“And you? What are you doing here at such an early hour?”
“Just trying to pick up a Finnish chick, that’s all.”
She laughed. “Wanna have a few shots with me?”
“Sure. What did you have in mind?”
“Tequila.”
She bought the shots. The bartender looked at us with a strange expression but nevertheless served the drinks before moving on to serve some fat Finnish fuck with greasy hair, a stained trucker hat, and a gut as big as a priest’s.
We downed the tequilas. She put her hand on my leg. Déjà vu.
“Wanna go to my cabin?” she asked.
“To, uh, read the Bible together?”
“No. To fuck.”
I quickly downed what was left of my beer. “Let’s go.”
She grabbed me by my hand and we got up from our seats. As we walked towards her cabin, I had to support her here and there in order to make sure that she didn’t fall over. A few people that we passed by stared at us, but I didn’t care. She had clearly had a lot to drink and probably no sleep at all. We got lost a few times in the identical-looking labyrinthine corridors but eventually found the right cabin. She fumbled with the keycard for a bit before getting the door open. It was a cheap cabin with no windows.
Just as soon as we had entered the cabin, she was already on her knees and began unbuttoning my trousers. She took my cock in her mouth like a hungry animal and started sucking it forcefully. I wasn’t sure whether she was a nymphomaniac or just hadn’t had sex in a while.
She sucked me for about five minutes before she went over to the bed and pulled down her tights. “I want you to put it in my ass,” she said. My god, I thought; this lady was a freak.
I put some spit on my cock. She moaned as I slid it in. I pumped away at her ass for a while until I was about ready to come. “I’m gonna come,” I announced, but there was no response. A few strokes more and I came inside her ass. I had never come inside an ass before. It felt exhilarating.
I took it out of her and wiped it on the bedding. She was laying still. I examined her face and noticed that she was slightly snoring. She had fallen asleep while I had been fucking her. I was beginning to think that the only way someone was able to tolerate me was when they were dead drunk. But then, the only way I was able to tolerate normal people was also by being drunk as fuck myself. Was that what they meant by symbiosis?
After I took a piss, I considered the situation I had found myself in. I was in her cabin whilst she was sleeping. I knew there was no way I could have woken her even if I’d wanted to since she was passed out cold. I didn’t really want to either. Thus, my only option was to leave the cabin. Since I was sure that she’d still be sound asleep by the time we reached the harbor, this meant that she would probably be found by a cleaning lady, with that bare ass towards her, cum oozing out of it.
I tried pulling up her tights, but it was futile in the position she was in. I didn’t want to wait in the cabin for another hour either until the ferry arrived as I was sure that if she were to wake up she’d have no memory of me and would be rather surprised to find herself butt-naked in her cabin with a stranger. Therefore, the only thing I could think of was to leave her there like some rape victim.
I paused before exiting the cabin, looking at the bare ass visible from the doorway. “So long,” I said to the ass and left.
It felt a bit strange afterwards walking down the hallway, as though I had done something criminal. But on the plus side, I had indeed fucked a Finnish lady, just as I had wanted to, even if it had been a somewhat pitiable affair. On the other hand, the main reason for the trip had gone as I had subconsciously expected it to go—badly. Still, the experience I’d just had was a kind of silver lining and had invigorated me somewhat. Should these be my last days on earth, I might as well spend them by at least attempting to enjoy myself, as little as I was capable of that these days.
I headed to the duty-free shop to buy some liquor. Since they had a good offer on Jack Daniels, I bought a liter of it. I also bought one of those tiny liquor bottles—this one had a blue liquid in it and was shaped like a ship—as well as a sandwich and a beer. After I got my items, I walked outside to the sundeck. Not that there was any sun.
I sat down in a secluded spot, unwrapped the sandwich, and sipped on the beer whilst watching the sea. The air smelled good. It was a gray and slightly misty day. There was almost nobody else on the deck aside from me. After I was done with the sandwich and the beer, I lit a Marlboro Red. A cigarette takes ten minutes from your life, somebody once said. But so does ten minutes.
After sitting there for a while and looking at the waves, I could make out land in the distance. The ferry would be arriving soon. I downed the small bottle of blue liquor, but it did next to nothing for me. I didn’t want to open the Jack Daniels I’d just bought as it was a big bottle and I wasn’t yet quite on the same level of not giving a fuck as was Billy Bob Thornton’s character in the movie Bad Santa. Then I remembered the smaller bottle of whiskey I had in my jacket pocket from the day before. There was still a quarter of it left. I opened it and took a sip. It tasted good.
I had once disliked whiskey. Its taste had made me want to throw up. However, one day after something really bad had happened to me, the first thing I had done was to go out and buy a liter of whiskey. And on that day, for some reason, it started to taste pretty good to me, even though it never had before. I guess my brain had been too occupied with the pain I was in at the time, so it had ignored the bitter taste. And once the pain had subsided—had it?—I was already used to the taste, despite its bitterness.
I finished the whiskey just as the ship stopped moving. Since I didn’t see anybody else on the deck, I flung the bottle overboard into the sea as hard as I could. Perhaps an alcoholic fish could someday make a home of it.
I left the deck and began walking towards the exit, wondering what I was going to do next. Whatever it was, I knew that it would involve drinking. The question was whether I would be drinking by myself or with other people.
It was a choice that hardly mattered as I was bound to end up disappointed either way.
19
After I got back on solid ground, I first headed home. Once there, I cleaned up the shards from the whiskey bottle I had smashed two days ago. Then, on a whim, I located an old flask which had the quote, “Find what you love and let it kill you,” engraved on it. As the flask was a gift from an ex, it might as well have said, “Find what you love and let it leave you.” I refilled it with the Jack Daniels I had bought on the ferry.
I then had a much-needed shower, during which I contemplated upon what I could possibly love enough in this world so that I could let it kill me. I concluded that it could only be either a woman, alcohol, or a gun.
After I was all done, I decided to head out of the apartment. For there were still far too many shadows there. Far too many memories. Far too much pain.
Despite my recent sexual escapade—or perhaps because of it—I still felt somewhat horny. Therefore, once I arrived in the city center, I decided to head to an adult theater.
I walked towards the sex shop-cum-adult theater in Tatari street. I knew that the likelihood of there being any females around a sleazy place like that was virtually zero. Nevertheless, that wasn’t the point. But then, what was the point? I didn’t know. What was the point of anything? Did it matter if we did one thing or another? If so, where was it written in the universe? And even if it was written somewhere, how could we know that it wasn’t just something that somebody had made up? We couldn’t. So it didn’t matter what we did. Nothing mattered. And thus, I went to the adult theater.