Frisk: A Novel (Cooper, Dennis) by Dennis Cooper Read Free Book Online

blade into Iron Maiden's intricate logo.
    Joe opened his eyes after what felt like seconds but could have been hours. The cigarette had burned out. At the spot where its nub came to rest on the fabric, smoke rose in a wavering column. Far off, his TV set framed some completely uninteresting static.
    He slapped the smoldering arm, switched off the TV, headed upstairs, and caught a few hours of actual sleep in his bed.
    When his coffee got cold the next morning he studied the bone he'd found, occasionally rubbing his own bones by way of comparison. It almost matched the size and shape of the one in his forearm. Still, his seemed a little less round. Hard to tell through the padding and shit. He squeezed his shoulders. Their bones were overly complicated. He felt down his body. Ribs, too flat and delicate. There was nothing particularly worthwhile in his waist, as far as he could surmise, so he skipped to his hips, which reminded him of a Mobius strip.

    Pushing his jockey shorts down to his knees, he started studying the hipbone, digging into its hollows and nooks with his fingertips. He bent over, spread his legs, knelt, squatted ... He'd never realized how inventive his skeleton could be. It had just been in storage inside him for twenty-six years, like a piece of unfashionable sculpture.
    He pulled up his shorts, hit the kitchen, dumped chilly coffee, and washed out the cup.
    Trotting back down the hall he punched PLAY on his phone machine. Samuel's message played again, only this time he sounded depressed. Shit, Joe thought, glancing up at the clock. 8:47.
    Rrrring, click. "Hello?" Samuel said groggily.
    "It's me." Joe despised his own voice. It was too deep or something. No matter how he distorted it, it had the fake homeyness of those DJs announcing classical music or soft rock.
    "Oh, Joe. Hi. You got my message? Did you catch anything of that show I mentioned?"
    "I'm not sure," Joe said. "I sort of fell asleep."
    "Too bad." Samuel snorted. "That actor you look like, Keanu Reeves, was getting physically fucked up by psychopaths."
    "How come?"
    "How come what?"
    "How come they fucked him up?"
    "I don't know, who cares," Samuel muttered, yawned. "Obviously because he was so fucking cute."
    Joe yawned, eyed the greasy brown clock face set into his distant stovetop. 8:53. "Bye. I'll see you at work."
    Click.

    (I'm writing this en route from LAX to Kennedy Airport. I must be insane to just take off. But I'm famous for this kind of shit. And for not thinking thoroughly. That's my friends' problem, not mine. Jealousy, that's what their idiocy is about. I'm more "experienced" than any of them. I've imagined scenes they couldn't even start to think up. And one of the things that goes on when you mentally explore a certain area of life like I do is you start to understand all of it. Or else you know exactly what you want out of it, and the rest doesn't matter. For me this want begins with a physical type. Over the years I've decided or figured out that there's a strain of the human race I'm uncontrollably drawn to. Male, younger, lean, pale, dark-haired, full-lipped, dazed looking. I think the lineage stretches back to those pictures of Henry at Gypsy Pete's. He, or they, were the original. Every guy I've wanted since has had his same basic look. I suppose in a sense it's like being involved with the same person over and over without getting bored. That's how I think of it. Anyway, it's the closest I'll get to a long-term relationship. But finding cooperative guys isn't easy, at least since I've grown so obsessed with the idea of murdering someone. That's the area of life I was hinting at earlier. And that's why I'm flying to NYC. I keep thinking about this boy Pierre Buisson who I recently saw in a porn video, All of Me. He's the most perfect human being I've seen since, well, Kevin at least. Like most porn stars these days he's a hustler on the side. Available. Through a particular escort service advertised in The Advocate. In