Ryan (He/Him) is an English/Creative writing Graduate from Missouri State University. He is a photographer, filmmaker, writer, and veteran. His work is available or forthcoming in Writing Lifeworlds: An Anthology of Creative Nonfiction, Flash Fiction Magazine, Night Picnic Journal, and Microfiction Monday Magazine. Ryan is the founder and editor-in-chief of Pyre Magazine. Ryan's first novella, Killing My Flesh Without You, and his Halloween Anthology, The Halloween Party: and Other Tales of All Hallows Eve Terror, are available wherever you get books. He lives in Southwest Missouri with his wife and daughters and their menagerie of domesticated animals.
NINE HUNDRED DAYS OF INDULGENCE
by
Ryan Thomas LaBee
Her name is Clara, and she occupies my first one hundred days.
Las Vegas is an oasis in the blanket of sand smothering Nevada. It is a city filled with high rollers and loose women; no wonder they call it Sin City. But, truth be told, when I am here, walking the streets, it's the closest I come to divinity.
I stalk the Industrial Road, where the poppy-colored light dancing on her peach earrings catches my eye, and her gaze draws me in like a warm embrace. Day after day, we dance in sin, The Can Can Lounge, our altar of flesh. Night after night, we give offerings to all the heathens seeking meaning in the carnal. Our sweat is communion on the tongues of our brothers and sisters in sin.
Peace dances on our tongues passed between a kiss. We writhe and rave together until she drops to the floor in euphoria, her heart irrevocably broken for me.
For me.
I take hold of Clara's cold sapphire hands–oh my sweet Clara–spinning her around and around in a one-sided tango. I kiss her moon-white eyes closed forever before escorting her to the desert, where I return her body to the earth.
Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust.
The following one hundred days, I mark for mourning. During this sorrow, I pen a poem to my long-lost love:
Clara, my Clara, my call girl,
Her hair, Scarlette flame,
Anyone who will listen,
Dame or gent, lend me your
Ear, I cry for my fallen Madame!
No other temptress will compare, or
Find their tongue dueting with
Romance and peace.
Eat from their lady garden,
Undoubtedly, I will, but fear not, my little
Doodle snack, non will
Equal you, Clara, my Clara, my love.
It has been six months, two weeks, three days, eight hours, and forty minutes, and I give myself over to drunkenness. At the bottom of a bottle, drowning in the blood of our savior is where you will find me. As his flock, we are called to live differently than most, and I plan to live differently, quenching my thirst for the next hectoday.
I kiss the bottle. I kiss him. I kiss her. Men. Women. Men who were once women. Women who were once men. Those who are neither and were never either. My lips find all who will have my debaucherous heart. The only key to my love is a drink. My brand is any and everything. Days and nights pass in a blur. I finally find myself dried out, on my knees, not in prayer, but close enough, in old downtown North Las Vegas Boulevard.
How many days has it been?
How many pleasures of the flesh have I indulged in?
How many more can I stomach?
Is it the sixth hundredth day? The seven hundredth? A winebibber cannot be sure, but I met Tabitha during these unknowable days. I had no lustful intent for her, but I proposed to her nonetheless.
We wed in a beautiful little drive-through Chapel with casino lights as a backdrop. We said our "I dos," and though I speak the words, I imagine I declare them to Clara, my sweet Clara.
On our wedding night, I slip her circles, slim her under the sheets, and then slip out into the inky black night.
Storm clouds gather in the distance, lit in spits and spats by tendrils of dancing lightning. I stalk my old hunting grounds, searching for anyone to calm this adulterer's heart.
She says her name is Mary, at least for tonight, and agrees to my terms and conditions. Hand in hand, I lead her back to my hotel bedroom, and on top of my senseless bride, I consummate some other marriage and to some other bride.
It only costs me $350. Money, indeed, is the root of all evil.
As the church submits to Christ, so shall the wives submit to their husbands, or so the good book goes. But, my little blushing bride sees things differently when I show her the wedding pictures I snapped on our nuptial night. She says the images are grotesque, and I say, most art is if it's worth a damn.
I no longer know what day it is.
The morning sky burns on the horizon with purples and pinks as I drive her out to lay her, my wife, to rest, making sure to steer clear of Clara’s burial ground, for that is a hallowed place.
Night falls as I return to the City of Temptation and begin my walk of the same streets, seeing the same faces, all reminding me of smeared oil paintings of Clara. My dear, sweet Clara
What day is it?
This Desert Oasis is a lonely place for those who've lost love.
Nine hundred?
Her name was Clara, and she still occupies my days.