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fellowshippers2005-01-05 09:00 pm
witt444.livejournal.com) wrote in fellowshippers2005-01-05 09:00 pm
never done this before
Hi all--
I just joined this community and am super-unsure of how to make LJ cuts work. So if this winds up being some horrendous nightmare, apologies in advance.
Fic: Demons
R
B/D
Old fic finding a new home (provided my computer skills don't fail me)
“Hunger is my native place in the land of passions…” Dag Hammarskjold
Today you think you see a cockroach run across the kitchen floor.
It’s also the day you’ve written “reality” on your hand in kitchy-neat lowercase, the “a” too big, with a hat on it.
It’s the morning after the night you thought you saw demons on the ceiling while you were making love to her.
And the morning you spill half the jug of Folgers, dropping it sleepily even though it’s 10.30, and you swear as the grinds spill out but then catch your breath when, lifting your leg from the damage, you see the perfect imprint of your right foot in the coffee. Toes and instep lay out in tile against the gritty black, solid, honest.
You journal and you wonder why your life makes so much more sense when you write it, and you experiment with tenses and points of view, and it all comes together. The coffee-spilling makes complete sense, utterly unlike the moment it happened when your morning mind was careless. You become obsessed with your handwriting, with the feel of the ballpoint pen against the paper, with the cursive that loops above and below the neat black lines of the page. You write past drive and comprehension just to watch yourself make letters.
You want to call Billy but your mobile is too expensive before 9pm, and right now it’s only 10.45.
So you do some yoga. You drag out the mat and try to center yourself, but your energy is all off and you keep finding excuses to stop. You sigh and twist around the forms. Your body protests as your spine elongates, as your arms turn, as your breath refuses to settle. Eventually you give it up and go smoke a cigarette on the fire escape, stepping around the place where the phantom cockroach ran.
On the fire escape it’s almost spring. Birds talk enthusiastically in the near-blooming trees and the air is cloudy and wet but warming. It’s a good day to be standing on the fire escape tasting cigarette smoke in the back of your tongue, slipping smoothness between your lips and out your nostrils. You don’t smoke very often. You started because your new girlfriend does it and you thought maybe if you did something she did she would think you love her. You’re not really sure if it’s fooling her anymore.
You want to call Billy, but it’s only 12.
You go back inside. You check your e-mail and it’s nothing new. You have some Raisin Bran for lunch. There are never enough raisins. You wonder if there’s any reason to leave the house today but can’t think of one. You address an envelope to Billy just to see your location and his clearly placed on the same piece of paper. To remind you how far away you are. Very far from the looks of it. You ball the envelope up and throw it away. You eat more Raisin Bran. Your frustration with the raisins leads you to eat some grapes for the satisfying burst of flavor and soft flesh. You finish off an entire bag of grapes, plucking them systematically from the stems until you have nothing but sticks in a wet plastic bag.
At 12.30 you jerk off in the bathroom. More or less by accident. You go to pee and while you’re there with your dick in your hand you decide what the hell. You stare into the toilet. You turn your head and stare into the mirror, stare at yourself. You have dark rings under your eyes even though you do plenty of sleeping. Your hair is a little messed up from touching it all morning, running your hand through it while you poorly avoided certain thoughts. You turn back to the task at hand. You think appropriately about your new girlfriend. You remember her mouth, hot and gentle and soft as it slid over your belly and your hips, how it carefully arranged itself over your cock. You think about how good it felt inside her mouth, how you thrust against her face and grunted, how she purred. You think about how you looked up at the ceiling and saw the demons around the lighting fixture, black swirling shapes, probably dragons. You were panicked that they might drop down into you, climb up through your exposed body and fly out your mouth with all the truths you’re keeping buried from the woman so lovingly trying to bring you to orgasm. You make yourself come in the present, the image of yourself half-tearfully curling away from her blinking in and out behind your eyelids.
You wipe up and have another cigarette.
