Still Burning. A Honeymoon in Red
Berlin, Kreuzberg, June 1982, Game Studio 36
The air in Game Studio 36 hung thick with a haze of Gauloise smoke, spilled Red Stripe, and the sweet-chemical stink of burning heroin. Outside, the Berlin Wall loomed like a bad joke nobody laughed at anymore, slicing the city in half. Inside this squat-level basement on Skalitzer Str a$$e, the real division was between the living and the half-dead.
Lydia Lunch paced barefoot across the cigarette-burned carpet. She wore a torn black slip, fishnets with ladders running up both thighs, and a pair of scuffed motorcycle boots. Her mouth was painted bruise-purple, and her hair was a black explosion of defiance. She had just finished a spoken-word take for “So Your Heart’s Broken,” spitting words like she was chewing gl a$$. The final line still hung in the air. “I hope the fcker bleeds.”
Rowland S. Howard sat slumped in the engineer’s chair. His black shirt was unbuttoned to the sternum, revealing the pale, translucent skin of a boy who hadn’t seen the sun since Melbourne. His limbs were too long, folded like a broken marionette. He held a cigarette between trembling fingers, watching the ash grow without bothering to tap it. His skin was the color of old candle wax, his cheekbones were sharp enough to cut.
“You’re bleeding on the fretboard again, Rowland,” Lydia said, her voice a New York gutter laced with smoke.
Rowland lifted his pale blue eyes—gl a$$y, beautiful, ruined. He gave her the ghost of a smile. “Adds character,” he murmured, the Australian drawl softened by smack and exhaustion.
Lydia stepped between his knees. “You’re nodding off again. Earn your fcking fix. I want you to mark me like you mark your solos. Give me something that isn’t borrowed from Nick Cave’s nightmares.”
She reached down and yanked his belt open. Buttons popped one by one. She didn't use a condom, in 1982, who gave a shit? She straddled him, knees sinking into the couch, and shoved him face-first against the gl a$$ separating the live room from the control booth. “Look at me when I fck the death out of you,” she hissed.
She rode him hard, nails raking his chest. Rowland’s head lolled back, a broken sound tearing out of him—half pain, half longing. Every thrust forced a soft, shattered sound from his throat. He filled her perfectly, that thin, elegant length hitting deep. Even through the heroin fog, his body convulsed like it was short-circuiting.
The door banged open.
Genevieve McGuckin stepped in, boots clacking on the concrete floor. She wore a man’s silk shirt with gold thread glinting under the dim red bulb, tucked into high-waisted trousers cinched with an oversized safety pin. Her crow-black hair framed sharp features, she radiated a tomboy confidence brought all the way from Brisbane. In one hand, she carried a battered acoustic guitar case, in the other, a half-smoked joint of Moroccan hash she’d scored from Nikki Sudden. Nikki lingered in the doorway, long wild curls cascading over a velvet jacket, looking amused and dangerous.
“Isn’t this cozy,” Genevieve’s plummy Melbourne voice sliced the haze. She stopped inches from Lydia, close enough to smell the wine and s*x.
Lydia turned, a predatory smile widening. “You’re late to the party. You think you can just walk in and reclaim him?”
“I’m not here to reclaim,” Genevieve’s voice dropped to a velvet murmur. “I’m here to remind him who he belongs to. You’re just borrowing him for the night.”
Lydia’s laugh was a half-snarl. “Then stay and watch.”
Genevieve reached past Lydia and grabbed a fistful of Rowland’s greasy black hair, yanking his head back. She kissed him deep, tasting the copper of his blood and Lydia’s lipstick. “Tell me what you want,” Genevieve ordered.
“Gen... my Gen...” Rowland whimpered.
Genevieve pushed Lydia back against the mixing desk. Faders rattled. She hiked Lydia’s skirt—no underwear—and shoved two fingers into her heat without warning. Lydia gasped, her head falling back as she cursed in New York gutter poetry. Nikki Sudden moved behind Genevieve, hands on her hips, grinding against her  a$$ through her trousers. “Jealous, sweetheart?” Nikki drawled, the English accent thick with hash.
“Never,” Genevieve tilted her head, eyes glittering.
The room became a slow-motion collision of sweat, wine, and hash smoke. Rowland knelt on the floor, his mouth on Genevieve through her trousers while she fingered Lydia. Lydia moaned, her fingers tangled in Genevieve’s short hair. Nikki took Lydia from behind, fcking her slow and deep while they all watched Genevieve ride Rowland on the sagging couch.
Rowland shattered. He came with a strangled sob, his hips stuttering up into Genevieve as he cried her name. Afterward, the four of them collapsed in a heap. The tape machine on the Studer hissed, its slow rotation the only heartbeat left in the room.
London, August 1987, Still Burning
The air in the studio was thick again, but the geography had shifted. They were working on Honeymoon in Red. The tape was still rolling on “Done Dun,” Rowland’s guitar line crawling like a spider across the mix.
Genevieve held Rowland against her chest, stroking his hair, humming a fragment of “Shivers.”
“Still tastes like you, Row,” Lydia said, lighting two cigarettes off the same match and placing one between Rowland’s swollen lips.
Rowland gave a lazy twitch of his mouth. “Still burning,” he murmured, quoting the song they hadn’t finished yet.
The red bulb over the door glowed like a diseased eye. Outside, London was waking up, but inside, the honeymoon was never over. It was always red.