I. Thou Shalt Not Have Sex With Thy Psychoanalyst
Day One - Gatwick/Los Angeles
HAMMER FOR A HEAD
Asked Teddy if he would like to drive me across the bottom part of America, from New York to Los Angeles. He looks at me like I’m disgusting and says we’re not starting in New York.
Ten days later. Seats 5A and 5B of some sort of Boeing. Êtes-vous un(e) terroriste? Too hungover to drink, too heartbroken not to. Turn on Saltburn and fall asleep, circled in his lap like a cat, before the bathtub scene.
Land at LAX, 8AM. Dunkin Donuts is disgusting, but there’s so much of it. Even the smallest of American things stretches me to the brim. Vomit in the bathroom sink. The Hispanic cleaner looks at me with the same secret fury you see in talkshow hosts and strippers and animals protecting their young.
« You guys fans a’ Hunter? » asks the weirdly buff dude at Turo. Lie. The Great Red Shark just looked nice on the website. Halfway down the I105 Teddy pulls over to pull a plastic baggie full of pills out of his ass. Yeah man, whatever.
Teddy books two rooms. I take the one with the balcony and the huge NO SMOKING sign and bury my face in the ashtray and think about my ex husband and asking ChatGPT to write softcore porn.
Un homme part, un Dieu prend sa placeA man leaves, a God takes his place
*god help me i want to
Have six cigarettes and eight hundred and twenty two Mai Tais by the water. Start the DeLillo I picked up at Gatwick. Wake up feeling pickled and panicked and British. Go to gallery. Art is abysmal. Watch ugly, angry woman get into fight with hot, angry boyfriend.
Mais ta gueule connasse avant qu’il te prenne contre le mur.*
But be careful, bitch, before he takes you against the wall.*
Steal a baguette.
Uber back feels like an intercom.
*Please let me watch.
Poolboy lets me sit at the closed bar while I work on a review for the weird Chinese mag that funded the first round of cocktails on the Boeing. Brings me one more Mai Tai. Talk about how Mexicans are better than the Spanish. Talk about cuck chairs in hotel rooms. Talk about my ex husband. Talk about death.
Day Two - Los Angeles
BY DIGGING AN ALMIGHTY HOLE
Take a bath the size of Texas. Teddy sits on the sink and goes through Tinder. Feeds me a breakfast burrito like a dog. Watch little yellow grains of rice slip down the drain.
T’as faim, toujours faim, hein salope?
You’re hungry, always hungry, aren’t you, bitch?
Go to another gallery. Art is even worse than yesterday. Go to the Broad. Why is it pronounced like that? I ask. To spite you. Says Teddy. Stand in front of a Warhol and he holds my hand like a child.
Lunch at some disastrously expensive sushi place. Fat bulimic girl vomiting in the bathroom.
Pauvre conne, d’etre grosse comme Dieu, de vomir ses propres prières.
Poor bitch, to be as fat as God, to vomit your own prayers.
Go to Venice beach. Watch hot guys on skateboards. Talk to hot guys on skateboards. Talk about America and Seth Rogan. Talk about writing and DeLillo. Talk about death.
Get back to hotel. Think about the semiotics of having sex in the cuck chair. Think about the semiotics of having sex with the hot writer waiting for me back in London.
Ecrit ton nom sur mes cuisses avec ta langue, chien.
Write your name on my thighs with your tongue, dog.
Make uncomfortable eye contact with stuffed bunny. Make uncomfortable eye contact with DeLillo.
JE PREND TOUTE LA PLACE JE PRENDRAIS JAMAIS TA PLACE
I TAKE UP ALL THE SPACE I WILL NEVER TAKE YOUR PLACE
Go to Chateau Martmont. Do hard drugs for the first time in years. Feel simultaneously like Fiona Apple and Tarantino and the cinema seats they sat on. Watch my feet sink into the velvet. Laugh, very hard, at the idea of fat bulimics. Smoke three hundred and five cigarettes in the Uber home. Order room service with Teddy and a woman who leaves in the morning*. Talk about sex. Talk about marriage. Talk about love. Fall asleep with my hand wrapped around Teddy like he’s a balloon that might float away.
