bad habit - K

You had agreed not to do it. Not even to talk about it, because that's how bad it fucking was. Practically shook on it, like proper gentlemen. You had worked so hard. You both knew that. It was rough as hell, but you were clean now, and wasn't that something to be proud of?

You thought he was proud of you, too. Not outright, but in his own way. You were strong enough to come back to him, and you didn't need him anymore, and you thought maybe that made him want you worse than ever.

It had been going great, too. You admit, you doubted your choice at first, and so did everyone else. Maybe you had the willpower when you were on your couch watching Scrubs in your boxers, but what would happen when you were under his cold weight with his mouth on your throat? When he was fucking you and it was instinct for you both and one little jerk of his head or yours would split your skin like an overstressed seam?

You thought about it a lot and tried not to. You tucked it into a corner with all those other things you didn't much like about yourself, and eventually you decided you'd be okay. You couldn't control him, of course, but sometimes you have to take chances.

He handled it better than you figured he would. You think part of it was that you didn't come sniveling back, crawling and begging and pawing at him like a neglected puppy. You were non-fucking-chalant, because so what if he turned you away again? It wouldn't be a big deal this time. It's just that you thought about him sometimes and maybe there was something else there.

He left your neck alone. You both navigated that trigger like perfect, gun-shy little pacifists, and it wasn't a problem.

Except now he's heavy on top of you, Michelangelo's David turned pliant and purposeful, and you can feel his teeth. You don't know why. Maybe this is one of his cruel streaks, but it's probably something worse. Worse because he's inside you as he scrapes those fucking needle teeth across your sweaty skin. Because he's holding your arms down against the bed like you're a toddler in danger of a tantrum. Mostly, it's worse because your dick is so hard it's actually starting to hurt and your pulse is about to burst every damn vein in your neck in a really sickening display that will probably make you pass out.

You suck down air like you might never get another chance. "Stop! Seriously, Bran, fucking stop!" You can still bend your elbows, and you do to grab his upper arms. You dig your fingers in close to his armpits. You're not above begging right now. "Please! Are you even fucking listening to me? Please!"

He's listening to you. You knew that already, but he thrusts his hips up and moves inside you and you know it a little better. The fact that he's still fucking you is more than you can stand.

"You're still thinking about it," he says against your wild heart rate. "I have to get it off your mind."

It's working, because you'd forgotten about it until now. It was over a week ago. You were on your way to a party, one of those business things he goes to sometimes, but you got a little lost down around Prospect Avenue where the streets are narrow and the shop fronts crowd together like bad teeth. You'd argued on the phone about him coming the one or two blocks after you, coming to lead you by the hand back to the twelve dollar drinks and shmoozing suits, and you might've hung up on him.

You were going back the way you came, retracing your steps down 39th where most of the windows were already dark. That's where you ran into her--some skinny asshole in an acid-wash vest and a pair of TOMS so spotless they glowed in the dark. There was something desperate in the quick movement of her eyes as they slid over you, then scouted the quiet street, then back to you. You thought she wanted to mug you, which would have been fine, because you were pretty sure you could break her in half, but her stare locked under your chin, and you really should've known better.

She grabbed you by the lapels of the navy blazer he made you buy for tonight (because you dress like a slob, honestly, and cut your hair before you show up) and shoved you up against the corner of 39th Burgers and Bottles. She was too strong for her skinny arms, and you threw some solid punches, but you were never much good against vampires. The brick dug into your spine and she was on you like a bad stench, crawling her bony fingers into your hair and over your arm.  A couple people passed on the sidewalk, and you shouted at them, but they crossed the street and pretended not to notice you. You guess you didn't blame them, but this girl was on her toes, muttering into your clavicle that you might as well shut up, and all your thrashing was doing was tearing up that expensive blazer.

It didn't matter who she was, really. What mattered was her teeth. The fact that she wanted to use them. You'd told yourself so many times that you were over this, but you'd never been this close to getting opened up again. You slid to one side. Flattened yourself against the brick and dragged your palms across it, hoping the roughness would be enough to snap you out of the breathless anticipation you were working yourself toward. It wasn't. Her lips crossed your pulse and you were fucking hyperventilating. Your face was flushed with heat and your body seized up to wait for it, because you hadn't exactly forgotten the feeling. The tingling, white-hot rush.

