"I could leave you, Chris."
Standing in the cemetary, with no shoes -- corpses used to wear no shoes, because the walrus is dead, Paul... leaving doesn't seem like much of an option. And where could I go? Where could I go that wouldn't be here and would still have his face?
I don't have children. I don't have anything. I could find myself a nice little girl, like the one that gave me a tattoo last week -- and I still feel him biting my flesh.
Chris brings me back to the present.
"You wouldn't."
Leave? Oh yes I would. I'm crazy.
Or, maybe I wouldn't. I feel pretty off today, but not enough that I'm licking pavement, or. Just not wearing shoes. That's what I am.
My lover -- yes, he's my lover because I love him, and we're fucking -- has a sad little pout. He doesn't get me anymore.
I want to kiss it better, but I'm wracked with fear, so strong and so ram-rod straight through my spine that I can't move, can barely breathe. Is today the day one of us leaves. Each day, each day we don't die, is the day the town might swallow us, or him, or me, in a better life.
The moment passes, and I relax, crouch down in the grass.
I wonder what Gary's wearing right now. Whether he still likes Pokemon. I think that Vern, he's gonna have to die, now. Or, well. Adebisi killed him. So he's gonna have to die again.
Die again. What kind of a world is this? I giggle. "Don't worry, Chris baby. I love you, remember?" His face never turns that shade of red when I say it seriously, and so I say it again. Seriously. "I love you."
I badly need to hear-- "I love you, Toby."
Oh, thank you, Allah. Thank you Jesus. I know you don't support homosexuals, and we *could* get someone else here, now that we're not locked up like animals, but.
But, but, but.
"But I still want to do something tonight. Maybe-- hunt a vampire. I want to fuck over Vern." Let's do it.
He says quietly, "Okay, baby. Whatever you want. I'll take care of you."
I don't need taking care of, not mostly, but it's nice to know he would. And that he does, in those moments that I *need*. And I take care of him, when I can, when he'll let me. It's more often, now that no one's looking at us all the time... but still not often enough.
What if he doesn't need me enough to stay?
I do love him, deep down; there's an umbilical cord that goes straight from the base of my spine straight to his. Or his cock. I can't remember how to show him that I love him, maybe, on the surface, sometimes, but somewhere inside, I remember.
I pick a piece of grass, and start chewing thoughtfully. "Say. You think Spike's gonna kill anything again?"
Chris shakes his head slowly. "No, baby. I think-- he's not. No. Fucker can't kill."
I get caught in his gaze, and stand up to kiss him. But. I find my hands trailing little-- patterns, down his arms and chest, finding a nipple through a thin teeshirt. I wonder. Could I rip this shirt off, give him a blowjob, and--
Oooh. A blowjob.
I take the buckle of his belt in my fingers, and slowly undo his pants. He gasps, and closes his eyes, whispering, "Toby--"
Toby, indeed, boy.
I lick and suck. I dance and spin. I communicate with my mouth and his cock. I find-- peace, of a sort, and almost forget about my children, with him moaning above me. I could die, here, I think, and almost wish I do.
But he comes, messily, and I swallow, and he's moaning still, hand stroking through my hair lovingly, trying not to pull chunks of it out. I wouldn't mind, Chris, please, do it if you want to, take what you want... it's not like I need it, and anything you need, just ask, and I'd do it.
His breathing finally slows, teeth snap apart. My hands are resting on his hips, cheek against his thigh, smelling him. Just-- smelling.
He says sofly, "Baby, I love you. And I mean that. I'm not just-- just."
I stand up, let him do his pants up on his own, and then put myself in his arms, wrap his arms and legs around me as we lean on this crypt. I put my nose in his chest. I make sure that the only thing I can see is his teeshirt and his skin and his soul and his blind indifference.
This is the only place I can feel whole, I think, and smell his cinnamon, cling onto him hard enough that he can't let go without shoving me away.
And though he's frustrated, I know, he doesn't let go, all through his conversation with O'Reily. I don't feel like looking at O'Reily tonight; he has all sorts of nasty things hanging around his head lately. The cunt Dru was right about that.
And I'm having an off-night.
I stroke my cheek against Chris -- Chris, lover, even your name is holy -- slowly, nuzzling his neck, feeling him underneath me and over top of me and all around me, while he talks shop. O'Reily asks about me, once, and Chris doesn't give him much of a reply. Whatever, right?
I keep chewing on the grass in my mouth, and digging my fingers in his side. He's got an arm draped on me casually -- and I know he can't show me how he loves me because he's frustrated, and I don't-- I'm too much to handle.
