The above is what I think. The below is what I say:
“Everything’s cool. I just...wanna have all my bases covered. You know. I was basically thinking about what you said. About getting myself out there. You said you know a thing or two about advertising and stuff.”
“I know a bit. Let’s spend the day on it tomorrow if you have the time. I have no moves for the weekend. You know I’m not happy about those vampires around you. You spoken to any of them again since you told me about them?”
More than spoken. “Uhm...no.” As I say it, I feel the lie enter our union like a deathly virus.
“Blaze, you sure you OK?”
“Sure! Sure. Why not?”
“Dunno, you just went a little pale there. And quiet. You promise everything’s fine?”
“Of course. Of course. Like I said, I just wanna have all my bases covered. And, you’re right, I don’t wanna be counting on no bloodsucker assholes with their promises of ‘friendship’ and all that bullshit to get me going forward. There must be a way to do it without them.” Although that isn’t necessarily a lie, it feels like one.
Because a lie is anything you don’t personally believe. Truth has nothing to do with it.
He looks at me in a way that makes me think he sees the untruths like a tumbling house of cards. Then: “Sure. Of course I’ll help you. Let’s see how far we can take this. Without having to enter the Church of Bieber.”
I roll my eyes. “God. Don’t remind me. Just thinking about that music makes my head wanna pop.”
“Is this, like, a thirteen-year-old’s party or something like that?”
“Something like that.”
“And the mother knows what you look like? I mean, I think you’re hot. So hot, by the way.” He rakes my tatted arm with his eyes. Smiles. Rubs his hand up it once to bring shivers all over my skin. “But I’m not sure what an Upper East Sider’s holier-than-thou mother might think of it.”
“Now imagine both of us arriving there.” I check out his own riotous ink-sleeve, especially the buxom brunette riding the hungry tiger without so much as a pasty on her bountiful bosom. “They might think we’re robbing the place! They might even pay us double just to leave their kids alone!”
“I knew there was another reason you wanted me to come with you.”
“Bonnie and Clyde, baby.”
He leans down and kisses me, and I feel like I’m drowning. He needs to work, he’s told me. But my lips won’t let his go. I bite the bottom one, feel its softness. My hands move over his hard abs, then down, down, down...
I slide one into his warm middle while he undoes his pants. Slowly, I start fading, forgetting everything except the taste of old whiskey on his breath, the sound of his pitter-patter breathing as my hand makes it down to his moist and warm cock. It’s hardening. His pants come off, and I slide his boxers down to the top of his thighs. He presses against me and I keep rubbing. I wrap my hand around his shaft, lift up, and he says slowly: “Oh, fuck.” His forehead presses against the top of my head. I feel his breath quickening. My nether lips are swollen as hell, bursting, pulsing, needing him again inside me. Needing him to fill me, needing the scrape of his manhood into my tightness. “Fuck me, Declan Cox.”
He cups my cheeks, lifts my lips up to his, then eases his hands down to my jeans, undoes them. And they fall in a puddle at my feet. He grabs my panties.
And he rips them off.
They drop. He bends his knees, looks me deep in my exhilarated eyes, and then enters me as he lifts himself up.
-6-
He clasps my shoulders, keeps his gaze locked on mine. And all the movement is in his pelvis. Up, slowly, then out. “I’m gonna fall,” I say. He holds me under the arms. I have no strength left in my legs.
Then he moves back up again, his thighs tensing like the football player he is. I’m practically dangling on him now. “Hold onto my neck.” I do, and it takes all my strength not to fall—
“Oh god.” He just went up deeply. I’m so tight, so needing him. The buzz begins, deep in the core of my stomach, and still his cock rides, slow, easily, pulling at my taut entrance. My words come out as whispers: “Oh hell this is—” He thrusts again! He’s speeding up! I shift about for comfort, hear his groans as nature starts taking over his calculated movements, making them rawer, more primal, basely human.
And so he fucks me. Just like I asked him to. He starts to pump, pelvis and abs—
I lift his shirt, just to see the ripple of his eight-pack as it squeezes every time he enters me—
That fucking eight-pack makes me drool.
“Oh, Deck— Deck—”
Thump thump thump thump!
From him: Growl, roar, primal sounds.
Then, slowly, also from him: “O-o-o-o-o-o-h.” And he pauses, deep inside me. Waits. His grip on my shoulders increases, just minutely, pressing down with his fingers. His eyes clench up, his eyelids flutter.
His lips part. An animalistic sound almost escapes the back of his throat.
He squeezes his eyes and: “OH. FUCK!” Boom. “GAWD!”
He shatters inside me, catapults and explodes. I follow quickly. The sounds are wails, cries like animals in the wild, raw and limitless. Never ending. I yank his shirt, tug it back and forth.
His grip on my shoulders eases. He thrusts up again and holds it there. “Ugh!” He exhales. Pushes up again.