Just when you shut your eyes, he showed up. The most impossible white knight grabbing her round the neck with both hands and wrenching her off you. She crashed into the bar next door with a shrill yelp and a mist of brick dust, and he followed. She didn't have time to get up. You couldn't see anything, because you were too busy pitching forward onto the sidewalk, too busy clutching your neck like you were wounded and probably having a panic attack. But you heard the blows. The crunching. You heard the smack of his fist get wet as the seconds wore on, and you heard her pleading wear itself into thick sobbing and unintelligible whining and finally silence. You're pretty sure he killed her, but you never asked.

He helped you up. You were a mess. It was pretty embarrassing, actually. You remember wanting to sink into him, to pull at his shirt until the buttons popped off and beg him to do the very thing he'd just saved you from. You touched him a lot. You were shaking. He took you home and tried to comfort you and calm you down and didn't even say anything about your ruined clothes.

You wish you didn't know what he was talking about, but you do. You have thought about it. You've had dreams about it, and he knows because he sleeps next to you. He can feel you get tense in the early morning hours. He can see you sweat and track the quick beat of your heart.

"Stop," you say again, knowing. Knowing that, if he does this, you'll be his again. Completely. Not like now, not legitimately and consensually. Like before. Like a mewling wretch ready to suck his cock on command for that sweet sting at your throat. You almost think you might be okay with that, and that's the scariest part of all. Like someone else's thoughts in your head. That part of you you hoped you'd exorcised.

He rolls his body into yours and rolls his tongue across your skin. You're craning your neck, which really isn't the best way to prove you don't want this, and your toes clench in the sheets. You say his name. You say please, but now you're not sure if it's please don't or please do, and neither is he. He could at least finish getting you off so you could stop thinking with your dick.

The room is too hot. The sheets are sticking to you and your neck feels absolutely raw, one big, exposed nerve, and there he goes tonguing it like an overzealous prom date. But the sound shuddering past your lips is hardly disapproving, and you dig your heels into the mattress to press yourself against him.

You were wrong. Everyone was right and you were wrong, because his teeth are cutting into your throat, two fat needles loaded with the worst heroin you never stopped wanting. Your whole body is on fire and your short nails are tearing open his arms, blood that isn't yours, for a change, and he's crouched over you and fucking you in earnest as he smears his mouth across the wounds he made.

You're dizzy. Your neck throbs so hard it's giving you a headache and you can't even hear yourself moaning over the sound of your heart in your ears. You're coming, making a slick mess between your stomachs that he smears haphazardly as he arches down against you. You can feel him sucking. You're dying. His name is a litany and you can't stop, and you really wish he'd let go of your arms so you could get your nails into something more satisfying.

He's getting blood all over your throat and all over his face. Your blood, like warpaint. You're raw inside where he's still thrusting, and he pushes his teeth through again, and a third time, and you're pleading with him because it's too much and you can't come again and your body doesn't know what the fuck to do.

He grabs your hair and wrenches your head back and you can finally use your hand for something other than wanton clawing. His skin is under your nails, and his blood, and you push against his chest with the heel of your palm like it's going to accomplish something. He's getting frantic. He draws deep from your neck and you think he might turn your veins inside out, and he buries himself inside you and throws his head back. He looks like some pale god, violence-fed, and he finishes inside you with a shudder that can't compare to the tremors in your own limbs.

You don't want him to move. You want him to stay just like that, stooped over you, watching you bleed out onto the pillow until you die. You're exhausted. Wrecked. He's fucking ruined you, and you wonder if he's even sorry. He looks down at you, but you can't read his face, and you're going to fall apart again.

He pulls out of you and you feel it everywhere. He stops tugging your hair so hard. You want to sit up and punch him so that you break his nose, but your hand only makes it halfway to his face before he grabs your wrist to stop it.

