depend(ance)

worrying excuses like a rosary
all the reasons, that you
are so very bad for me
substance substantial, wringing
all the ambition out of me
save to consume you till there is no longer room
for the mass of your righteous dependency
- Susannah Barker, “fixing and fixed, version IV”


“James.”

The speaker rattled a prescription bottle of pills at the other. They were friends. They were more than friends sometimes.

They were sitting in the back garden, a residential boon for the man in question. He grew roses and the air was permeated with riotous sweetness and earthen savor, as they were drinking coffee. It was early morning, the ground still damp with dewfall.

“Your blackmail is tiresome, Greg. You know what I want.”

“She’s not mine to give. I pay for her, I don’t own her.”

“They tell me she’s exclusive to you. I can’t book her.”

“You only want her because she wants me.”

“Yes, we’ve got so much in common already.”

Greg mugs behind his mug, forehead creasing in an accordion fold that women can’t possibly find attractive and yet, he’s never without offers: offers at the brokerage house they both claim as their employ, offers from random women on the street, in stores, in the local pub, offers from flight attendants and waitresses, offers from whores and harridans alike.

James considers himself the true womanizer, the one who hates an empty bed and a silent night. The one who grows roses strictly for the purpose of strewing his sheets with petals of passionate color, of heady scent.

Roses and coffee. Every morning begins this way. They own a duplex together, and naturally Greg is on the top, as in all things. Possessing the calm assurance of the alpha male.

“Avoiding the question only makes the price increase.”

Angry sips of near-scalding liquid. Breathing, to regain composure.

“Okay fucker, yes, I ‘borrowed’ some of your pills. I’m not sorry, but you can’t have the number of my bookie.”

“Have I ever lost more money that I can afford to?”

“No, of course not. You calculate all the odds to the nth degree. But there are limits to my enabling, even for you.”

“You say that like I’ve never done anything for you.”

“That is not the subtext of my statement.”

Greg lights a cigarette, stares upwards for a moment. There is a gray layer upon the sky, dirty cotton, looks like rain. He can feel the change in pressure in his joints, the specific ache of age and abuse.

“You don’t even gamble, how did you get such a high-end contact?”

“I occasionally gamble, but yes, pardon my wishing to avoid redundancy, given the crapshoot nature of our relationship.”

“So. . .” The keen eyes, blue like Sapphire gin, the gaze probing for weakness, for advantage. “. . .let’s just say, hypothetically, that I can get the lovely girl to squeeze you into her schedule and I don’t have to rat you out to the 1-800 employee abuse hotline, what then?”

“Then I’ll recommend you to a friend of a friend and they’ll contact you.”

“Wow, it’s like offshore banking.”

“Exactly. And you have to be good for it up front. In advance. You get some of it back if you’re lucky, minus their commission.”

“What, exactly, is the appeal in all this?”

“You tell me. Ever since you saw the number when you looked through my wallet you’ve been bugging the shit out of me.”

“Did you notice I didn’t even have to ask what it was for?”

“You’re omnipotent. News at eleven.”

Wolfish grin, splitting the smoke. It begins to drizzle, they retire to a shared bathroom and morning rituals. Rituals that no distractions can derail.


No one questions the living arrangements, the symbiosis of their existence. There are too many bodies between the two of them for anyone to suspect the intricacies of their dependencies.

They are a charming pair, in ways obvious and oblique.


They sit with their backs to each other at work, listening in on each other’s calls, egging one another on to further conquest, financial and otherwise.

Mariah comes to ask Greg to interpret a report concerning grain futures. Ellen stops by to natter with James about CSI.

“Have you ever noticed,” Greg asked the air above him, not turning around but his knowing his musings will be heard by the appropriate parties, “that all they ever seen to portray on that show are sexual deviants?”

“Are you saying that kinky people are more apt to kill?”

“Well? Are they?” He winks at Mariah, who hides her face behind the manila folder in her hand.

“I dunno, Greg. I thought that was your area of expertise.” He gives Ellen a devilish smile, though he can never quite escape the earnest schoolboy impression in that his face is taking its’ time to age.

The women wander off, but will not commiserate regarding their feelings or opinions about the rogues, the scamps, the secret flirtatious indulgences of an altogether tiresome work environment. They swing their chairs around and face one another, then burst out laughing. No further commentary is required. The days go by, delineated by habit and demand: glued to a phone, to a computer, occasional trips to the side patio, the scenery uninspiring, the concrete threatening to swallow them all. Or so Greg ponders as he smokes and envisions intrigue to pass the time, his brain five steps ahead of the present moment always. Pure pursuits of intellectual prowess are too little reward for too much work, whereas the money game, albeit boring, always delivers for those of keen mind and cutthroat disposition.

