fiction

1. Excerpt from my short story "viagra pills on the nightstand" (2023)

He was in university the first time he was offered; a laughing face with a solo cup in their other hand.

​

"Come on, man. It doesn't matter how well your cock works, it's just for fun."

​

"Why?" Roman was laughing, part confused and part nervous. He wasn't sure he actually knew the guy's name. What had started as an evening get-together had spiralled into a chaos spurred by alcohol and giggling girls. As the night swayed on, faces came and left, and now the walls held hostage a bizarre gathering of young people.

​

"It just feels... good, man. Come on." A collective jeer arose from around the kitchen, less poisonous than it was taunting. Imploring.

​

Roman had his own near-empty cup clutched between his fingers and maybe the details of the night were blurry because of it. He was 20, what was so wrong with popping boner pills with the boys on a very early Monday morning? He felt his lips quirk as he extended his hand palm-up for his fate.

​

The other boy thumbed a dusty little thing, such a pale shade of yellow it was almost white, into his hand, a handful of lousy cheers spouting. Roman saw some of the crowd pushing their heads back with hands clasped over their mouths as they took their own pills dry, washing away the evidence with awful mixes of cheap beer and miscellaneous spirits. A delirious cheer went up, irresponsible and brilliant.

​

-x-

​

Living in London was shit. He should be used to it by now, the dull, mind-numbing jumble of sounds and people that made the city what it was, but with every breath, Roman could feel his lungs burn. He was being poisoned, surely. It wasn't psychosomatic. He was filling up with tar and grease and smoke, and if he didn't get out, quickly... Not to mention that rent was proving to be modern-day thievery.

​

Since his uni days—he said it like it was oh so long ago. It really wasn't, it was the previous spring when he graduated—Roman had waned off the alcohol considerably. A drink or two every other Friday, if his wallet consented. But tonight was a special night: he'd just been dumped.

​

Amelia, with her infectious smile and giggles that made your heart sing every time, guaranteed. Silly dances in motel mirrors, travelling Europe in the flash of a summer with money they didn't have, worn through backpacks and shoes to match. A palm-sized Sony camera and a fistful of SD cards—memories—that now sat, quickly discarded and left to rot, in Roman's topmost junk drawer. A toast, "to parting ways," he thought to himself, perched on a barstool.

​

And maybe it was just the ache of loneliness, of realizing he was now just himself, that had him thinking all sorts of wild thoughts. It wasn't as though he thought about boner pills every time he found himself tipsy, so surely it was the addition of being single.

​

That nameless guy had been right, at the end of it all. It had admittedly felt nice. Not horny, just... good. A group of men raised their glasses behind him, the sound of their cheers echoing in his ears like a strange, fond reminiscence. Roman could do with some feeling good right about now, and there was a pharmacy a block and a half down the street. He wondered how much it would cost him.

​

-x-

​

Roman was sitting in his bed, hard as nails and truthfully a little bored. He didn't know how, but he simultaneously felt as calm as low tide and as tense as a sinner in church, sort of like his worries had all been relocated to his dick. He wasn't nearly drunk enough, but the choice was between a six-pack and electricity next month. He rathered the latter, thank you very much.

​

What to do with himself? His eyes traced the pack of condoms and tube of lube lying beside him that he'd bought with the pills in a moment of self-consciousness back in the store. Maybe if he hadn't been an idiot, he could have bought the six-pack instead. But the question remained: what to do?

​

-x-

​

In the free time he had since things with Amelia ended, Roman had decided to learn guitar. Why? Well, at the end of the day, why not? He'd been in a thrift store and found a guitar at a fraction of the price that a new one would sell for. He'd shrugged, winced when he handed his card to the cashier, and walked out of the store with a brand-new toy.

​

And that was how he spent his time: work in the mornings, retail, and guitar in the afternoons, and every now and then he lost a night of sleep over a pill and the little freedoms that came with no longer having a lover waiting, wanting.

