,,ggddY""""Ybbgg,, ,agd""' `""bg, T H E N E O - C O M I N T E R N ,gdP" "Ybg, ,dP" ""` ,dP" _,,ddP"""Ybb,,_ .s*""*s .s*"*s. ,8" .+$ '""' `"Yb, .P' $ `.d' `b ,8' .+$$$$ssss+. sssss "'d' .sssP d' `b db. ,8' .+$$$$$$$$$$$$$$+. $$$$$ d' ,P' d' s*s $ d' `b d.+$$$$$$$$$$$$$$`*$$$$+.$$$$$$$$$ $ :$ d'.P .Pd' $ _ 8`*$$$$$$$$$$$$$$ o`*$$$$$$$$ T. `b. :$ TsP .Pd' $ .+P"*+. 8 `*$$$$$$$$$$$ OOb.`*$$$$$ T. `^**sT. .Pd' . $ .+P' :P 8 `*$$$$ YOOOObooi `b. $ T. .P'd' .P $P' .P' 8 `*$ "OQQQO" `TsggsP `TssP' d' .PT. . .P' Y, i. aP ,P d .P :$b+.d' .P' `8, "Ya aP" ,8' d; .P .d' .P' `8, "Yb,_ _,dP" ,8' `*TP .d' .P' `8a `""YbbgggddP""' a8' d; .P' `Yba adP' `*TP' "Yba adY" `"Yba, ,adP"' `"Y8ba, ,ad8P"' E L E C T R O N I C M A G A Z I N E ``""YYbaaadPP""'' .-. t h e l i t e r a r y m o l o t o v c o c k t a i l .-. / \ .-. .-. / \ / \ / \ .-. _ .-. / \ / \ `-------\-------/-----\-----/---\---/-\---/---\-----/-----\-------/-------' \ / \ / `-' `-' \ / \ / \ / `-' `-' \ / `-' I N S T A L L M E N T N U M B E R 2 7 1 `-' F E B R U A R Y 2 2 , 2 0 0 4 B M C , E D I T O R - I N - C H I E F FEATURED IN THIS INSTALLMENT: The Cruelty of Swans - bottomfeeder _/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_ EDITOR'S KNOWTE And yes, my insatiable friends, if the last issue did not satisfy your sexual needs, we will follow it up with another tale of carnal knowledge. bottomfeeder, of N-Com #270 fame, is back once again with some wonderful twisted words for you. This week's story is a brilliant, twisted tale of sex and sense. A blending of body parts, music, art, and nature make for a complex story that can be enjoyed in a multitude of ways. The mysterious female interest, Clove, may seem to the reader to be provocative and intriguing, but the narrator occasionally questions her sincerity and sexiness. Offsetting the narrator's sexual relationship with Clove is his social relationship with the irreverent Sparks, who is filled with sexual scepticism and distrust of feminine mystique. The narrator navigates between the world of the artistic/sexual and the adolescent/social, leaving the reader in suspense from beginning to end. As the nameless protagonist reflects the personalities of those around him, he states little of his own perspective, allowing readers to plug in their own attitudes and opinions. This leads to a character that is as much defined by reader as by author, resulting in a multitude of reading possibilities; as each reader becomes the character, each has a unique interpretation of the unfolding events. Your experience reading this story will surely be completely different from that of anyone else. So read on, good friend, and enjoy this story as you will. _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ \"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._ _.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/ " " " " " " " """"" " " " " " " " _/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"-._/"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_.-"\_ The Cruelty of Swans by bottomfeeder _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ \"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._\"-._ _.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/_.-"/ " " " " " " " """"" " " " " " " " The first words she said to me didn't register. "The autumn always makes me want to take a lover." She was standing in the park, feet in a pile of leaves. I had stopped in the centre of the path and was staring at some couple on the bench. A boy and girl: her head on his shoulder, her hands in his lap, his gangly legs stretched out before him. They were treating the bench like a living room sofa. The audacity of it all, I thought. At first, I was sure the girl was Carol, my ex; she had the same mittens on. It would be just like Carol to openly flaunt her comfort with the public park environment. "This is me, this is my lover; we're just watching the game on TV." But that girl on the bench wasn't Carol, nor was I staring at the couple in longing or envy. And here was this beautiful long-haired woman beside me, her hands unmittened, her green, glitter nail polish leprous and flaky, and her feet in that pile of dried leaves. I couldn't see what shoes she was wearing. I wanted to know. "The autumn," she continued. "Imagine it, the sexiness of the park in yellow and red. The air brisk. Nipples hard and wool-sweatered back up against the grit of the tree bark." So that's how I met Clove. And when I fucked her up against the tree in the park that day, I discovered the sound that wool makes on wood, and that her shoes were brown. Suede. "So Clove finally asked me over to her house." "No shit, Park Fuck finally asked you over. Man, I thought you'd be out there 'til January freezing your balls off." My friend Sparks. He always talked about my balls. "When?" "Tonight." She is barefoot when she answers