#she's totes gorge short for gorgeous

[hercarisntyours]

gorgelicious, gorgetastic and gorge short for gorgeous

[acehotel]

Naked Boys Reading Presents: Short Serials with Season Butler

Photo by Christa Holka.

In the journalistic heyday of Victorian-era fiction, the serial was a place to feast on the literary prowess of the writers and cultural denizens of their time — a place to bear witness to a writer's creative process in episodic installments, from Charles Dickens in The Pickwick Papers to Harriet Beecher Stowe in The National Era. 

Naked Boys Reading (NBR) — a literary salon presented at Ace Hotel London Shoreditch every other month — carries that proverbial torch here with the first of their “Short Serials.” Over the next few months, NBR will be sharing serialized fiction by some of their favorite queer authors and allies. 

First on the docket is author Season Butler. Born in the States, Butler spends her time writing and teaching between the UK and Germany, and her forthcoming novel, Cygnet, a captivating and poignant coming-of-age tale, is out June 25 by Harper Collins in the U.S. and April 4 with Dialogue Books in the UK.

Join Naked Boys Reading for their next live reading on March 28 in the 100 Room at Ace Hotel London. 

“AM” by Season Butler 

This is the light I like best, middle of February, first thing in the morning. Some people get up early to be productive, but I’m just here to bask. The way it comes into my living room makes it even better, through the many small thin windows celled off from each other with metal frames: six windows high, twelve along. Light wanders in along with shadow, the paradox of washed-out brightness of a sunny English winter morning. I’m in the best place at the perfect time, between the anaemic morning that enters through the brittle glass, landing on the surface of the concrete walls and floor without force enough to penetrate them. It’s peaceful here.

I touch the wall to try and feel the cold light. Palm first, then I place my whole right arm into it. Twist and touch my shoulder blades to the manufactured stone, curve forward a little to lay my spine along the wall, morning running over my face and my sternum.

I dress in black and charcoal and SPF fifty because I’m wise and vain and pushing forty. While I gather up my shopping tote and small money, knot my scarf and pull my coat on, I practice smiling. Everything is easier with practice.

The buds are still closed on my neighbour’s silver birch. The umbels of last year’s Queen Anne’s Lace are crisp brown crowns on top of rigid, papery stalks. The bugs haven’t hatched yet. Nothing rises from the tarmac. Thin light holds the landscape.

The shopkeeper is outside smoking a rollie, also basking. But somehow he looks like he’s under a totally different sun from mine. His face glows gold in its light. His sleeve tattoos are livid with reds and blacks. I don’t like them as much as I used to. He stamps out his cigarette when he sees me coming, even though it looks like he was only a few drags in. He always does that, and never seems to resent the intrusion.

Hunger rolls and belches in my belly. I have no idea what I want. The grapes look fine, so I take some of those. Plantain chips for starch and spice. A carton of coconut water from the back of the fridge. The last time I read an article about any of these things was so long ago that the situation must surely have changed again by now.

The shopkeeper scans the coconut water and places it into a carrier bag before I remember I brought one of my own. Never mind, I’ll think of it sooner next time. “Gorgeous day.” His eyes urge me to agree.

I answer with my smile and a fiver. It doesn’t seem to be enough. “I’ll be inside with meetings all day so…” I trail off. By “meetings” I mean Netflix. The part about being inside all day is a more straightforward truth.

He hands me back my change and passes the bag across the counter. “Don’t you want to take your coat off?”

My next smile is even better than the one before, framing “thanks” and “buh-bye” as I walk back through the shop’s open door.

I do not want to take my coat off. Droplets of sweat find each other on my skin near any curve or fold, eventually tickling and stinging their way to my bra line where they are pulled in by the fabric to mingle with all the tiny monsters that make up who I am. My underarms are weeping; I’m going to have to go back to deodorant with aluminium in it.

I’ll get as wet as I can, and when I do take off my coat, I will be so cold.

Back from the shop I put the grapes in the freezer for later and gorge the fridge-chilled coconut water down to the bottom of the carton, gulping air between swallows of the pale, thin juice. I move into the shade, peel off my layers of charcoal and black, lay my legs along the concrete floor and stack my spine against the concrete wall and chill the tops of my thighs with my laptop, fixing my eyes in the blue light of the screen.

After a couple of hours, the fan heaves and wheezes as the machine begins to overheat. I close the lid before I close my eyes and I’m asleep again before noon.

Season Butler is a writer, artist and dramaturg, based between London and Berlin. She is interested in the opportunities and traps of hindsight and hope, coming-of-age into unprecedented change and what it means to look forward to an increasingly wily future. 

Her recent art work has appeared in the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art, Latvian National Museum of Art, Barbican Centre and Tate Exchange. 

Her debut novel, Cygnet, is out now from Dialogue Books in the UK and Harper Collins in the US. A launch event will take place at Ace Hotel London’s Miranda on 9 May, 2019, with more details soon.