The Long Hard Road Out of Hell

time in New York, I’m stuck at the airport with no fucking money and all I wanna do is go home and go to sleep.”
    â€œTeresa’s out with Carl,” Nancy said, the cold tone of her voice betraying a hint of the jealousy that I also felt.
    Nancy offered to pick me up and drive me home. When we arrived, she followed me inside. I just wanted to pass out, but I didn’t want to be mean after she had rescued me. I collapsed onto the bed, and she collapsed on top of me, coming on to me heavier (all puns intended) than she ever had before. She rammed her tongue down my throat and grabbed my dick. I was very apprehensive, mostly because I didn’t want to get caught. By now, I had begun to feel removed from the everyday world of morality. Guilt had become more a fear of getting caught than any sense of right or wrong.
    I ended up letting her give me a blow job, because Teresa never went down on me. But, as onstage, I wouldn’t let her fuck me. When Teresa and Carl showed up at my house less than fifteen minutes later, we were sitting on the bed innocently watching television. Carl instinctively walked up to Nancy and kissed her on the mouth, unaware that minutes ago that very orifice had received several million of my sperm.
    At the time I thought it was funny and appropriately vengeful, but I didn’t realize that this solitary act of fellatio would be the beginning of a six-month reign of full-on Gothic terror.

dirty rock star
    T HE URGE TOWARDS LOVE, PUSHED TO ITS LIMIT, IS AN URGE TOWARDS DEATH.
    â€” Marquis de Sade
    T HE place is Fort Lauderdale, Florida. The date is July 4, 1990. The thing in the palm of a hand stretched out in front of me is a tab of acid, and in a moment it will obliterate all these facts.
    Teresa, my girlfriend, has done acid before. Nancy, the psycho, has done it. I haven’t. I let it sit in my mouth until it annoys me, then swallow it and return to packing up the remains of Marilyn Manson and the Spooky Kids’ first backyard performance, confident that my will power is stronger than whatever this tiny square of paper has in store for me. Andrew and Suzie, the couple who gave me the tab, smile conspiratorially. I wink back, unsure of what they’re trying to communicate.
    Minutes pass, and nothing happens. I lie in the grass and focus on figuring out whether the acid is working—if my body seems different, if my perception has changed, if my thoughts are warping. “Do you feel it yet?” comes a voice, breathing sticky and sickly on my ear. I open my eyes to see Nancy grinning masochistically through her black hair.
    â€œNo, I don’t,” I say briskly, trying to get rid of her, especially since my girlfriend is around.
    â€œI need to talk to you,” she insists.
    â€œFine.”
    â€œI’m just starting to realize some things. About us. I mean, Teresa’s my friend and Carl, I don’t care about Carl anymore. But we need to tell them how we feel about each other. Because I love you. And I know you love me, even if you don’t know it. It doesn’t have to be forever. I know how you are about things like that. I don’t want this to get in the way of our band”—our band—“and the chemistry we have onstage. But we can try it. I mean, love…”
    As soon as she says love that last time, her face appears lit up against the grassy background, like a billboard advertising self-deception. The word love seems to hang suspended in the air for that moment, masking the rest of her sentence. It’s all very subtle. But I realize then that I’m going on a trip, and there’s no way back.
    â€œDid you feel that—the difference?” I ask, confused.
    â€œYes, of course,” she says eagerly, as if we’re on the same wavelength. I do need somebody on my wavelength because I think I’m about to freak out. But I don’t want it to be her. Oh, God, I don’t want it to be her.
    I stand up and start to look for Teresa, walking through the house slightly disoriented. Everyone is huddled in corners talking in small groups, each cluster of people smiling at me and beckoning me to join them. I keep walking. The house seems endless. I explore about a hundred rooms, not sure whether they’re all the same one or not, before giving up, confident that my girlfriend is having a good time somewhere that I’m not. I reemerge in the backyard. But it’s not the same