So what do you want to know? You wanna know something about me, ok, here goes.

I like to fuck. I like to fuck, I like to get fucked, I like fucking, I fuck up sometimes. Start counting now – let's see how many times I can say it, right? I would venture I make it into the double digits pretty fucking soon, just keep listening.

I'm pretty adventurous, I guess. When I say I like to fuck, I mean, I like to fuck a whole goddamn variety of people. Boys, girls, trannies, post-up, pre-op, leather daddies, business bitches, twelve year old boy whores from Singapore, whatever. The best fuck I ever had was a tranny named Samantha. The most beautiful girl I've ever met – tits out to here, heart-shaped lips, and the softest skin you'll ever touch - but with a dick like you wouldn't believe. I mean, this girl was hung. It was pretty extravagant.

Have I ever been in love? Fuck that. Who needs it? I've had feelings before, I guess. But what are feelings, anyway? Near as I can tell, feelings just complicate things, and complication leads to pain, always, always, always. And then, sometimes there's blood, and you're left with scars that you can't help but see whenever you accidentally turn your head...anyway, whatever. Let's move the fuck on, shall we?

I've been running around since I was pretty young, I guess. I think I started when I was about thirteen. As for when I lost my virginity, well that's a joke – was it when I was four and my uncle wanted to have some fun with me, or when I was nine and dear old mom's new boyfriend figured I needed to be broken, like I was a goddamn horse? Doesn't matter. All I know is, I got a taste of real sex when my first boyfriend slipped three fingers in my cunt and made me suck on them afterwards. That's when I knew what I wanted – something raw, something real. Pure fucking sex.

Yeah, there's more to me than that, but you asked the question. You see me, right? I'm wearing fishnets – well, there's your first clue, Sherlock - and hooker boots up to my ass, so you had to know what I was about. Stop drooling, bitch. Your hands are shaking, I can see them from here. You may as well come into the shadows, with me.

If you want me, here I am.

Hi! It's so nice to meet you. I love meeting new people, it's so interesting. Oh, look! No, up at the sky, do you see that? That cloud looks like...something, I can't quite catch it...it's almost like this teddy I had, when I was a little girl, it was a lovely white teddy named Norman with these little black buttons for eyes. Except the buttons kept falling off, and they were sewed back on so many times his little face was covered in all these funny holes with stuffing poking out. Norman was made of that fabric, do you know what it's called, terry-something? The stuff towels are made of. He was my best teddy, I think. Except I also had this elephant, she was purple with green dots and a corduroy trunk, I can't remember her name, what was it? I really like the feeling of corduroy, do you know what I mean? It's an interesting fabric, such soft lines, and swooshy when you walk so it doesn't last long at all. Although of course my elephant's truck – what was her name? - didn't go for walks, that doesn't make sense, but I still wore it out fast running my hands along it, I like textures a lot, if you can't already tell. This dress that I'm wearing is made of silk, it feels so nice. I feel like a grown-up, a bit, when I wear this dress.

What? Oh, sorry. What was the question again? Oh, Lilith, yeah, I've met her. She's a nice girl. I don't think she realizes how lovely she is, really; she tries to cover up those magical eyes with silly masks and that pirate look she loves so much, but she's like a little pixie to me. I don't think she likes me much, but that's okay. I think she's sweet.

Oh look what I found! Would you like a candy? It's a peppermint swirl candycane twirly candy. It's really delicious, here, try one. It reminds me of Christmas, don't you think? It smells like Christmas, all minty and red and green swirly sweet...I think Christmas is my favourite holiday all of, how about you? Halloween? You sound like Lilith. I love holidays, they are all so wonderful, there's such a sense of possibility in the air during holidays! On Valentines day everything is pink and red and so soft, the air smells like cinnamon, and Easter tastes like chocolate eggs and half-bitten chocolate bunny ears and fluffy clouds. Of course, I don't know what clouds really taste like, but don't you imagine they are made of pink sweethearts and marshmallows? Oh, clouds, right...I think my elephant's name was Lilly. Or maybe Eve.

Sorry. What was the question again?