"Fuck you," you say unsteadily. You're still bleeding. "Fuck you, godfuckingdamnit--"

He kisses you, and it's soft, but you know that, no, he isn't sorry. He takes away his weight. Leans into the sheets beside you and isn't harping about the mess like you're used to. He puts an arm around you instead and pulls you in against his chest. You want to turn away from him, because you're angry and you can feel that pool of hopelessness gathering in your gut, but he's still your safe harbour. It's so much easier to turn on your side and fold in against him. It makes you sick to think you might love him enough to stagger through this a second time.

want - E

i want a smile, one that slowly melts to show me the passion holding you to this moment.

i want your fingertips to brush against my midsection, the gentle kiss of skin upon skin.

i want to feel you tremble.

i want your nerves like i want your touch like i want your heart.

i want to slip my arms up over your shoulders, to arch my back. i want my movements to be imperceptibly subtle, every touch and gasp and little motion part of the subconscious effort to pull you against me.

i want your breath, ragged and hot on my temple, my ear.

i want your hunger like i want your resolve.

i want those lips pressed tenderly behind my jaw, along my neck, upon my collarbone. i want each kiss to carry a current that tesla would envy.

i want your hands on me. i want your curiosity, too. i want the lightest touch of your fingertips as much as i want you pressed against my body. as much as i want you to pin me to the wall.

i want more, more, more of your touch. more of you meeting more of me. i want you to explore me.

i want to see your face flush, feel your heart race. i want you to nearly burst at the seams.

i want to be dizzy drunk on the smell of you, on the rich, barely traceable scent climbing up your chest and escaping over that top button.

i want to peer into your eyes and know that you want me the same way.

i want your gaze like i want your desire like i want you.

above everything else, i want you.

it has to be you, or it doesn't mean anything.

with anyone else, it would just be the motions. another rehearsal for the real thing.

i want our lips to finally meet, and i want it to blow my goddamn mind like nothing else ever has.

divination, part i - E

Meera gives the man in the soiled tunic fifty dolse.

He hesitates a moment, long enough to feel the weight of the coins in his grubby palm and determine their approximate value and authenticity. He seems satisfied, and produces a lumpy sack from the underside of his cart. Like him, it smells of earth and moss.

She slings it over her shoulder with the others. Today, the market was quite kind. On her back she carries salted meats, as well as onions, potatoes, and carrots.  She will make a stew with these, one she hopes will last for several days. While her foraging has been prosperous, her business has not.

Meera makes her way through the thinning crowd. She knows that the best time to haggle and beg is when the merchants are closing their stalls, packing their stock, leaving for home. Dusk is when old stock is cycled out, and if the gods are good then she might come into some slightly old beef. The gods are not often good to Meera.

As she leaves the market, Meera stops to let a wagon by. It is a rich family, she can tell. Some of the middle caste. A butcher's brood, maybe, or a mason's. Meera sees this in their clothes, their skin, the language of their hands and faces. A stocky man with great big forearms drives the cart, guiding the reins in his young son's hands. In the cart bed, his small brother dozes in the lap of a fair faced woman, who keeps watch over their packed wares as well. Meera sees this, and remembers.

She remembers a lifetime ago, how she taught the little girl at her side how to mend cloth. A beautiful girl, with long black hair like her own, and eyes as brown and rich and deep as the swelling waters of the Lykanse when the rains come. A little girl with a mind like a knife, quick to carve knowledge and understanding from mystery. A sweet girl with a ravenous curiosity, even as her eyelids fluttered helplessly against sleep as she lay her head in Meera's aproned lap.

Meera remembers, and she feels nothing. She is aware of the sensation in her heart-- a hollow feeling, as empty and brittle as her old woman's bones --but it is not surprising to her. Not upsetting. To Meera, it is simply the state of her existence. It stretches vastly before her, into tomorrow, into next week, into all the years to come. She will travel in an endless arc across the sky toward it, over an eternal wasteland, until she sinks into the twilight horizon and is taken by the night.

It is all-encompassing.

It simply is.

Meera makes her way through the market and out into the blocks of the middle caste. There, candlelight spills into the street in slats. She imagines each open doorway makes a ladder rung, part of a great ladder carrying her down to her home in the slums.

This section of the city has been named many things over many decades, and for many reasons. The people know it now as the Blind Quarter. It has been said that this is because of the many seers and charlatans who end up there. Some believe it is named for the milky-eyed beggars who are known to seek shelter there. To Meera, it seems an appropriate name, as most seem to pretend the quarter does not exist at all. The Blind Eye Quarter.

To Meera, this is fine. It allows her to carry on her divination in solitude. The weight of prestige no longer fetters her progress. Business has ceased to impede her work.

The food, she stores carefully in the main room.