He can afford to be the asshole, cashing those checks his mouth writes every day.

James wants to be liked, has to be liked. His persona is one of damaged distance, but yearning towards resolution, towards reunion. Underneath, there is a wellspring of sardonic commentary. Greg is his specific outlet for the toxicity.

Their boss, Michael, was another entertaining asshole. . .surpassing Greg if for no other reason than benefit of experience. His ancillary vocation appeared to be avoiding his wife, leaving the immaculate Georgian house as her domain and spending entirely too much time at work and in the pub. They took him drinking often and his accompanying vitriol made them laugh.

It was too bad he was of another generation, one that was not inherently appreciative of the dualities available to those whose personal boundaries were highly smudged, if not erased entirely.


Night. Football. Casserole.

“What is this, Chicken Divan?” Mugging again, suspect disbelief.

“Yes. I had to do something with the broccoli before it went bad.”

“What, did you get that recipe from your mother?”

“No loser, from the back of a Campbell’s soup can. I see its’ working-class origin does not preclude ingestion.”

“The ‘skins are down by three, do you honestly think I’m going to get up from this couch anytime soon?”

“Bitch bitch bitch.” James is on his third beer and two pieces of broccoli, dripping with cheesy cream of chicken and breadcrumb crust.

“Did you call her?”

“Had to leave a message.”

“Make sure you’re sober when you talk to her, she’s picky.”

“And yet she fucks you.”

“Hey, what we do is not speculative fodder.”

The casserole pan sits on a tile trivet on the living room table. They stab at various ingredients with forks, Neanderthals in business wear.

“So it’s not speculation, it’s fact, when you tell me that just by massaging the area between your shoulders she made you recall losing your virginity.”

“Perfectly. It was like Proust’s madeleine, but with flavored lube and bad upholstery.”

“Ah, field goal range.” James points at the TV screen with his beer bottle.

“They’re gonna choke again. They’re worse than you after a sixer.”

“Fuck off you son of a whore.”

“You love me.”

“Hardly. You browbeat me and you scorn my casserole.”

“It’s just a covered dish, get over it.”

“Love me, love my casserole.”

Greg begins making astoundingly realistic vomiting sounds and neither of them knows if the Redskins made the kick until after the commercial break.


The girl of James’ avarice, she is a curvy brunette avatar of lust, and her assistant a blonde so pale he knows it must be the result of ancestral alchemy. It’s as if he can feel a cold wind moving across his face when he looks at her. Their locale is on the second floor of a building which houses an antique store, and a stifling odor of dust and potpourri lodges in his nose the minute he opens the door. Up a flight of creaking wooden stairs he knocks hesitantly upon a closed door. Opened, her smile is polite but her eyes are assessing him, and penetrate the thick armor of male charm.

“James,” she says, that voice so distinct and deliberately seductive. Some 60s-era music is playing, and the whole milieu is not what he expected at all. What someone might have referred to as hippie chic or urchin decadence.

“Saffron,” he replies, nodding his head. He sheds his coat and discerns an instantaneous thaw which causes him to shiver. She leads him to a cubby behind a curtain of brightly-patterned batik which is furnished with benches, hooks in the wall, and a fluffy white bathrobe nicer than his own. It’s strictly for initial propriety, as every client is required to be naked upon the table. She is a master masseuse, but also a master of knowing what a man needs to truly relax. . .or so say dozens of ecstatic recipients, of whom Greg is the latest.

Or was. . .it’s James’ turn now.

He easily shed the robe, no shame at their smiling appraisal. The blonde busied herself over a table which held various implements of the trade. He kept getting a whiff of almond oil which reminded him of one of his college girlfriends.

“Lie face down,” the blonde instructed. Were it not for her tone, soft as gossamer, the order might have been interpreted as brusque. Warm hands, then, melting into his skin, caressing muscles with an agenda no less gentle even as they attempted therapy.

“Remember our conversation?” Saffron asked him, and her voice was as warm as those hands. He had a feeling like his spinal fluid had been replaced with melted butter.

“Yes.” The word came out in a breath, almost obscene.

“Greg says you’re on medication for back pain, is this true?”

“Sort of.”

“Why didn’t you tell me that?” Hands stilled now, resting upon his lower back. The warmth recedes like ocean water from sand, fading in increments.