You wonder why you aren’t with Billy if you love him so fucking much. If it’s that easy it should be that easy, shouldn’t it? Worlds away should be so what. Public heterosexuality should be so what. The times you hurt each other so badly you both bled for days, inside and out, should be so what. But they aren’t. Ironically what seem most meaningless now are the good times, the memories of before. They are summer memories, New Zealand memories that feel like heat and beach and exhaustion. You remember random phrases from books with the grit of sand in the pages. The memory of learning to surf still burns your calves and settles waves around your balance. And you remember Billy and Billy’s body hot and present and Billy growling and aroused. You remember Billy in the trailer and the hollow metal ruckus of knocking things to the ground in your frenzy for fucks or games. You remember being barefoot in sandy parking lots and the sun-heat of the tin steps through your pants, talking with Billy, shoulder to shoulder. You remember his laugh against flashes of light. These memories fit against your brain like a wetsuit, tight and sufficient. You look at the back of your hand. You think about Zen and remind yourself that desires are inexhaustible. Want Billy all you want, it’s not going to make any fucking difference to reality.
You lick your thumb and wipe the word off your hand.
You make more coffee, stamping and growling to scare the cockroach. You think you see phantom shapes everywhere, sliding behind you when your back is turned. You decide to make decaf.
Your mobile rings and it isn’t him but you answer anyway. You get invited to an early party. You’re glad for an excuse to go out.
The decaf is light and tastes careless on your tongue. You hallucinate lots of little things while you make it, and you decide today is going to be a day of hallucinations, and you resign yourself to that. You add cream and sugar anyway, turn your decaf into a light and sweet syrup, and it gives you a headache.
You look for a DVD to watch but it isn’t in the case and you don’t know where the fuck you might have put it otherwise. Of course it’s a DVD with Billy, that’s what you want, you want to see him. You are so pathetic that you baffle yourself.
So you turn on some music instead and it’s nice, sets a good melancholy mood for the rest of your time at home. A comfortably subtle and poetic pain that is fun to sit in because you don’t take it too seriously. You curl up on the couch with your journal and write a little more, natter away on the feeling of the day, on the way the music is and the shabby light making the leaves outside darker. Matchbox 20 comes on and you write about how sometimes you think their lead singer is Elijah, and you wonder if Elijah had a band what type of music would they play, and what would Elijah do in it, and would he let you and Billy join. You’d like to be in a band with Billy and Elijah. You decide you would play bass guitar and Billy would play drums and Elijah would sing and play lead. So you and Billy could spend time behind Elijah putting rhythms and tempo together, building music, making things happen.
You get bored journaling and write down lyrics you think are pretty and meaningful as they come through your playlist. You wonder why they seem meaningful. It rains a little bit against the window glass in wide, lazy spatters. You try to write song lyrics but everything goes back to Billy. Billy Billy Billy. You could call before 9 and just face the charges; it isn’t like you don’t have the money. But the point is to wait, isn’t it? To prove you can wait. Which you can. Which you will. If it fucking kills you.
You pick up your mobile, scroll to Billy’s number and put it down again. You look at the clock. 3pm.
You wash up. You wash off the rest of “reality” and you re-write it as “cutlery” with the Sharpie you keep in the toothbrush holder for such reasons. And then you write “I’m lonely” on your palm. And then you write “and I want you” on your wrist, very small. And then you lift up your shirt and write “BILLY!” on your chest, long black letters, huge and heavy. They’re hard to write from this angle but you could probably write them in your sleep. You write his name on your arm, “BillyBillyBilly” marching from your elbow to your shoulder, and then you splatter it on other parts of yourself, on your thighs and your ankles, standing backwards on the rims of the toilet and the tub so you can see the small of your back in the mirror to write “billy” there in lower-case. You turn around to face the mirror, your skin an advert for Billy. Inside matching the outside. You look down at your hand and desire stabs you sharply in the guts. You meet your eyes in the mirror, wet and mobile like skinned grapes.
You get into the shower. Black ink swirls around your feet as you scrub the “Billy”s from your body. Halfway through the task all this talk of Billy makes you randy and you wank it, clutching your cock while your eyes roam over the memory of the man imprinted on your skin. Billy in New Zealand. Billy’s hands on your waist. Billy’s green eyes in a strobe light squint. You stare into space forgetfully until the water goes cold.
In your bedroom you fall asleep in your towel. You wake up in the dark, stiff and cold, your hair hopeless. The party started twenty minutes ago. Cursing Billy you hurry into jeans and a black T-shirt and boots. The morning’s melancholy hasn’t left you and so to make yourself feel better you get into a lot of jewelry, fastening chains around your wrists and neck, your cuffs and your watch, your rings. There’s something about having a ring on your thumb that makes you feel enclosed in your body. It’s an erotic feeling. You douse your hair and gel it, brush your teeth. You throw your mobile into the pocket of your leather jacket and race out the door, where the rain has stopped and the nighttime is beginning.
