This is an excerpt from my novel-in-progress A Long Slow Aftermath. This scene introduces the main character Preston’s Narcotics Anonymous friends Haste and Durant as they talk about the art of going South of the border!

     “I swear, I can still taste her,” said Haste.
     “Taste her?” asked Preston.
     “Her pussy. I can still taste it.”
     They were in the corner of the church parking lot, far away from the bright open doors to the meeting room. Haste and Durant were smoking cigarettes as people drifted towards the meeting room.
     “What? Hella funky?” asked Durant.
     “Naw, that’s the thing,” said Haste. “It tasted just like a regular vagina. Kinda sweet even. She wasn’t funky or anythin’. But man, the taste of her fuckin’ lingers.”
     “Maybe you should brush your teeth,” suggested Preston.
     “I did. And chewed gum. And drank soda. Her cootch keeps washing back on me.”
     “How though?” asked Durant. “I mean, if she wasn’t super funky.”
     “I dunno. There was some damn super glue up in there maybe. Or maybe I swallowed something.”
     “Swallowed part of her vag?” asked Preston.
     “Maybe a globule.”
     “Oh dude,” winced Durant.
     Haste and Durant were part of Preston’s Narcotics Anonymous circle. All three of them had been to state run rehabs. Both Haste and Durant were bald, only Haste was tall and slim and Durant was short and wide. Preston felt he fit in quite well as he was shorter than Haste, but taller than Durant, and he was in between both of them in weight class.
     They were also scene punks like Preston. Preston remembered them from his days of going to Ruthie’s Inn as well as from his old Gilman Club days, and many other clubs, venues, and other random events involving punks and general chaos. They were not part of his regular crew from those days, but he had known them well enough. Preston could not remember having seen either one of them in anything other than black jeans and black band shirts. Even now, they were a trio of dressed-in-all-black clean and sober punks.
     “So she was a gusher?” asked Durant,
     “She’s not a gusher so much,” replied Haste. “I mean, not like a couple of other women I’ve been with.”
     “Did it take her a while to climax?” asked Preston.
     “Yeah. Longer than usual. Almost half an hour.”
     “Holy crap,” said Durant. “Half an hour?”
     “Big deal,” snorted Preston. “I’ve gone longer than that.”
     “With who?” asked Haste.
     “I used to have an FWB that I’d get together with once in a while.”
     “FWB?” asked Durant.
     “Friend with benefits,” said Haste.
     “She loved to get eaten out,” continued Preston. “The thing is it took her a really long time for her to climax.”
     “Like how long?” asked Durant.
     “Usually forty five minutes to an hour.”
     “Holy shit!’
     “Half an hour if you were lucky. Her record was an hour and forty five minutes.”
     “Damn!” said Haste. “Could you talk afterwards?”
     “Kind of,” said Preston. “My jaw was hell of sore and stiff, and I got a small welt on my tongue later on.”
     “She really got off for that long?” asked Durant. “Most women I know would’ve asked you to stop if it was taking too long.”
     “Oh yeah. She loved every minute of it.”
     “Now that’s endurance!” said Haste.
     “I say bullshit,” said Durant. “You weren’t down on a woman that long. No way.”
     Preston shrugged. “Okay. Don’t believe me. But it happened.”
     “She must’ve tasted good then,” said Durant.
     “Oh yeah,” said Preston. “I swear, one time she tasted like Diet Coke.”
     “What? Why Diet coke? Not like regular Coke?”
     “Nah. The diet stuff.”
     “You can tell the difference, which kind of cola a woman tastes like?” asked Haste.
     “Yeah. Some gals are Coca Cola, some are RC, and I think I had a Sprite once.”
     “Yeah sure,” replied Haste uncertainly.
     “You really had a woman who tasted like soda?” asked Durant.

