Fear and Loathing [NSFW]

[TonyTwoFingers]

She’s late. I drum my sweaty fingers on the restaurant table, the knot in my stomach working its way up into my throat. The empty chair across from me yields sympathetic looks from waiters and patrons alike. Just another pathetic guy getting stood-up. The fact that I’m a nervous eater doesn’t help - I must have consumed two loaves of bread since getting here. I don’t think the staff has the heart to kick me out, which is good, because she’ll be here. I hope.

It’s our first date in a long time. Normally that enough would be enough to get the heart racing, but tonight’s circumstances are especially trying. Katherine is beautiful in about every sense of the word. Always ready with a kind word and a smile. The type of person people naturally gravitate towards - even people me.

We’d both been really drunk. That’s about all I remember from that night, apart from the applause of dozens of my friends as I stumbled drunkenly from the bedroom. I’d expected it to end the next day. After all, alcohol-soaked trysts rarely end well. But she called me back, and we’ve been dating since.

About two months of steady, stable, and... pleasurable courtship, the cracks in her armor started to show. I’d forget to call one night, and she’d give me the most ear-blistering chastising in recent memory. Then later she’d call me up in tears and beg for my forgiveness. We’d be playfully teasing each other in the car, and she would suddenly take everything very seriously, and get irritatingly defensive.

About a month after that, she’d start popping these little yellow pills like candy. She’d never tell me what they were when I asked, but I knew. Whenever the anti-depression pill ads would come on television, she’d suddenly bring up some tangentially related subject to call attention away from it.

It’s been five months since we’d started dating, and things have only gotten worse. Two weeks ago she came in with bandages on her wrists. And I pretended not to see them.

I take a deeper swig of wine than is socially acceptable.

Now I’m nervous whenever she’s late or hasn’t called. I’m afraid that if I don’t check in every hour on the hour I’ll find her dangling from a leaky pipe in her apartment. She scares the hell out of me now, and I feel bad because of that.

I feel bad that I’m not a good person. I feel bad that every time she calls me in tears, I’m counting the moments until I get to hang up. I feel bad that there’s a few hundred million men on this earth who could be there for her in a way that I can never hope to be. I feel bad that I’m a scumbag, and I feel bad for not caring.

She’s got me in the palm of her hand for all the wrong reasons.


After an hour and a half of free bread and water, she arrives. I’ve lost my appetite. “Hey hon, glad you could make it.”

“Sorry I’m so late, I had to work late tonight. Coworker skipped out without any notice.” Bullshit. I know for a fact that Katherine hasn’t been working for at least three weeks. But rather than call her on it, we lie to each other. I pretend that I still love her and that she doesn’t scare the everlasting god out of me, and she pretends that everything is alright.

“Oh, that sucks. I’m just glad you made it here at all.”

“Yeah, again, I’m really sorry. You haven’t been here long, right?” Fucking Katherine. The date was for five-thirty, not seven.

“Nah, not too long. Few minutes, maybe.”

“Well that’s good. Did you check the menu yet?”

“I did. I’m planning on getting the Chilean Sea Bass. Why don’t you take a look?” I suggest, handing the menu across the table. I hate this. The last time two actors this good got together, someone walked away with an Academy Award.

“Ooooh, the Caesar Salad sounds nice, doesn’t it?”

“Kat, that’s just an appetizer.”

“Oh, I know it is, but I’ve been trying to cut down on my calories, because I’m getting a little big around the waist.” Oh, the night is still young and the baiting has already begun.

“No you’re not,” I draw out with a painfully manufactured smile. “You’re being ridiculous.”

“I really am getting fat,” she responds with a melancholic pout that’s supposed to look fake but is all too real.

“Seriously, get what you want. You’re in fine shape.” This is what a conversation is now. We used to talk about the future, about the past. About big ideas and big events. But now she just steers herself into ditches for me to tow her out of. I hate it.