Your girlfriend is there. You didn’t know she would be. She slides her arm around you and you make the rounds of the party together, smiling in tandem. You drink and you watch the clock. It’s an early party and it’s only 7.35. You don’t know why people have early parties. Maybe they have people they can’t call til after 9 also, and the early party is better than tapping their feet and masturbating. Munching on a tasteless swab of guacamole, you think maybe it isn’t.
The party is boring but your girlfriend is happy. She makes you an accessory to her talking, leads you around for you to nod and joke and laugh. She’s pretty, isn’t she? And caring. She cares about you. It’s easy to tell and it’s apparent to everyone in the way she holds your hands in hers, the warm smiles she casts you as she brings you from person to person, the way she glows as she fetches you drinks. You think she would raise them to your lips if you let her. And yet she’s her own woman, independent, not about you simply because you’re a star. A lucking find is what she is, a good score.
You tell her you’re going to smoke. She doesn’t want to come. You’re relieved.
In the wan yellow light of the driveway you pull out your cigarettes and check your watch. It’s 8.59. The clock on your mobile is three minutes fast, making it 9.02 in your pocket. You don’t know if this counts as waiting. You decide you don’t care. You light your cigarette and have a drag. You thumb a path aggressively to Billy’s name and press the green phone button. You get in two long, thorough drags before it begins to ring.
“Oi.”
“Bills.”
“Dommie, hey! How is it, mate?” His voice is muffled and furry through the trans-Atlantic cellular connection. But it doesn’t stop your heart from squeezing itself through your throat and ramming into your brain, making you dizzy.
“Fine fine. At a party.”
“Fun?”
“Sure. Not really. I’m bored to shit. You?”
“I don’t get out, not lately.”
“You oughta get out out here. We’d really paint the town, Bills,” you intone informatively, like you’re telling him about the redwood forests. He coughs on the line and shuffles something.
“I’m too old for that shite. That’s New Zealand shite. Listen,” says Billy suddenly, “er, I don’t wanna be dick, but I can’t really talk now.”
“No?” you reply, a lame shake growing up in your voice.
“Yeah, no. I’ve got some company. Late running dinner party, I’m being a total tosser if I don’t see to them. Can I call you tomorrow? Or this weekend?”
“Sure, right. Not a problem really.”
“Great. You’re an easy boy to please, Dommie, don’t ever let that change. Right-o?”
“Right-o. Eh, bye, then.”
“See you, Dom. Real sorry, like. Ciao.”
A sudden thick silence lands in your ear. You pull the phone away. It says “call ended Billy.” You don’t like the idea of the call ending Billy, the idea of Billy being ended. You stare at your cigarette, half burned down. The cherry pulses softly against the nighttime. You close your eyes and feel your jewelry, feel your body under your clothes, feel the smoke in your mouth and neck. You hold your breath and try to hold the whole world perfectly still, frozen. The party gets suddenly louder. You let the world go back to turning and you go back inside.
Inside you drink more and talk more and hold hands more. Your girlfriend holds both your hands in both of hers. When she needs them she tucks them under her arms, and your palms and fingers find themselves holding her ribcage, feeling the fragility of her. You clutch her tightly and then when you want to move away you don’t. You have run out of time to count. You watch people disappear outside one by one, leaning into their mobile phones.
You ask your girlfriend if you can go home now.
She says yes and she comes with you. At home she goes to wash up in the bathroom. You go into the bedroom and take off all your stuff, coil the chains and leather back into the drawer where you keep them, line the rings on the edge of the dresser. You take your mobile from your pocket, plug it into the charger and hang up your jacket. You take off your T-shirt and your boots and your jeans, put everything away. You are a little drunk and very tired, worn by the waiting, worn by the wanting. You take off everything except your boxer shorts and fling yourself spread-eagle on the bed.
You’re in a pale yellow doze when your girlfriend comes in, her knees cracking, her feet unsettling boards across the wood floor. You hear her removing her clothes, probably putting them on the chair because that’s what she always does. Her high heels rattle hollowly as she toes them off. She crosses the floor, the boards groaning her approach, and the duvet sighs slightly as she tugs at it. You start a roll to get under the cover with her.
“Billy,” she says.
