ISSUE â„– 

03

a literary journal in multiple timezones

Mar. 2024

ISSUE â„– 

03

a literary journal in multiple timezones

Mar. 2024

Cookie Dough

The Northeast
Illustration by:

Cookie Dough

Just out of the subway I spotted the idling hybrid Toyota that 2Byung said he'd be driving.  I looked through the window and saw a man with a thin face, a cleft chin and a full head of salt and pepper hair.  I pressed my forehead against the glass to see clearly through the window and he peered back at me with a forced smile.

2Byung was a perfect example of how little you can guess about the way a person looks by talking to them online.  I’d have pegged him an overweight, pig nosed computer-programmer type, which would have been way off.  He was more of a waspy, TV dad ala Danny Tanner type, the kind of guy whose face would be right at home on campaign flyer or a realtor ad.  I opened the door and looked at him.  He nodded at me, so I sat in the passenger seat.  As soon as the door was closed, he took off.

“Hi, I’m Will,” he said.

“Sid.” 

“Is that your real name?” he asked.

“Yes, Where are we?” 

“Halfway between my work and my house.” he said as if this were a brilliant coincidence.  “Do you like Genesis?”

“Sure” I said.  There was not a band I hated more.  Will began speeding down the highway with “Invisible Touch” blasting like it was Slayer.  He had a look that was familiar and overall disarming except for one aspect.  His eyes had a strangeness to them. They were almost devoid of color or expression, like a dead glow stick.  They looked as though his soul had mistakenly been put through the wash.

There was a black zip-up CD booklet on the floor.  Immediately nauseated by Phil Collins’ voice, I picked it up and leafed through the CD’s just to have something to focus on, some kind of business.  I glanced at pages upon pages of Genesis, Phil Collins’ solo work, U2 and Peter Gabriel.  It was like a compilation of the music I hated most in the world.  The only thing I could even tolerate in it was Billy Joel, except he only had the album with that insufferable, “In the middle of the night,” song, which I’d hated as a boy.

I felt almost normal with the exception of a clammy film covering my chest and back, but I spent each moment pre-occupied with when that feeling was going to slip away and the dope sickness would begin again. It would all start with a yawn. As soon as I let a tiny yawn slip out of my mouth, an irreversible succession of symptoms would begin. It was odd to be so fearful of something as seemingly harmless as a yawn, but it would eventually reduce me to something akin to dying infant. I felt like a fugitive, each moment pre-occupied with my eventual capture.

I continued leafing through the CD’s and noticed out of the corner of my eye that Will kept glancing at me when he thought I wasn’t looking.  He did this constantly as though he thought that somebody was going to steal me, each time taking his eyes completely off the road.   He was also taking turns way too fast, which made me notice that we were no longer on the highway but in a more residential area that looked like some kind of woodsy village.

He was driving the hybrid way too fast for a residential zone, like he was trying to form some kind of macho bond with me.  The houses all looked alike and the lawns all either fake or well-mowed.

I spotted a “Best of Les Miserables” CD and started fingering it.  Will immediately told me it was his daughter’s as if to try and distance himself from any connection to it.  Ignoring him, I ejected Genesis, put in the CD and skipped to “Do You Hear the People Sing.”  He looked disappointed at my choice, staring at me with a contrived puppy-dog face.  I took an animated crack at singing operatically holding one hand on my diaphragm and the other in the air palm up, fingers spread apart.  Will turned his head and looked at me like I was his long lost child, eyes popping out of his head.

“Will you pay attention to the road?  And slow down too, please,” I said.

We came to a screeching halt at a mock cul de sac between two houses.  There was a great deal of un-kempt brush growing from the island in the middle of the circle and it looked like nobody from either house would be able to see us.

“What are we going to do?” he asked.

“First you are going to pay me.  It’s three fifty and there will be no touching,” I said realizing I was sounding like a kindergarten teacher.

“I just want to see you,” he said.  “You’re so perfect.”  He was already rubbing the crotch of his suit pants.  I thrust my hand toward him palm up and he grabbed his wallet out from behind him.  He laid each bill into my hand with flair to dramatize the situation as much as possible.  He dropped the last bill into my hand and rubbed the side of my pinky as he did it.  I snatched my hand away and put the cash in my pocket.

Immediately I began pulling open my blue and grey pearl snap shirt and he stared intently rubbing his crotch and twitching with the sound of each snap.  I took off the shirt and then peeled up my white thermal revealing my chest.  I pulled on my nipples a bit to make them pop a little more and then bent down toward the floor to untie my shoe, which gave him a chance to check out my backside.  There was sweat dripping down my back and into the crack of my ass, which meant that I was slipping into dope sickness, but I still had some time left.  I maneuvered my pants off by putting one foot on the floor and the other on the seat and balancing as I pulled.  

Completely naked in the passenger seat, and getting used to the feeling of my bare ass on leather, I tried to look present.  Will just sort of gawked, and basked, letting out rapid sighs in between. Having not showered in 20 days, I wondered for a second if I’d begun to turn, but realized that if I did smell this probably would  just get off on it.  I wouldn’t have been surprised to hear him start throwing out adjectives like “pungent” or “smoky.”  He asked me to jerk off which I fully expected so I spit in my hand, and closed my eyes.  I fantasized about Kelly Kapowski from Saved by the Bell, which always worked in tight spots, but I kept on having to open my eyes to make sure Will was behaving and so I remained pretty flaccid.  Will took a moment to undo his belt and pull his pants down below the steering wheel. 

Will’s hand began floating between his crotch and mine, like a person trying to cut the line at a grocery store.  I pointed my finger at him as a warning and, although to his consternation, he got the message.  I kept aimlessly rubbing myself while spacing out and hoping he’d finish, but he was savoring the experience, slowing down every time he was about done.

