freewrite #1.

So at the first meeting of our new creative writing club tonight, we did an exercise in which each member was given a line from a book or a poem, and told to freewrite for ten minutes. I swear, I got the strangest (it's the first in the following vignette), but I kind of love the characters that it spawned.

Thus--"Hairy Back and the Whore."

It was a good fuck, but hurried, as Hairy Back would be getting anxious. They never used names (that sordid touch pleased them). He called her what her johns called her, and she just called him Hairy Back because--well--he had a hairy back.

They met almost on time. He smoked; she didn't. She washed her hands. After a while he spoke. "Why, if you insist upon remaining pseudonymous, do you ask them to say your name when they--you know--finish?"

"What?"

"It just seems inconsistent to me."

"I donno. I guess it's the old cliche."

"You are distancing yourself."

"Maybe."

"Or maybe you enjoy the illusion."

"Maybe."

He took a long drag, exhaled, peered through the smoke at her. "Maybe you want to separate yourself from the whore."

She shrugged.

"It makes me wonder."

"Yes?"

"Is it possible to induce multiple personality disorder?"

"Maybe." She stole his cigarette.