Nothing Lasts Complete

Nothing Lasts

(1)

They say that if you're content with your life, you aren't likely to try to make any changes. Get up, go to work, get paid, go out in search of love or a decent fuck, hoping for a lifetime companion or somebody to drain your balls and help you get to sleep that night. That's not a bad life, I spent a while wishing I had that life, better than the one I got.

Things I've learned that you don't want to learn the hard way:

1. Fucking your sister as soon as she gets on the pill and comes into your bedroom naked at night, that can feel really good, as long as you're careful and your folks don't know. Fucking her in a tent or on a boat, in a cabin or on a blanket in the woods, it's your sister but she's not going to get pregnant with an idiot baby on account of you're genetically too similar, because she's not getting pregnant at all. My sister and I told each other that the old rules against incest didn't matter anymore as long as you didn't make any babies that way.

2. Then your sister falls in love with a guy who isn't you — and that's his only attraction as far as

you

can see — and she says that your fucking each other is over, period. Never again. Because she's going off the pill. Lyle wants her to start making babies with him and she likes that idea, so .. does anybody care that you never had to learn how to pick up women cause your sister was right there? So when she stops being there, where are

you

then?

3. Where you are is jerking off to the memory of your sistery's perfect body because even if somebody came home with you it wouldn't matter because Luscious spoiled you for any woman who didn't immediately know what you liked and what you needed. Her name's really Lucy but Luscious is how I think of her now that she's off limits. Is his dick bigger than mine? So what? My dick knew the road to orgasm central, and so did my tongue and fingers — did she want me to give him pointers about how to make her giggle and scream?

4. Sour grapes, that isn't even an option for me. I'm going to say I never liked fucking her anyway? That was the center of my life! She came into my room naked on my eighteenth birthday and said, Now you can fuck whoever you want, baby brother. How about me? These tits okay for you? This cunt look like it has room for your cock? And now I'm supposed to pretend it was

never

like heaven, like dreaming awake? Pretend that I didn't spray my jizz all over her, my sheets, the headboard, my wall, the floor, the rug, the wastebasket, my textbooks — It's hard to study when every textbook has jizz stains on the cover.

I don't know if this is going to help you. Sure ain't helping me. If you don't have a sister or a horny and pretty first cousin, there's no lesson here for you anyway. What I got was cold turkey, and if you ever got cold turkey from any woman, you know the pain of losing what you used to be able to count on.

I dropped out of college — couldn't concentrate on my classes, so better to withdraw than to take all those

F

s. I got a job cleaning toilets at six different gas stations because I didn't charge a whole lot and their employees were thrilled to have some outsider mopping up piss and shit off the floor and walls, and scrubbing the sinks and commodes and urinals until you could eat off of them if you didn't mind the smell of Ajax or Mr. Clean.

The money from each gas station wasn't great, but put all six together and it was enough for me. It's not like Mom and Dad were making me pay rent, so all I had to do was make a monthly payment to AutoWheels, buy gas, pick up groceries for the family — which was now Mom, Dad, and me, what with Luscious being with Bigdick Loverboy all the time now. I made enough money.

My room needed cleaning as much as those gas station restrooms, only what I sprayed all over was semen and a trillion eager little sperm whose lives ended in bitter disappointment at having encountered no eggs in their peregrinations. They never even saw the inside of a cunt now that Luscious had closed up shop.

When it's your sister, you don't even get to tell her to fuck off when she says, "Can't we still be friends?" because she won't say that, being your sister anyway no matter whether you like it or not.

Just one last fuck for old times' sake, was that too much to ask, to hope for? But no, "clean break" she said, "better for both of us," she said, "there are plenty of girls around when you need a fuck." But she was dreaming. I don't even know how to talk to girls if I'm not their brother and I'm not already fucking them.

"You look so glum," said Mom as I was on my way out the door at five am so I could get all the stations their first cleaning before the coffee-drinkers pee their brains out all over my freshly cleaned toilets.

"Mom, I mop diarrhea, urine, and semen off the floors of six bathrooms, twice a day for each of them."

"Okay," she said, "you can look as glum as you want. Just remember that you invented this restroom cleaning service and you went out and got six stations to hire you so you created your job and you're working hard at it."

