Deal Pigs – Part Five

I arrive to meet a girl from one of those takeaway-style dating apps at a restaurant in Southport. She looks much younger and less attractive in person and sports a beanie, short fringe, and shoulder-length, asymmetrical hair dyed blood orange. She fidgets with the ring through her septum, which looks like she’s picking her nose.

We kick off the night with an awkward introduction. She tells me that she studies art or makes sculptures or something. I respond with details of working in the real estate industry. She steers the conversation into sustainable homes or some eco shit. I tell her how lucrative the real estate industry is and she replies with how unaffordable housing is for refugees or something. 

We order dinner. Of course, she is vegan and orders greenery and some kind of bullshit seltzer mixer. I get steak, veggies and a gin tonic. The girl stares longingly as I devour the meat, but says nothing. We don’t find common ground to build a good discussion, so we entertain ourselves with alcohol.

She lets me know she has an eighth of weed at her place, so we guzzle our last drinks, pour into my Bugatti, and muddily drive to her house in Burleigh Waters. I park across the road from the house.

We smoke a few bowls in her living room, then stumble into her bedroom. She turns on a computer monitor for light, lays back onto her bed, lifts her skirt and presents her hairy pussy to me. I crawl on top of her and try to angle my half-limp dick. I fuck her with most of my clothes on while a silent computer monitor plays a livestream of Greta Thunberg. She’s mostly dry and I’m barely hard but we work through the haze of the evening. We try to avoid eye contact as we secretly wish we were having sex with someone more compatible.

Her hands are cold and uninviting like the tall man who grabbed me at the auction. A chill blows through me at the thought of his murderous touch.

She half-cums to a tepid climax. I finish up, brush her arm with my hand like an estranged brother and leave the sharehouse just as an older couple enter the front door. I flinch as we bump into each other and hurriedly power-walk to my car. I hear them ask me who I am as I quickly escape.

Thirty-five minutes later, I arrive back at my apartment and pull up a stool at the kitchen countertop. I let out a tired sigh and massage my eyeballs with my palms. A phantom vibration in my pocket beacons me to pull out my smartphone. I light up my face with the glow of the phone screen and begin doom-scrolling through one of the social media apps. I don’t know which one. I stop scrolling at a new article of the Gold Coast murders, hunch closer into the countertop, and squint at the subheadline.

“A day after a Hope Island family were savagely murdered in their home, the killer-at-large uploaded sickening footage of the murders to a Russian porn website.”

My heart rate picks up. I close the app, slide the stool out from under my arse, and reach for the refrigerator. I drink from an open almond milk carton, then pause to watch the microwave timer hypnotically flash twelve o’clock. It is much later than twelve. I take my phone off the counter, walk into the bedroom, and slip into bed in my jocks.

I relight my face with the glow of my screen and read the article about the killings. There’s a pixelated frame from the murder video. I flick my index finger up my phone to return to my home screen. I thumb through my folders of apps, most of which are related to real estate or finance.

I open a web browser and press the button to browse privately. My pulse picks up. I scan the Russian porn website the article mentions. All of the text is in Cyrillic, but I type English into the search field. My pulse races as I find the murder video. I skim my bottom teeth across my top lip then click on the link.

The video loads slowly. My eyes meet a spinning disk. The video is still loading. I get a glimpse of the start of the video and it begins loading again. It's the same spinning disk. Just as the video starts again, an advert pops up. I clumsily try to close the pop-up. My browser redirects me to another open window. I groan and try to get back to the video. More adverts pop up amongst the perpetually reloading video. It seems my phone doesn’t want me to watch the video.

I hurl my phone onto the bed in exasperation. The touch screen illuminates my ceiling as I stare at one of the cornices. Imaginary shadows creep across the walls.

I reach for my phone and use the white light to guide me to the study room. I plonk myself at the wooden desk and pry open my laptop, like entering the mouth of the devil.

Be alert and of sober mind. Your enemy the devil prowls around like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour.
— Peter 5:8

I rest my fingers on the keyboard and reiterate my video search. The webpage loads much faster now. My chest is weary from the tension.

The video finally loads and I hesitantly hit the play button. I glance at the runtime. 568 minutes.