Serenissima

A short story I wrote a while ago after a long hiatus of not writing. Please, tell me what you think!
 


 
“As the night fell upon the city, a darkness brewed within me, a darkness that could only be met with… with…”
 
Ugh. What a horrible start for a story. I need a cigarette, I thought as I made up that horrible start for a story. It was clumsy, it was cliché, overused, and, most of all, had nothing to do with the story at hand. It would have been better used as the beginning for a Twilight porn knock off, only with vampires instead of pseudo-BDSM that would kill a real person. As I thought about vampires fricking each other, I searched my pockets for my Zippo lighter and my menthol cigarettes neatly arranged in a cigarette carrier and put one in my mouth and lit it with the lighter, feeling the burn of the petroleum-based lighter fluid in my nose hairs before the smoke of the cigarette entered my lungs. I took a long drag of it as if to inspire myself, then slowly let the smoke out to fill the dimly-lit living room, making the smoke only visible ahead of the television screen screaming at me about the latest edition of The Chef Apprentice or Pimp My Wife or Toddlers and Stripper Cakes or whatever the Frick the new reality-show frenzy was these days.  To be perfectly frank, I never quite got the appeal of them.
 
I swirled around my cup of coffee with my cigarette-arm and took a sip and felt its cold liquid pour down my throat. It was horrible, as my wife’s coffee always was, but doing my own coffee was out of the question nowadays, so I guess it would have to do. My dog Texas jumped up from my lap and ran to the door and started barking. His real name was Kerberus, but I started calling him Texas because he was dumb and liked fricking the neighbor’s male cat when he thought no one was looking. I turned the television off and got up to greet my wife. She was coming home late, as she usually did nowadays. I looked at her suit-dress. It was a bit crumpled at the collar, and I could see her stuffing something into her purse. “Hi, honey,” I forced myself to smile with all the strength I had. She smiled back with ease, as she had always done, and hugged me and kissed me with gusto. I tried to reproduce her enthusiasm, but as always it was lacking in me.
 
“Hubby!” she yelled as she covered me in kisses, “Oh, honey, today was such a good day at work! I think they’re really gonna adopt my proposed model!” I smiled with all my forces again, trying to really be invested in her happiness. “That’s great, love! That’s just grand! I… I lack the words to express my happiness for you!” I said forcing the words out of myself in a drawn-out tortured way while forcing myself to smile throughout. I could feel every single inch of my body screaming in pain against my wishes, but I could control it, at least for now. “So, I was thinking, why don’t I take a shower to freshen up, and we go out to take a drink to celebrate?” she said with a sincere smile I envied deeply. “Sounds like a great idea, dear. I’ll just finish up my last cigarette, while I wait for you to shower, then,” I smiled so dayum hard I could feel my muscles ripping themselves apart. My face was pretty much the only part of me that actually got any exercise these days. My dear wife skipped her way to the bathroom and closed the door behind her so Texas wouldn’t try another of his surprise couples’ showers. I looked at her purse, sitting on the dining room table, and curiosity got the better of me. I slowly opened it up, as if I feared being discovered, and looked inside. There was a black thing inside it. I grabbed it and lifted it. It was a lacy bra. I sighed and put it back inside the purse and closed it and sat on the couch to wait. A while later, while I was on my third cigarette, she came into the living room, wearing a dress that covered her chest to her knees. It was a light-blue dress, and it looked nice on her. I got up and hugged her around her waist and kissed her on the nose. “I love you, Erika. I hope you know that,” I said with a faint, painful smile. She smiled back with the effortless grace she had since we met. “I love you too, Ben,” she said and kisses me on the chin. “Come on,” I cried, “you know I prefer Benedict.” She gave me an amused look and let go of me and grabbed her purse. “Are you ready to go, Benedict?” she asked. “As ready as I’ll ever be, I guess,” I replied and followed her out the door while pursued by a wild Texas.
 