the door; the acrylic infection has spread to her toenails, an atrophy of green polish. It is a loft, but not the pretentious kind with art noveau junk hanging on the walls. No, just some cloth stuff. Like she was hanging up curtains but missed, got the wall instead. It's dim in here; Clove only has one lamp. "Nice place, eh" I say, my hands seem large and unwieldy in the weak lighting and I don't know where to put them. "Thanks." Clove takes off her shirt. I've seen her tits before but it's the first time I see her topless. A squawk. Something rustling. "Holy shit, what is that?" "A crow." Clove takes off her lacy skirt. It billows out, like a freshly laundered sheet, when it drops to the hardwood floor. "Who has a crow as a pet?" I ask. The bird's watching me, on the rusty shitted-on rod of the cage; its beady black eyes just watching. Clove's undoing my belt. I stick a few of my fingers up her cunt. She makes a low murmuring noise. Every time the crow lifts its feet, shifts position, the rod squeaks. The bed's on the other side of the room. A bit farther away from the bird cage. The distance helps my erection. So does the slickness on my fingers. I fumble with my shirt and Clove walks over to the stereo and turns it on: some kind of singing, a violin or something, timid or lazy; weird shit, but at least I don't hear that fucking bird. Her bed is just a mattress on the floor, not even up against the wall, pointing towards the centre of the room. Clove's on top of me, arching her back and holding her cunt open with her fingers. We couldn't have done this up against a tree, I think. I run my tongue down her pelvic bone, she's pale she is. The violin is joined with a clarinet, the wind instrument light and haughty. I stop, for just a second, I have to. "Hey, is this music a joke or something?" I ask her. Her body kind of falls slightly as she stops arching towards me. She just looks down at me, wordless. Something in her face seems different, harder, I think. In her features. She's still not saying anything. I look back down. When my tongue reaches her clit the violin turns whiney but sharp, like walking barefoot on glass shards, the small ones. The sharpness in those strings, its punishment. I look back up at Clove and it looks like she's smirking, but she reaches behind, her fingers nuzzling my balls. The next song. Clove mounts me slow like, takes my hands and puts them on her hips. She's got a tattoo: some Celtic-Arabic-Sanskrit thing on her lower abdomen. I watch it move, undulate to the music. There are two violins now. One of them, short strokes, stings, like a frenzied cricket in the dew of some pale morning. The other one is slower, crippled in comparison. Keen. Lilting. There's chanting now. Lai La Ha The "Ha" at the end pronounced with phlegm, as painful as the stroke of the first violin. Clove's pelvis, the bone of it, a wasp, a vulture. And in the midst of all that, all that pain in the strings, the clarinet is soft and detached. Clove is arching her back again, her breathing's becoming raspier. I like how she sucks her lower lip when she's taking it. Lai La Ha Clove's oohing, sucking at her lip; I've got my hands on her hips tight now, my palms imprinting a blush onto her skin, my fingers getting whiter. I come and she does too, whimpering at the end. She doesn't pull me out right away, never does. The song's different again. A guitar strums. A woman's voice. Clove paces her breathing to the voice, her hips sway slightly, negotiating the newfound wetness inside her. A beautiful woman calming a crying child. The voice: it's windy; it's Italy or France; it's steamy fucking Spain in the moonlight. That woman's voice. "Maybe she's a witch or something. Some fucking gypsy witch." "Sparks, what are you talking about?" I say to him, "the music was just a bit funny, that's all. Like chanting. All these instruments." "Well you said so yourself, she's got a crow or something. That's just like a fucking black cat but with wings, man. You said so yourself how creeped out you were." "I wasn't scared." "You better watch yourself; she could go all voodoo on your balls." I don't say anything. I'm thinking about yesterday. The room, the squeak of the crow, Clove's lips. Tonight when Clove opens the door I'm determined not to act like a jackass. "Do you have anything to drink?" I ask her. "No," she says and starts to move the back of her palm against my inner thigh. I take a quick glance around. A pile of clothes lying furrowed on the floor. Necklaces hanging from a long nail in the wall. There's a candle burning and the crow's still there, looking at me. No sign of a broom anywhere. Fucking Sparks. Clove has got on a large man's shirt, unbuttoned real low, down to her little gaping-mouthed navel. I kneel down, flick my tongue in there. She laughs slightly. Her hair is braided, pigtails, the