You open your eyes. You want to slap her for saying him, for laying claim to the vowels and consonants when his name in this bedroom is just for you. Then you feel her fingertips dancing lightly on the small of your back, and realization floods over you. Your skin burns. You imagine the writing there, worn away from the water but obviously still legible, patchy and black. billy.
“Billy,” she says again. You turn your head. She looks at you quizzically. She knows your habit, but generally you just write on your hands. Words written on the privacy of your body are a very different story to her eyes, to the worried set of her mouth. It’s up to you to assuage her. It’s up to you to say something.
So you say, “Yep,” and put your face back into the pillow.
“How did you write that there?” she asks.
“Mirror.”
“Oh.” She slides easily under the duvet. You get yourself under it without taking your face out of the pillow. The sheets are smooth and warming with the two of you. She shifts close, her feet caressing your calves, one of her thighs notching between your legs. A thin hot arm lands over your neck. She leans across you to turn out the light and one of her heavy breasts brushes your back. The dark behind your eyelids gets darker. She leans back, and her breath shifts the hair by your ear and makes you need to scratch. You feel claustrophobic. You feel the knife-sharp need for space.
There is a long silence.
“Why is his name there?” she asks simply, giving you room to avoid it if you want.
“Dunno. Was just thinking of him today.”
“How much today?”
“Today a little.”
“You think about him a lot,” she says.
“Sure I think about him a lot. He’s my best mate. Can we go to sleep?” You sigh and push away as if you’re annoyed, slipping from her weight and heat. The space is so welcome you almost sob. “I don’t want to talk about him. You’d think you were in love with him.”
“You’d think I was…” she says softly. If you were looking at her face you know it would be round with meaning, eyes bright. You open your eyes and look at the wall stained green with the gentle glow of the bedside clock.
“Listen. I’m straight. You know that. That’s why I’m in this bed with you. I hate these fucking rumors, and you too? Fuck’s sake, lady. Let it alone already.”
“Okay,” she whispers. She moves against you again and you have no place left to move. Her arms slip under and over you. Her skin is cool and she smells like soap and some fruity girl-thing. She kisses you on the back of the neck and for a moment her lips are too wet, too soft.
The quick black flash of a hallucinated demon shoots across the clock light on the wall.
They’re getting closer.
As her hand coils around your belly and subtly creeps for your cock, you whimper silently and close your eyes.
I just joined this community and am super-unsure of how to make LJ cuts work. So if this winds up being some horrendous nightmare, apologies in advance.
Fic: Demons
R
B/D
Old fic finding a new home (provided my computer skills don't fail me)
“Hunger is my native place in the land of passions…” Dag Hammarskjold
Today you think you see a cockroach run across the kitchen floor.
It’s also the day you’ve written “reality” on your hand in kitchy-neat lowercase, the “a” too big, with a hat on it.
It’s the morning after the night you thought you saw demons on the ceiling while you were making love to her.
And the morning you spill half the jug of Folgers, dropping it sleepily even though it’s 10.30, and you swear as the grinds spill out but then catch your breath when, lifting your leg from the damage, you see the perfect imprint of your right foot in the coffee. Toes and instep lay out in tile against the gritty black, solid, honest.
You journal and you wonder why your life makes so much more sense when you write it, and you experiment with tenses and points of view, and it all comes together. The coffee-spilling makes complete sense, utterly unlike the moment it happened when your morning mind was careless. You become obsessed with your handwriting, with the feel of the ballpoint pen against the paper, with the cursive that loops above and below the neat black lines of the page. You write past drive and comprehension just to watch yourself make letters.
You want to call Billy but your mobile is too expensive before 9pm, and right now it’s only 10.45.
So you do some yoga. You drag out the mat and try to center yourself, but your energy is all off and you keep finding excuses to stop. You sigh and twist around the forms. Your body protests as your spine elongates, as your arms turn, as your breath refuses to settle. Eventually you give it up and go smoke a cigarette on the fire escape, stepping around the place where the phantom cockroach ran.
On the fire escape it’s almost spring. Birds talk enthusiastically in the near-blooming trees and the air is cloudy and wet but warming. It’s a good day to be standing on the fire escape tasting cigarette smoke in the back of your tongue, slipping smoothness between your lips and out your nostrils. You don’t smoke very often. You started because your new girlfriend does it and you thought maybe if you did something she did she would think you love her. You’re not really sure if it’s fooling her anymore.
You want to call Billy, but it’s only 12.
