CHAIN-SAW-REACTION

a short story by
JOSEPH ADAM VIOLA

It was completely true. All of it. And I have a hard time getting people to believe me,
honest.
Her eyes, those honey melon eyes. And those lips, the silky flesh of succulence, of desire.
The awe of it all left me helpless and surrendered.
I sat there watching, smoking.
But the bar was packed. Rammed, actually. Completely full to capacity - a line of Conversewearing, Labatt Blue-drinking twenty-something year olds wrapped around the purple
building CHAINSAW
AFTER HOURS
- In black light, high above the sidewalk. It is somewhat of a hot spot, a tourist attraction
and one hell of a Saturday night.
*
Al. Al Palmer. He's the guy from work who's losing his hair and going through mid-life crisis
at twenty six. He was there, although I'm positive the atmosphere wouldn't have missed
him if he wasn't. Either way, he's my witness to all of this - this nostalgic glory on a
Saturday night. And-Al's eyes were wandering at first. At least they were when I was paying attention to him, to
Al and his verbal-diarrhea, his "unique" take on women and dating and sex and love. I
needed someone to listen to, to befriend...to get high with and pick up ladies, the lovely
ladies at CHAINSAW.
Al excused himself and his dilated pupils. Either nature or his animalistic, perverted
tendency of following young vixens to the Ladies' Room called, I'm not sure which - my
fourth beer rest half empty on the bar.
*
I ran away from Montreal. I had to. That little-big city had me cooped up like a diseased rat
waiting to die. I didnt feel like I was amounting to anything there. My entire twenty-four
years of life have been bird-caged into that Canadian city of mayhem. I had to start a new
life, or at least continue my current one, somewhere else. Somewhere that my moneyhungry mother who actually seems to enjoy bringing my life to a repeated halt will be
replaced with someone like Al - someone who listens and wont steal my girlfriend-yeah, my mother stole the only pussy I was getting. She got me fired from many jobs too;

continuously harassing my workplace and its employees. She actually told my manager at
Denny's that I enjoy taking it doggy-style while leaning over a pool table! She's a nut, a
psychotic witch of a woman. Growing up, all my friends had nurturing mothers that cleaned
their wounds when they fell and took them to see The Wizard of Oz on Broadway. Not my
mother...
I've even gotten her convicted before... twice, actually. But not institutionalized. I wish.
She'd have her arms tied behind her back and bouncing off cushioned walls if it wasnt for
my Pimp Daddy daddy. What a low life my father is... He told me once, over linguini, how
he used to sell my mother on Sainte Catherine Street, in the heart of downtown Montreal.
He keeps bailing her junky ass out of the big house and it's beyond me as to why he does it.
Thats a love Ill never understand. I dont get how they do, either.
So I took the next train to Toronto. One-way.
*
Living off of Yonge Street - in a small, crappy apartment above a Second Cup - I settled into
this concrete hedge-maze of a city. Toronto is beautiful and I was ecstatic. Finally, a breath
of fresh air and a new start I can be excited about.
I work at Swiss Chalet. You know, a waiter. Al, too. So I asked him to come to CHAINSAW to
keep me company until I spotted the lucky female who would come back to my place, above
the Second Cup. Im feeling confident and puffing out my chest.
And Al came back from wherever he excused himself to, refreshed as can be. Either he was
relieved (having to piss like a race horse) or the vixen he stalked enjoyed being escorted to
the Ladies' Room. I'm not sure which - I just finished ordering my fifth beer.
"So, Becky - Becky from work - she digs me, no?" Beer dripped down Al's chin as he
slurred. Specs of peanut residue trailed his twenty inch forehead. I hoped he got laid back in
the washroom. Even a blowjob; something to boost his ego. I mean, if I was a
woman, I'd let Al fuck me to give the guy some self-esteem. Why not? He's a pretty nice
guy, Al. But I guess that's easy for me to say - I don't have to sleep with him. He's creepy
at times, I know, but he's honourable and dignified... Al and his receding hairline, his
sausage fingers.
I looked stunned at his inquiry. Becky... into Al?
"Becky?" I asked, obviously pretending to hide that I knew who he was talking about behind
my intoxication - my fifth beer now finished and an image of female perfection staring at me
from across the dance floor.
"Yeah dude, Becky. She digs me...don't you think?" Al replied with an odd look. His last
shred of hope was now being placed into the shackles of a guillotine.
"Al," I started, unwillingly raising the sharp blade with my words, "isn't Becky having sex
with Roger in the kitchen after the restaurant closes? I could have sworn I've heard them go
at it back there while I'm counting my tips..."
-Decapitated hope.
I winced. I felt bad, sorry. He really is a nice guy that Al.
But deep down, under my skin and in my soul where selfishness resides, I wanted him to
stop talking - sexy Jane Doe and her mountainous C-cups waited for me across the dance-

