This bar stinks of smoke and sweat. Across the other side of the room, there's this guy. His hair flicks down over one brow, a single lick of soft black trailing. It's all electroclash, and I like it. I want to see more, maybe I'd like to speak to him. Somehow, my tongue's glued down somewhere inside my mouth. I can't make it speak, and I know it's a bad idea anyway. Outside, some shouting starts, then fades. Some guy's being restrained by his friends. 'Don't touch me,' he says. 'Don't touch me.' but they don't let him go.
I sit back. Pull a chair close to put my feet on, and lift the beer. Tiny bubbles cling to the sides and the glass is misted with droplets. I drink hard, and he's still there, black jeans and an oversized t-shirt. He doesn't need it that big; his stomach's completely flat - you can see it when he moves. He should wear things just a little more tight. And I watch him, while he talks to his friends. They talk football and girls, swig beer from bottles and never once does he look at me. They talk TV and Chinese food, plan which pub next and whose round it is. I feel alone, but I'm used to it. Maybe I like it. When they leave, I drain my beer and follow them. I follow him.
It's cool outside, and there's a moon shining through a thin mist, all stained nicotine yellow by the street lamps. A siren cuts through the night somewhere east of here, and they stop so I pretend to take a call on my mobile. It helps me blend in, turns me dirty yellow like the night. One of the guy's friends seems worried, something to do with the siren. The other is pissing in a doorway. I can't see his cock. The sound of splashing is loud, but it doesn't turn me on. In fact, I hate people who piss in the street.
They leave a bottle standing up on the edge of the road. I pick it up for them and put it into the bin. Common courtesy costs nothing. Maybe a little effort. Once, way back when, I had a girlfriend with a dog. It had to die. I decided on steak, laced with strychnine. As it turned out, I spent so much on the strychnine I had no money for steak. I sprinkled it onto half a pound of cheap supermarket mince. I left it lying about, a packet of badly ground beef. The dog ignored it completely and I ended up binning it before Beth made burgers with it or something. Fucking dog. It left shit everywhere, too.
The city is a curious mixture of busy and empty. Down one alley there's a guy in a white vest, leaning back against the wall. He nods to me, and I look away. He's no-one. He's not the one I want.
Up ahead, the guy I need is entering another bar. Noise pours out for a moment with a flash of multi-hued light. The beat pounds relentlessly as I draw near. It's like hell, raised up from the depths and glittering with malevolent light. A big shiny diamond with razor edges. Entering this place is like tonguing a blade, but I enter anyway. It's busy; even as I open the door three people push past me and out into the night, a giggling bundle of pissed and hollow humanity. I order a beer, and try to find my man.
I try to speak to him, winding my way through the smoky crush of bodies. It draws the breath from my body and replaces it with exhaled smoke. But I'm not scared. I place my hand on his arm, try to pull him aside.
'Excuse me,' I say. The darkness eats my words and the music spits them back, all mashed up, breakbeat communication gone awry. I try to gesture. Outside, I say, jerking my head. Outside.
His hand gestures. Outside. I nod. Dare to smile. We leave, and his posse watch, and we walk to somewhere outside, moonlight and quiet. Secluded, him and me. Then, when it's quiet, he hits me. Hard.
'Fuck off,' he says. 'Fucking fag.'
It doesn't hurt much. The sound makes more of an impact, a kind of dull crunch. My head snaps back, and I feel something break, somewhere down inside my nose. 'Fucking fag,' he's shouting, and his foot makes something bloom bright red and purple in the nerves of my belly. It blushes out over my torso, then retracts into a tight little knot of pain. I grunt, and all the breath leaves my body in that single harsh exhalation. 'Fucking fag,' he shouts again, and his spit scalds the skin of my face. There'll be a blister there tomorrow, I'm sure.
I roll with the punches and stay on the ground until he leaves. It's all I wanted, after all. I wipe my nose with the back of my hand. A streak of blood, black in the moonlight. Then I stand. Look at me - I stand proud, resurrected. Around me, the black blood, oily stains on the carpet of leaves illuminated by the moon. It's happened before, it will happen again. I will always be returned to this life. I am resurrected. Again, and again. | 
