Hey OS friends. Any ideas for what this might need? It's a double stream of consciousness story, (like an interior dialogue, right? two people, both 'taking turns' thinking to themselves)--based on a set of double paintings by Gunther Daniel Herbst.

First draft. I like the ending and the beginning is okay I believe? I think it needs more in between? Any suggestions how to proceed?

Come

I should have stayed. 

I should've lain there.

I'm a middle-aged man. An African. Big Habitat truck tearing down the alley. I should not have moved.

..What the fuck

Dread this body. Hate it.

Who the hell

Where'd he come from? What's he doing right in my fucking face

I hate these lights. Hate the pissed-on pad, the floodlit lot. Zombie bloke across. Hate him too.

He? Not he. 

She?

Hate this body. Dread it. Hate getting fucked with.

She.

Who the hell is she

Again.

Again. 

When she get here. I must have slept. Sleep of the living.

Of the goddamn undead. 

Again.

Sleep of the goddamn waking.

 The alive.

 Again.

Fucked with.

Bloke's not even sleeping. He's awake. I know it.

Still. He's a witness. I am not alone.

Unless he turns, and looks at me, and it's just the two of us, him then looking past me, at the wall, and me in here, eyes closed, more alone than in death, as he curses and comes inside me.

 Again.

I should've lain there.

Today. Rig plunging down the alley.

 What were the odds, ten tons at least, thundering down the lane like a tank and I could not have been more than inches away. All I had to do was stay. I'm a man. All it took was breathe. And still I rolled over, crept into the wall, like a baby. Lay there like a newborn. Revolted. Who needs an old man with a new leash on life. 

He's awake. Knew it.

Here. See. Eyes. Square eyes.

Black squares. Like paintings. Like twin oils, double, Black Square portals; twin doors to the everlasting, the unknown, the Supreme. Refuge.

Or, gazing past me, black squares, as he curses, on this stinking mattress. Twin trapdoors to Perdition. To hell, right here, within my own skin.

She.

 Staring, pale green. Swamp Eyes.

 And gone. Shuttered, veiled, cloaked, tucked behind closed lids.

Again. Will lie here, eyes shut, in the dark. In the Black Square night. Eyes closed, twin doors locked and bolted. Lie here, in the dark, my own, private portal, my own refuge, of what I know.

I should have stayed. Lain there, like Swamp Eyes. I should have breathed. Breathed until that truck had passed, straight over, rolled her, Blue Eyes, from my lungs, my skull, crushed her blue eyes from my bones.

 Instead I was overtaken, with the urge to preserve myself. To save myself from pain. From pain. Here, today, where this is all there is.

 From pain. 

Lie here and wait in the dark. Wait for this, all of it, the entire goddamn night, to end.

Again. Again. Again.

From pain.

 No matter what I pumped into her, Blue Eyes, it was never enough. She just lay there. Wasn't me she wanted. Some thing beyond me, just over my shoulder. Something else. 

Dread it. What is it they want.

Hate it. This body. A hole, a black hole, nothing to contain it, no shelter, no contours, no bounds. Black hole, sprawling away from me into the road, into the night, no light, no wall, no sound. Swallowing all. All.

Some thing.

 Wasn't mine to give and still I gave her all, Blue Eyes, all of me. Abandoned myself, gave her all I had, bang, all I was, all I'd been, ever would be. Gave her all. All. All. All.

 Slammed it into her.

 Bang

 She just lay there.

Dread it. Tired. Being fucked with.

All.

 Sometimes she would close her eyes and think of something else, some thing, the thing just over my shoulder, and she'd come, in a short, angry burst. Then she'd turn over and sleep.

Didn't want it.

I didn't. Did not. Do not. Don't. How many times. Do not.

Rolled over and slept. I'd sit and look at the nape of her sleeping neck, as she breathed, and aim myself right at her, slam my fist into my balls, over and over, and over, over Blue Eyes, come in a long squirt of agony against her stony back.

Do not.

Still all I will do now is lie here, numb. Hate this thing, this body. Cold, dense, flat, like stone. The only place in it alive, hot, between my legs, where all the dread will do is make me wet. Again.

