Friction Read Online Free Page A
Author: Joe Stretch
Colin suspects that when removed from the glass gazes of others, he is nothing. And it hurts.
Colin ends the call, turns around and starts walking in the direction of The Bar. He temps at the University of Manchester, admin for the English Department. Having worked late, he is still in his work clothes. Donât worry. Luckily for Colin, the sartorial code at the university ispretty casual. Heâs wearing a pair of smart jeans and a well-ironed blue shirt. (Apart from the odd, short-lived experiment with the idea of an intentionally creased shirt, by about 2004, the well-ironed shirt has achieved supremacy.) Colin skips onto Whitworth Street, past the croaking, toad-like building of Oxford Road train station and on towards south Deansgate and The Bar.
He crosses one of the many wooden bridges that lead on to Deansgate Locks. The Bar looms, its cheap sign lit up, its doorway cordoned off with red rope and brass stands. Itâs getting busier.
There are plenty of couples. Colinâs head begins to spin. The couple is still going strong. There are long tanned legs, bunches of birds that you could screw up, smash, straightening their limbs with red hot tongs. Spinning fast. Lovely arses for Colin to look at coldly. Couples seem vile to Colin. These men and women are the wettest, most vile, idiotic, sick, compromised cowards heâs ever seen. He looks at beefed-up men like theyâre hideous idiots, preoccupied with some misunderstood idea. Cocks. Colin doesnât want a bird, fit as fuck or not. But heâd burn the clothes of these turd-tanned slappers, burn their push-up bras off their bodies just to show them. Colinâs girlfriend left him a year ago and, at this stage, he isnât sure whether heâll ever be able to have sex again. He pays at the door, entering the club that The Bar has become.
The majestic boozers of this damp century wade around the dance floor. Itâs dark but the room is full of psychedelic drinks: girls and boy sucking on neon liquids, pouring golden fluid, animated by flashing lights and colours, down their throats and into their stomachs.
This is what we people live for, a lot of us think. Greattimes. Great times. The music is running as fast as it can and the dance floor is heaving with fabrics and different skins. The place is burnt hollow with cleavage, with skirts short enough to reveal the beginnings of hard, curved bums. There are tight T-shirts, see-through tops, muscles, perfectly ironed shirts of white, of red, of blue. Oh, they drink a shitload, they do. These are those who will live and die but this is a generation that mustnât get old; so great is its responsibility to the nihilism of its youth. Colin waits fifteen minutes for a pint of Stella and joins Boy 1 and Boy 2 at the edge of the dance floor.
âAll right, mate!â
âYeh!â
âHow was work?â
âFine. Youâre fucking wasted!â
âWeâve been here all day!â
These three are idle young men. This is a room full of idle young men in pursuit of idle young women in pursuit of idle young men. Cyclical and unchanging. Paceless. Anger warms and finally burns. It creeps up on you on the dance floor or outside the club. It ruins your night, then is thrown off and forgotten in the course of some restless, semi-comatose sleep. Sex is some hard-throated bout of power play. Girls and boys passing time. Staring, looking, touching, fucking, leaving, missing, abandoning, living, trying and fucking up and trying again, anal, stopping, taxi-rank fights, bus blow jobs, orgasms, excitement, experimentation, fetish and a frantic smell of spermicide.
Boy 1 and Boy 2 sway on the dance floor, stumbling in the direction of tits, their gelled hair the texture of barbed wire. Colin watches with a choking throat and dried-up eyes as the rest of the club work themselves up into a frenzy,pair off, fight and leave. Colin is a granite statue with flickering marble eyes. He
Colin ends the call, turns around and starts walking in the direction of The Bar. He temps at the University of Manchester, admin for the English Department. Having worked late, he is still in his work clothes. Donât worry. Luckily for Colin, the sartorial code at the university ispretty casual. Heâs wearing a pair of smart jeans and a well-ironed blue shirt. (Apart from the odd, short-lived experiment with the idea of an intentionally creased shirt, by about 2004, the well-ironed shirt has achieved supremacy.) Colin skips onto Whitworth Street, past the croaking, toad-like building of Oxford Road train station and on towards south Deansgate and The Bar.
He crosses one of the many wooden bridges that lead on to Deansgate Locks. The Bar looms, its cheap sign lit up, its doorway cordoned off with red rope and brass stands. Itâs getting busier.
There are plenty of couples. Colinâs head begins to spin. The couple is still going strong. There are long tanned legs, bunches of birds that you could screw up, smash, straightening their limbs with red hot tongs. Spinning fast. Lovely arses for Colin to look at coldly. Couples seem vile to Colin. These men and women are the wettest, most vile, idiotic, sick, compromised cowards heâs ever seen. He looks at beefed-up men like theyâre hideous idiots, preoccupied with some misunderstood idea. Cocks. Colin doesnât want a bird, fit as fuck or not. But heâd burn the clothes of these turd-tanned slappers, burn their push-up bras off their bodies just to show them. Colinâs girlfriend left him a year ago and, at this stage, he isnât sure whether heâll ever be able to have sex again. He pays at the door, entering the club that The Bar has become.
The majestic boozers of this damp century wade around the dance floor. Itâs dark but the room is full of psychedelic drinks: girls and boy sucking on neon liquids, pouring golden fluid, animated by flashing lights and colours, down their throats and into their stomachs.
This is what we people live for, a lot of us think. Greattimes. Great times. The music is running as fast as it can and the dance floor is heaving with fabrics and different skins. The place is burnt hollow with cleavage, with skirts short enough to reveal the beginnings of hard, curved bums. There are tight T-shirts, see-through tops, muscles, perfectly ironed shirts of white, of red, of blue. Oh, they drink a shitload, they do. These are those who will live and die but this is a generation that mustnât get old; so great is its responsibility to the nihilism of its youth. Colin waits fifteen minutes for a pint of Stella and joins Boy 1 and Boy 2 at the edge of the dance floor.
âAll right, mate!â
âYeh!â
âHow was work?â
âFine. Youâre fucking wasted!â
âWeâve been here all day!â
These three are idle young men. This is a room full of idle young men in pursuit of idle young women in pursuit of idle young men. Cyclical and unchanging. Paceless. Anger warms and finally burns. It creeps up on you on the dance floor or outside the club. It ruins your night, then is thrown off and forgotten in the course of some restless, semi-comatose sleep. Sex is some hard-throated bout of power play. Girls and boys passing time. Staring, looking, touching, fucking, leaving, missing, abandoning, living, trying and fucking up and trying again, anal, stopping, taxi-rank fights, bus blow jobs, orgasms, excitement, experimentation, fetish and a frantic smell of spermicide.
Boy 1 and Boy 2 sway on the dance floor, stumbling in the direction of tits, their gelled hair the texture of barbed wire. Colin watches with a choking throat and dried-up eyes as the rest of the club work themselves up into a frenzy,pair off, fight and leave. Colin is a granite statue with flickering marble eyes. He
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