floor. I could have sworn I saw her tie the stem of her cherry from her apple martini into a
knot, with her tongue. Oh, her tongue. I could just swallow her luscious tongue. And I could
see it now, snake-like and luring.
I excused myself from Al.
Mmmm, cherries.
*
We walked together from the club. I motioned her to the door and she met me outside. My
stumbles repeated and the sidewalk slithered as if automatic. My veins pumped drunken
blood.
She wouldn't tell me her name - this female vision of perfection. I found myself having to
candidly wipe drool from beneath my lower lip a couple of times. She-who-shall-remainnameless yanked at her skirt foolishly, trying to bring the six inch belt-of-a mini-skirt further
down to cover her peek-a-boo ass cheeks... I was confident in this.
We were tired and both obviously drunk, walking across Queen Street, shooting flirtatious
looks at one another as if playing tennis with our eyes.
"So what's with not telling me your-your-" I burped, "name?" I excused myself quickly,
apologizing for the sudden and unexpected release of gas. She giggled.
She almost tripped when her stiletto jammed in-between the sidewalk slabs, but she's a big
girl. She got out of that one quickly and all by herself. It was as if she refused help before I
even offered it; turned me right on.
No whining AND big tits?! I like Ms. Jane Doe over here, I thought to myself as she adjusted
her studded belt and began to answer my question"Why would you want to know my name?" She seemed serious. "Wouldn't you rather take a
nameless whore to bed?" Was she serious?
"Are you serious?" I had to ask.
"Yes, why?" She snapped back.
"Well..." I began, swallowing some fresh air to attempt sobriety, "I actually, you know-" this
wasn't being said as it was in my head; a common thing to happen when Im drunk, "-I, I,
well, I'd actually prefer knowing a woman's name before I fuck her, If Im being honest."
She smirked and stepped over a mound of garbage.
"And who said we are going to have sex, big shot?" She sparked a cigarette with her Bic
lighter.
"Oh, I wasnt assuming, I was - I was just - I just want to know your name. You're
beautiful." And your chest sure is purdy!
She didn't answer me, but she blushed. Bashful as can be, she was.
I liked the way her legs looked when she walked. Like a Barbie's legs, but juicier.
*

"Do you drink coffee?" I asked.

"Sex on the beach?"
I looked at her curiously. Was that a joke?
I replied: "Uh, no, not sex on the beach. Coffee. like, Second Cup. Do you want to go and
get some with me?"
"I'll bet Second Cup is right by your place... or, by your mother's place - depending on your
morality." She smirked.
"Whoa. If you must know, Second Cup is by my place, not my mother's. She lives in
Montreal. But if I go on and tell you the rest of the story, I'd have to kill you." I joked,
breaking the ice and attempting to heighten the sexual tension felt between us. I knew the
tension was present, we both did. I held a lit match to it, I wanted to set if off and watch it
explode in my bed.
"Oh...I see. Kind of like the reason I haven't told you my name. I'd have to pop you one in
the back of the head if I did." She knew I couldn't distinguish her sense of humour from her
sense of truth by now. She liked it.
Awkward silence, and I got the picture - her name is off limits. I got over it.
"But, yes," she hesitated to say, "I do drink coffee."
I smacked her with joyful look.
"Second Cup it is then."
Second Cup it is then.
*
"Is it always busy like this at 3:00AM on a Sunday morning?"
A woman wearing a garbage bag sat alone drinking a small tea. Her gaze was freakishly
blunt, eerie in every sense.
"Oh yeah," I chuckled, "there's usually a bag man too."
Jane Doe touched my arm and warmed up to my cheesy sense of humour.
"So what can I buy for you?" I asked while eyeing the coffee menu myself.
"Ooh, you mean, I dont have to pay?" She winked.
"I'm sure you already knew that."
"I did. But I'll have a white mocha, large, nonetheless. Thanks."
She took off her jacket and sat down at an empty table leaving me to pay for our drinks.
What a way this woman had with me-"And don't forget the whipped cream!" She shouted over the open newspaper she was
reading.
*
Mesmerizing, she was. I watched her eyeball the black and white print of the Saturday Star,
soak her brain with current event information. I'd bet $200 that she flipped through the
pages of politics and government cover-ups and world scandals until she came across a
popular sex column, maybe the fashion section.
"Two large white mochas with whipped cream-" a teenage boy highly in need of acne
medication called out, breaking my visual trance. This woman was too beautiful for words-

