing the drinks to them.
Pisho said, “That oughta get us in the mood.
I knew what she meant. Pisho often brings young men over to my place to flirt with. Pisho is one of those beautiful girls with long black hair and almond-shaped eyes. Her body is compact and tight. She’s a real mare. But she doesn’t have what I do, obviously, because the young men she brings over always like me, and we end up having sex upstairs. I’m the lucky one. I should knock on wood.
“I’ll put on some music,” I said. I went to the stereo and bent over to get some mood CDs—Barry White, Isaac Hayes, and Supertramp. I peeked over my shoulder and saw Pisho put her hand on Nathan’s leg and motion toward my butt with her chin. Nathan looked, so I shook my tail feathers a little. Pisho giggled, and Nathan grinned into his highball.
We listened to music for a few hours, and I kept the drinks flowing like a river. Pisho had moved to the floor, across from where I sat with Nathan on the couch. She sat there like a bump on a pickle. Nathan had really loosened up over that time, and we had had a nice conversation about my fellating talents.
“Oh, I love this song,” I said. “Nathan, let’s slow dance.”
He glanced at Pisho, probably to give her the I’m Sorry twist of the lips.
She smiled back at him and then said, “Nathan, I think Venus really likes you.”
“Pisho,” I said, “you know my name’s not Venus.”
“Sure it is, Venus,” she said, and then winked at me and tilted her head toward Nathan. “Aren’t you two going to dance the night away, cheek-to-cheek?”
Nathan stood up and pulled me to my feet. He grabbed my butt and eased his hips up against mine. I stuck to him like glue.
“You like that, Venus?” he said. He looked over at Pisho, probably to check if she was getting jealous.
“Oh, yes,” I said.
We danced together to slow, slow music until I couldn’t see anything anymore. I was walking on air, heading toward Cloud Nine.
“I need more booze,” Pisho said, right as I thought I’d melt in Nathan’s arms.
“Like a fish needs a bicycle,” Nathan whispered into my ear.
“Right as rain” I said, and I broke my union with Nathan. I took Pisho’s glass and went into the kitchen to refill it for her.
When I came back out, Nathan was kneeling awkwardly on the floor between Pisho’s legs, his faced smashed against her under her green skirt. Pisho was biting her lip and looking at me.
“Your girlfriend’s back, Jack,” Pisho said. “Time to get back in the saddle.”
I felt bad about what I’d seen. I knew, though, that something good always comes out of something bad. I handed Pisho her glass while Nathan sat back on his heels and wiped his face with the back of his hand.
“Don’t worry, Venus,” Pisho said. “I’m not trying to take the money and run. He was just helping me with a snag.”
Nathan nodded. “She couldn’t see it.”
“I’m as blind as a bat,” Pisho said.
I sat back on the couch and took some sips of my drink, trying to decide if they were lying or not. Pisho knows that I believe that honesty is the best policy, so I doubted that she would try to pull the wool over my eyes.
We listened to some more Barry White and drank for a while without talking. A couple times, I refilled their drinks, but I hurried. Pretty soon, Nathan was a drunk as a skunk. He became outgoing and glib, and he moved closer to me on the couch.
“Venus,” Pisho said, “let’s get your makeup and make Nathan pretty as a picture.”
“No. Pretty as pudding pie,” I said, and I went into the bathroom to get my box of makeup.
When I got back, Nathan had no shirt on, and Pisho was sitting on the ottoman.
“Do your magic,” Pisho said, leaning back into the arm of the couch.
I knelt between Nathan’s legs and took out some pencil eyeliner. I chose the green because it is my favorite color. I lined his eyes carefully, and he didn’t even flinch. Then he took my hand and directed me to his chest.
“Go ahead, Venus,” he said, “tear my heart right out of my chest.”
I outlined his nipples with black eyeliner and colored them in with white eye shadow. Then I used the green again to draw an alligator face. The snout reached down to the waistband of his pants. I colored the face in with a lighter green eye shadow. I practically used the whole thing.
“That looks great, Venus,” Pisho said. “I want a picture.”
She wanted me to draw a nun on the inside of one arm and a rhinoceros on the inside of the other. They both came out very well. It took about half an hour to do them, but I didn’t mind because the whole time I was drawing and coloring, Nathan was rubbing my back and pushing himself against me.
“Now it’s your turn,” Pisho said. She smiled at Nathan, and he lifted me up to the couch.
Pisho stepped on her tiptoes to grab a blue clown wig that I had on a mannequin head on top of the bookcase. She came over to me and tucked it over my head while I finished my drink.
“Oh, marvelous,” she said, and then she knelt down on one side of me.
Nathan knelt on the other side, and they both began to draw on my arms with eyeliner. I laid my head back against the ridge of the couch to stabilize the room, which had begun to spin like a top. I could feel them drawing. The greasy tips of the eyeliner pencils skated all over my skin, and I felt like art. They moved up to my face, and Pisho told me they were going to make me beautiful.
Their fingers and breaths were on my face as they decorated me. Nathan kissed me once and trailed the eyeliner pencil down the top of my shirt.
“Let me go look,” I said.
“We’re not finished,” Pisho said.
I closed my eyes again.
“Look at her,” Nathan said to Pisho. “Just look at that, and never look back.”
I could hear them putting the pencils back into the box, and then Nathan was on top of me. He pulled my shirt wide open and felt me all over with his hands. I turned my head to the side and saw that Pisho was watching over the rim of her glass, and I felt strange about her watching. Nathan pushed himself into me and smashed hands against my mouth, and this sort of thing continued for about thirty minutes.
When I woke up, Pisho and Nathan were gone. My cats were asleep on the living room floor by my feet, and the music was off. Pisho and Nathan had left their glasses out. I had to pee like a racehorse, so I hoisted my body up and went in there. I was a little sore when I peed, but it didn’t really bother me.
When I washed my hands, I looked into the mirror. The water kept running for the next few minutes as I stared at what they’d done to me. I had a black mustache and a black goatee and swastikas on both cheeks in red. My lips were also black, and there were words all over my forehead and neck. I looked down at my arms, where they had also been drawing, and noticed deep red and lighter pink all over them. It was my blood. I vaguely remember telling them where the eyeliner pencil sharpener was, but I don’t remember them using it. The words VILE and VENUS were scratched into the white of my inner arms.
Waste not, want not, I told myself, and then I turned off the faucet.
I stood on my balcony after a shower. I had wrapped some first aid gauze on my arms before I went outside. The sky was dark, and the half-moon was so bright that I could barely look at it. What I could see surely didn’t look like green cheese. Venus shone even more intensely in its place under the moon, like a light at the end of a tunnel.
Originally published in Rind Literary Magazine — Issue 1 (August 2012).
Reposted on February 8th, 2026.
Vox Inaudica 