Eye Candy
Lloyd is dressed like a candy bar in an all-too-bright gas station. Gleaming red tracksuit,
brand name under the sternum like a label. Nike – Organic, Nutty, Satisfying. Clothes like
buzzwords. Sunglasses like the metal sheen to the wrapper, my reflection in his eyes is
distorted by the black, indifferent nothing to his gaze. Again, the thought comes, like the
completion of a restaurant jingle, involuntary and so damn grating. Why do I stay?
One look at him and I feel the griminess on my face after a twelve-hour drive through the
Midwest. That blinding overhead light as I stumble into the convenience store, gasoline a
putrid scent burrowing into my nose. Why do I stay? Glasses off, he’s putting an arm
around me, sickening sweet kiss to my lips. I taste the acrid aftertaste of cheap chocolate. I’ll
taste him for days. Just kiss him back. I rip the package, zipper to his candy wrapper jacket
undone. He undresses, undresses me, rips the square package he keeps around and fits
himself through. Why do I stay? Because the gas station is the only place you can hit up when
you’re in bum-fuck nowhere Ohio. That’s why. Nothing to do but peel that gaudy red wrapper
and eat.
Jesse Keng Sum Lee is a London-based creative, completing their undergraduate degree in Creative Arts and Humanities at UCL.