Shorthand Fiction

I just had a great idea for a short story:

There’s some sleazy Russian guy, we’ll call him Rusky, drinking vodka in his basement apartment and doing cybercrimes. The place is a mess, cables and wires everywhere, organic squalor all mixed in with the computer equipment. He’s trolling the web doing some real low-level shit. He used to make his living hacking credit card numbers and such, but now he’s reduced to squatting on expired domain names, pasting links to porn and gun sites, and stuff like that. The writer would have to sort out the necessary details about technology, law, and black market internet commerce…whatever.

The doorbell rings and he climbs up the steps to his front door, opening the door to a hustler, a young Ukrainian guy, we’ll call him Uky. “You Dmitry’s friend?” asks Rusky. Uky nods. Rusky lets Uky in, and they descend the stairs down into Rusky’s place.

“You want a drink?” asks Rusky.

“Of course,” says Uky.

They stand together at a countertop. Rusky pours Uky a vodka, which Uky drinks. Rusky’s pouring Uky a second drink when Uky asks, “You got any food?”

Rusky looks at Uky for a few seconds. “I got olives…for martinis. No vermouth, though.” Uky takes a drink from his straight vodka. “You want an olive?” asks Rusky.

Uky shrugs as if to say that he’ll accept an olive but not with gratitude. Rusky goes to the fridge and comes back, setting a jar of olives on the counter in front of Uky. Uky picks up the jar and unscrews the cap, and Rusky says flatly, “Stick an olive up your ass.”

“What?”, asks Uky aggressively, sneeringly, having understood full well what Rusky had said. Uky holds the jar in one hand and the cap in the other, staring at Rusky, waiting for an answer.

“Stick an olive up your ass,” repeats Rusky matter-of-factly. “I want you to put an olive in your ass. And then I want you to put the olive in your drink like it was a martini.”

“Fuck you,” says Uky sharply, putting the jar and the cap back onto the counter and reaching for his glass of vodka. “'I want you' to go fuck yourself," he says, taking a drink. "But it's not gonna happen.”

“Surely you’ve had things up your ass before, though,” says Rusky.

“Not olives,” replies Uky, raising his glass for another swig.

Rusky reaches into his pocket for a roll of money. He peels a couple of bills off the roll. “[The Russian equivalent of] $20,” he says, holding the money up in front of Uky's face. "Nothin' to do with Dmitry," he adds in a dull sing-song voice, waving the bills a tiny bit.

After a couple of seconds Uky puts his glass down on the counter. He shakes his head. “You fucking Russians,” he mutters as he swipes the bills from Rusky’s hand and pockets them. Uky grabs the open bottle of olives and dumps a handful into his palm, spilling brine all over the floor in the process. He crams the handful of olives into his mouth. While chewing deliberately, defiantly, he fishes another single olive out of the jar and puts the jar back on the counter. Holding the olive in one hand, he unbuckles his belt with his other hand and shimmies his jeans down around his ankles. He swallows his mouthful of olives with mock ceremony. Without removing his briefs, he takes a moment to relax, reaches into his underwear, and inserts the olive into his anus. After a couple of seconds he retrieves the olive and drops it into what’s left of his vodka. He finishes off the glass of vodka, staring at Rusky over the rim of his glass as he drinks. He slams the glass, now empty except for the olive, back down on the counter, and then he pulls his jeans back up and rebuckles his belt.

“Good,” says Rusky without enthusiasm but with approval in his voice. He picks up Uky's glass, tips the olive out onto the counter, and pours Uky another vodka.

“So what is it?” asks Rusky as Uky drinks. “[The Russian equivalent of] Twenty, right?”

“[The Russian equivalent of] A hundred if I come,” says Uky.

“How do I know if you've come?” asks Rusky.

Uky finishes his vodka with a slow gulp. “It’ll be obvious,” he says, putting his empty glass on the counter, this time more politely. “We won’t need to argue about it.”