     “Sometimes they taste like soap,” said Haste. “Y’know, if they wash themselves before the act and they don’t rinse enough.”
     “Just keep licking and the taste goes away after a few minutes,” said Preston.
     “Oh man,” exasperated Durant.
     “I had one who tasted like some kinda flowers,” said Haste. “She put something on herself before I went down on her. Kinda like a flavor enhancer.”
     “I had one gal who I swear to God tasted like chamomile tea.”
     “Tea?” said Durant. “All your women taste like beverages?”
     “Where’s the whiskey woman?” asked Haste.
     “Maybe one or two who tasted like vodka, but not whiskey.”
     “That’s crazy,” said Durant.
     Haste looked at Durant. “So you never had a woman taste like something? Reminded you of a taste or a smell?”
     Durant paused for a moment. “I did go down on one gal whose taste reminded me of Crayola crayons.”
     “No shit?” asked Preston.
     “I couldn’t place the taste at first. It was weird. But I thought about it while I was eating her out, and then I thought, Crayola crayons!”
     “Did she have a crayon up there?” asked Haste.
     “Who knows.”
     “So was that a good or a bad thing?” asked Preston.
     “Well, it was just interesting. It wasn’t a good or bad taste. But I was thinking about crayons during sex.”
     “Oh man,” groaned Haste. “Not the best time for childhood memories.”
     “Hell, I didn’t think about my childhood when I had a bubble gum woman,” said Preston.
     Durant dug through his pockets and pulled out a cigarette carton. “Fuck. Outta cigarettes.”
     Haste held out a cigarette for Durant.
     “Thanks,” said Durant. “I’ll smoke it during the break. I don’t got enough time to smoke it before the meeting starts.”
     “I once had a gal who was super quick,” said Haste. “You couldn’t eat her out for more than a minute, maybe two if you were lucky, before she had a richter scale orgasm.”
     “Yeah?”
     “And I mean a curled up in a fetal position and shivering uncontrollably type of climax. She was so damn sensitive I was afraid to shake hands with her.”
     “This conversation reminds me of a hook up I once had,” said Preston.
     “Do tell,” said Durant.
     “At a party, friend of a friend, my friend’s roommate. She was on a hard rebound at the time. Just had a really gnarly breakup. I found her hanging around in the hallway, away from the party. She looked kinda lonely so I went and talked to her.”
     “Kinda lonely huh?” asked Haste.
     “Yeah.”
     “What was she like?” asked Durant.
     “Sorta sketchy. Kind of a fashion punk. Guitarist. Used to play for the Dreaded Losers. Anyways, we chatted for a while and then she says ‘I wanna get away from this party.’ And I says ‘But you live here. Where you gonna go?’”
     “You take her back to your place?” asked Durant.
     “Naw. She says ‘I’m just gonna go hang out in my room.’ Then she reaches down, takes my hand, places it on her breast and says, ‘You can come join me if you want.’”
     “Okay then!” said Durant.
     “No shit?” asked Haste.
     “True story.”
     “I assume you took the hint?” asked Haste.
     “I was presumptuous. I took it as a hint.”
     “Did she really do that?” asked Durant.
     Haste looked at Durant. “Hell, I’ve had gals do stuff like that to me.”
     “Really?”
     “When I was younger and prettier. I’ve had gals walk up to me and place their hands on my crotch, I’ve had my butt pinched and grabbed, and at one party a woman walked up to me and just shoved her hand down my shirt and started copping a feel.”
     “Did she give a reason for doing that?” asked Preston.
     “I did ask. She heard from my ex Wacky Jackie that I had small nipples. She wanted to do her own personal research on the topic.”
     “Was it true?”
     “It took her a while to find them.”
     Preston looked at Durant. “You’ve never had a sketchy punk do something crazy when she wanted it?”
     “Well, kind of, one time when I was gettin’ wasted with a junky.”
     “Do tell,” said Haste who leaned towards Durant to hear the story.
     “I was layin’ on my bed, higher than a kite. She was high too, but not as fucked up as me. I was just starin’ at the ceiling, enjoying my high, and she’s wanderin’ around the room doin’, somethin’, I dunno what. I wasn’t payin’ attention. And suddenly she lays down right next to me, on her side, and starts starin’ at me with this blank look on her face.”