"Gonna be rich by Thursday. Just don't know which

week

."

"Funny boy. You're making some money and your only boss is you. A lot of guys are still dreaming of that when they're fifty."

"Dream on, you imaginary guys. Once you're up to your balls in sewage, it makes those dull office jobs look kind of okay."

"It's never

that

deep," said Mom, trying to take "up to your balls" in stride.

"Mom, the sewage isn't balls deep, but the splashing from the mop on the floor and walls and toilets and urinals soaks my balls every day."

"At least you shower."

"With a chisel to chip the dried-on shit off my scrotum."

"Newton, you're just trying to embarrass me."

"No, Mom.

I'm

embarrassed, I'm trying to explain to you my shame."

"I got it, Newton," said Mom. "You should let me pack you a lunch."

"Once a single drop of splashing floor sewage got on the bag, I couldn't possibly eat anything inside it."

"If you don't want a sack lunch, you still have your old DeadPool lunchbox."

"I'm not taking

that

to get shat on by Mr. Mop."

Mom shrugged. "Is the past tense of shit really shat?" she asked. It was obviously hard for her to say those words.

"Since time immemorial," I said. "Sit Sat, Shit Shat, Fit Fat. It's just English, Mom."

That was the end of her desire to talk to me today. She always thought she could cheer me up, but she was playing to a hostile audience. My self-pity, my loneliness, my sexual frustration were not going to be fixed by my kindly, absurdly patient mother, who kept loving me even though she

hated

everything I said and did.

I could have made her leave me alone just by mentioning, "Oh, by the way Mom, the reason I'm always so pissed off these days is that my gorgeous sister Luscious has stopped fucking me every day and twice on Sunday."

Mom seems to be the only person on my side, and I keep using language that hurts her heart. She's not

offended,

she's

sad

that while her beautiful daughter's marrying a guy with serious money, her disappointing dropout son is cleaning toilets and talking about sewage soaking his scrotum. Why can't I try to make her happy? I

want

her to be happy, but the part of me that's angry over how

un

happy

I

am can't let go of my mouth.

So now you've heard me whining about the tragedy of my life, and you're not weeping for me yet, because I'm the kind of guy who fucks his sister — even though it was her idea — taunts his mother, and cleans toilets for a living. Admit it — that was the clincher. As soon as you pictured me with shit splashing up from the mop onto the crotch of my pants, you were done with caring about me. I know because

I'm

done with caring about me.

Into this amazing life of entrepreneurship that I had carved out for myself, what could possibly happen to change things? There were lots of ways that things could be better, but I had no idea how to make those things happen. And what I secretly dreaded was that the universe would figure out a way to make my life shittier.

So here's the hopeless change that happened to my routine. I was cleaning a two-stall women's loo, with signs out on the door and on the floor saying, Restroom Maintenance, Do Not Enter, and this Karen comes bustling in, plunks herself down on the toilet I just cleaned — including polishing the toilet seat with sterilizing cleanser — and out of her piehole comes this

shriek

as if she had just given birth to six mice, and she bounds out of that stall with her pedal-pushers around her ankles so she's hobbling like a cripple, and her pussy is completely visible because those pants are down, and she starts jabbing her finger at me screaming about how I left the toilet wet, what did I do, pee on it myself so she would have a cold wet ass?

I know that when somebody targets me with a rant, I'm supposed to listen calmly and, at the end, say, "I'm so sorry you had such an unpleasant experience, I promise it will never happen again." Then you

don't

add this statement, "It won't happen again because if I see you here I will dump this bucket of floor filth and pisswater over your head and then pee on

you

while you're whimpering on the floor." There are things you just shouldn't say to a screaming woman.

I said only the mildest of retorts: "Ma'am, didn't you see the sign that Restroom Maintenance was going on?"

"What does 'Restroom Maintenance' mean to

me?

Somebody's going to leave a wet seat?"

"The cleanser was drying. I have to put it on wet, and for it to have a sterilizing effect I don't wipe it right off. Would you please pull up your pants? I've seen more of your cunt that I want to as long as I live."

