'Nice Guy'

Read it, it's not long.

‘Nice Guy’

 

   There’s a pretty little house in the suburbs, third in a row of pretty little houses, where the world has been pressed into four walls. It’s a party. A teenage party. The occasion is non-descript, the time and location irrelevant. All that matters is that it’s Friday. Hoards of people are gathered to annihilate the week behind them and forget the week ahead. In the back garden, new couples sloppily kiss for the first time, desperately lapping up saliva like thirsty cats. The boys’ hands are insects, writhing and dancing with delight upon bare flesh. Slowly, they crawl, crawl away from the girl’s stomachs�"higher up or lower down, depending on their ambition.

   As you go inside, bass-heavy music tries its best to escape from cheap speakers and fill the room. A thin, throbbing rhythm is all that breaks through. A mass of thirty people congregates in this tiny space, hands raised, jumping roughly in time with the beat. Each new song is met with their riotous approval, as if this was the one they’d been waiting for all along.

   The kitchen is almost completely bare, solely occupied by empty bottles, abandoned finger food and unfortunately sober party-goers searching for stray beer. Bathroom-queuers and the unconscious line the corridor. Walk through all this and you’ll find the stairs, the front door and finally, the living room.

   Not one person here is remotely human. They are remnants of parties from centuries ago, lazily glued together to form another event. They are stories, stale-yet-fresh gossip about handjobs and vomit. They are fuel for their own empty existence. But not one of them, not one is as bad as the man in the living room. The music is barely audible there, so it’s the perfect spot for the drunk girls who are too tired to dance. Together they form a neat semi-circle on the floor, all hugging and resting on each other’s shoulders. And at the centre of them all, on the edge of an armchair, is Him. Their messiah for the next half-hour. The Nice Guy.

   He is the symbol of everything vacuous. His name long ago faded into obscurity, leaving only the image he projects. And that image is simply to be beloved by his people. He’s muscular, but not intimidatingly so. His jokes push boundaries, but never enough to actually offend. He’s one of the lads, but sensitive and poetic too. His personality has a well-groomed beard. With an acoustic guitar in hand and three chords on his mind, he sings into the soul of each and every girl present. No one else has gone to such effort to be effortlessly likeable.

   It is at this point that I enter the party. I’ve been here so many times before that I feel like part of the air. Turning to my left, I find a large mirror next to the living room door. An unassuming but attractive face stares blankly out from it. Smallish features framed by shiny black hair�"but with giant blue eyes that pop out in the dim lighting. Breasts slightly larger than normal for a girl my size, and a top that accentuates them. I move my gaze towards the living room, at the girls on the floor. I look like one of them. I look ready.

   I make my way inside. Immediately the crowd greets me with hushed calls of excitement. Nice Guy smiles over at me, but keeps playing. I’m in his chapel now. With the appropriate reverence, I reach for a bottle of vodka, bless myself and take my place among his followers.

   We wade through a sea of acoustic pop songs. My performance is inch-perfect. I clap when they clap, drink when they drink, suggest a song I know he can play. I catch him looking over at me a few times. Eventually though, in the short gap between songs, someone new arrives. It’s a boy, roughly his age. Immediately, he’s surrounded.

  

   “Oh my god, hey!”

   “It’s so great to see you!”

   We can’t remember his name, but the party couldn’t really start until he got here.

   Of course, Nice Guy can’t deal with losing our attention for even an instant. After offering a laddish greeting to the intruder, he asks if we’d like to hear a song he had written. Although maybe he shouldn’t. It’s very personal, after all.

   This immediately retrieves the audience’s attention. We return to our places, and the Nice Guy’s adversary leaves the spotlight, joining the haze of bodies dancing inside. He strums the first chord and proceeds to purge his fragile heart before our eyes. It sounds remarkably similar to everything else we’ve heard. However, right in the middle of the second chorus, he stops abruptly. Then, a sigh…

   “It’s missing… something.”

   The girls collectively melt. After much persuasion, he returns for a final verse and chorus before putting down the guitar and thanking us all. Now. Now is the time. Smiling, I coolly walk over and hand him a drink. We talk for a while with a few other girls, but their attention wanes easily, and after a few pictures together they decide to go dance. He and I continue to drink together. I allow the occasional slip of the tongue, leave my hand to linger just a second too long, my defences dropping at exactly the right rate.

    “No no, stop! We’re so drunk right now!”, I cry atonally, taking in another mouthful of rum and Diet Coke as I do so. We’re sitting on the couch now. The crack between seat cushions is all that separates us. He’s telling a well-rehearsed story about antics on a night out. As he speaks, his eyebrows flicker fantastically, as though they’re conjuring his brilliant wit. The punchline comes. We laugh, laugh, then sigh. Suddenly his eyebrows come crashing to a halt, and a sombre look takes hold of his face.

   “You know, so many people here are so fake. I’m glad I can… be honest with you. When we go to college, things are going to be so different. I just wish we’d gotten to know each other better”.

   I fight to suppress a giggle. We have one thing in common, Nice Guy. We’re both full of s**t. Still, I manage not to laugh. Instead, I look right into his eyes, bite my lower lip and for once, I tell him the truth.

