Bare Ass Beach

Ben poked his head into my office.

“Hey bud, gonna need you to get the key to the green door before end of day. Thanks.”

Marilyn Chambers. I was pretty sure that was her name. She starred in the seventies’ porno flick “Beyond the Green Door.” Or maybe it was “Behind the Green Door.” I remembered getting a copy of it on VHS somehow when I was a teenager. It was pretty boring so I don’t think I masturbated to it. 

“K,” I said, but Ben had already left.

I checked the clock. 2PM. Ben hadn’t given me much lead time. Three hours was bound to pass and I had no idea where the key to the green door was. But I sort of had a knack for finding. Anyway, once I got out of work it was the weekend! I planned to go to Bare Ass Beach with my hippy roommate Carolina. She probably wouldn’t swim since she just got a new tattoo. Yet another tattoo. This one was big—on her left arm starting at the shoulder and going down to her elbow. The image depicted a mystical female figure in profile, surrounded by vaguely-runic glyphs. It looked like henna art, but was permanent. The tattoo woman had a nose ring jewel in her left nostril and so did Carolina. She was a bit too flaky for me, but she usually paid the rent on time and didn’t make a lot of noise. We didn’t hang out often, but the solstice was coming up and she insisted it would be good for the energy of the house if we were in alignment. I didn’t have other plans, so I said sure.

I went down a few internet rabbit holes which ate up a solid hour. I learned about bandalores. Apparently they were either an antiquated type of yo-yo, the original term for yo-yo, or both. I’d had yo-yos intermittently as a kid, but I never managed to hold onto one for long. I would invariably get the strings tangled so badly that the yo-yo was rendered useless. And I never learned any tricks. Bandalores led me to do a little research on Bangalore, also known as Bengaluru, which served as the capital of Karnataka in India. The best Indian food I’d ever eaten was at a restaurant in Chunking Mansions in Hong Kong. I think I ate at two different places there and both were excellent and neither pricey. I read a tiny bit about Bangor, Maine, but I’d never been to that part of the US and felt no draw there.

I took an extra long bathroom break after that. Fridays were tough. I suspect few of us got any real work done after lunch. I thought about masturbating in the stall, but I wasn’t really in the mood. The key to the green door felt far out of reach. I thought there was a chance something might happen at Bare Ass Beach—my roommate might bring a friend or maybe she’d want to do some tantric stuff after sunset. That could also be good for the energy of the house. Even if she wasn’t my type, she had a nice smile, pretty green eyes, and a shape I found appealing. She smelled vaguely sour, but I could handle that. Sitting on the toilet, I read an article about tiny houses and sustainable living. I often daydreamed about having my own place, but didn’t like the idea of having to duck around or climb tiny ladders up to a sleeping area.

4PM. Not a lot of time left to get the key. Ben hadn’t returned to check on my progress. That meant he trusted me to do what needed to be done. Smart management. The green door was beyond my pay grade. Felt like very high-level stuff going on inside. I wasn’t on the corporate ladder really. I don’t think anyone expected I was going to stick around long-term. They knew I was competent and efficient and that was good enough for what I did. Every once in a while I would flirt with accepting a promotion, but the strings attached were more than I could bear, despite the increase in pay and perks. Ben could probably get the key, but he clearly had other priorities. He was one of the people in charge of hiring me in the first place. He didn’t attend many company social functions, but he was the first person I met when I moved to town. In fact, he picked me up at the airport, then we grabbed his boyfriend and the three of us went out for Thai food. I had some kind of chicken satay dish.

4:30PM and I was still at my desk. This resistance wasn’t mine. Sometimes the best place to hide something was in avoidance. If I didn’t get up soon I’d be late and that would not be cool. I stood up and sighed, stretched, and yawned. I thought about my roommate’s breasts and whether I’d be seeing them over the weekend and how distracting I’d find her tattoos. My stomach rumbled and I thought about getting Indian or Thai for dinner. I had never seen a bare ass at Bare Ass Beach. The keys were never kept in obvious places—if they were, then anyone might use them. 

I closed my eyes and turned around slowly, imagining a green door and a keyhole and the key that would fit just right and click inside. I realized a dragon was involved, but this one didn’t breathe fire or delight in riddles. A simple password was enough to gain passage, along with some subtle flattery and construct manipulation. Strictly speaking, this was outside of my classification, but I earned a lot of indulgences through such favorable tasks. The dragon was not green, to my surprise. It was instead a seductive Prussian blue with moonlight yellow eyes. I shifted thirty degrees in my office and could feel my left leg brush up against an ergonomic chair that was also the tip of the dragon’s tail. It wasn’t very large. I felt a low hum and coyly matched frequency. Then the dragon inverted and began emanating a pungent aroma from between its scales. It hit me in waves—a combination of saffron, cumin, and burnt mozzarella sticks. Maybe the green door lead to a vault of ancient codices…or perhaps to an executive break room. It wasn’t for me to know. I performed a sort of solo prom sway, side-eyeing the dragon as I uttered, “Bandalore,” which I’m sure was not the password until I said it. I had about me then the shape of clearance and would not be denied.

I realigned about fifteen minutes later, key in hand. There’d been a few pitfalls en route—lesser daemons and unearthed regrets—but nothing I couldn’t handle. I walked the key to Ben’s desk and found he wasn’t back yet. I thought about leaving it on top of his ledger so I could head out a little early, but I knew it’d be best to hand it to him directly. I paced around and thought about whether I’d go skinny dipping that weekend if everyone else did. Seemed like it could be fun, but also maybe wiser to just hang back and watch. There are tiny aquatic parasites that can swim up through the urinary meatus, also known as the pee hole.

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About Jerry White Jr. 

Jerry is a filmmaker, musician, writer. He began making films as a teenager through home movies and public access television in Metro Detroit, later studied at USC’s School of Cinematic Arts, and has continued to move across film, writing, music, and collaborative creative communities.

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About TANGENTS

TANGENTS is a new recurring literary section for flash fiction, short prose, and fragments that move outside fixed categories, published by STRATUM. It is a dedicated space for compressed narratives, strange turns, and writing that sits ambiguously between fiction, memory, humor, unease, and dream logic.

Edited By Yuyang Hu