ends held together with leather string. She's barefoot and her nail polish is purple today. Peeling. I get her on the mattress almost before she realizes it. Start ripping at her tweed flares. She likes the urgency, I can tell. I'm trying to keep her busy, trying to angle her away from where the stereo is but her arm gets out from under me and she reaches out, hits the switch. A few pricks of the guitar and then the sadness. That violin. It's dancing in a dim room tonight. Fresh from a kill. It's sewing velvet and the voice that comes next is low and hungry. Clove's mouth is on my cock. My mouth is dry. Now a mandolin, the gait and rhythm of a horse. Clove's lips on my nipple. Tongue. Teeth. Mandolin flick. A coarse set of nails down my chest and her top lip glistening. The mandolin, a tone lower now, faster, skipping. There's an oboe too, a blast of trumpets. A conquering, the last bit in meek-beat drum, and then a rattle. Clove's got her legs up around my ears. "So how's Gypsy Witch? Was she playing it?" "Playing what, man?" "That gypsy violin shit." "Sparks, it's not *gypsy*. They prefer to be called Roma. Gypsy is derogatory." "What? Where the fuck did you get that from?" "I looked it up." "So Roma Witch has got you hooked then, eh?" "Yeah. It's eerie it is; I've never heard anything like it. I'm telling you, last night, it's like this guy mourning, calling to his dead son, and then the violin starts to moan and then they're both weeping-" "Who?" "The father and the violin. They're both weeping, one after another, and it's sad man, it's so fucking sad." Sparks watches me. "Maybe she's put a curse on you or something." We're sitting on a park bench. The snow came a week ago, quickly. One night and everything looks different. The pond is only frozen over around the edges and there are ducks and swans down its the bank. Clove is sitting cross-legged on the bench, a brown leather jacket with some fur trim, bulky over her slender shoulders. I'm trying to face her but she's staring straight ahead, engrossed in the waterfowl, eating pretzels. Pffft! "Did you just spit pretzels at that swan?" I ask. "I hate swans," she replies. "They look so arrogant and cruel." "You mean their necks?" "Yeah, their necks, their beaks, their eyes. Everything." I don't want to talk about swans. I trace my finger on her back; she leans away and doesn't look at me. She's still staring down the swan. I wonder how leather sounds up against the hungry teeth of tree bark. Or in the snow. "So that music you've been playing..." She continues to chew her pretzel. "Yeah?" "What is it?" "Why?" "I don't know. Just curious." I try not to meet her eyes so I watch the swan instead. "It's Jewish." "The swan?" Clove sighs and spits another pulpy pretzel onto the snow, the swan starts to come over to it. "The music." "Jewish?" "Jewish." The ducks outnumber the other birds and they waddle gracelessly around each other, in aimless circles. "All those instruments in there, eh?" I say and I watch the curves and ridges of her profile, the hazy backdrop of white against her features. She turns to me. "In where?" she says, but she's starting to smirk. I can see a flash of teeth. One duck tries to make a break towards the pretzel in the snow but a swan chases it away. "C'mon, don't be like that. You know I'm talking about the music. There are a lot of instruments in there, that's all I'm saying." "Oh, so you're a music expert now, huh?" I quickly take a pretzel from the open bag in her hands and break it in two. Throw one piece over to the duck. "Hey, don't be like that" I say, and reach my hand over to touch her cheek, its beautiful and red. She pulls away. "Your fingers are cold," she says. "I could warm them up," I reply but she just spits again. "So where did you get it?" I ask her. She stops chewing. "Why?" "Just trying to make conversation." "Well make something different." "What's your fucking problem?" My voice echoes across the pond. It startles the ducks and they flap and hop and quack to the centre, trying to follow it. The swans don't even look up. "The public library." Clove doesn't say anything else to me. She just watches a swan prance over to the glop of salt and pretzel in the snow. Watches the swan bend its cruel neck down, open its cruel beak and eat it. She leaves and I don't get an invitation to stop by. I don't see her for days. I go to her place anyway, ring the bell but she didn't answer. I try different times of the day. I saw her in the park once, by the pond, but by the time I got over there, the bottom cuffs of my jeans stiff with ice, she was gone. I think about her a lot. Four days and no violin. My mother looked at me oddly when I showed up at her door, asking to borrow her library card. "Why?" "I lost mine." "Mine has my name on it. You won't be able to use it." "They never check the names on them, mom. It's