“Over here,” says Rusky, ushering Uky away from the counter and over toward a workspace in the main room of the apartment. “Over there”, Rusky says, indicating an area rug in the center of the workspace. “Kneel.”

Rusky goes to sit by the table that he uses as a desk, and Uky goes to kneel on the area rug, facing away from Rusky.

“Face me,” says Rusky. Uky shifts around a bit but not so much as to face Rusky. Uky unbuckles his belt again and pulls his jeans down toward his knees. He pulls the waistband of his briefs down and lifts his scrotum and penis out of his briefs, leaving his genitals flopping out over the waistband. His penis is forked -- split down the middle, more or less -- forming two misshapen and flaccid flaps. The flaps are raw and red but not quite bleeding, and there is a sheen all over his mutilated penis, a glaze of pus and Vaseline.

Uky kneels there for a few minutes, silent and still, concentrating, and eventually the flaps of his penis begin to become turgid. He pulls down on the front of his waistband, trying to pull his underwear down away from his genitals without simultaneously exposing his buttocks. He starts to very gingerly stimulate himself with his fingers, using the tips of his fingers and thumbs to gently squeeze and massage the twin shafts of his now semi-erect penis. His swelling genitals are clearly the source of excruciating pain, but Uky perseveres and manages to maintain his double soft-on. The masturbation becomes less precise, less surgical, and after a while Uky’s fleshy prongs are engorged enough that he can hold them together and stroke them as one using the palm of one hand rather than manipulating them separately with fingertips from both his hands. The speed of his strokes increases, as does the tightness of his grip. Uky doubles over slightly as he masturbates, as if enduring a terrible cramp in his belly, and with his free hand he leans and presses and clutches into his thigh. He winces and hisses his breath outward through clenched teeth with every stroke, and he is crying tears.

Rusky, fully clothed, watches Uky intently. Using only his eyes and mind, Rusky tries unsuccessfully to become aroused himself.

After about ten minutes of this, Uky abruptly stops. He lifts his shoulders slightly and tries to let his chin fall to his chest, but his neck muscles won't allow it. He kneels there quietly trying to rest, to smother the pain radiating from his groin and core, but his body needs oxygen and he soon begins to gasp for air. He feels the shakes coming on and, realizing that he may be unable to resist them, becomes overwhelmed and begins to sob.

Rusky slowly gets up from his chair and walks over and squats by Uky. “Nevermind,” Rusky says softly, sadly.

Uky suddenly snaps out of his weeping fit. “Fuck that!” he snarls. “I can do this!”

“No, no…you can have the money. I’ll give you the [Russian equivalent of the] hundred,” Rusky says, reaching toward Uky’s face to brush away some hair that has matted to Uky’s wet cheek. Uky recoils violently from Rusky’s reach, jerking backwards and bracing himself on the floor with his masturbation hand in order to keep from tipping over. Rusky stands up, gets the roll of bills out of his pocket, and hands [the Russian equivalent of] $100 out toward Uky. Uky takes the money, and Rusky backs up a few steps.

Uky jams the bills into the pocket of his jeans, which are still down around his knees. He puts his genitals back into his briefs.

“How old are you?” asks Rusky.

“Twenty”, Uky answers as he pulls up his jeans and stands up.

“When did you do that?”

“About a year ago,” Uky says, rebuckling.

“Why?” asks Rusky.

“I don’t know…looking for some fun, I guess,” Uky replies contemptuously. “What’s it to you?”

“Nothing. It’s nothing,” says Rusky, trying to sound soothing so as to de-escalate the tension between them. “What’s your name?”

“What’s your name, old man?” Uky asks dismissively, rhetorically, turning around toward the stairway leading out of the apartment.

“I’m Rusky.”

“Well, fuck you, Rusky," Uky says, swiveling back around to face the Russian one last time. "That’s my name: 'fuck you'. I like your money.” Uky climbs the stairs and exits the apartment, slamming the door as he leaves.