“Come on Ed, you don’t have to lie to me.” You don’t know the half of it. “I know I’m getting a little chunky. I’ll just stick to the salad and some water.”

“If that’s what you really want to do, go for it.”


I don’t think she loves me anymore, either. I think she sees me as a meat-and-bone extension of the suicide hotline rather than a human being. Like an interminable donor of support and good cheer. A bottomless I.V. drip of feel-good meds. “So how’s the Sea Bass?” Katherine asks, daintily dabbing her mouth.

“It’s good. Lemon was a nice touch. How’s the salad?”

“It’s pretty good,” she says, stirring a piece of chicken around the plate with her fork. “Probably would’ve liked the crab better...” She adds with a sigh. Yeah, she probably would’ve. She loves crab. Probably more than she loves me.

“Do you want to get something else?”

“No, it’s good. I’ll still eat it.”

“You’re sure? I haven’t finished my fish, if you want to have that instead.” She eyes the fish and her salad over. She’s done about everything in her power to make it look unappealing - no dressing, no pepper, nothing. Manufacturing her own distaste. It’s such a Katherine thing to do.

“You sure? That does look really good.”

“Go for it,” I say, handing her the dish from across the table. I’d been forcing it down anyway. I’d practically made myself sick on water and bread.

“You’re the best,” she smiles before leaning over and giving me a peck on the cheek.


Katherine drives us back to my apartment, because I’d had a few too many glasses of wine. She's buzzed too, just less so. We’re both breathing pretty heavily by the time we get inside and seated on the couch. We stare deeply and lustfully into each other’s eyes before Katherine excuses herself from the room. “I’ll be right back,” she winks. “Just slipping into something more comfortable.”

Unlike everything else in the relationship, the sex is great. Katherine really is a great looking woman, and is pretty permissive in bed. It’s orgasmic for a lot of reasons. Beyond the simply physical, I get to let out all the built-up stress, tension, and anger without any repercussions. It’s a physical, mental, and emotional release. There’s just something about it that momentarily frees me. I’m in control of my life, if even for just a little while. For the first time tonight, I’m excited for something. I just finish unbuttoning my shirt when I hear crying from the other room. Katherine is balled up completely naked in front of a full-length mirror in the bedroom. “Baby, baby, what’s wrong?” I ask, kneeling down and running my hands through her hair. But I already know what’s wrong. The same thing that’s always wrong.

“I’m just not feeling very sexy tonight,” she sniffles.

“Hey, hey, hey... why don’t you just hop into bed, okay? Get some rest.”

“Are... are you sure?” her voice cracks. “I really want to make you feel good...”

“Shhh... enough of that now. You know what’ll make me feel good?”

“What?” she asks, rising from her pitiable state on the floor and climbing into the modestly sized bed.

“You feeling good,” I smile, pecking her on the forehead. “I’ll be right back, okay? Just going to brush up.” She nods and shoots a teary-eyed smile through smeared mascara. I walk into the bathroom, locking the door and flicking on the light. I turn to the mirror and practice punching it, for the day I finally can’t take any more of this. Katherine has been trying her best in the past few months to prove that depression can be contagious. I brush my teeth and disdainfully spit into the sink before taking a seat on the toilet. If I’m not supposed to go to bed angry, I can never count on Katherine. I take matters into my own hand so I can stomach being next to that woman in bed. I finish and clean myself up, literally flushing what felt like the lifeblood of our relationship down the drain.


I crawl into the far-too-small bed and turn my back to Kat, whose breathing has already slowed and steadied. “G’night hon,” I say, turning out the bedside lamp.

“G’night Ed. Love you.”

I always find this the hardest to say. It’s the lie that never wants to be told. “Love you too, Kat. Sleep well.”

[Snuffkin]

FUCKING. FINALLY.

Also, is the title a Hunter S. Thompson reference? If so, I approve.