The earthen sack, she carries to the cellar.

the way to a man's heart - K

(context: Micah McQuistan, a vampire; Johnny Ray Maxwell, his boyfriend)

It was an accident. The force of habit.  When he made the strawberry-rhubarb pie, one of his best, he wasn't thinking.  He hit up his ma's place, got the strawberries and the rhubarb stalks from her garden.  Stewed them, added the nutmeg, the cinnamon.  A little crystallized ginger for something extra.  Rolled out the crusts and tried his hand at a lattice-top, and it wasn't the prettiest thing in the world, but that was all right.  It was more fitting that way, rustic.  Like him.  Anyway, he always said it didn't matter so much how a thing looked so long as it tasted good.  You just might have to trick people into eating it.

But now Johnny Ray was kicking himself.  How could he have forgotten something so important?  Again, he supposed it was habit.  He was so used to cooking for Micah, having the boy try every little thing, tell him what it needed, that he didn't stop to think twice about the pie.  It didn't hit him until he brought it to the table when Micah came over that night and the pale boy's expression sank like a stone down to the riverbed.  Right.  They'd had this conversation already.  That night Micah came over and "surprised" him--and it was quite a surprise--he offered to get into the kitchen, make something up to try and placate Micah's hunger, but he didn't understand it.  It had to be explained.  No food.  None, not even celery, and even if he could keep it down, it wouldn't put a dent in that new-found hunger.  No drinks, either--except the obvious.  No more cocktails or wine coolers or Johnny trying to get him on beer.  No milkshakes or cappuccinos, no biscuits, no scrambled eggs, no skillets.  And definitely no pie.

Johnny stared at Micah across the table, fumbling for something to say, some way to take it back.  The pie sat in the middle of the table, and the whole kitchen smelled of it--fresh sweetness and summer air.  What an eyesore it had suddenly become, that painstakingly laid pastry crisscrossing violently red, glistening filling.  A poor attempt to hide the strawberry gore.  The sugar dusted over the top glittered like shattered glass, and Micah made a point of not looking.  It was okay, he said.  Johnny just forgot--no big deal, and did he wanna go watch a movie or something?  But it wasn't okay.  Johnny could see that Micah's eyes were wet, going pink at the corners.

Johnny wrung his hands, looking past Micah across the kitchen counters, thinking, searching.  Then he spied it.  "You know--you know, I bet it's no good anyhow.  I think I fudged it up, cooked the filling too long.  And I was always terrible at crusts, real dry and tasteless."

He moved across the kitchen and grabbed the salt shaker he had his eye on.  Plucked the bottle of tabasco from the back of the stove and came back to the table, and before Micah could ask what he was doing, Johnny upended both over the top of the pie.  The salt sprinkled down like tiny snow, indistinguishable from the crystals of sugar, and the tabasco too was masked by its hue. 

"I think I added too much salt, too."  Johnny unscrewed the cap with his thumb, and a whole shaker's worth landed in a messy pile in the middle of the pie.  He spread it around with a finger and kept at the tabasco, splashing the white with orange.  "And who the hell puts hot sauce in a pie, right?  Lord, I'm probably about the worst pie-maker you ever laid eyes on."

Micah stared up at him, confused.  Maybe a little worried, because it seemed very much like his boyfriend had just lost it.  As a final touch, Johnny took the sauce bottle and pushed it down into the middle of the pie, sending salted strawberry ooze up through the spaces in the crust.  Then he met Micah's eyes.

"Damn awful.  Completely.  Can't even stomach lookin' at it.  You must be ashamed to call me yours."

And Micah laughed.  His eyes were still a little red, and Johnny knew things still weren't really okay on a grander scale, but he felt the tension break, the tragedy give.  He wouldn't make this mistake again, wouldn't hurt Micah like this for no damn reason. 

"Yeah, you are pretty terrible.  Should probably go back to Paula Deen for another lesson or two."  Micah was grinning now, and Johnny knew that hard moment had passed.  "Come on, you'd better make it up to me for this wreck."