You go back inside. You check your e-mail and it’s nothing new. You have some Raisin Bran for lunch. There are never enough raisins. You wonder if there’s any reason to leave the house today but can’t think of one. You address an envelope to Billy just to see your location and his clearly placed on the same piece of paper. To remind you how far away you are. Very far from the looks of it. You ball the envelope up and throw it away. You eat more Raisin Bran. Your frustration with the raisins leads you to eat some grapes for the satisfying burst of flavor and soft flesh. You finish off an entire bag of grapes, plucking them systematically from the stems until you have nothing but sticks in a wet plastic bag.
At 12.30 you jerk off in the bathroom. More or less by accident. You go to pee and while you’re there with your dick in your hand you decide what the hell. You stare into the toilet. You turn your head and stare into the mirror, stare at yourself. You have dark rings under your eyes even though you do plenty of sleeping. Your hair is a little messed up from touching it all morning, running your hand through it while you poorly avoided certain thoughts. You turn back to the task at hand. You think appropriately about your new girlfriend. You remember her mouth, hot and gentle and soft as it slid over your belly and your hips, how it carefully arranged itself over your cock. You think about how good it felt inside her mouth, how you thrust against her face and grunted, how she purred. You think about how you looked up at the ceiling and saw the demons around the lighting fixture, black swirling shapes, probably dragons. You were panicked that they might drop down into you, climb up through your exposed body and fly out your mouth with all the truths you’re keeping buried from the woman so lovingly trying to bring you to orgasm. You make yourself come in the present, the image of yourself half-tearfully curling away from her blinking in and out behind your eyelids.
You wipe up and have another cigarette.
You wonder why you aren’t with Billy if you love him so fucking much. If it’s that easy it should be that easy, shouldn’t it? Worlds away should be so what. Public heterosexuality should be so what. The times you hurt each other so badly you both bled for days, inside and out, should be so what. But they aren’t. Ironically what seem most meaningless now are the good times, the memories of before. They are summer memories, New Zealand memories that feel like heat and beach and exhaustion. You remember random phrases from books with the grit of sand in the pages. The memory of learning to surf still burns your calves and settles waves around your balance. And you remember Billy and Billy’s body hot and present and Billy growling and aroused. You remember Billy in the trailer and the hollow metal ruckus of knocking things to the ground in your frenzy for fucks or games. You remember being barefoot in sandy parking lots and the sun-heat of the tin steps through your pants, talking with Billy, shoulder to shoulder. You remember his laugh against flashes of light. These memories fit against your brain like a wetsuit, tight and sufficient. You look at the back of your hand. You think about Zen and remind yourself that desires are inexhaustible. Want Billy all you want, it’s not going to make any fucking difference to reality.
You lick your thumb and wipe the word off your hand.
You make more coffee, stamping and growling to scare the cockroach. You think you see phantom shapes everywhere, sliding behind you when your back is turned. You decide to make decaf.
Your mobile rings and it isn’t him but you answer anyway. You get invited to an early party. You’re glad for an excuse to go out.
The decaf is light and tastes careless on your tongue. You hallucinate lots of little things while you make it, and you decide today is going to be a day of hallucinations, and you resign yourself to that. You add cream and sugar anyway, turn your decaf into a light and sweet syrup, and it gives you a headache.
You look for a DVD to watch but it isn’t in the case and you don’t know where the fuck you might have put it otherwise. Of course it’s a DVD with Billy, that’s what you want, you want to see him. You are so pathetic that you baffle yourself.
So you turn on some music instead and it’s nice, sets a good melancholy mood for the rest of your time at home. A comfortably subtle and poetic pain that is fun to sit in because you don’t take it too seriously. You curl up on the couch with your journal and write a little more, natter away on the feeling of the day, on the way the music is and the shabby light making the leaves outside darker. Matchbox 20 comes on and you write about how sometimes you think their lead singer is Elijah, and you wonder if Elijah had a band what type of music would they play, and what would Elijah do in it, and would he let you and Billy join. You’d like to be in a band with Billy and Elijah. You decide you would play bass guitar and Billy would play drums and Elijah would sing and play lead. So you and Billy could spend time behind Elijah putting rhythms and tempo together, building music, making things happen.
