EXCERPT FROM NOVEL GORILLA HEAD
By Kofi Fosu Forson

Majorie appears from her necessary post-sleep adjustments with a towel covering her private portions. She burns her pupils into mine. It’s the cue, about the unwritten rule, to give her privacy. I trudge out of the room to prepare breakfast. The apartment has certainly settled from the effects of the days before.

In the kitchen I slice an avocado in fine pieces and not caring about time, wait for a loaf of French bread to heat up. When it’s ready, each item of food adorns a tray accompanying me back into the bedroom. A tea kettle comes to a whistle just as the door opens. Marjorie rushes out of the room still wearing the towel around her waist.

What did Dracula on the wall think of us last night? My furry skin and Marjorie’s blonde wig.

Marjorie returns with a pot of tea, hot on her palms. In the frenzy of it all, she secures it on the chest of drawers.

"You must have something decent for me to put on."
"I don’t suppose you want to leave here as Marilyn Monroe."

She hops into the bathroom after picking out a shirt from my personal collection. I remove the gorilla suit, slip on a pair of slacks and a white V-neck and proceed with the cups of tea. Marjorie joins me on the bed, vibrant and determined. I begin by serving her some avocado with bread. It’s very Ghanaian. Was this bequeathed to us by the British or could it be an African Queen mother’s idea of an appetizer?

Dracula on the wall, what would you do in this situation?

In the past, Marjorie has wondered about the relevance of Ghana’s history to my life in the modern day. I’ve always dodged the issue. Most often, history is made up of names we choose to remember or forget. Those that remain with me are Super O.D., Opiah Mensah and the traditional television culture that prepared me for a more vast culture in The States.

"What do you love the most about your independence from the British?" Marjorie inquires.
"Sipping on a cup of Twinings Tea, dunking my bread. If spread elaborately with butter, after dunking, it’s fun to watch the butter floating over the tea. Organisms come to mind."
"Surely, you have more important things to think about."
"Yeah. Water, leaves and dough."

Lying next to me, Marjorie is easily a conspirator of woman-hood, a Venus of Urbino. Marjorie’s voice could have been fashioned after an F.B.I. agent , carefully throated, pushed out of strong lungs. With technique, she spreads the avocado evenly on the bread, possibly gravitating towards the precision of a beautician. Her refusing to place the food in her mouth is for me such a disappointing resignation. The candidness of the bread, white and unaffected being cradled by forklike fingers, charges into her mouth. Splendidly the jaws rotate, cycle after cycle. Saliva sends the bread down in a swallow, followed by a kiss of the Twining Tea cup. Marjorie sips away and the crush of sun filling the room brings much delight to the completion of my early meal.

"My love of bread should be a suggestion," Marjorie dictates.
"Suggestion of what?"
"Virginity, Mother Mary. Of the belief that I should never be interrogated for answers I choose not to give."
"It’s about your father, isn’t it?"
"I dare to classify that as personal. Still, I would like for you to come along on a visit to my mother’s."

Marjorie has acquired a comfort in my clothing, smoothing her hands over it. Ironically, the uneasy feeling on her face is a reaction to the realms of the day. Her mother is Felice Tittleton. She lives in Long Island. Marjorie expects her share of fireworks today. We gather the utensils and redefine ourselves. I had not much of a chance to woo her anyway. We conduct a dishwashing session best fit for potential roommates. Afterwards we head back to the bedroom where we take turns dressing in the bathroom. I have the most genderless attire. Either that or Marjorie accepts her newfound manhood in my denim, wrinkled blazer and army boots.

Photo:Sarianna Sabbarese

Bangkok
Kofi Fosu Forson

Sadu had auctioned off a painting by his late wife. The money therefore afforded him the trip to promote his latest book, a collection of photographs featuring lovers. As he stood inside the bookstore alongside his friend, Mark, a fuck-film writer, Sadu seemed elegant yet embittered. He had sworn off the lifestyle of his friend. Indeed his wife Exene was dead and Lamour, their only child, was far removed from the fanciful and electric passion with which he created and carried on.

The evening crowd assembled before a table where Sadu sat well dressed. His eyes kept falling on a young woman wearing eye-glasses. She sat next to a man who seemed too polite to be her boyfriend. As is well-founded in the game of gender politics opposites attract. A seemingly good natured woman which she appeared to be should fall for a gentle Ben or some one with a hunky-bearded-look. He was more a Buddy Holly.

The young woman with the eye-glasses was first to ask a question. She wanted to know if the peculiarity of photographing lovers was something that brought an arousal out of him. Meaning did he ever find it favorable to sleep with his models. Sadu thought for a moment then he told the story of Evangeline.

