61 Frames Per Second by John Constantine Today in Nerve's videogame blog: Street Fighter. The movie. A new one. With that chick from that Superman show. Don't act like you don't know what I'm talking about!
The Remote Island by Bryan Christian Mad Men's January Jones struts her stuff in Vanity Fair. Plus: Damages returns, the latest Gossip Girl guest star and Donna Martin capitulates.
Rocco sways like a loose-hipped hula dancer, snipping at the edges of my
contorted limbs with his shutter. I tug at my sweater, rub a palm over my
belly, roll onto my back like a huffy insomniac, squirm some more, trying
to get a little turned on so the pictures won't suck as much as this
shoot does. Rocco says, "FYI, you look like hell warmed over. Heroine
chic is over, you know." PJ Harvey sings:
Get girl out of my head
Douse her with gasoline
Set it light and set it free
I'm wearing my new bra in my old favorite color and a pair of black
tights with a hole in the toe that distracts me to no end. I sit up to
free the toe from its miniature noose, also swiping a quick nosepick --
this overheated apartment has dried up my sinuses, hardened my snot to
the consistency of pine bark. Underneath, the skin is new, bleeds a
rivulet down my hand. This has happened before, but usually only on
airplanes. I throw back my head and run for the bathroom.
"You could've just said you wanted to stop," he calls sweetly after.
Rocco always believed that illness was psychosomatic. Especially if it
was mine. Migraine? You should quit looking at those old pictures of
your mom and dad. Tendonitis? Meditation will relax the
ligaments, just try it, Zepha! Gut-wrenching stomach ache after
every meal? It's not what you're eating, it's that you're not
digesting your stress. And my chronic yeast infections (which happen
to have subsided since I left him) were just an "excuse." Not to have
sex. But Rocco could cure all my excuses! Letting go of years of pent-up
sexual tension (coming) would flush the evil bacteria from my vaginal
walls, he assured. But it wasn't -- and isn't -- that easy. The
yogurty-cool cream I inserted before slipping into our King futon brought
an immediate relief that his hard, hopeful dick never could. It let me be
an ailing princess instead of an ice queen.
So I was a mess. What was I, twenty? Thought there was something to that
princess shit. Didn't know the difference between being in love and being
impressed with the record collection of someone who loved me more than
said collection.
"Rocco, can you come in here and take a picture of all this blood?"
By the time I leave it's stopped raining outside but individual people
are still walking around with their annoying, family-sized umbrellas up.
With a wad of Kleenex lodged securely in my nose and a rude sendoff -- "I
have to make a phone call now, mind letting yourself out?" -- rousing my
gladiator spirit, I vow to seize the next parasol that pokes me in the
face and splinter it.
"Mmmmm, honey, nice high beams, how 'bout a smile?" A pony-tailed limo
driver in a shiny, teal double-breasted suit leans on his Lincoln Town
Car, ogling my under-insulated tits with comical zeal, probably betting
on me to lower my eyes and quicken my step.
Unfortunately, he holds no umbrella. Unfortunately, I have always taken
great pleasure in flipping the bird. Such a simple, offhandish gesture --
yet it satisfies physically (like letting a tic twitch) and emotionally
(no shrill swear words to cringe over afterwards). Its the only
appropriate response I can think of on such short notice, and I look him
in the eye and give it to him, coming and going.
When the stun-gun effect of this gesture has worn off, he's all action,
shiny Italian tassle-loafers slapping the wet pavement behind me. "You
have a problem, slut? You have a problem with somebody giving you a
compliment ugly whore?"
That's it . . .
He jumps in front of me, skip-walking backwards, face puckered with the
mouthful of bitter fruit he can't spit out fast enough, and I can't get
past him, don't want to turn my back on him. At the corner he looks over
his shoulder and I step sideways into a gutter, run through a red light,
a herd of taxis gunning their engines at me, horns blaring.
On the other side of the street, a man has seen everything. He looks at
me kindly with eyes like warm gray pebbles, and wants to know if I'm
alright. I've lost my Kleenex and my nose is bleeding again. The blood
tastes like fear and I say no and start to cry in big, heaping shudders
right there under the kind man's umbrella, about which I suddenly have no
complaint.
When I was a kid I could run off my tears, just run and run, sometimes
tripping over my dog, who ran too, until the sound of my gasps and the
Technicolor blur of everything that stood still lulled me into a
melodramatic sense of peace. The sidewalks of New York City aren't as
good as country roads for the full-blur effect, but I try, I try, I try
until I am bursting into my apartment upon a roomful of faces with no
features, turning to see who. Stuck in the doorway, I'm thinking death,
it's got to be death. Then I see the daisy chain of hands holding hands .
. . Of course, the intervention! Michael, my roommate, is hosting it for his friend
with a so-called drinking problem. I was supposed to be there, here, and
Michael is not pleased, though the friend, Lenny is. I've interrupted
someone's speech, kissing Lenny's pocked cheek on my way into my bedroom,
where I call up my voicemail.
It would be nice, right now, to hear a female voice, soft with her
affection for me. A girlfriend. Instead, it's PJ Harvey -- who probably
has lots of guitar-smashing, raspy-throated girlfriends who'd do anything
for her because she is like a guy, but not -- singing,
You leave me dry
You leave me dry
You leave me dry
But it's not really her, just Rocco, blasting a few stanzas of "Dry" in
the background before he tells me he'll send the negatives, there's no
need to call, in fact, he thinks it would be good if I didn't call
anymore for a while, at least for a couple months, because he's got so
much to do, like fifty jobs and visiting his little sister in rehab . . .
At least it was me he kicked me out to call. In the dresser
mirror, a pair of bee-stung eyes stare back at me, cried-out, momentarily
wizened. I wipe the last traces of dried blood from my nostrils and
venture out into Lenny's personal hell, where I am wanted.
your mom and dad. Tendonitis? Meditation will relax the
ligaments, just try it, Zepha! Gut-wrenching stomach ache after
every meal? It's not what you're eating, it's that you're not
digesting your stress. And my chronic yeast infections (which happen
to have subsided since I left him) were just an "excuse." Not to have
sex. But Rocco could cure all my excuses! Letting go of years of pent-up
sexual tension (coming) would flush the evil bacteria from my vaginal
walls, he assured. But it wasn't -- and isn't -- that easy. The
yogurty-cool cream I inserted before slipping into our King futon brought
an immediate relief that his hard, hopeful dick never could. It let me be
an ailing princess instead of an ice queen.
yet it satisfies physically (like letting a tic twitch) and emotionally
(no shrill swear words to cringe over afterwards). Its the only
appropriate response I can think of on such short notice, and I look him
in the eye and give it to him, coming and going.
