email mammal3050 at gmail for advertising inquiries

buttercup — domain



Domain

By Buttercup



My last night in the U.S., about forty people were in my loft apartment for my goodbye party.

At about 11p.m., Jason handed me an eighth of mushrooms. “I love you brother” he said, and walked away. I vaguely remember seeing him jump off of a couch then try to kiss my friend Ashton on the mouth later, but feel unsure.

I told my friends my trip to El Salvador was going to be “indefinitely long” since Dayna and I had discussed business-related things, marriage-related things, and decided on the names of our future children (Ryan Samuel, Sonja Joy, and Alice Marie).

I had been in the relationship for almost two years at that point and felt doomed.

My roommate Priam and I hadn’t spoken for a week because I told him I had had sex with four different girls the past two weeks, three of them unprotected. Priam had a crush on Dayna and told me he was disgusted that I could “potentially ruin a thing so beautiful”.

This seemed ironic to me because Priam had sex with about twelve girls and one man while he and his ex, Lori, were in a four-year-long on-and-off relationship.

The last time they got back together I felt so abandoned and disappointed with Priam I blacked-out drunk, snorted 80mg of MDMA and came-to inside a girl I didn’t know.

I looked at Priam and his friends Elliot and Richard. They sat on a sofa in Priam’s studio, shirtless and waving around katanas. The swords produced “ghost trails” as they waved and I felt surprised to see this effect not in a movie. I shook my hand in front of my face to confirm that i wasn’t hallucinating and immediately thought, “Damn, shrooms, hallucinating.”

I said something to Priam, but he looked at me with a blank expression, then turned to Elliot and began an enthusiastic “Do you remember that time when”-type anecdote.

I walked away.

I found June and Wallace smoking weed in the gallery. Wallace seemed disoriented.

“I don’t understand why Priam is doing this,” I said.

“Because you’re an impeccable fuck-up,” said June.

“Having a friend who is a fuck-up doesn’t give you authority to police their emotions,” I said. “Especially if you’re the one who encouraged the fucked-up behavior.”

“You know,” said June, “Priam might be bi-polar.”

Wallace handed me a key and a baggie of cocaine. This reminded me I wanted Xanax. I felt lucid despite the effects of the mushrooms, but nervous because this was my second time hanging out with Wallace, and there was only one bump left in the bag.

“Are you sure,” I asked. Wallace’s face was between his knees, his arm still extended. “Go, go, go— do it,” he said.

I snorted the last of the cocaine off of the key and turned to June. She looked the same way she used to look at me before sex, her face, forty-five degrees to the ground, eyes turned up, biting her lip.

I whispered in her ear that we could go to my room, but she became stern-faced and said, “I told you, we’re not doing that anymore. We’re going to be friends and you’re going to move with your girlfriend to El Salvador. Prioritize your shit you dumbfuck.”

“Oh,” yelled Wallace, “The Darkness!” I turned and saw him ferociously licking the now inside-out baggie. “What time is it,” he asked frantically, “We need more snow.”

“It’s already two-thirty,” said June.

“The Darkness,” said Wallace in a defeated tone.

I walked back to Priam’s studio. The effects of the mushrooms were peaking. Our loft evoked, to me, an Egyptian tomb. The massive pillars and exaggerated bodies jolting around seemed like something out of a history channel documentary.

I felt an earnest desire to connect with Priam, but he and his friends, sitting on the couch, shirtless and illuminated by an incandescent lamp, seemed like a primeval gang of warriors, on drugs and drunk in their lair— And they had swords.

I realized I felt emotional and overwhelmed because of the drugs, and also that it was noticeably less hot and more conversation-friendly in the gallery because there were chairs set up in a circle there. I felt desperate. I wanted to be friends with Priam again.

It seemed important to try and convince Priam that I wasn’t a threat or annoyance and that we would all probably be happier if he and his friends came and hung out in the gallery; that this would distill the anxiety I felt about our friendship.

I felt sure that Priam perceived me as an evil wizard from an ice castle who had a sardonic witch-sidekick and a psychologically incapable bodyguard, while Priam, Elliot, and Richard were Conan the Barbarian-like heroes in some Celtic fantasy myth.

I began to say something, then immediately forgot what. Priam and Elliot stared blankly at me. Richard took a hit from a bong. “The Darkness,” Wallace screamed from the middle of the room. Richard hadn’t finished hitting the bong and began to cough violently. Priam and Elliot looked up at Wallace. He seemed manic, was trying to call his dealer.

“Come over here, big guy,” said Priam. Wallace gave up on his cell phone, sat down in a chair by Priam’s desk and put his hands on his face. After a few minutes of Priam joking about “The Darkness” and lamenting how hot it was, I took an opportunity to invite him and his friends to the gallery. Priam agreed.

As they entered, Priam said, “Wow brother, your domain is sick,” and handed me one of the medium-sized katanas. I tapped his katana with mine and felt calm.

Later, Wallace’s drug dealer came with more cocaine. I told him I was leaving for El Salvador in the morning. He gave me two drops of 2C-i for free.

We drank beers and talked for about three more hours, then I went to bed.

June was on my bed, half-asleep. I asked her for a massage. She massaged my shoulders and torso as I lay beneath her. I fell asleep and dreamed a six-eyed beaver was trying to bite off the fingers on my right hand. The dream version of me felt sarcastic and shuffled away from the beaver, repeatedly saying “no, no”.

I don’t think I said goodbye to Jason.




read more by buttercup at his website

No comments :

Post a Comment