-"Oh," I snapped out of it, disconnected my gaze, "thank you."

I dropped the change in the tip mug.
*
6:00AM and I've only just begun. She let me have my way with removing her dress and her
shoes and her bra - my way with her.
And there was no question she'd done this before. She was too good, as if practiced. The
slink of her back as she arched it - pleading for more - had me practically erupting with
fantasy. I felt at times as if I wasn't doing her justice, like she needed more than just me to
be fully and sexually satisfied. Perhaps I was second guessing the screams of pleasure I was
helping her achieve.
But no, she raised her legs like erect butterfly wings flapping in delight, aching in bliss.
Whoever she was, whatever her name is - she was more than content.
*

I didnt sleep, although, I think she did. I could hear her snore lightly, breathing with
willowed sound as her bare chest rose up and settled, rose up and settled...
The sun was out, it has been for hours. We became one while the sunlight spilled in through
the window and pierced through the curtains like a sharp, bright shadow.
I was due at work soon, but, I couldn't go. Not with her here. Not without knowing her
name, at least.
"Good morning." I opened the curtains and the sun now filled the room like water.
"Wha-" she groaned. I watched her wipe the sleep away from her eyes and I almost felt bad
for waking my Sleeping Beauty. She was so still, so peaceful-"Would you like to sleep some more? I have to work at 1:00 but I can call in sick. We'll go
to lunch, or lounge around here in our birthday suits all day instead..." I trailed off, unsure
of what was going on in her awaking head. For all I knew, I could have been nothing but a
drunken lay. A piece of meat she craved to satisfy her intoxicated, aroused hormones.
A one-night stand...
"I can't." She said, her voice coarse like sandpaper, sexy, in a Demi Moore kind of way.
"And why not?" I eased with caution. I liked her...nameless her.
"I - I - I just gotta go. Okay?" But it didn't matter if it was okay with me or not.
I hate rhetorical questions.
I pondered a few things to say in my head as she slipped back into last night's outfit. She
slid into her panties, snapped her bra. She put her left shoe on-"Well, can I get your number?" I blurted.
"No." She put on her right shoe.
"-Your name?"

"No. Sorry." She zipped her jacket.

"SOMETHING!?" I yelled! I had to. I couldn't lose this one. And why was she leaving? We
had literally spent a night that people would kill for. The passion felt so real. The trace of our
fingers on one another, the light and hard kisses and licks, the climax!
She let go of the doorknob and turned around to face me.
"Look," she began, "I'm not someone you want to 'get to know', okay?" And she let herself
out.
"OF COURSE IT'S NOT OKAY!" I shouted. Frustration, confusion, rejection, it was all too
much. I began to worry and remembered what I had said to Al about Becky fucking Roger in
the kitchen at work-Decapitated hope.
I screamed right down the hallway, too. I took a moment to piece together what was
happening and couldnt come to any sort of logical explanation I was happy with. My heart
was broken by a woman I barely know - a woman whose name remained anonymous to me.

But she was already gone, vanished, and out of sight with the snap of two fingers & a brain
fart.
The elevator reached my floor, rang, and the doors opened to an empty, green-carpeted
hallway. I stood bewildered, mystified. Confused and disappointed beyond explanation let
alone comprehension.
No one was there.
No one but Al.
Al and his dumb philosophies.
His stupid smile and sausage fingers.