*ah, mais la chienne, quoi—on est plus potes juste parceque j’te laisse pas baiser mon pote dans mon lit?
Oh so we’re not friends anymore because I won’t let you fuck my friend in my bed—Bitch what?
Day Three - Dove Springs/Las Vegas
[red ink] [white powder in margins] [blue bruise on spine]
[subject appears apotheotic]
I’ve driven through this desert before. Eventually the overwhelming horror of realising how young and tiny you are wears off and you’ve seen all the mountains and you want a cigarette and somebody has smoked all your duty-free Dunhills and the gin is too hot and it’s three hours until civilisation and the Romantic existentialism starts to feel observational and you realise that the desert really is a place for men and the end of the nomadic society was almost certainly harbingered by a woman putting a very and beauty firm hand on her husbands shoulder and saying “my feet hurt” and he loved her enough to build a hearth to rest them on and you once had a very firm and beautiful man who offered to build you a hearth and you ate the wedding ring and you simply do not have the disposition to deal with something as firm and beautiful and male as marriage or the ungodly expanse of land that the lord laid out for his people and you really wouldn’t be able to hack it in the 1880s and when we do eventually pull over so [T]eddy can snort some more of Whatever the Fuck and you can throw up behind a cactus a fuck-off huge lizard joins us in the car and we adopt him as our son and call him Bibi and make jokes about how the dashboard was promised to him 3,000 years ago before googling that this species is actually an ecological terrorist and Teddy picks him up by the tail and throws him out of the car and you feel guilty for having a Jew for a father and we get into an argument about Zionism and animal cruelty and when he runs over another dead coyote to make a point you think of the pheasants who run willingly into the road like a sacrifice to the fender of your father’s Aston Martin and you kiss his knuckles and [REDACTED]
[REDACTED] [REDACTED] [REDACTED] ecrase moi batard
Rent a pink buggy. Teddy drives. Speed across the dunes with my arms wrapped around him. Spread my legs and when we crash into a boulder so hard I [blood smear]. Punch a coyote bone through the skinleather dashboard like a native american ritual
[Dunhill burn, ketchup smear, Bank of America receipt]
Lunch in Goodsprings. Take photo in front of the Pioneer Salon. Man at bar asks me if I’ve ever played Fallout. Say no. Woman at bar asks if I’m from Ireland. Say yes. Talk about video games and Todd Howard. Talk about America and God. Talk about beer. Teddy eats a burger the size of Texas. He looks like a [NOT FIT FOR PRINT IN THE WESTERN HEMISPHERE]
Make it to Las Vegas. This is a very good city for women.
Win 400 dollars. Lose a lot more. Give 20 of them to some feathered showgirls on the Strip who say my fringe looks like Jane Birkin’s. Picture them ripping out eachothers gizzards as they fight over the Soft green paper.
Petites putes, vous vous baiser quand vous (vous) rentrez? Vous vous tirez sur les extensions?**
Little whores, do you fuck each other when you get home? Do you pull on each other’s extensions?**
Spend the rest at a strip club opposite a frozen custard shop. Smoke thirty two cigarettes. Talk to a girl with tits bigger than my head. Talk about surgery. Talk about divorce. Talk about how to take a man apart bone by bone. [editor’s note: Legal will be in touch.] The burger at this strip club is one of the best I’ve had in my entire chungus life. Wait for Uber on Imperial Drive and watch drunk couples come out of the Little Vegas Chapel. Ask Teddy if he’ll marry me. He says maybe, in New York.
avoir un homme, un Hastings, un Watson, un Jeeves, **un coiffeur, un chien, qu’il me mors,
qu’il m’aime, que je le frappe, qu’il me laisse prendre
to have a man, a Hastings, a Watson, a Jeeves, a barber, a dog, let him bite me, let me love him, let me hit him, let me let him take
je suis la chienne au fond des puits
I am the bitch at the bottom of the well
III. Thou Shalt Not Have Sex With Thy Ex-Girlfriend’s Brother
Day Four - Bagdad/Sedona
ELVIS SITTING DEAD ON THE TOILET
Have thrown up at least once a day since I’ve been here. My body fundamentally rejects America. No country for young women.
