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Saturday, March 4, 2017

Short Story- Candy Johnson by Brenton Booth













Some M rated (15+) content below.

CANDY JOHNSON

I met her in a bar on Darlinghurst Street. She told me she was a regular there. I lived close to it and had walked past it many times over the years but had never gone in there before. I rarely went to bars. I found bars in Sydney too expensive, full of big-mouthed boring people with over the top drinking laws designed to keep all the conservatives happy. I normally just drank at home, the music was always better, and I wouldn’t be giving away all my murdered hours at work to someone that didn’t deserve them. Though tonight was pretty miserable, cold, raining, my apartment felt like a goddamned igloo. And I’d also just won a few hundred on an mma fight. I bet against this featherweight Irish punk who had won a handful of fights against mostly nobodies and all of a sudden thought he was invincible. When it was announced he was fighting the hard faced Mexican kid from California, I knew he would get his ass handed to him. He actually did better than I thought he would in the first round. He cut my bet up pretty good, but did no real damage other than blood, and blood had never bothered him before. The second round started and the Irishman looked exhausted, he tried to shrug it off with his regular stupid bravado, but my bet quickly hit him with a few good punches right on the jaw and took him down and tapped him out like a beginner.

She told me her name was Candy Johnson. “ Is that your real name, or your professional name,” I said.

“ Fuck you.”

“ Hey calm down! I was only joking.”

“ You want to make it up to me, buy me a drink.”

“ I don’t buy women drinks. And I only just met you, and don’t really give a damn about your overly sensitive feelings. If you want to keep talking to me, you buy me one.”

Candy gave me a strange look. It confused me. She then stood up and left the bar. I didn’t care. I hadn’t been with a woman for months now, that’s if you count hookers. If not, it had been several years. I just lost interest in the bullshit: all of the lying and pretending positive to hook them. That crap wasn’t for me anymore. Life was tough enough already without that shit! I stood up and put some coins in the jukebox. I put on Neil Young’s ‘Hey, Hey’. I’d seen a really good film once and that song was the theme song and it had always stayed with me. I went to the bar and ordered another bourbon and sat back down at my table.

I felt someone put their hand on my left shoulder. I did nothing for a second. Then grabbed their wrist and turned as quickly as I could. This poor sucker was really in for it—I wasn’t taking any shit tonight! I was about to let loose when I noticed it was Candy. I let go of her wrist. She had a dazed look on her face. “ Why the fuck did you do that! I could have hurt you!” I said.

“ You couldn’t hurt me.”

“ Whatever you say. Look I am going. It was nice meeting you, I guess.”

I headed for the door shaking my head. What a fucked up night this was turning out to be. The bouncer was eyeing me hard. He’d obviously been watching everything. Fuck him! If he was game, so was I. I hadn’t had a fight for a while, but this seemed a good night for one. He blocked the doorway. I stopped a few feet from him waiting for him to make the first move.

“ Wait! I just wanted to buy you a drink. I was going to ask you what you drank before you got mad. And besides, I love this song. I have never heard it played here before,” said Candy pulling me away from the bouncer and sitting me back down, “ so what do you drink?”

“ Bourbon.”

“ Now don’t kill anyone while I am gone.”

“ I will try my best.”

Candy went to the bar and I looked back at the bouncer. He was having an argument with a group of teenagers about their age—what an asshole!

Candy returned with 4 glasses. 2 each. She had some real potential.

We drank until the lights came on and they kicked us out. By that time I had forgiven the bouncer and shook his hand on the footpath. Candy took me back to her place. It was a big 1 bedroom on the 10th floor of a large apartment building on the good end of Victoria Street. It was a really nice place, with a decent size balcony and city views. She must have had a decent job: lucky we didn’t go back to my crappy place.

I sat on her black leather sofa and she went to get some drinks.
She came back with them on a tray. “ Practicing to be a waitress,” I said.

“ Take a closer look.”

I noticed a small bag of what looked like coke next to the drinks. “ Happy,” she said.

“ Very happy.”

We started on the coke and were pretty soon naked.

We fucked on the balcony then went to bed.

I woke the next morning feeling really strange. Where the fuck was I? There was something digging into my arm. I lifted the sheet off me. Holy shit! The inside of the sheet was covered in dozens of human cocks that had been sewn onto it. I couldn’t believe it. What the fuck was this! Was I dreaming? The bedroom door opened and a good looking blonde around my age came in.

“Are you ok?” she said.

“Who are you? And where the fuck am I?”

She paused a moment, as if upset in some way. “ You don’t remember. I am Candy. This is my apartment.”

“I must have been drunker last night than I thought. Did we fuck?”

“Ask the neighbours.”

“What’s that mean?”

“Just a joke.”

“Look Candy I have to leave.”

“You can’t leave yet, I made a special breakfast for you.”

I looked again at the sheet. “ Don’t worry about that. I like you.”

“I still have to leave,” I said and got dressed and left.

I saw her again a few days later. We fucked but this time I didn’t sleep at her place.

This went on for the next few weeks.

 I got the feeling she was falling in love with me. She started acting weird and possessive. This was definitely what I didn’t want to happen. I told her I wouldn’t be seeing her again.
 A few weeks later I started thinking about her. I was really a fool. She was one hell of a good woman and I had treated her like crap. I decided to go and see her and apologise and hopefully she would still be interested.
 I knocked on her door. There was no answer. I tried a few more times and exactly the same thing.
 On the way out of the building I bumped into her next door neighbour Danielle.
“I just went to Candy’s but she wasn’t there,” I said.

She didn’t respond. Candy must have told her what an asshole I was. I understood and walked off. “ Wait!” she said.

 “ Yes.”

 “ You don’t know, do you?”

“ What?”

 “ Candy’s dead.”

 “ Really!”

 “ Yea. She choked on her sheet. They found her body 10 days ago. But apparently she had been dead several days by then. I honestly don’t know how someone could choke on a sheet.”

 “I think I do,” I said and walked away thinking about Candy.

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