We drove our way to a small little restaurant on the beach-side where the tables were set outside so we could feel the sea’s breeze or, as it was called in Brazil, the maresia. We sat ourselves at a table where the waiter brought free entrées of various types of bread, salami and other delicacies. Erika ordered a lager beer, or chope, and I ordered a dark, creamy chope. Brazil had always had the best beers, in my opinion, though I missed New York’s pizzas. I looked over the menu in Portuguese I was reading to Erika, thinking about the bra I found in her purse. She noticed my stare and looked back and gave me a smile and flipped the page on her menu. “All these look really good. What are you in the mood for? A friend at work told me to try chicken hearts. He said they were delicious, and I wanna know if you Brazilian boys aren’t always lying to me,” she said. “Whatever you want, dear,” I replied and closed my menu. We waited for the waiter to bring us our beers and ordered an aperitif of fried chicken hearts and a side of potato chips. The waiter noted it all down and went inside again. I sighed and looked around the Calçadão of Copacabana, feeling the cool night breeze on my skin. The moon was full that night, shining over the sea and the far away ships that had anchored at the shores, most of them cruise ships, although some were fishing vessels. I felt something touch my hands, and looked to see Erika stroking my hands with a smile on her face. “You okay, honey?” she asked. “Yeah,” I replied, “just thinking about today.” Her face lit up as I said that, and she grabbed my hands. “Did you manage to write today?” she asked enthusiastically and I sighed. “No, you know I didn’t. I can’t do it anymore. I guess… I’m just not like that anymore,” I said. Erika put her hand on my cheek and looked at me sadly. “Don’t say that. You can still write. I know you can. I believe in you, love,” she said and I forced myself to smile. The food thankfully arrived, so we ate in almost complete silence, occasionally exchanging glances or a few words of encouragement.
 
I knocked on the door a few times, waiting for Jessica to open the door. I heard something rumble on the other side, but soon afterwards the door creaked open and a hastily-dressed Jessica stumbled out, still trying to get her jeans on right. She gave me an angry look then opened the door all the way and kept getting dressed. “Frick, Ben, you could have told me it was you,” she complained. “Sorry, I didn’t think you were naked. Also, please don’t be naked in front of me. It makes Erika get mad at me,” I said. She laughed and put on her t-shirt that basically told whoever was reading it and was of an anti-LGBT disposition to try the wonders of sodomy. “Classy,” I commented. “Oh, thanks. Cost me about five minutes,” she replied. “I didn’t know you made t-shirts,” I said in an unbelieving manner. “I don’t. I went to a parade and they were just throwing these away,” she again replied and finished putting on her shoes. As she was getting up, a naked, pale to the point of looking sick man walked out of her bedroom to the living room. He walked funny, almost as if he had taken Jessica’s t-shirt’s advice to heart and then sat on it. Repeatedly. Probably without any lube. What I’m trying to say is that he got ass-hosed. He froze up when he saw me standing in front of him and looked at Jessica, who just shrugged and carried on organizing her overly-big purse. “Hi,” he said while looking around as if a camera crew was about to jump out and start mocking him. “Hi,” I replied, “I hope you had fun and all, but right now I’m gonna borrow Jessica from you, if you don’t mind.” He looked down at his feet and abs and shook his head. “This… this was my first time, dude. I just…” he tried to say. “I don’t care, and neither does anyone else in this apartment but you. Just practice safe sodomy,” I said with a laugh. He put his hands to his face and stroked his hair back. Jessica tapped me on the shoulder and we left. We started walking to the Leme beach, where we sometimes walked to exercise. Or at least that what we told other people. In reality, we just walked up and down while talking about BS and smoked. Well, I smoked. She just watched.
 