​

He wrote a few shit songs and played them over and over until he realised how shit they were. And then along came a guy who'd been in his graduating class before university. He was one of the guys in the tight-knit friend group who spent all day ditching class and paying for the notes straight from the pens of girls with their cocks. The group had practically lived in flannel and denim jackets, the smell of weed announcing their approach. Snap-back caps and warm cans of beer, the freshly-17 aesthetic.

​

This guy before him in the store had been the closest with the ring leader, his—at the time—messy mop of hair always seen bobbing along beside the taller boy's black hair. If Roman's memory served him right, the guy's name was James. James Barron. And there was a guitar case strapped to his back.

​

"Hey, man," the man greeted. He hadn't recognized Roman. "Just these." He placed a pair of pants and a flannel jacket—Roman nearly laughed—atop the counter and pulled out his phone. Roman scanned the tags and put the items in the bag. He waited for James to look up and for their eyes to meet before feigning sudden realisation.

​

"James Barron?"

​

"Yeah? Um, yes?"

​

"We went to school together. I'm Roman Baker?"

​

"Oh, shit, yeah! I remember you! How's it been, man?"

​

Roman smiled, glad for the short reprieve from his bleak job. "Not bad, man. You?"

"Yeah, it's been pretty alright."

​

Roman's eyes flickered back to the case on his back. He motioned to it. "You play?"

​

"Learnin'. Not very good yet, but, y'know."

​

"Same, man."

​

"Oh, really? How good are you?"

​

"I'm alright," Roman said, grinning a little.

​

"Well, d'you wanna come 'round mine one day? We could practise together."

​

"Yeah, sure. What's your number?"

​

"Here, give me your phone."

​

And so something started.

​

-x-

​

They started a band. He and James and three other dudes, Arthur, George, and Henry, had started a band. And okay, they weren't the best, Roman will admit that. But tonight was particularly shit, which sucked, because tonight had been their first time playing in front of an audience.

​

There was a huge number of things Roman could blame their collective shittiness on. Maybe it was because Arthur and George were uni freshers and blissfully underprepared. Maybe because Henry, the drummer, had shown up high off his ass, babbling about needing something to calm his nerves, and then proceeded to be off-beat for the entire night. Maybe because, for a vocalist, Arthur really should have been better at singing. Either way, it was now raining slightly, and Roman was running out of the back door, the last one to finish getting his shit together, to try and help with the group's morale before some shit went down.

​

"No, Arthur! This is literally all your fault!" George was yelling at the blonde, a look of fury on his face.

​

"My fault!? I'm sorry, who was it who didn't come to practise yesterday because they were fucking my girlfriend?"

​

Oh damn, Roman had absolutely missed that part.

​

"Oh, what, you mad 'cause she likes me better?" George taunted.

​

"This is why I'm gay," Henry commented, laughing to himself, a bottle of something in one hand. The guy was the oldest there and by quite a few years. No one else in the group felt like they really had the right to tell him what to do, and so, he did what he wanted. Both of the boys arguing spun around and stared him down for a moment, scowling in disbelief, before getting back to their bickering.

​

James appeared beside Roman, trying to block out the pair going at it a few feet in front of them.

​

"So, that was certainly something, hm?"

​

"You could say that."

​

James hummed. "I have a feeling things aren't going to be the same."

​

At the same time, Arthur screamed, "Fuck you! Fuck all of you! I'm done!" He quickened his pace and diverged from their group, stalking off into the night.

​

"See you in class, bitchtard!" George hollered back before scoffing and turning his own way. "I'm done with this crap, too."

​

Henry laughed drunkenly, "They should fuck." He gripped his bottle tighter, taking another swig before turning to Roman and James. "You two, call me if you need me. Especially you, cutie," he added slyly, reaching out his free hand to roughly caress Roman's face. The brunette was stunned to silence, stopped in the middle of the sidewalk with nobody around other than James, who couldn't help but laugh a little as the 30-something-year-old disappeared around the corner.

​

Roman came back to himself, a sheen of ick coating his every thought. "Come on, man. I left some of my shit at yours."