Leave Las Vegas early. Teddy has scored some fantastic amphetamines that leave his knuckles white on the leather steering wheel. Watch him like a God, like a hawk.
Annotation: Ta bite marche toujours quand t’es aussi filaire, gars?
Does your dick still work when you’re this wired, man?
Addendum: do you think Prometheus ever got hard when he saw the eagle approaching?
Lunch in Bagdad. Think about how much I like American cities named after older, bigger, more beautiful places. Think about how nothing good has ever come from a state starting with a vowel. Receive text from ex-girlfriend’s brother telling me [REDACTED]. [BLOCK.] [UNBLOCK]
Shave my legs in the sink. Room service burger. I want to lick hot yellow melted American cheese off [indecipherable scribbling]
Sedona is irreversible. Sit on a balcony, just the three of us, sacred. Adam’s chair too close to mine. Feet pointed at Mecca. Order salad. I can feel his heat. Adam, end of man. Always has Been.
Visit the one art museum in town. Teddy’s amphetamines wear off. Adam takes me, alone around the art. Asks what I think of every piece. Takes me, alone in the motel room.
“M[t]a sœur t’as déjà fait jouir comme ça?”
“Has my sister ever made you come like that?”
Placements, relative positions, things like that:
[this page has been ripped out]
Drive all night. Head South after Las Lunas. This is an incredibly beautiful state in the dark. Chug coffee like it’s water. [bite marks on the corner of the page] It’s my job to keep Teddy awake and entertained. We start listing celebrities we think would be bad at sex. Chappell Roan. Keanu Reeves. Emma Stone. Howard Stern. Realise Teddy has only dated redheads. Realise I’ve only dated men with long hair. Teddy says he’d fuck me right here on the side on the CanAm highway if I wasn’t such a neurotic bitch.
Et si je me faisais une teinture, petit con?
What if I get a dye job, you little shit?
Arrive in Roswell at 6AM. The motel smells like sweat. Sleep until lunchtime. We are both too t|w\ired|t\weak[ed] to do anything but sit by the pool and drink water very, very slowly. Visit the Anderson. There’s something very strange about these smaller American art museums.* Like they are trying to exist in a vacuum. Like I’m not about to step out into the kind of heat that makes people believe in aliens.
*British people who say they hate America lack magnanimity, greatness of sovl, ROMANITAS, joie de vivre, semen retention etc
Have dinner in a little UFO-themed diner. It’s really cute. No booze. French toast. Fuck man American food really is so fucking good. Best country on earth. I could ride this nation like a bitch. I could ride this bitch like [maple syrup, mustard stain].
Fall asleep listening to Tucker Carlson. I reckon he’d be good in bed. We are shirtless from the heat, legs draped over each others like elastic bands in a drawer. “You’re the best, Ted,” I whisper. No reply.
Se sentir comme animal, se sentir comme femme, se sentir comme une belette piégée au fond d'un baril de pétrole.
Feeling like an animal, feeling like a woman, feeling like a weasel trapped at the bottom of an oil drum.
Day Six - Roswell/Dallas
Arrive in Dallas at 11AM. Picked up in a Silverado by man in white cowboy hat who calls himself [editor’s note: awaiting feedback from in-house linguistic, ethical and ethnographic experts] Joe. Drives us to a high-rise apartment in Victory Park.
BBQ lunch with six extremely fat women. Talk about food and men. Talk about food and money. Talk about America and food. Shayla grew up on a plantation property in Brazoria County that her father bought after the dot com boom, in a house where her great-great-great grandmother was a slave. Nearly call Joe by his Christian name. Laughs. Shayla calls me a [editor’s note: Vic jesus christ man c’mon] Jew. Feel the sort of kinship usually reserved for trans women with visible moustaches. Eat more than anybody else at the wide, white table.
Visit the DMA. Best art in America so far. Take a Xanax and sit in front of a Dürer for 12 minutes with my head on Teddy’s shoulder. Tell him about Heinrich Wolfflin’s theory that Dürer only became a great German artist after encountering the Italian tradition. Tells me he’s tired. Have a shit so smooth in the second-floor bathroom that I almost start singing The Star-Spangled Banner a la Whitney Houston 1991. [editor’s note: gross.]