You get bored journaling and write down lyrics you think are pretty and meaningful as they come through your playlist. You wonder why they seem meaningful. It rains a little bit against the window glass in wide, lazy spatters. You try to write song lyrics but everything goes back to Billy. Billy Billy Billy. You could call before 9 and just face the charges; it isn’t like you don’t have the money. But the point is to wait, isn’t it? To prove you can wait. Which you can. Which you will. If it fucking kills you.
You pick up your mobile, scroll to Billy’s number and put it down again. You look at the clock. 3pm.
You wash up. You wash off the rest of “reality” and you re-write it as “cutlery” with the Sharpie you keep in the toothbrush holder for such reasons. And then you write “I’m lonely” on your palm. And then you write “and I want you” on your wrist, very small. And then you lift up your shirt and write “BILLY!” on your chest, long black letters, huge and heavy. They’re hard to write from this angle but you could probably write them in your sleep. You write his name on your arm, “BillyBillyBilly” marching from your elbow to your shoulder, and then you splatter it on other parts of yourself, on your thighs and your ankles, standing backwards on the rims of the toilet and the tub so you can see the small of your back in the mirror to write “billy” there in lower-case. You turn around to face the mirror, your skin an advert for Billy. Inside matching the outside. You look down at your hand and desire stabs you sharply in the guts. You meet your eyes in the mirror, wet and mobile like skinned grapes.
You get into the shower. Black ink swirls around your feet as you scrub the “Billy”s from your body. Halfway through the task all this talk of Billy makes you randy and you wank it, clutching your cock while your eyes roam over the memory of the man imprinted on your skin. Billy in New Zealand. Billy’s hands on your waist. Billy’s green eyes in a strobe light squint. You stare into space forgetfully until the water goes cold.
In your bedroom you fall asleep in your towel. You wake up in the dark, stiff and cold, your hair hopeless. The party started twenty minutes ago. Cursing Billy you hurry into jeans and a black T-shirt and boots. The morning’s melancholy hasn’t left you and so to make yourself feel better you get into a lot of jewelry, fastening chains around your wrists and neck, your cuffs and your watch, your rings. There’s something about having a ring on your thumb that makes you feel enclosed in your body. It’s an erotic feeling. You douse your hair and gel it, brush your teeth. You throw your mobile into the pocket of your leather jacket and race out the door, where the rain has stopped and the nighttime is beginning.
Your girlfriend is there. You didn’t know she would be. She slides her arm around you and you make the rounds of the party together, smiling in tandem. You drink and you watch the clock. It’s an early party and it’s only 7.35. You don’t know why people have early parties. Maybe they have people they can’t call til after 9 also, and the early party is better than tapping their feet and masturbating. Munching on a tasteless swab of guacamole, you think maybe it isn’t.
The party is boring but your girlfriend is happy. She makes you an accessory to her talking, leads you around for you to nod and joke and laugh. She’s pretty, isn’t she? And caring. She cares about you. It’s easy to tell and it’s apparent to everyone in the way she holds your hands in hers, the warm smiles she casts you as she brings you from person to person, the way she glows as she fetches you drinks. You think she would raise them to your lips if you let her. And yet she’s her own woman, independent, not about you simply because you’re a star. A lucking find is what she is, a good score.
You tell her you’re going to smoke. She doesn’t want to come. You’re relieved.
In the wan yellow light of the driveway you pull out your cigarettes and check your watch. It’s 8.59. The clock on your mobile is three minutes fast, making it 9.02 in your pocket. You don’t know if this counts as waiting. You decide you don’t care. You light your cigarette and have a drag. You thumb a path aggressively to Billy’s name and press the green phone button. You get in two long, thorough drags before it begins to ring.
“Oi.”
“Bills.”
“Dommie, hey! How is it, mate?” His voice is muffled and furry through the trans-Atlantic cellular connection. But it doesn’t stop your heart from squeezing itself through your throat and ramming into your brain, making you dizzy.
“Fine fine. At a party.”
“Fun?”
“Sure. Not really. I’m bored to shit. You?”
“I don’t get out, not lately.”
“You oughta get out out here. We’d really paint the town, Bills,” you intone informatively, like you’re telling him about the redwood forests. He coughs on the line and shuffles something.
“I’m too old for that shite. That’s New Zealand shite. Listen,” says Billy suddenly, “er, I don’t wanna be dick, but I can’t really talk now.”
“No?” you reply, a lame shake growing up in your voice.
“Yeah, no. I’ve got some company. Late running dinner party, I’m being a total tosser if I don’t see to them. Can I call you tomorrow? Or this weekend?”
