One of the more tasteless Upir’s Mark  presentations was our unauthorized Russian-language remake of “Lolita, My Love” with some other devil-obsessed punk group of the day.  Sasha powdered his hair and played Humbert.  Ace played Delores (Lolita.)  The judges complained that Ace was too old for the part of Lolita at age 14, but she could sing angrily and play the guitar like a beast, so they were a bit lenient with their reviews.  The best part was the fact that the most salacious scenes were acted out by well-endowed ventriloquist dummies; stunt puppets, if you will.  There was no way in hell Sasha was going to have simulated sex with a teenage girl in front of a live audience.  Sasha would have had real  sex in front of a live audience with just about anything else, including puppets, but he had some morals; that and he’s too gay for that.  Not very many, but he did.  I wish he had less now, but being a prude is what happens when we get old.

We did not win the grand prize during that competition.   We only made it to second place.  The most indecent play award was given to another band team, Shit Rain of Darkness and Stalinist Holocaust.  They did a killer rendition of Dante’s Inferno.  On-stage defecation, gang-banging and horse slaughter always gets a better reception than revival musicals about old perverts with a bad case of hebephilia.  Nonetheless, Sasha received a prize for goriest death scene and most original puppet show.

Here’s the show poster I made.  It’s not one of my best, but it got the point across.   Now the gods punish Sasha and I by giving us a daughter that dresses like a Lolita-wannabe.  Depressing, but it serves us right.

Believe it or not, once upon a time, I was legally married to a woman.  Irina’s stunning beauty was hard to ignore and, her insanity made mine look mild by comparison.  I met Irina in bed.  She had a stake in her hand being thrust at me.  I caught her before the strike killed me.  We fought, made a huge mess of my room and, had sex.  She claimed to be a vampire hunter.  She seemed like a pretty decent person after that, or so I assumed.

We got married, and after I got her pregnant, she disappeared.  She wrote a letter about nine months later to tell me that she had given birth to our son.  She also explained that she had left Russia and  I would never get to meet him.  I never saw her again after that.  The letter was and her absence enough to get our marriage annulled.

Decades later, she wrote to me from prison in the United Kingdom.  According to her our son is doing well and gave me his contact information.   My son was raised by her relatives, when Irina realized that she wasn’t parenting material.  He finished college and is happily married with children of his own.  She told also him I that I died in an industrial accident.

I did a search on my son and found out that everything she said was true.   I thought about getting a hold of him, but decided against it.  I can’t bear the thought of him thinking that I abandoned him.  I’m better off dead in his imagination.  The idea of disrupting his entire existence in a way that would rewrite his life’s narrative for the sake of my curiosity, seems selfish.  I love my boy, even though I will never meet him.  I’ll just be content with going to his family website and quietly watching him and my grandchildren grow.

As I mentioned earlier, Irina is imprisoned.  She’s doing life without parole for multiple pre-meditated murders.  Apparently, not everyone believes in vampire hunters.

Ugly was an abuser and a horrible influence on me. Our first intimate encounter was not consensual and it was extremely traumatic. It was a shitty way for a scrawny fourteen-year-old to lose his virginity. He was around my age, but much larger and much more belligerent.  He was extremely disturbed at the time.

I tried to report the abuse, but the person I spoke with called me a liar and threatened to make my life a living hell. I felt discouraged and didn’t pursue the matter further.  Later in life, Ugly told me that he was abused himself. He confessed to admiring me for having the guts to have tried reporting him, and wished that he had received the punishment he deserved.

We became boyfriend and boyfriend, not out of any deep romance, but out of habit.  We looked after each one another. We were practically inseparable for a time. I really enjoyed recording our drunken songs and long-winded conversations about nonsense. It was quite fun to incorporate these recordings into our real music before we even knew that sampling had a name.

Ugly worked as the best damn manager Upir’s Mark ever had. He grew up to be a pretty cool guy, even though he was an evil dick in youth. He changed dramatically after losing limbs and suffering from disfiguring burns that covered most of his body during a military action in the Ukraine. It was an accident involving “friendly fire” from a grenade. Being so close to death, often forces people to re-examine their lives. He definitely did. He continues to make a huge effort to spend the rest of his life helping people.

The only other “real” boyfriend I’ve ever had, happens to be my husband.  Oddly enough, Sasha has always been in gender limbo, so I don’t know if he really can be called a boyfriend.  I had affairs with two other men, but they aren’t really worth mentioning.  I was far more promiscuous with women, although Zoya and Irina were definitely my loves when it came to that gender.

Ugly and I still keep in touch by phone, even though he hates Sasha with a passion.  I think it’s mostly jealousy, especially since Sasha has a rather a high regard for Ugly.  After our break-up, Ugly has remained single and celibate for the majority of his life. He almost married Zoya out of pity, after her being diagnosed with AIDS. They were never able to consummate or even proceed with the marriage. She was murdered before they could. Ugly loved her very dearly, and doted on her every whim.  She was a much better lover to her that I ever was, and I respect him for that.

To end this entry, here’s some more nonsense from my youth:

Inspired by an actual Facebook conversation between T. Tarwater and Vas Littlecrow.