     “Yeah?” said Haste. “That’s it?”
     “Naw. She had taken all of her clothes off.”
     “No shit?” asked Preston.
     “Not a stitch on. An’ she’s just starin’ at me, not sayin’ or doin’ anything! And I’m tryin’ to figure out what’s goin’ on because I was super high and I was really confused. So I started thinkin’ to myself, this might be a clue. Like her way of hinting that she wanted me to do somethin’.”
     Haste pointed at Durant. “Now that’s just being presumptuous!”
     “Lucky for me it did turn out to be a hint, because she wouldn’t stop starin’ at me, so I tried somethin’ an’ yeah, it was her way of lettin’ me know she wanted to get it on.”
     “While you were higher than a kite,” said Preston.
     “There’s a lot about that evening I don’t remember. That part I remember for sure! Other stuff not so much.”
     “People are startin’ to go inside,” said Haste as he glanced at the doors to the meeting hall. All of the parking lot talkers and smokers were drifting inside.
     “I don’t mind goin’ in late,” said Preston. “I got those readings memorized.”
     “Shit, I memorized them months ago,” said Haste.
     “Don’t let Parsons and the cool crew hear you talkin’ like that,” said Durant. “Y’all gonna get a talkin’ to.”
     “Yeah, yeah,” dismissed Preston. “When the too cool types start givin’ me shit I just stare at them and let their voices go all wobbly.”
     “What? Like you’re trippin’?” asked Haste.
     “Naw. You space out right and they start to sound like the adults on those old Peanuts cartoons.”
     “Right. Womp womp womp.”
     “Here comes your girlfriend,” said Durant to Preston as he looked over his shoulder.
     Preston and Haste turned to see Lee approaching them. She was dressed head-to-toe in her traditional black clothing.
     “She ain’t my girlfriend. We just know each other from the club days.”
     “She hella scrawny,” said Haste, “But man she is ripped.”
     “She works out.”
     “I usually ain’t into skinny chicks,” said Durant, “but she somehow gets my motor goin’.”
     “There’s something alluring about a woman who can kick the shit outta ya’,” said Haste.
     “She can fight?” asked Durant.
     Lee walked up to the group. She looked at Preston through her dangling black hair. “Isn’t there something in your probation about not hanging out with guys like these?” said Lee as she pointed at Haste and Durant.
     “Ha ha,” said Durant.
     “Don’t tell my parole officer,” said Preston.
     “Preston says you’re a real ass kicker,” said Haste.
     “Did he now? Well, I might just have to kick his ass!”
     “Promises, promises,” said Preston.
     “I box. As well as the usual work out stuff.”
     “Man, I need to start workin’ out,” said Durant as he patted his stomach.
     Lee looked at Durant. “Come with me the next time I go to Game Changer Fitness. A few weeks with my gal Jenn and you’ll be in better shape.”
     “What? Say what?”
     “You said you wanted to start working out, right?”
     Durant quickly glanced at Preston and Haste before looking at lee again. “Well, I kinda got this back thing and like…”
     Lee put her hand on Durant’s shoulder. “Come try out a boot camp. Jenn helped me increase my upper body strength like you wouldn’t believe.”
     “What? Like weight lifting?”
     “Weights, kettlebells, burpees, and pushing a giant sled made outta metal with a buncha weights on it.”
     “Oh man. That sounds like work.”
     “Or torture,” said Haste.
     “It’s both!” said Lee with a wide smile.
     “Let’s get inside,” said Preston.

You can read about Preston’s early East Bay adventures in The Falling Circle, available on Amazon. (A prequel if you will to this novel-in-progress!)

Other books featuring Preston as an ensemble or supporting character:

Preston’s first appearance in my first ever novel Gutter Folklore. Preston is a member of an ensemble cast featuring characters living in San Francisco in the eighties. This is also the first appearance of Skye Wright, the star of my books Crash Shadow, What the Hell Ever Happened to Yuri Rozhenko?, and my newest novel Stella Maris.

Preston makes an appearance during his drug dealing days in my novel The Clubber, about a self-absorbed anti-hero artist in 1980’s San Francisco.

Preston is also a major character in my novel Crash Shadow, a story about two dug addicts taking completely different paths.