No words. To say, how tired I am.

She's fucking him. Blue Eyes. I know her.

Must be close to dawn now. Can tell, even eyes closed. It's the cold.

Rid of me. Fucking him. My Blue Eyes. Of course she is.

I won't look. No need. Feel it right here, in my bones. They won't go colder than this. All the bite of the dark, of the night, of the asphalt creeping up under the plastic, creeping under my skin. Then, just the extra sting. Dew.

Dawn.

I am transient. A homeless woman.

I can see them. I see her laughing at me as she fucks him, the Brit, the fucking Englishman, fucking her in his socks and scarf.

 I see her.

That loud, clattering laugh that you can hear from across a street. She's laughing, that bubbly, champagne laugh of hers, all burrs and sparks, old Blue Eyes, offering up her cunt and I feel nothing. Why do I not feel a thing.

A woman without a home.

I should have lain there like an old man when the big rig came. I should not have moved. Why do I not stay. 

I feel nothing, why should I now, at this last, useless hour, find myself in fear of pain. 

I'm a black man. I'm a black man. I'm a Black, Black man.

 What does that mean.

Know what that means? A woman without a home. That's a tooth without a mouth.

She hasn't moved. Swamp Eyes. Lies there, eyes closed, like an angel, like a goddamn stiff.

 I should have stayed. Instead I moved. Preserved myself from pain.

Homeless. Woman. A black hole. Empty. No refuge. Nothing to contain it, nothing to stop it, to stop the pulp, the mush inside, from spilling out like the plague. A black tide, dissolving everything around it, like a night without dawn, without time, no walls, no light, no lines. Dumb, boundless pain.

From pain. 

..Would I fuck her? 

There's a thought. I'm a man. It's a valid question. 

Would she move? Swamp Eyes? Crawl into the wall, like a baby?

Pain. Spreading not to me but from me. Fanning out, from the slosh inside me, the hot, throbbing muck of what I am, till it's all I know. All I get off on. All. All. All.

I would.

I would fuck her.

It's a reasonable question. I've seen her eyes. Green. Startled, pale glance. Dark rimmed. Then gone, closed, and this, the still, dead face under the lantern.

All. All I've known. The gaze past my cheek, at the wall behind me, the cold shoulder, the fuck from behind, my face pressed down in the dark.

I would. That strange stare. There really is no question. I'm a man. I would live to see that gaze. Again.

And it's me. Hating the mush. This body. Me.

Fucking with me. Getting off, behind closed eyelids. On pain. On what I know.

Anything. Anything but this stillness, the dead face under the streetlight, as I crouch here, cock burning into the leg of my pants, Swamp Eyes, thinking of you.

One day I won't. Will not. Did not. Do not. Won't. I will not lie here.

I'll open my eyes. I'll look up and find some person looking back.

Someone hard like rock, like flint. Some person aching for the mush, the slosh of me, the pulp of the unknown, like a black door, a refuge, to wade, to fade away in. 

I'd live to look into that stare. To see it open, widen, open wide inside.

I'll open my eyes, some day, some time, and find daylight. This life, this mattress, asphalt creeping up my bones, all this, will be gone.

I will end this cold, this dark, this world behind closed eyelids, this self-inflicted night of what I know. 

Would live to see them open wide, see the pale green blend into those dark rims, bronze flecks fanning out. Rays of copper, hints of gold. 

Yes, I would. I would fuck you.

I'm a homeless woman. I do not. There's what I've known.

She could be dead. She could just lie there, under the lantern, eyes squeezed tight against the lights. 

You.

 You could be dead, Swamp Eyes.

I could be strapped to this cock, this rock, forever, racked on your rigid, stony frame.

I am. I do. Opening. A crack. I'm ending this life, this pissed-in world, the known, which is finished, over, done with. Which isn't even going on.

Look

Dark eyes, in a dark face. Black Squares. Twin portals. Black doors to the here, the now, the refuge.

To the happening

I'm a Black, Black man, Swamp Eyes. Know what that means.

I know nothing.

Come