“I. . .was afraid you wouldn’t work on me.”

A soft tsk. “Of course I would work on you, Greg asked me to. But I need to know your specific problems so I don’t hurt you.”

A loud breath, which causes her to comment in a wordless “ah.”

“He’s worried that you’ve become bored.”

“With what?”

“Pleasure.”

Fingers count every rib, every vertebra, inventory the muscles and the coccyx. This last makes James swoon, recalling the only woman who had truly excited him.

“Do you trust me?”
“No.” And he trembles, trussed with his own neckties, his hair falling in his face and spoiling the view of heavy breasts and low hips.
“Watch me.”
She pulled a needle through her skin, through the outer labia, not flinching but still wide-mouthed at the moment of sharp penetration. Slid it out, slower than slow, and he started at the blood, rosy red against pale pink.
“If you don’t behave. . .” she waggled it in his face and exactly half of his being wondered what it would feel like to have one of those threaded through the edge of his glans.

He paid to watch women getting inked, fascinated by the contrast of precise art and raw scarring. After visiting one particular artist numerous times, the guy finally handed him a card: a domme who taught classes in needle play.

But instead James pricked himself, the pain was never anything but pain.

“Do you trust me?” Low and gravely, a finger up his ass.
“No.”
“I’m hurt, I thought I was your best friend.” Now two. The remaining fingers brush against the cheek, and he shivers, caught between sensations.
“I don’t trust you not to use me to your advantage, but I don’t care.”
“Finally you’re embracing the truth of our interpersonal dynamics.” Trust Greg to be overly-articulate even during...whatever this was, assaulted coming out of the shower, slammed into a tiled wall and pinned by the force of curiosity.
Greg is pathologically curious about everything. Pushes every boundary which exists.

Saffron leans over him, and she smells like. . .her name. That powdery, distinctly spicy scent of saffron. When most people smell it they automatically think of curry. When James smells it, he thinks synesthetically of yellow. But there’s something else, something equally sweet and earthy underneath. It takes him several minutes before he realizes that it’s chocolate. She notices the sound of his inhalations.

“Would you like some?” She waves a bottle of oil in his face. He nods. Fingers press into the root of his problem once again.

“What are you doing?”
“Encouraging your efforts. You know how women love a man who can cook.”
“This doesn’t strike me as the type of encouragement one friend would give another.”
But he knows. Greg knows all the places to touch, and James nearly burns the French Toast in his brand new heavy-duty skillet, surface bubbling with butter to ensure a crisp finish.
And they were all out of butter when breakfast was over.

“Where does it hurt?” Fingers move along the spine, climbing, an insistent pressure.

“Go down again.”

Saffron’s good, she’s requested, she’s insanely popular because she has a seemingly psychic sense of where the pain resides. She goes down, but this time stops where the bone ends, our vestige of a tail, fallen away as we evolved up from the slime.

“Which one do you want?”
They are sitting out on someone’s patio, the air so cold James wished he had been smart and gotten his coat out of the car. Or just left Greg to the ranks of the desperate nicotine fiends.
“They’re both blondes, what’s the difference?”
“Oh there’s plenty of difference: one’s got a cute ass, and the other has so much silicon she could probably qualify as her own floatation device.”
James laughs, as Greg only smirks at his own jokes.
“You can have the Barbie doll.”
He was reminded of one of the co-workers – also named James, but going by Jimmy – who likes to say that he prefers women with the personality of a Barbie doll: plastic and stiff. Then he pauses, his mad monk eyes a-whirl with glee. At some level, James knows it’s a game, but coming face-to-face with a misogynist – like accidentally crossing paths with a bear while camping – he gets numb, tastes copper on his tongue. Going too far. Being objectified by an object.

James frowned, face down on her bed of muscle memory. He didn’t feel any less tense, only free of specific aches. The fingers migrated upwards again, pressing between the shoulder blades to detangle the Gordian Knot of stress that most people acquire from a combination of bad posture and repression. Suddenly he feels another set of digits stroking his temples – the blonde is rubbing oil against them – and he lies beneath yellowness. He recalls a couplet from a Joni Mitchell song:

the sun poured in like butterscotch
and stuck to all my senses

. . .her skin gives off cold air, like if you touched her your hand would burn. Metallic chill, and he knows her specific purpose now.

Hot, as the prickly shrub is wrenched out of the soil of subterfuge.