Your life is a sitcom. A single camera watches you, and you live in three-quarters of a house. Every day begins the way it has always begun, bouncing along on the heels of a sixty-second song. Your song is catchy in a sickening way, and tells in rhyming couplets your struggles, your fears, and your hopes. It ends on a crashing major chord and the clamor of cymbals.

Your life opens, every day, on a familiar scene, in a familiar room, with familiar faces. Your friends come and go; the wackier ones enter with a flourish and a quip, to cheers and applause. Extras chatter wordlessly in the background. You are the straight-man to the insanity around you. Set-up, punchline, reaction – you know your lines, you know where to pause and when to mug for the camera - your life is a comedy of delightful and deliberately plotted errors.

Claps and laughter, always claps and laughter. The laughter of a desperate audience now fifty years’ dead.

Your life happens in twenty-two minute intervals, with enough time left over for Verizon ads and movie trailers. Enough time for the applause, the forced laughter of your studio audience. Promotional consideration provided by every product you’ve ever owned.

***

My life is a 19-century epistolary novel. I begin and end with formality. I am altogether giddy in my solemnity. To my dear. I am your faithful servant, and I remain, as always, devoted. To you.

I describe in detail the days that pass without you, and you reply in kind. I can recall entire conversations verbatim and I transcribe them for you. Read between my lines and I tell a different story. I use words like ‘vex’. When someone makes love to me, my virtue has not been compromised; I am being courted, I am being wooed.

My plot is a labyrinth of twists and leaps and turns, of strange logic and unexplained coincidence. I am surrounded by aunts and wards, governesses and footmen. Sometimes I am an orphan, sent to work in a desolate country home. I hear noises at night that no one else hears; only I suspect the dark truth, the mad wife in the attic, the ghostly children on the moors. Sometimes I am a young girl of means searching for a suitable husband. I am always plucky and resourceful, though I will often fling myself to the floor dramatically. Often I am overwhelmed, and always overwrought. If I give in to the demands of my mysterious, dark-coated employer I will come to a bad end, as all weak heroines must. If I am pure of heart and loins I will marry in the end, to a man who smiles sweetly at my wild mind.

I live on the moors and I live in the city. If I am good my ending is happy.

***

Their life is a Shakespearian tragedy. His father the King has gone mad. She is a girl glimpsed once and rhapsodized forever. She sings to herself in meadows when she thinks no one is listening. In iambic pentameter they fall in love, and what follows is always the same: blood, song, the awful truth of jesters. His father the King is not really mad. His mother the Queen schemes, and the plot moves forward.

The first act is over.

They speak together in rhyming couplets, harmonizing like singers. They swoon. They are lovers. They meet in forests and the Queen sends her ladies-in-waiting to watch and to listen. The Queen poisons her husband the King, and the Court thinks he has gone mad. The ladies-in-waiting like a Greek chorus echo back what they have heard; the Queen schemes, and the plot moves forward.

So ends the second and third acts. In the fourth the lovers return home. It storms, they are in Iove, they are oblivious. His father the King mutters in the storm. The mad King wishes them well. The ladies-in-waiting die slowly, one by one. ‘Alas and alack!’, they cry, one by one. ‘She will betray!’ The lovers flee in the storm. His father the King wishes them a good morrow. His mother the Queen sharpens her nails and teeth and daggers, and prepares her poisons.

In the fifth act they die. This is the only ending.

***

The stories are always the same. The difference is in their form. I chose a happier form for mine. So long as I am good, my story will end triumphantly. ‘Reader, I married him.’

But – and here is the part where I tell the truth, outside of narrative and form - when the story ends, my life continues. The only constant is death, and though I am the heroine of my story, I will die one day, like every character before me. I don’t want to die like Emma Bovary; I want to die like Elizabeth Bennett, far from my story. I want an unrecorded death. I don’t want to be form without context.

Think about your story. Think about the form that shapes your narrative. This will determine the lines you say, the actions you take. In the end, every life – sitcom, novel, cartoon, silent movie – ends in the formula of tragedy, in death. Life is a Shakespearian tragedy, punctuated by moments of sitcom absurdity. Find your own story between those moments.