I don't know which part of that made her report me to the owner of the gas station, but within half an hour my contract was handed to me in four pieces and I no longer serviced those restrooms.

My income was now down by a quarter (because this was one of my bigger accounts) and I couldn't actually murder the stupid bitch even though she clearly deserved it and was tempting me.

I went out to my car and drove to my next job without putting away the janitorial equipment. If I was fired, I'd be damned before I'd put away their mop and bucket. They could stay there for the owner to use to finish my work — or some poor sucker of an employee.

That was just one job, and I knew I could sell my services elsewhere to make up for the lost income. But the sheer unfairness — the owner never even

tried

to find out my side, he just caved — had me fuming. I did get a call from the morning-shift counter girl at that gas station coffee shop, and she was laughing when she said, "I'm sorry you lost your job here and I'll miss you but I have to tell you, after you left, that woman insisted on going back into the restroom to finish, and she kicked the Restroom Maintenance sign and her foot slipped in the water and she went down on her ass and her head smacked the linoleum-on-concrete and it shut her up because it knocked her out or, for all I know, killed her, because the EMTs would not break medical protocol to tell us things we had no right to know, and she looked as dead as a squirrel in a dog's mouth when they craned her onto a gurney and took her out to the ambulance."

"She's going to tell the cops that I did it."

"It's all on camera. You weren't there, and she caused herself to slip and fall by kicking the sign."

"Thanks for telling me. Now I can stay up late tonight praying for her speedy recovery."

"Newt, just because you're fired doesn't mean I can't make morning coffee for you anymore. I mean, you can come in as a customer instead of a contractor, right?"

"That sounds good." And in the back of my mind, I went on to ask, "Well now, was that just coffee you offered, or coffee and a quick fuck behind the counter?" Because she has a lovely ass and nice shapely boobs and I still hadn't gotten around to asking if she shaved her pussy or waxed it, the kind of question that rarely earns me a positive reaction. She was being a good friend, and all I could think about was how unfucked I had been for weeks now, and what I wished

she

would do to remedy that.

Sick of me yet? I know you already think I'm an asshole, but so do I, and I have a lot more evidence.

Karen wasn't done with me yet, getting my contract broken with one gas station. She owned a couple of pet lawyers, who did the research to find out that I didn't have a business permit so they petitioned some court and two days later, I was out of business

and

arrested for operating a business without a license and assaulting

her

and making her fall on her head and sustain a skull fracture. I wanted to claim that her broken cranium was a preexisting condition, but my lawyer — Dad — told me that an attitude like that would only bring sympathy to Karen R. Bitch.

"Can't I say anything?"

"Son, she's a hideous human being. Let her rant, let her talk, and pretty soon you'll have the entire jury pool believing that

if

you had caused her to slip and hit her head, you were doing a favor for humanity and they should vote you a pension."

Dad petitioned the judge to dismiss the charges out of hand, and because the store camera confirmed that she was the sole cause of her own slip and slop, the judge tossed the lawsuit.

My, how time flies when you're being sued.

Now I was out of that creature's clutches, but my little company was out of business and my clients were forbidden to pay me for work already done, since I didn't have a business license. "Son," said Dad, "you should have checked."

"I'm a kid, Dad," I said. "What do I know about business permits? I have to have the city's permission to clean up piss and shit from public restrooms?"

"Absolutely, Newt," he said. "Now you

do

know about the need for permits, and you won't make this mistake again."

"I was earning decent money, even if it was, literally, a shitty job."

"Your mother has told me how she wishes you wouldn't say words like piss and shit."

"Didn't she mention 'scrotum'?"

"She wasn't likely to say 'scrotum' out loud to me."

"She's

seen

yours, hasn't she? Aren't you the one person she

can

say scrotum to?"

"Newt, take a good look at me. This is how I look when I'm forcing myself not to knock you down for talking about whether my wife has seen my scrotum."

I had a couple of smart remarks come to mind instantly. But, not wanting Dad to knock me down, I said none of them. "Sorry," I said. "I really am."

"Clean up your act, Newton. You're under a lot of stress, we both know it. Your mom and me. Nobody wants to fight. Just ... calm down enough to keep us wanting to talk to you. And listen to you."