[jarek56]

It's disturbing, how much this Katherine reminds me of someone precious to me who behaves in such a similar manner. You've really got the feeling down on it, I'd say. It feels all too uncomfortably real.

[Snuffkin]

Well, here's my contribution. I was originally going to try to include the second chapter in this, but I'm not sure how to finish it.

Chapter 1(?)
Jarold had been filled with some combination of rage and fear immediately after Mary had been slain, and he had, as many men of average testosterone and capacity to feel moral indignation will do, fantasized extensively about killing the vile scum which had carried out the murders. At the time, he imagined adequate punishment for this subhuman freak to be a slow castration delivered with a rusty utility blade and, after a grace period, a slashing of the wrists. Perhaps on some level in resignation of his own physical weakness, however, he never attempted to seek out the crime scene for clues, and he imagined that he’d break into the prison after the police had widdled the list of suspects down to one, and taken away the necessity of actually doing any hunting in his own right.

As the police investigators failed to bring up trace of the killer, the desire to hunt down the mongrel slowly turned into fear of him. Perhaps in some capacity he himself was aware that the intent to murder the man was nothing more than an unrealistic, shoddy excuse for a coping mechanism, for as time passed, this was replaced completely by fear and regret. Fear, that the rat-bastard would come after him next, and regret, because he wasn’t able to die with his one true love.

It seemed that lately more and more he had been drawn to think of her, and that a ridiculous variety of things would prompt him to do so; cliché, true, but he had never paid this level of thought to her while she still existed. His manic-depressive, emotionally insecure self and his apathetic self seemed to battle within him every couple minutes over what amount of grieving was necessary, and the only result of this battle was unceasing misery.

Mary, he thought, sweet holy mother of God, why did the piece of shit have to kill her? What harm had she ever done anyone, beside perhaps one or two people in our class back in highschool who would’ve been ostracized even without our reinforcement? The only comfort I can gain now is from my friends, and even they’ve become colder, more aloof. Sure, this is probably due to some fear they may have of seeming too unaffected in comparison, but for fuck’s sake, when can a man have more need for the support of his brothers? It seems as if the only time they’re likely to attempt actually cheering me up is to soften the blow when they begin, bless their immature stupid asses, to try and get me to go out with someone else.

If they do, though, my response will not be an appreciative one; Mary and I were going to be married, before that mutant came along, and it will always be true that we will join each others hands in companionship. Even if that condition can only be fulfilled by my death, it will be true in the end.

Part of him doubted this, said that while that would be all well and good, it would never happen; he was a pussy, he’d illustrated that clearly enough by how quickly he lost serious interest in avenging his girl. Sure, it took most more guts to kill another than themselves, but you’re too much of a pussy to do either, even if one of them does happen to be the obvious option, Jarold thought to himself.

How long has it been, now? Well, it’s been Monday for two hours, so...
It would’ve amused someone with access to Jarold’s thoughts just how hard of a time he was having telling how long it had been since the slaughter; one hundred days and twelve hours. It would have amused someone who happened to be staring at him through his apartment window just how much he was drunkenly swaying, and how pathetic he looked with dried tears run down his eyes, but Jarold himself didn’t consider this. At that moment, he wouldn’t have been able to care less about the opinions of those who would consider him to be overreacting or unhealthy, even if they did happen to be disembodied minds and eyes, lying in judgment.

He hadn’t been this inclined to turn to alcohol for the numbing of emotional trauma a few months back; in fact, Rose had disapproved of the habit the entire time she was with him, and had suppressed it with some success. Jarold was aware of how she would have disapproved of his newly regained alcoholism; all he was doing was attempting to trade one weakness for another, and he wasn’t even achieving that effect. He was still obsessed with that great, judgmental nonexistent woman who he believed to somehow be disappointed in him. That he believed himself to have abandoned.