There had always been a motto which he followed. His models signed a contract explaining in clear terms that he was absolutely by no means able to partake in the frivolity his models engaged in. After all they went from foreplay to actual lovemaking while Sadu patiently sat and chose opportune moments to photograph them.

At the end of the night Sadu autographed the books. People walked up and bought copies. Others opted for a photograph with him. The woman and her supposed boyfriend came up and introduced themselves. They neither wanted a photograph nor a copy of the book. Instead the woman and her boyfriend offered to be his models for the night.

He was staying at a hotel further downtown. Mark chose to drive them there but knowing full well what shenanigans the woman and her partner had imagined, Sadu and his new accompaniment excused themselves from Mark and strolled among the evening’s revelers en-route to dinner at a restaurant.

They found a comfortable seating arrangement at an established eating place where they sat and ordered appropriate cuisine for a late night. The conversations wandered from trips around the world to sex. The two lovers were exhibitionists, ambitiously hoping for Sadu to do a book specifically about them. Given what they wore he had an idea as to how their musculature from body to breasts was defined.

At the hotel Sadu and the couple sat and drank wine and further established themselves as friends for the evening. At the appropriate moment Sadu asked them to undress. They took their clothes off, moving closer to the bed as if choreographed.

Their motions were soft. She was running her fingers over his arms. Soon there after, they kissed. Sadu noticed as the gentleman’s dick began to rise. He looked over at the side towards the bag with his camera. Retrieving it he quickly started snapping frame after frame, watching as the lovers went from fondling to touching each others parts.

The gentleman mounted his open lips on her breasts massaging them with tongue. She looked defiantly at the camera. Sadu obliged. The view of her derriere from the back with the male companion staring into the camera was a potential shot. She sat on him bouncing to a rhythm as he cradled her hips. She rotated as he pulled and pushed her back and forth.

He bent over her penetrating continuously while gripping the back of her neck forcing his way in and out, soon after placing her on the side entering as her leg angled in the air. He sat up. Her body above him, he secured his cock inside, lifting her up and down, stopping to grip her breasts vigorously squeezing, falling back as she took control maintaining pressure, all the while readying an expression for the camera. The lovers rotated from position to position wanting an immediate orgasm, screeching in a worrisome call, yearning and grunting.

Sadu had had enough of the intensity. With the woman moaning in the background, he stepped into the bathroom and unzipped his pants. He stood there admiring his dick when all he came in there to do was pee. When he walked back into the room he noticed the two lovers precariously picking up their clothes as they ran naked out of the room.

Sadu sat inspecting the pictures he had just taken. He didn’t know if he had been blind-sided or that he fucked and wasn’t able to cum.

MODERNISM and Gender Roles

An Interview with Vadis Turner By Kofi Forson

http://whitehotmagazine.com/whitehot_articles.cfm?id=1571

Domesticity has familiarly been ordained in the works founded and traditionally marketed by women. Technology and corporate consumption has long since dismissed the care with which women approached handicrafts, knitting and craft work. Vadis Turner, Tennessee born and current New York City artist, revamps the notion of handmade objects as they are incorporated in a defining and contradiction of conventional gender roles. Her mixed media pieces achieve an intricate, colorful and at times elegant pronouncement on matters feminine and are reverentially transcendental.

Marksman Defacto
Prognostication of the Self-Identity

Kofi Fosu Forson

The third eye: - what possibilities can manifest from singularly claiming a personal right to envision the probabilities of what is, then to predetermine what comes thereafter and the reality that existed before.

There is certain majesty to the nothingness of what we percieve as sensible and the indiscriminate thoughts that surround us. Making a distinction between what is wrong or right, meaningful or led to conjecture has more to do with intuition than the surmising of sanity meeting insanity.

Sensibility is an innate understanding based on discipline and counteracting what principles have been established heretofore within the familial code, society and government. Morality as relevant bends the curve enabling the individual decided wisdom which results in the identifying of the self and issues pertinent to his development.

Each person has a trusting identity which uniquely separates them from others. It defies all forces of inclusion. Much of this helps maintain a cognitive distinction. Irreplaceable are the fundamental aspects of ones personality. These then qualify each individual as circumventing the cycle made imaginable by the universe.

Circumstances surrounding the human experience point at indecisiveness found within the variables of choice, thought and action. At its core many forces prevent procuring and managing matters concerning our destiny. A marksman's disposition would cause one to aim at the focal point eliminating any further distractions. But through imagination alone our divided selves form a quandary.

We then oblige by self-possession, upholding beauty, narcissism, intellect, destitution and vice. They form a false ideology. The inability to function accordingly given abnormality present in most lives isn’t fear, will or drive. That’s expected in most humans. It’s more the undertaking one must undergo to face the greater fears of desire, success and love.

Painting (c)Laura Conde