“Sure, right. Not a problem really.”
“Great. You’re an easy boy to please, Dommie, don’t ever let that change. Right-o?”
“Right-o. Eh, bye, then.”
“See you, Dom. Real sorry, like. Ciao.”
A sudden thick silence lands in your ear. You pull the phone away. It says “call ended Billy.” You don’t like the idea of the call ending Billy, the idea of Billy being ended. You stare at your cigarette, half burned down. The cherry pulses softly against the nighttime. You close your eyes and feel your jewelry, feel your body under your clothes, feel the smoke in your mouth and neck. You hold your breath and try to hold the whole world perfectly still, frozen. The party gets suddenly louder. You let the world go back to turning and you go back inside.
Inside you drink more and talk more and hold hands more. Your girlfriend holds both your hands in both of hers. When she needs them she tucks them under her arms, and your palms and fingers find themselves holding her ribcage, feeling the fragility of her. You clutch her tightly and then when you want to move away you don’t. You have run out of time to count. You watch people disappear outside one by one, leaning into their mobile phones.
You ask your girlfriend if you can go home now.
She says yes and she comes with you. At home she goes to wash up in the bathroom. You go into the bedroom and take off all your stuff, coil the chains and leather back into the drawer where you keep them, line the rings on the edge of the dresser. You take your mobile from your pocket, plug it into the charger and hang up your jacket. You take off your T-shirt and your boots and your jeans, put everything away. You are a little drunk and very tired, worn by the waiting, worn by the wanting. You take off everything except your boxer shorts and fling yourself spread-eagle on the bed.
You’re in a pale yellow doze when your girlfriend comes in, her knees cracking, her feet unsettling boards across the wood floor. You hear her removing her clothes, probably putting them on the chair because that’s what she always does. Her high heels rattle hollowly as she toes them off. She crosses the floor, the boards groaning her approach, and the duvet sighs slightly as she tugs at it. You start a roll to get under the cover with her.
“Billy,” she says.
You open your eyes. You want to slap her for saying him, for laying claim to the vowels and consonants when his name in this bedroom is just for you. Then you feel her fingertips dancing lightly on the small of your back, and realization floods over you. Your skin burns. You imagine the writing there, worn away from the water but obviously still legible, patchy and black. billy.
“Billy,” she says again. You turn your head. She looks at you quizzically. She knows your habit, but generally you just write on your hands. Words written on the privacy of your body are a very different story to her eyes, to the worried set of her mouth. It’s up to you to assuage her. It’s up to you to say something.
So you say, “Yep,” and put your face back into the pillow.
“How did you write that there?” she asks.
“Mirror.”
“Oh.” She slides easily under the duvet. You get yourself under it without taking your face out of the pillow. The sheets are smooth and warming with the two of you. She shifts close, her feet caressing your calves, one of her thighs notching between your legs. A thin hot arm lands over your neck. She leans across you to turn out the light and one of her heavy breasts brushes your back. The dark behind your eyelids gets darker. She leans back, and her breath shifts the hair by your ear and makes you need to scratch. You feel claustrophobic. You feel the knife-sharp need for space.
There is a long silence.
“Why is his name there?” she asks simply, giving you room to avoid it if you want.
“Dunno. Was just thinking of him today.”
“How much today?”
“Today a little.”
“You think about him a lot,” she says.
“Sure I think about him a lot. He’s my best mate. Can we go to sleep?” You sigh and push away as if you’re annoyed, slipping from her weight and heat. The space is so welcome you almost sob. “I don’t want to talk about him. You’d think you were in love with him.”
“You’d think I was…” she says softly. If you were looking at her face you know it would be round with meaning, eyes bright. You open your eyes and look at the wall stained green with the gentle glow of the bedside clock.
“Listen. I’m straight. You know that. That’s why I’m in this bed with you. I hate these fucking rumors, and you too? Fuck’s sake, lady. Let it alone already.”
“Okay,” she whispers. She moves against you again and you have no place left to move. Her arms slip under and over you. Her skin is cool and she smells like soap and some fruity girl-thing. She kisses you on the back of the neck and for a moment her lips are too wet, too soft.
The quick black flash of a hallucinated demon shoots across the clock light on the wall.
They’re getting closer.
As her hand coils around your belly and subtly creeps for your cock, you whimper silently and close your eyes.