GOD KNOWS I WANNA GO HOME
Land in New Orleans at midnight. Overwhelmed by something that looks like homesickness. Have a bottle of wine* and a Presbyterian priest for dinner.†
Fais moi oublier chaque verbe sauf “prendre”
Make me forget every verb except “take”
[green bar pen ink] [crushed blue powder: lab analysis confirms methylenedioxymethamphetamine] [white burn on ring finger]
[subject appears apocalyptic]
the trouble with getting engaged is the only people who ever got it right are the french, which is revolting on several levels, and every time you watch a Jane Birkin interview you get irritated because she speaks french with the same accent you use to talk to the Gaulois tax authorities so the middle-aged divorcé on the other end of the phone will let you off for not filing your Formulaire 2042 and that’s really all that marriage is
†Gumbo isn’t all it’s cracked up to be, by the way.
Teddy picks me up. Drags me to bed.
**The way he looks at me makes me feel like a fucking terrorist(e).
Day Seven - Miami
6AM flight. Bar to airport. Airport to bar. Teddy has the eyes of a disciple who hasn't slept since Judas.
espèce de salope*, c’est entièrement de ta faute, je sens plus mes jambes.
it’s all your fault I can’t feel my legs anymore
Swears there was fent in whatever we took last night. Flirt with the gay flight attendant like he’s the only thing that will save my life when we crash.
*espèce de salope: noun, vulgar (Fr.)
An evocative insult roughly meaning “you type of whore,” though with a distinct je ne sais quoi, magnanimity, ROMANITAS, etc
Miami is the best place in America.
Day Eight - Miami
AMERICAN CHEESE ON BLACKENED TELEPHONE
Boy oh boy oh boy !!!! it sure sounds like a good idea to
The Miami entries have been removed following legal correspondence from [REDACTED]’s counsel, citing defamation, invasion of privacy, and “gross chemical negligence.” While we maintain the author’s right to artistic expression and consider the of ending material to be, at worst, florid reportage, our insurance does not cover libel suits originating from the State of Florida.
We thank you for your understanding, but not your forgiveness.
Day Nine - Miami
VI. Thou Shalt Not Have Sex With Anybody Ever Again
Day Ten - New York
OF THE CONTENDER
Try explaining what Dimes Square is to Teddy on the flight over.
Mais meuf tu me parles de quoi la je veux un vodka soda ou/avant que je me mais une balle dans la tete.
Girl what are you talking about? I want a vodka soda or/before I shoot myself in the head.
Try explaining that the first time I listened to Cumtown I was expecting a grand Archimedean insight into the modern male American psyche but one of the hosts shat himself so bad thirty seconds before the episode started that it leaked through a garden chair. Talk about manhood. Talk about Pirsig. Talk about the government money I owe to online microcelebrities. Talk about Evola. Talk about the Malfoy-looking motherfucker in London I want to [REDACTED][REDACTED] [REDACTED].
bitch je vais crier terroriste israélienne pour atterrir à Richmond si tu continues de me parler de ces fucking losers
bitch I’m gonna cry Israeli terrorist and land in Richmond if you keep talking to me about these fucking losers
Throw up in airplane sink.
Land in New York. Change Teddy’s flights. He clearly lacks the ROMANITAS. Google romanitas definition. Shit, you’ve been using it wrong this whole time. Sit in a diner shoveling bullshit into your mouth until you’re so stuffed that you think neither summer nor you will ever come again. Talk about London. Talk about blinking like a lizard and hot American girls and lying to the government and the horrible yawning void that feels like the Mojave in your psyche and ex husbands and engagement parties and cozy psychoanalyst offices on Fleet Street where you stared at the rich wet curtains while [REDACTED] and go to MoMa and nearly start crying up in the european curators office and when she holds your hand and guides you like a child to a shitty Warhol it’s better than any other art you’ve ever seen in your entire life than Dürer and all she talks about is her children and her dog and her husband
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