My sounds are female, bordering on whimpers, but each one of them is pure pleasure, sweet ecstasy.
In the end, drenched, sopping wet, we hug each other, exhale. And breathe.
-7-
When he walks out the door, and closes it, I’m still catching my breath.
I sit on the nearest stool, my mind whirling with passion, the middle of my legs suffering from moist and warm reactions I thought only occurred in books. I put my hand to my chest—another thing I thought only happened in fiction.
I’m sweating everywhere.
I do hope the Belieber Mother sends us home. Because I can think of so many better things I could be doing with my and Declan’s time than playing Billboard’s Top Pop 100 to a pack of Bratz from the city.
NINETEEN
THE GUY IN THE BLUE HYUNDAI
-1-
Declan Cox
The ottoman weighs a ton. The already scuffed and scratched Hoosier gets a few more scratches as I scrape it against a wall going around a corner. “Fuck!” I shout. Even the client’s Blu-Ray feels like it’s filled with gold.
And if it were? I probably wouldn’t give a shit. It’s too raw. The image replays itself over and over in my head: Boom. Brains. Splat!
I shake my head of it, lift the one-seater alone, scratch that as well. I give the client a hundred dollar discount on the move. He’s a young-looking dude with clean-cut hair who probably still has a starter-level job after graduating from college three years ago. I’m sure I really made his day.
I also tell him he’d probably be able to sell the Hoosier for a pretty penny to the nearest antique store—or even on eBay—and pick up a far better (and more modern) cupboard in return. Judging by the smile on his face, I can tell the Hoosier ain’t no sentimental heirloom. Or, even if it is, life and its demands have become more important than any attachments it may have ever had.
The story of our lives.
Evening can’t roll by fast enough. When it does, I drop off my pickup at my place and Trev and I jump on the M train to Marcy station, then walk five minutes over to The Trash Bar (Blaze’s choice), which is just past Merv’s Auto Parts (which shares a street with the Sit and Read Gallery and the Literary Café).
But The Trash Bar in South Williamsburg is neither for reading nor for the overly-literate. Outside, there’s a neon sign of two back-to-back naked women. Inside, the seating is comprised of gashed and torn old car seats, and stools that look like they’ve had more than one run-in with your local buck-knives. Graffiti tags line the walls inside, over the gazillion posters and stickers of everything from a
pastel red-and-blue Obama HEAP poster (you read that right) to a picture of Charlie Sheen on the front page of the NEW YORK POST with the headline “TRASHED!”
Trev and I laugh at that one. “Lives up to its name,” he says.
“Let’s get trashed, homes.”
Two PBRs with Well Whiskey later (five bucks each), I feel a firm hand on my neck, shaking me. I turn to see Skate’s gleaming skinhead and his snake neck tattoo. His eyes are red with tears and sadness. “Sorry, bro,” he says. I get up and give the bad boy a hug, then call out to the bartender for another spiked beer.
We grab our drinks and head to the nearest available backseat with armrests. We raise our glasses. Skate says, “To parents.”
Before I let the tears hit me again, I down that sucker, then smack my lips.
None of us talks about drinking to my mom’s death a little under four years ago. Although I know each of us has that firm and center in mind. That and, for me and Trev, the image of my father’s head being blown off and spattering us with sticky blood.
I can still taste the drop of it that fell on my bottom lip...
“Who’s the band that Blaze says is playing here tonight?” Trev asks over the growing noise.
“I forgot. She just said they’re real good and real underrated.”
“That’s how it goes in the music biz, I guess.”
I think of her words to me earlier, about “getting herself out there.” About how pale she went when she said it. How she paused a moment too long when I asked her if everything was OK.
Something’s wrong, I realize now. And I need to ask her about it because this fear’s ripping into my gut. I won’t let anything happen to her. I can’t... Because these dudes, and she, are the only things I have left.
I put my beer down, wrap my arms around my two boys’ necks and yank them down in a headlock. I bring them both to my chest. “You guys are all I have left now. You’re my family. You get that, right?”
Skate, on my left, taps my abs. Trev squeezes my right shoulder. I let them go. “We hear you,” Skate says.
You and Blaze, I think.
And, as if on cue, she walks in. Looking more dazzling than any Hollywood starlet that’s ever walked the red carpet. Because she ain’t no starlet. Not even close.
She’s so much more than that...
-2-
Right side of the head shaved, left side groomed and blow-dried to flow like golden velvet down her magnificently tatted arm. Sweater in the hand. Torn jeans at the knees. Pert breasts. And lips so luscious that all I can think of now is meeting them with mine.
In an acutely familiar movement—like the night we met, exactly six days ago—I put my beer down. Just like I took the pill out my mouth and put it in my pocket at the House Market party last Saturday. She’s looking around for me, her jeweled green eyes hunting the walls and posters and the huge painting of some dude filling up at a gas station.