While he, a former social fixture within the twenty-something underachiever community in the city, wasn’t too concerned about how all of this self-pitying and melodrama had affected his economic standing, he really should have been. His occupation had, up until the week before when he was finally fired, been nothing more than clerk at a local convenience store. His savings (beside of course the stash of $20 and $50 dollar bills he saved for pissing away on more liquor to, in turn, piss away again) only covered rent up until rent day, last month, and he expected eviction notices within two weeks.

Once again, though, he wasn’t too much concerned with all that. A man like Jarold can only ever overreact to one thing at a time, you see, and he never did have his priorities straight. For the rest of the night, he continued to drink and wallow in his own misery. Of course, in this case the rest of the night turned out to be only an extra half-hour; he was already getting close to passing out.

He woke up to discover that he’d slept in until 4:30 PM. Any ambitious notions he may have had about how he was going to spend the day were smashed, as he realized he’d slept through most of it, anyway. The hangover certainly didn’t help things either.

He decided to rest for another hour, and then get up and clean the apartment (might as well streamline the process of getting kicked out, he thought). He began in the bedroom, methodically clearing out the crushed beer cans, other refuse and dust while still trying to clear the cobwebs out of his consciousness. He found a pair of Rose’s panties under the bed, much to his chagrin.

Still, he managed to keep his thoughts elsewhere until he’d moved through the kitchen/living room, and finally sat back on his drinking-coach. It was only then, with the trash previously obscuring it brushed away, that he realized he hadn’t gone through his answering machine for... he wasn’t sure how long. The LCD panel in the front read 13. He pressed Play All, and began to listen.

The first was a warning from the apartment complex’s office about the rent (no shit) and the next five were warnings from his former boss, the little yellow man from the convenience store. The urge within him to simply erase all of the messages was growing quite fast at that point, but he decided to listen to one or two more. He didn’t even know what the next one was about; he’d stopped really listening, all he could hear was his heart pumping (seemingly in his skull) and his own sobs. It was Rose. By the end of the message, he managed to calm down enough to hear, “... but anyway, thank you for the wonderful time! I know my dad’s never approved of you that much, but I think you’re beginning to grow on him. And as for mother—well, there’s no helping that. See you tomorrow, Jerry. Love you, bye.”

He leaped up only to see that he was too late; the machine had already erased the message. Everything after that was from this or that jag-off friend or telemarketers. His last chance at preserving some real memory of their relationship, and he’d wasted the opportunity hyperventilating. He screamed and cursed, and beat the machine into plastic and silicone debris with the thick end of a ceramic bust of Pyrrhus he’d been given as a gag birthday present. Part of it broke, and nearly sent shards into his fists.

The only thing he wanted at that point was to disprove himself; he certainly wasn’t too much of a pussy to take the plunge and rejoin Rose, even if it was premature. If he had the money for a pistol, he likely would’ve used that, given the instantaneous appeal. Alas, he did not. Not desiring to try and work through blood passages with one of his dull steak knifes, he decided on his method of exit: the balcony.

His apartment was 6 floors up; it was dark enough by this point that he was confident nobody would get to his compacted body quickly enough to make any difference. He walked through the sliding glass door, climbed over the waist-high fending, and leaped.
As he fell, he felt more at peace than he remembered being for almost as long as his memory stretched at that moment of reduced-consciousness.

WARNING: Threadjacking is bad and User had been warned - create your own thread for your own stories - IMPERIAL

[TonyTwoFingers]

Just want to clear the air really quick - it's really not a huge concern for me. I don't want to undermine anyone's authority, but it's okay with me if Snuff wants to post some stuff here, especially if it's related thematically or is "inspired" (haha, yeah right) by the piece. That being said Snuff, I would also encourage you to make a thread of your own, if not simply so that your work doesn't get buried or falsely attributed. And, as always, definitely a thought-provoking and intense piece of work.

[kosherbacon]

Next time, just make it clear that it's a collaboration/open-mic thread beforehand.

[Snuffkin]

I thought you had already been made aware that it was a collaboration by Rav. My apologies.