His entire body would buck as he got close to coming and then go limp for a second, then back to work.  I now had a routine going of stroking my cock, rubbing my balls and pinching my nipple.  I began trying to do it all at once finding it to be much like trying to pat my head and rub my belly at the same time.  Then I made it into a little game like Simon Sez.  I was lost in my game when suddenly the silence in the car was shattered by a shout from Will.

“Slap my fucking face with it!” he screamed so loud it spooked me, also making me worry someone would hear.

“No touching,” I warned.

“Please, please slap my fucking faaacce with it,” he whined.

“No,” I said.  “First of all, no touching.  Second, I can’t.  It’s physically impossible.”

“Please Sid!  I need to feeeel it, I need to be slapped with your cookie dough.”

“Cookie dough?”  I questioned this for a moment until I was able to visualize it.

“I’ll give you fifty bucks more!  Just please knock me in the face with it.”

“Christ,” I said, and looked down at my dick, which was slightly hard but mostly limp, actually quite perfect for slapping.  He brought his face down right above the console and I pulled my waist up just enough so that I could reach until I was standing in a diagonal.  I turned my hips sideways so that my crotch faced the seat with my feet on the floor and my head touching the ceiling.  I completely wound up until my dick touched the cold metal door handle.  Then I spun around quick as I could, my penis launching in front of me and slapping the side of the guys face, making a perfect sound effect as I landed in seat.  It was done.

When I looked to my left, I saw Will’s body scrunch up and his head drop down to his chest.  As I reached down for my pants I looked out the windshield to make sure we were still alone and saw a huge wad sliding down the glass toward the dashboard.  Will stayed completely still.  I grabbed my shirt, wishing I had the ability to un-see things.

A big fat yawn popped out of my mouth. It was beginning. A tiny non-existent egg timer would now be ever present until I got home and high.  What would follow was maybe 20 minutes of non-stop vomit-like yawning followed by sweating and cold spells until finally, actual vomiting.

My head poked out from my thermal and I saw Will finally moving again.  I finished getting dressed and looked out my window to survey the area. 

 

Sitting in the passenger seat with my seatbelt back on and my eyes closed, I fantasized about being back home with enough money to buy treats for my dog, all the bags I needed and maybe even a nice meal for myself.  Will was now dressed and took a fifty out of his wallet, handed it to me.

“For the slapping,” he muttered as if embarrassed by the words as they left his mouth.

Will began to scour the car for something.  About five minutes went by and he was still frantically looking around.  Eventually he sighed and gave up the search then took his tie off.  Tie in hand he reached toward the windshield and carefully wiped away the streaks of cum.

Sitting there waiting for Will in such suburban surroundings, I began to feel ashamed. I started to realize that this neighborhood looked exactly like the one that I grew up in.  I began thinking back to high school to all the teachers whose classes I used to fall asleep in.  I envisioned their faces when they’d stare at me from the front of the room all smug and vengeful like they were wishing some kind of terrible fate on me.  I wondered whether this wasn’t exactly what they had in mind.

 

Still, for what it was worth, I’d gotten through this thing. I realized that the timing was going to work out perfectly. The dope sickness had hardly begun, I’d be merely midway through by the time I got home. I was going to make it.

Will finally turned the key and the engine silently started.  His phone rang. 

Will was much more business as usual now and seemed like he wanted to get home as bad as I did.  He answered the phone slightly irritated. 

“Yes hello… Hi honey, I just got off work I should be home pretty soon and then we’ll make arrange… What… You did… Where… Yes, I said I just got off of work like a half hour ago… I don’t like your tone of voice right now… Is she sure it was me…” 

Until that point it sounded like they could have been talking about anything. Maybe the neighbor said she saw him leave late for work.   

“A boy?”

My eyelids sprouted wide open. 

Will turned white and silent, looking like he had no idea what to say.  He closed his eyes and dropped his head into his hands.  My stomach churned as I looked on.  Will’s head stayed in his hands for a second, and very suddenly he snapped out of it.

“…Well I wasn’t going to say anything because I wanted you to be surprised, but I got a babysitter for the kids tonight…”

I cocked my head, looking at him with a face that said, “oh?”

“Yes, honey. Listen to yourself why wouldn’t I be… Yes, I made these plans weeks ago.  He is the son of one of the guys in sales and he’s saving for his college tuition.  Exactly!  I am so glad to hear you say that… I love you so much.  I will be home soon.”

He closed his phone and turned his head toward me. 

“I need you to babysit.”

“What? That wasn’t part of the deal!” I shouted.  I was just getting dope sick and I knew nothing about kids.

“I usually pay our sitters twenty bucks an hour,” he said.  “I’ll give you fifty an hour.” 

A sharp pain shot up my legs as if to tell me to decline. A wave of cold chilled my bones.  My body was saying, “don’t you dare!”

“I’ll do it,” I said imagining my dog Fatty with plenty of food and all the headshots I’d be able to send to potential agents.  I needed some money to move forward with and that wasn’t going to happen if I was constantly letting dope sickness run my life.

Plus it was only a kid.  I figured, how bad could it be?

 

Edited by: Joyland Magazine
Jon Reiss
  Jon Reiss is a 28-year-old Brooklyn based writer.  He’s worked for the past two years as the arts editor for Jewcy Magazine and as a music writer/party reporter for NY Press.  He also writes for SPIN Magazine, NY Press, Brooklyn Based, Venus Magazine, Punknews, The Rumpus and more. His short story "Chocolate Milk" was recently chosen for the "Sunday Stories Series" at Vol.1 Brooklyn and he’s read throughout Manhattan and Brooklyn at venues such as Matchless, KGB, and Happy Ending.