Micah got up and took Johnny's hand, tugging him around the table and toward the other room.  Johnny tossed the salt shaker over his shoulder, and it landed with a moist smack on the ruined pie.

cynical - E

sometimes, i wonder what people think of themselves. the way i see myself moving through the world, the performance from my view is probably nothing like what everyone else sees. does this chick see herself as a humanitarian? does that guy really think he's all that funny? are people really that naive? no, i figure they're not oblivious-- there's always a keen eye for the faults of others, cracks in the character, missed lines. how can people have such a blind spot for the self, i wonder?

like this guy, Andy. he's got a cocked eye and a cocked face, like he's never entirely done smirking. like he knows some secret about you, or the nearest person, or the world but he won't talk about it. he sits across from me now, his peanut of a head taking the ballroom of the elk's lodge in at a forty-five degree angle, wearing a short-sleeved yellow dress shirt and khakis. they still have the creases from where they sat on store shelves this morning. he sits just a little too close, hunching forward on a metal folding chair with an elbow on the table between us. his breath is cheap champagne. i use my merlot as a sort of shield, an excuse to pull my body back a little from him while i sip it. he's talking between my nods and uh-huhs, and he's telling me about his job, and he's telling me about his friend who works for some video game company, and how he was kicked out of his university. we met once, six or seven years ago when i was a young teenager. he was grabbing for power in a tabletop roleplaying game, and my older brother was letting me watch.

one big power grab, is the vibe i get from this guy. making his life out to be one big struggle for him to reach the top. i'm his captive audience. i wish i'd not been polite, not said "hello" the fifth time he hovered past my table glancing sideways at me, i wish i'd not recognized him at all, but hey, i've got a thing for faces and names and being polite and all we can do is be ourselves right? right. and it's my brother's wedding, and the less awkward things are for everyone, the better the whole affair is. so i make nice.

and that cocked eye of his, that hunched posture, it makes him look like igor. the only thing i can think of is asking him to fetch another body for my next experiment. i don't ask him this, of course. i just repeat the last thing he said like i understand, or care. but i think of it, of him as igor. i think, given the opportunity, he would make friends with the publisher who published the story of frankenstein, and suggest some changes, and before you'd know it we'd have mary shelley's "Igor", the tale of a man whose genius was overlooked for someone less talented but more genial, the story of a guy who overcame and rose to the top in spite of being disliked and unsightly.

and i think to myself that maybe i'm being too harsh about this judgment.

"oh? so you said you were his friend, and then...ahh, they just had you skip that interview then? mm."

we share a laugh about it. it's good to know people in high places, he says.

a power grab. a climber. going places, he feels. does he know what he sounds like? do other people know what he sounds like? the next thing to come to mind is the word "deluded". i wonder if everyone thinks of themselves as something more than they actually are. i wonder how many of us wear these puffed-up caricatures of ourselves to be validated by others. i wonder how many of us are actors-- i wonder how many of us who don't think of ourselves as actors are acting more than we realize.

i wonder if critics get a bye on this sort of thing.

i excuse myself for a second glass of merlot.

how elle got her groove back - E

it stares me down with that enormous glassy eye. i know it can sense my fear, perhaps smell and taste it in the air-- there's plenty of it to be detected, after all. it pierces my soul, pins me where i stand with that volcanic glass jettatura. from somewhere deep in my brain, echoing from some ancient part of it we had when we weren't human, a primal, haunting, chilling instinct grips me. as cold and dark as the depths of the ocean womb, it engulfs me, pervasive and paralyzing. "it hungers."


alt title: i actually took the time to post this on facebook about someone's gargantuan pet rabbit and felt bad about not being a productive blogger. - G

butcher - E

Sometimes, I think of you.

Mostly, I don't, and I think you'd like it that way. But sometimes I do.

I put down the metal edge, wipe my brow and fail to keep from smudging my face. I breathe out, and before I can even admire my work you're there again. I can't let my guard down for a damn second with you. Your elbows rest on my shoulders, your arms drape themselves gently around my neck. Your hands feel my heart beat where it hides in my chest. There's that smell again, like lilac and lavender ground freshly together, dried, burned. I catch from the corner of my eye that wry little smile of yours twisted up at one end, the little smirk that captivated me until I knew what it meant.

All I can do is cover it all up. It smears everywhere, all up my sleeves and over the pages-- it's so reflexive and so fast that I almost knock the pen away. I pause, hovering between anger and bewilderment, sifting through the paper to see what's been undone. I breathe. The rushing sound drains away from my ears, and I'm alone again.

Mostly, I don't think of you, and I like it that way.

But sometimes I do.