My Name Is Jimmy and You Better Not Wear It Out

The next morning I woke up alone.

And my pants were gone.

"What the hell...?"

I ran through the insanely clear images of last night in my head and found myself grinning like a fucking idiot. This was great. One night stand, I didn't have to worry about getting her out of my apartment, and I didn't have to worry about her getting attached. But then there was that small prick of What if...? but I pushed it away as someone knocked on the door. I quickly pulled on a pair of boxers and opened the door.

"Do you always open your door half naked or is that just because I took your pants so I could get coffee?"

I froze and Gloria made her way past me into the apartment. I turned around and she grinned at me. "Are you just gonna stand there, gawking at me, or are you gonna close the door and have some coffee with me before I decide whether or not I'm going to have morning sex with you?"

I immediately shut the door and she handed me a cup of coffee.

"I want to say sorry."

"What for?" I couldn't fathom why she'd be sorry. We had an amazing fuck session last night and she brought me coffee while saying she was going to think about fucking me again in the morning. Why would she be sorry?

"I woke up last night, and I found that." She pointed to my journal, which had been moved from its original place on the floor to the side of the mattress. I stared at it for a moment, mind pulling a blank as I tried to figure out what to say. That was my journal. I wrote about practically everything in that thing, and I NEVER let anyone look at it. That was my one rule for myself. No one ever looks at the journal. No matter how badly they want to. I stared at her as she looked guiltily back at me.

"I couldn't help it, God I was just so curious, and so I kinda read it."

I stared at her in horror. I couldn't think, I couldn't speak, I couldn't find any way to answer her.

"And I know I couldn't have, I'm so sorry, but I found that page that talked about that girl and I saw there were some blank spaces and I couldn't help but fill them in."

At that time I shot up and went to the mattress, picked up the journal, and flipped through the pages until I found the one she was talking about. I scanned it over, heart pounding as I read. This was a random page about Sara that I had forgotten about. I almost wanted to scream at Gloria because she totally killed this page that I had written perfectly, but then I really took in the words that she wrote. I knew they weren't about me, they didn't sound like anything I had told her last night, but they fit. They fit so well.

"I'm sorry, I really shouldn't have done it, I'm sorry, but I just had to write those words about the last guy I was with because he kept floating around in my brain and I couldn't make it go away and so I just wrote it and then I felt so much better and-"

"It's okay." I laughed at myself a little bit, I just couldn't believe I was saying this, but it really was okay. "Really, it is. This makes so much more sense now if they're put together."

"Really?"

"Yeah."

And then she was attacking my mouth with hers and we were going at it again.

And that's how the next two weeks went. We stayed in my apartment, only leaving for food and parties and cigarettes and weed. I found out more about her, like how she was afraid of needles but really admired people who got tattoos and how she made dance routines to songs from the Misfits and the Beatles and Duran Duran and the Sex Pistols. And I told her more about me, about what my tattoos meant, if there was a meaning behind them, and how much I hated Tunny and my mom. She would listen and take in every word, but not like the followers. She would actually listen and remember.

Then one day after sex she glanced out the window, swore, pulled on the closest pair of clothes (which happened to be a shirt of mine and the shorts she had worn the night before) and started picking up her cigarettes and her lighter and her shoes. I pulled on a pair of pants and followed her up a couple flights of stairs to her apartment, curious as to what was going on.

As soon as I stepped in it was like an alien planet. She had carpeting, actual furniture, and band posters that lined the dark walls. She ran around, scooping up some random fabric thing and her dance shoes and throwing them all into a duffel bag along with some heavy books.

I stood in her doorway, feeling like I shouldn't interrupt her, but I did anyway. "What're you doing?"

"Packing things for school. Shit, I am so fucking late."

"School?"

"I missed a lot when I was in Toronto, so yeah. Summer school." She then ignored my amused grin and flew around the room, then grabbed a marker, wrote down an address on my hand, and bit my neck.

"Go there around 3:30. See you later Jimmy."

Then she was out the door and hurtling down the stairs. I found myself staring into her apartment for a moment or so before closing her door and going back to my apartment to pull on a shirt before I went downstairs to find the congregation milling around by the stage. They looked at me like they were lost puppies, hurt and alone. Bre, on the other hand, was sitting at the bar, looking mutinous. I rolled my eyes as the rest of the group surged towards me.

"Where have you been!?"

"We've needed you!"

"You disappeared!"

I held up my hands and they stopped talking immediately. "I was with Gl-Whatsername."

I don't know what possessed me to correct myself. Maybe it was thatmost all of the congregation wouldn't know who Gloria was if I said Gloria, maybe it was because Gloria made her name feel like a big secret between me and her. I don't know, but I corrected myself and they immediately knew who I was talking about.