"Dad, I'm out of work. And not because I wasn't working hard or doing a good job. I did a great job."

"I know you did."

"But now I won't even get paid for the past two weeks' work."

"Bummer," said my dad.

"If you can answer me with bummer, I can say shit as much as I want."

"You can say it to me."

But I didn't say it to him. I just sat there feeling lonely and miserable and wishing I could go to Luscious and tell her all my troubles with my cock in her cunt.

Only I couldn't. That chapter of my life was over. If I just reconciled myself to that, maybe I wouldn't have to walk around with this chip on my shoulder.

"It'll come to you," said Dad. "Another job."

"Jobs don't just

come,"

I said.

"I meant the

idea

of a job.

"Usher in a movie theater," I said.

"So ... still mopping floors."

"If I come to a movie theater willing to clean restrooms, and knowing how to mop up sticky sludge from the theater floor, I think the other employees will be glad to see me."

"I think you'll compare the wages with your company's earnings and find that this is a real step down for you."

I rolled my eyes. "Dad," I said. "It would be a job. Which right now I don't have. So I won't compare the new job with my old job. I'll compare the new job with

no

job."

"A mature response," said Dad.

"Thank you," I said.

"Not as mature as staying in school and preparing for a salaried career, of course."

"Seeya, Dad."

"Sorry," he said.

"What you said was perfectly true. But I'm going to go check with the managers of as many theaters as I can tonight."

"Without staying to watch any of the shows."

"Dad, the only movies they make now are mediocre reboots of hit franchises."

"Which you watch avidly on cable."

"On the couch," I said. "With Lucy, back when she lived here."

"Get out of here, Newton," said Dad. "Go find yourself a job."

Two theaters instantly offered me part-time jobs, because they thought I was a high school student. When I said I was looking for fulltime work, both managers said, "There's only one fulltime job in this theater, and I have it." I suggested that someone with my expertise in toilet and restroom cleaning might have plenty to do in the multiplex's multiple bathrooms, but they both replied with, "What then would my current employees do?"

It was clear that neither of them wanted to think outside the box, and I was pretty sure I wouldn't have enjoyed working for either of them.

The third and last place I made it to that night seemed a little friendlier but also more depressing. The manager, a youngish woman — maybe thirty? — joked with me. "This theater is on a major downswing," she said. "The owners splurged about ten years ago on new seats and carpets, and then two years later all our competitors installed stadium seating with recliners. No way could our owners compete — not when they used up so much money refurbishing our apparently paleolithic furnishings."

"Your parking lot isn't exactly empty," I said.

"Because we're now the discount theater in town. From top of the line ten years ago to outmoded design eight years ago. Now we get families who can't afford to pay for stadium seating but still want to see a movie. We're where top of the line movies go when the big theaters need to make room for a new hit feature. We get the slack end of the business. We're picking up the pennies that the cool theaters drop on the ground."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I said. "My sister and I used to come here ... about the time those renovations happened. She snuck me into R-rated movies by pretending to be my mom."

"She must have been a lot older than you."

"Naw," I said. "She just had a take-no-prisoners attitude that made the ticket agents decide against giving her any crap."

"The city doesn't enforce those rules

here

very much these days. I think they don't want to close us down. There's not much else for kids to do this side of town, now that the Kmart closed down and Borders went out of business. So maybe they hope we'll keep kids from getting into trouble."

"Is that working?" I asked.

She laughed, a little bitterly. "We keep kids off the streets, sure. But it's common for one kid to buy a ticket, then let their friends in through one of the fire doors. Four or five seats filled for the price of one."

"If you know they're doing it ..."

"They pay that one admission, my boy."

I laughed with her this time.

"Besides, there's a group that pays full admission. The young lovers who pay for tickets in order to get a little privacy."

"I suppose a darkened theater is —"

"The screen keeps illuminating the whole audience, and there's no way to get naked in the theater itself without being seen. I can't have that happen — it drives away the families. But ten years ago, we had four small theaters where we showed art films. Those stand empty these days, and I've learned to leave the lights off except the mandatory exit signs, and I leave the doors unlocked."