   “I feel like I know you pretty well already.”

    My words hang in the air, dripping with honey and caked in sugar. I sound like a doll. Clearly that’s what he wants though. He stares me with two parts desire, one part drunkenness. He considers me ready for conquest. Swaying slightly, he lazily leans into me, and the divide between cushions crumbles away. His tongue squirms into my mouth, wriggling around with excitement. I comply, reminding myself again and again that this has to happen. We lie there for about five minutes, his weight pressing me down into the couch, his erection stabbing merrily into my leg.

   Eventually, he starts to grow bored. It’s not enough for him to possess. He has to take. I feel something crawl on my stomach. The sensation moves down. Slowly, he starts to make a repulsive circular motion with his fingers. Caught by surprise, I jerk away. He just looks at me, dough-eyed and confused. His affected charm and compassion are being dulled by the alcohol. I make a smile.

  “Let’s go upstairs”

   I gently push him off of me and take him by the hand. From there I lead him into the hallway. One of the bathroom-queuers notices us as we walk up the stairs. He calls something over in our direction. I can’t hear what, but he seems pretty pleased with himself.

   Nice Guy and I stumble into the nearest bedroom�"probably the host’s. It has not gone untouched by the party. Jackets are strewn across the floor. Personal belongings have been knocked over or broken. Empty beer bottles lay abandoned on the window sill and bedside locker. And in the centre of it all, the Bed. With the lights on and the door closed, I push him onto it. Hurriedly, I climb on top of him and start kissing. Still in a daze from his fall, he tries to turn me over. I make sure he can’t. Not this time.

   I reach down and unzip his trousers. He’s very excited. It’s disgusting, but I’m so close now that I don’t care. The bottles to my right watch me as I move, glistening in orange light. In their reflection, I notice the girl from the mirror again. Beneath the tinge of brown glass, she takes off her underwear and starts moving, up and down, up and down. He just lays there.

   I turn back toward him. His face moves in sick contortions of pleasure, occasionally grunting or crying out meaningless words. The many faces he wears, the different people he becomes, they all disintegrate until all that’s left is a squealing pig. This is his reality, stripped of all pretentions and false empathy, right down to its sickening core. I had to see him this way. He had to be ready.

   My body pulsates wildly. I feel a rush of energy, glimpsing the magnificence of what I’m creating. He doesn’t understand. He must just think he’s an amazing f**k. My eyes dart back and forth between him and the bottle, getting faster every time. He looks like he’s about to finish, his eyes two giant flares of white light. Rage swells inside of me, tearing away at the walls of anticipation. I can’t wait any more. It’s time.

   I surge forward and grab the bottle. In one glorious swing, I break it in his face. Shards fly everywhere, each one making its own unique cut on his body. Before he gets a chance to react, I raise the remnants of my weapon and jam it in his throat. The feeling is orgasmic. I gaze down, still on top of him but sitting still now. He isn’t dead yet. He tries to make noise, maybe even to scream. All that he can manage is a stuttering gag, like he’s choking. I place a finger lightly on his lips and offer him a gentle smile.

   “Shhhhhhhhh….”

   The bottleneck protrudes from his throat. Blood spurts indecisively from its mouth, coating him with red in small, flirtatious bursts. I can’t see my reflection in it anymore. I softly stroke his hair as the rapid movement in his eyes slowly comes to a halt. It’s over.

   I arise off of his still body and admire my art. His face, frozen in terror, never looked so honest. I tiptoe my way out of the room, making sure to avoid the blood-stained coats, and go down the stairs. I take one last look at the party, at everybody dancing carelessly in their world of moments. Then I exit through the front door, unnoticed.

Reviews

[barleygirl]

This is some of the best storytelling/writing I've seen on this website in the six months or so I've been here. This is many levels above 90% of the writers here, no insult to them at all (becuz there are tons of great writers here). I'm just trying to quantify the way your story stands out. This is some first class writing here, I can't even begin to tell you how good this is. I'm very rarely this stunned by any writing.

First let me tell you, I love, absolutely LOVE the overall sarcasm in the narrator's tone. It's delightfully crafted to be almost realistic, but pushing the boundary of outrageousness, such that we know this is a spoof of some kind. Love this: "desperately lapping up saliva like thirsty cats" . . . this is off the charts: "We're both full of s**t . . . I think I know you pretty well . . ." & the utterly devious way the narrator shows us how Mr. Nice Guy laps this up, when the double meaning is so obvious to the reader. This is the point at which we know she's going to hurt him. We know this is going to be macabre.

I could go on & on, but there are too many amazingly well-crafted lines to quote all the ones I love. This is an award-winning piece of writing. I hope you've entered it into some well-paying contests.

Oh yeah, & this one is too evil & delicious at the same time: "his erection stabbing merrily into my leg." Your ability to literally drip with sarcasm is beyond anything I've ever read anywhere.

[Kim Black]

Thank you so much. It's amazing to read a review that's not only incredibly flattering but also so in tune with what I was going for. It makes me feel really great and I'm happy I could share it with you.

[Unforgiven Guy]

Nice, nice bit of writing here. Rest in peace, Nice Guy.