"But what were you doing!? I never once saw her bring coke to you."

"What, I can't fuck someone when I'm SOBER once in a while?"

There was a wave of muttering at that statement. I shook out my hands, which now seemed to be trembling uncontrollably now that I thought about missing my usual fix. I tried to make them stop, but I couldn't. What in the HELL was going on?

"Hey, while you're here, why not have some Mary Jane with us, huh Jimmy?"

I grinned and nodded enthusiastically. I didn't have to find Gloria for another seven hours. I had enough time to get high and come back down before I left.

And so I lit up.

and almost immediately my hands stopped shaking and I felt my muscles release themselves from a tenseness I couldn't remember feeling before. I felt great. I just sat there and mellowed out with the group. Eventually we all got hungry and went down the the gas station to get some snacks. I had a short flash of anger, but I pushed it away as someone handed me a slushie.

We laughed about nothing as we walked back to the club. Then someone decided to put on some Black Sabbath as everyone else took some acid. I declined and took a girl up to the apartment. We started fooling around, but then she completely passed out.

Now I usually would've cared, but honestly, this girl looked like she would give me something. So I waited until she woke up and escorted her downstairs. She kept going on about how great I was in bed and I just nodded, trying to hold in my amusement about how ludicrous she was.

After that I just wanted to go back upstairs and have a smoke, but the congregation refused to let me go. They demanded I finish the story from oh-so-long ago and refused to take no as a fucking answer. I glanced at the clock, I had a few hours, then started to talk about Sara. I didn't go deep into the story, definitely not as deep as I had gone into the story with Gloria on one of our late night talks, but I still ended up talking for an hour before they let me go upstairs for a smoke.

But, of course, I was out of cigarettes. I hadn't even realized Gloria and I had finished off the last pack I bought. I checked the time, I had an hour or so before I had to meet up with Gloria. I could go buy smokes then go and find wherever the hell I was going.

Apparently I was wrong.

While I was buying smokes the cashier told me that the address on my hand was in the middle of the City and about an hour away. With that and the time it was going to take for me to wander around finding the damn place I was going to be way late.

But, again the cashier came through and gave me directions to the right street, so I made it to the place without being too late.

The building was huge, very old-looking, with a large yard. I could tell that this was Gloria's school, especially with all the kids milling around.

I lit up a cigarette and almost immediately found Gloria. She looked different compared to this morning. Her hair was pulled into two braids and she was now wearing a pair of very ripped tights. Standing with her were two girls. They were talking about something, I couldn't exactly hear because I was distracted by Gloria.

She stood with her ankles crossed, chewing her lower lip, twisting a strand of loose hair around two fingers as she listened to the girls in front of her and looked all together worried.

"Are you sure he's coming?"

"Shut up, Joan, I bet he's just late."

And in the same moment that I realized they were talking about me, Gloria's gaze met mine. Immediately her face lit up and she ran up to and jumped on me, wrapping her legs around my waist as she pressed her lips against mine.

"Jesus, Jimmy, I thought you weren't coming!"

"Well I had to buy smokes and get directions! You should've told me it was so far away!"

She gave a fake pout, then grinned and bit me on the neck for the second time that day.

That bite on the neck turned into her greeting for the next three weeks. Though the only times she had to use it were when I picked her up from school and work (the latter I wasn't exactly happy about). We spent most of our time together, and when she was gone I would spend my time with the congregation, getting high and laughing about nothing. They never looked happy when I left to get Gloria, but who cared? They never looked happy when I left to do something before Gloria came around either.

But whenever I was with Gloria, I felt happy. Calm. My reflection, which Gloria liked to refer to as "the Saint" ("'Your reflection' feels like too much of a mouthful," she would say), didn't come around as often. She was like my save haven, my guardian angel, just like-

Oh fuck. Was I just about to say...?

Oh fuck.

How had it taken me up to NOW, the first week of fucking AUGUST, to realize THIS? How could I have not noticed this happening?

Shit.

ShitshitshitshitSHIT.

Gloria was just like Sara.

She's an EXTRAORDINARY GIRL
In an ordinary world
And she can't seem to get away
he lacks the courage in his mind
like a child left behind
like a pet left in the rain
She's all alone again
Wiping the tears from her eyes
some days he feels like dying
She gets so sick of crying
She sees the mirror of herself
An image she wants to sell
To anyone willing to buy
he steals the image in her kiss
from her heart's apocalypse
from the one called whatsername
She's all alone again
Wiping the tears from her eyes
some days he feels like dying
Some days it's not worth trying
Now that they both are finding
She gets so sick of crying