not some club." The library is bright and painted a yellow that fades in the Tuesday afternoon sunlight. The music room is dusty; I can see the particles in the light, magnified and pixie-like. Some old man is coughing, wheezing over the pixies. The music room is filled with wooden crates of laminated CD covers. The plants in the corners look plastic and the woman behind the counter has the thinnest lips I have ever seen. I'm looking through the sections. Jazz. Country. Pop/Rock. Like those two should ever be put together. "Excuse me, Miss, is there a Jewish music section?" The woman presses her lips together, making them disappear entirely. "Not specifically, no. Check the World Music section." "I did." "Okay, let me just check in the computer. What do we have here..." She says that last part not to me, but to herself. In that tone reserved for quintessential things people says to themselves, but only when other people are listening. "We do have a few CDs of Jewish music. Klezmer, Mizrahi, some Sephardic forms, oh, but it looks like all of them are out on loan right now. Well that's interesting, isn't it." She looks up. "I can put you on the reserve list, if you want." "Umm, no thanks." I turn to walk away and I see Clove there in front of me. She looks surprised; I've never seen her look surprised. She's holding some CDs with elastic bands around the cases. I think I see a picture of a violin on the top cover. "What are you doing here?" Clove asks me. "What, I can't be in a public library?" She waits, blinks a few times beneath her brown knit hat. "Nothing much, just picking up some stuff for my mom." I show her my mom's library card like it's some kind of proof. Her eyes narrow. My ears are getting hot. I wonder if she's going to say something. "I'd like to see you again. Maybe we can meet some time soon," I say to her. I want to reach out and trace the curve of her brown knit hat against her cheek. I look down; she's wearing mittens. "Maybe," she says and walks right past me, up to the desk. I think of something to say. I want ask her if she's wearing nail polish, what colour it is, but suddenly the glass-pane door looks so bright, so sure of itself, the sun streaming in from it, all happy like. Just when I reach the door I hear the librarian. "Wait, Sir, wait. The collections of Jewish music have just been returned." I don't turn around. I just push the door open and step out into the cold air, my ears burning. .-. .-. / \ .-. .-. / \ / \ / \ .-. _ .-. / \ / \ `-------\-------/-----\-----/---\---/-\---/---\-----/-----\-------/-------' \ / \ / `-' `-' \ / \ / \ / `-' `-' \ / `-' `-' The Neo-Comintern Magazine / Online Magazine is seeking submissions. Unpublished stories and articles of an unusual, experimental, or anti-capitalist nature are wanted. Contributors are encouraged to submit works incorporating any or all of the following: Musings, Delvings into Philosophy, Flights of Fancy, Freefall Selections, and Tales of General Mirth. The more creative and astray from the norm, the better. For examples of typical Neo-Comintern writing, see our website at . Submissions of 25-4000 words are wanted; the average article length is approximately 200-1000 words. Send submissions via email attachment to , or through ICQ to #29981964. Contributors will receive copies of the most recent print issue of The Neo-Comintern; works of any length and type will be considered for publication in The Neo-Comintern Online Magazine and/or The Neo-Comintern Magazine. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .--/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\--. `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' ___________________________________________________ | THE COMINTERN IS AVAILABLE ON THE FOLLOWING BBSES | |~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| | TWILIGHT ZONE (905) 432-7667 | | BRING ON THE NIGHT (306) 373-4218 | | CLUB PARADISE (306) 978-2542 | | THE GATEWAY THROUGH TIME (306) 373-9778 | |___________________________________________________| | Website at: http://www.neo-comintern.com | | Questions? Comments? Submissions? | | Email BMC at bmc@neo-comintern.com | |___________________________________________________| | The Current Text Scene : http://www.textscene.com | |___________________________________________________| .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .-. .--/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\---/---\--. `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' `-' copyright 2004 by #271-02/22/04 the neo-comintern All content is property of The Neo-Comintern. You may redistribute this document, although no fee can be charged and the content must not be altered or modified in any way. Unauthorized use of any part of this document is prohibited. All rights reserved. Made in Canada. By Canadians. And a couple Others.