“Do you know what you’re doing?”
“I took a phlebotomy class. We got to practice on oranges.”
“Is skin that tough?”
“It’s only easy to hurt yourself when you don’t mean to.”
Penetration, so sharp and quick. Smooth surfaces caress one another and rest companionably woven.
“Do me.” James has heard that command before.
Greg does not tremble, is a quick study and knows exactly where to prick. He likes the way the bridge of James’ nose crinkles as the needle slides through. But he balks at the cutting.
“What about when it scabs over?”
“Going to spoil all your future fun, that’s all you care about.”
“You already have scarring. Want the outside to match the inside?”
“Do it or don’t, but shut up either way.”

Cold, as the itch of shame is frozen in place, stunned but not eradicated.

There are always women to command, if not commanding themselves. In permutations of two and three: tripod, triad and sometimes there is that sound, the sound of surprise and of barely-suppressed disgust.
Jimmy never acknowledged boundaries either. A closed door simply an invitation to enter.
“You know, there’s a whole scene you’re missing out on.”
“I prefer soliloquies.”
He gets the joke, to his credit. And he counts every mark he sees, the hallmark of his intensity. Not like Greg, who will only meet his eyes now.

“Turn over.”

She holds a heavy-gauge needle, rotating it between two chilly fingers.

“I know the places where the skin will give.”

And he has plenty of them, living lazy, ambition as slack as his emotions.

She starts with his navel, and takes so long to pierce the rim that James experiences what he believes to be a seizure, only to realize when she hands him a towel that it was an orgasm. She is not repulsed by the evidence of his obsession. After he has returned to a state of calm she moves the needle through the hole, each time a larger gauge penetrates and scours his conscience clean.

“Women are addicted to self-loathing,” Greg pronounces, Monday morning psychiatric quarterback. “You’re addicted to pain and shame.”
“I’m not ashamed,” James protests. Again, sipping hot coffee to mask defensive awkwardness.
“You can’t lie to me. Not in broad daylight, in the presence of your rose bushes.”
“You, you’re addicted to risk and drama.”
“Yes I am.”
A pause. There is sun today, it renders the dew a thousand dazzling drops across the garden.
“See? See how easy it is to just admit it?”

“Leave it in.”

He takes her from behind and she bends over the table, quietly submissive. He winds the flax around his hand and brings her head up so he can hiss in her ear, each word in time with a thrust. She is the demure ice of obedience, he is the red-hot poker of conquest. The needle remains, a compass pointing nowhere.

“Tell. . .me. . .I’m. . .ugly.”

“Hideous,” she says, but only an echo of his own detraction.

She is dismissed and he rams the frozen corpse of regret.

“I don’t think I can handle this.”
“We don’t have to –“
“No, not that. But I’ve seen what you do when you get interested. Eventually, you get bored.”
“I think you’re ascribing too much importance to something I’m merely curious about.”
“Again, I’ve seen what happens to people you’re curious about.”
“You’re just chicken.” Greg follows this with clucking sounds, as if they’re both ten and can be shamed into a dare.
“Yeah, I’m afraid. You know that. But that’s why we’re friends.”

He fucks her like every woman he’s ever fucked, after the veils of mannered eroticism have all fallen to the floor.

I hate I hate I hate that you make me feel this way.

And yet, there is a feeling of light and of lightness which comes over him once he climaxes, and she thaws, puddling around him. And he can stand to be inside her slickness as it calms him, finally. He gasps, knees buckling, cock pulsing as it gives off the last of its’ burden, and it comes to him: the smell of her skin reminds him of lemon curd. Of breakfast.


His roommate is waiting for him, seemingly casual as he reads the Journal and drinks a beer.

“How’s your back?”

“It still hurts. But I don’t.”

A nod.

“So I was thinking you could make potato pancakes.”

“For dinner?”

“Yeah.”

“Is there any butter?”

“Plenty. We didn’t have breakfast together, remember?”


Pillow talk.
“That adage, ‘it is better to be feared than loved,’ it only works if you’re committed.”
“You think I should be committed.”
“I think you should follow your bliss, but don’t lie to yourself about what it is.”


James takes a needle out of his pocket and holds it up with a mock-stern expression.

“If you don’t behave, I’m going to have punish you.”

One eyebrow cocked, and a smirk benefiting one of Greg’s own jokes. A long-fingered, weathered hand closes over his wrist.

“I’ll use the butter how I please, kitchen bitch.”


Somewhere across town, Saffron smiles, and she notes impossibly large sums of money in her ledger as her fingers twitch and wonder what buried treasure they will next uncover.