Tomorrow, I think, I'll stay out of the house and leave him alone.
O'Reily leaves.
Chris keeps his arm around me, wraps the other one around as well, and I remember a time, only once, when he asked me not to let go. I couldn't do it, but there were other circumstances at work. He's better than me. He's got his hands clasped so tight, it's all I can do to breath. I think, maybe this time, I'll die happy...
But I haven't died yet.
And then, there's a howl far off, and someone's out hunting again. I look up at Chris's face, and he looks afraid.
"Why don't we go inside?"
I nuzzle the scar on his chest that I know is there, and look up to see the reaction. He gets a look of pain, and torn, and such *LOSS* that I catch a sob in my throat.
Then I slip out of his arms and slink away. I know he'll follow me, at least for now, because we're both going. Home. And if he didn't, who would keep their arms around me and away from everyone else?
~
In the dark, you almost look like a normal person again. Even though that
head of your never was screwed on straight.
It's not so far from me to you.
I'm walking around after putting Toby to bed, and the night is too damned muggy for anyone's good. Not even the vamps are out in force. Not even the scum of the earth. Not even the grotesque disgusting monsters that eat babies and eyeballs and arms and legs; they're all swimming or running through sprinklers or deep in the earth trying to avoid the heat.
All but -- me. I'm the only scum of the earth walking around.
There's nowhere to go and nowhere to sleep and nowhere to live, and still. I'm walking in amongst gravestones and I think, yeah, baby. There's something here, something beneath me. Dirt; same shit that's in me, right? There's someONE beneath me too, and I start to chuckle, bite it off in a choked gasp.
That's not quite a sob.
There normally is. Someone beneath me, and sometimes a sob.
There are still gravestones around me. I wonder, if I was bitten, would I feel a change? I'm going to hell. I'm in hell. I have the passcode and I have the gatekeeper's name and I know that madness--
No.
I don't have madness. That's Toby's departme--
Another choked off sob. Yeah, I'm capable of that, too. I'm capable of anything, really, except doing anything right or proper or real. Cause that seems to be the only thing I don't have in my grasp.
And he's waiting, in the shadows, in the sunset, and in your mind; but if he's still here in the morning, while you're out at night, it's a goddamned miracle.
I don't want to think about Toby right now. I'll either get a hard-on or start crying, and either way there ain't nothing I can do about it. I'm an addict, I've heard that a hundred times and over and over, but no one ever made that little whimper right before or right after or made the word itself sound like a moan--
No one says it like Toby, and not when he croons it to me.
So, I can't handle spending all night with him, still-- that's what you do when you're married, and all those nights in a glass tank, we were animals, and maybe we still are, but DAMNITALL, I can't seem to get past wanting to be more.
He's dealt with all this uncertainty by being fuckin' nuts. And yeah, I can understand why. My poor baby -- and if he's really mine, I'll keel over dead in shock, but why not say it anyway, it doesn't hurt anything -- my poor baby, he's the weak one.
I didn't ever think I'd get past being anything but the weak one with anyone but Bonnie. But Toby, he just nuzzles my neck, trying to bury himself in me, his nose and his face into the hollow of my neck, and I can't do anything but wrap my arms around him and breathe.
And the moans and cries and-- but, then you know all of that, and ate all of that, swallowed it.
It's still muggy. I still can't sleep; nothing's come out of the woods to kill me yet. Toby thinks we can become closer by trying to be like me.
He wants to die. I can tell.
He can hide a lot of things from me-- rage, grief, lies, love, desire, urge, fucking, his whole heart and soul, if he wants. But I see that razorblade, I see the axe he wants to drop.
I don't think I'll be able to catch it, neither, and then he'll cut both our strings.
See. There's a-- a moment, with Toby, where he can't handle nothing else. Nothing but me. And I get scared, and I want to push him away. And sometimes I do--
And then he'll go and cry, or go and sing, or go and get a little crazier. And either way, the moment passes.
And I haven't done nothing to help him.
You wear something, on your face long enough, it molds into it, becomes you. Is you.
And when I get home, he's ready to snuggle, and I take him up, and can't believe-- why haven't I left yet?
There are things here that could kill me, and there are things here that could eat me, and isn't the goal in life to improve your lot as much as you can, find yourself better digs, a better gang, get more shit, have more fun--
I'm a fucking masochist. Toby taught me that word. And Toby, he's more than a masochist. He's in love with one.
~
"Why are you still here, Chris? Love ain't enough to anchor someone like you."
"I-- dunno."