“So,” she opened up, “how’s it going, dude?” I lit up a cigarette and took in a long drag before answering. “Fine, I guess. Erika’s cheating on me, can’t write a mothering word that isn’t on a contract and I’m pretty sure my ancestors are calling me a for smoking menthols,” I replied. She just walked in stunned silence for a second before finally talking. “Wow, that must suck. Are you, uhm… hurt by it a lot?” she asked. “Not really. Not the first time people called me a , although I’m not used to ancestral name-calling, I must admit,” I said. She sighed. “You know what I mean, Ben. I mean, I didn’t think she could hurt you like that,” she continued. “It honestly doesn’t hurt me,” I said, “I’m kinda shocked it hasn’t happened sooner, to be honest. I haven’t been interesting in a long time, and you know that.” She shook her head and patted me on the back. “Come on, dude. You know it’s not that bad. I was actually re-reading your old book these days. It’s pretty good, honestly,” she offered with a smile. I raised an eyebrow at her, and she quickly stopped smiling. “Well, it’s not great, but it’s certainly not bad. It’s a good read,” she said, “I don’t know why you stopped.” I smoked my cigarette again. “I didn’t stop writing. Writing stopped me. If it were up to me, I’d still be up to my balls in stories about ty writers realizing their writing was fricking awful and then vowing to do something about it while somehow making two beautiful women fall in love with them and losing them both,” I said, “but enough about my clichés. How’s your life? And who was that dude in your house? I kinda wanna be nosey about it, since I’m pretty much a househusband at this point.” She shrugged. “Work’s ok. Not great, since apparently engineers can’t fathom a woman being smarter than them, but ok. We’re working on a new circuit board for robotic prosthesis, and I’m kinda having fun fiddling with that. The dude you saw in my house was a guy who works with me,” she said. “I assume he’s pro LGBT rights, then?” I suggested while smoking a bit more. “Not even in the slightest,” she smiled at me with a devilish grin. “Well, ain’t that dandy,” I said and threw the cigarette butt on the ground and stomped on it.
 
We spent a couple of hours wasting by the beach, walking back and forth and just talking stupid crap. Finally, she had to leave so she left me alone at the Posto Seis, where I sat down at a beach-side bar and smoked another cigarette. I ordered a beer at the bar and drank it where I stood just to give the glass back right away, as they only had light beers which I never liked. I sat on the chair beneath a glass ceiling and stared at the sea as it moved and swayed. My heart felt heavy as I stared at an ever-moving sea, and I felt an end coming. I didn’t know why, or how… but it was there. I guess I always knew it would happen, once I couldn’t write anymore, but I wasn’t really braced for it. I guess no one is. I started the long walk home, throwing away my cigarettes in the trash can. They’d just make it even more difficult.
 
I arrived home not much later and opened the front door and saw Texas lying on the living room, staring at the corridor. I snapped my fingers to get him to come, but he was dead-set on his position, so I walked up to him and heard moaning coming from the bedroom. I sighed and took Texas in my arms and sat on the couch with him and started stroking his fur as I tried to block my hearing from getting recognized by my brain. Fifteen agonizing minutes passed as the moaning got louder, and louder, and ever more frantic, until a final scream was made. I gave Texas one last kiss on the nose and let him loose. He immediately ran to the door, and I heard it open and heard my wife yell at Texas not to bother “Marcos.” The guy who was presumably named Marcos walked to the living room and froze up when he saw me. H-uh. Weird feeling of Deja Vu. “Uh, sweetheart?” he said in a worried tone of voice, “I think… I think someone broke into your house.” I stared at him and raised an eyebrow, and soon Texas came running to jump up my lap, where I continued stroking him. Erika entered the living room in her panties and not much else, looking at the man she called Marcos. “What are you talking about, Mar… oh, my god,” she said as she saw me. “Hi,” I said meekly. “Ben!” she screamed, “What… what are you doing here? I… this… this isn’t what it looks like, I swear!” Marcos started waving his arms to try and deny what I had seen, and I just sighed and stood up from the couch, whereupon Marcos took a fighting stance. I walked over to Erika and kisses her on the cheek. “I hope you have the happiness you deserve, dear. Please take care of Texas, I may not be back in a while,” I said and left. I heard Erika scream at me to come back, but I had never even arrived in the first place. I left the building and stared at the road and started walking. I heard a honking sound, and saw Jessica stopping her car next to me. I got inside, and I finally let myself cry a bit. She patted me on the back, but I composed myself again and smiled at her. “Where are you gonna go now, Ben?” she asked with a worried voice. “Wherever. Who knows, maybe I’ll find out where I’ve been,” I replied, and Jessica stepped on the accelerator.