I stand.
When she sees me, I feel like that clichéd movie scene where four eyes meet across a vast field of brilliant flowers, sun shining brightly.
I also imagine her standing over a manhole, holding her dress down nervously while it billows up madly behind her. My Marilyn. Because she is all these things to me. And, with her in the room, the sun is the fluorescents; the flowers, the scuffed and stained floor. And the billowing dress, her aura.
Our love isn’t flowers and roses. It isn’t Call me Maybe or Taylor Swift or Colbie Caillait at the Teen Choice Awards. It isn’t The Lion King staring up at the black sky and hearing his father—his dead father!—calling out prophetically, “Remember!” and the whole goddamned jungle coming together and singing jubilantly into the air and...
It isn’t Doogie Howser or Leave it to Beaver or Family Ties or any of that shit.
It’s the real deal, baby.
And, yeah, I know I just used the word Love. So there.
-3-
Here’s another cliché for you: The world spins when she holds me. Only problem is, it actually does. I think they’ve proven this—lack of blood to the cerebrum or something, brought about by a sudden surge of hormonal response as a result of the close proximity of a survival factor in one’s presence.
Pretty damned boring to hear that shit, right?
So, this is how I say it: She holds me, and the world spins. And, for a second at least—blood gushing away from my cerebrum and all—I almost lose my step. Then I catch it again. And all I can think of is touching my salivating tongue to her sumptuous lips.
If the room weren’t full, I’d take her clothes off right here.
Right. The Fuck. Here.
-4-
Blaze sits with my boys.
The band’s name is Minus Ned. “A band that should’ve made it big already years ago,” she says.
The sound is funky blues rock, which suits my mood just right. Especially their song III (“Three”) which is about being crazy for someone.
I clutch Blaze’s hand.
In true Irish tradition—which I explain to Trev and Skate, is actually in Blaze’s blood, although she’s really Polish—she downs the drinks with the rest of us. We’re firing shots and singing along, drunk as skunks on cheap liquor. But it ain’t cheap tonight. It’s only the best. And it’s all on me. Because you guys are all my family. All three of you. Only, it takes me a few attempts to express that. Because the words are sloshing in between my cheeks and tongue.
They boot us out eventually, at four A.M. The four of us sing at the Marcy station for a half hour before we realize the train hasn’t arrived. Confused, Blaze pulls up her MTA app—a feat which seems to take forever in itself—because she’s the only one of us who regularly catches the subway. (None of us even knew the Metropolitan Transportation Authority had an app.) She sees that the M is not running until six A.M. because of FASTRACK maintenance!
We all find this insanely hilarious, especially once we realize—again, an endlessly long feat of accomplishment—that, not only are Blaze and I at the completely wrong train station (we should be catching the L from Bedford because I’m staying over at her place tonight), but Trev and Skate should’ve caught the J (indeed at this station) and not the M—at least three of which have come by already! An endless number of laughs later—and Trev and Skate almost damn-near missing the J again!—we part.
My legs feel heavy as I lean on Blaze while we make our way toward Bedford Avenue. It seems she’s leaning on me as well. Leaning on each other.
It’s twilight by the time we make it to her place. My eyes burn as I lie on her bed and look at her. Hers are red, the green in them glowing like something out of Interview with the Vampire. She snuggles under my arm, falls asleep faster than I can count to five. I join her quickly after.
Oblivious of any threats that may exist in the immediate environment...
-5-
Neither of us saw the guy sitting in the blue Hyundai Accent GS hatchback at the corner of the street as we entered her building. A guy who, from a distance, looks uncannily like her ex boyfriend, Tolek—the big and black-haired dude who brought his posse over to pay us all a visit at Slambam on Wednesday. Only, even if I hadn’t recognized the dude in the car, in this dim light, I should’ve at least recognized the car itself. Because Gina Moretti used to drive that car. ‘97 model. I should remember that well, because we fucked like rabbits in it. And her brother, Dino Moretti—the dude in the Hyundai right now—slammed my head against the hood of it not once, but twice, once upon a time.
After Gina lost her mind.
Yeah, we’ll get to that still...
I’m intimately familiar with that car, right down to the scar on the right side of my head, visible only if I were to shave my hair off.
But, alas, that’s the problem with chemical pleasures and nights of worry-free revelry: They prevent you from seeing shit until it’s too late. Important shit. (And if that isn’t as poetic a statement about mine and Gina’s relationship as any, then I’ll eat my pen.)
Right now we’re sleeping, and the dude in the car is waiting. A few minutes later, having attained what he came for—an intimate knowledge of our movements and patterns, perhaps?—he leaves.
Of course, I find out all of this only when it’s already too late, near the end.
Right now we’re in the middle. And the middle and the beginning are always good.
TWENTY
ALL GOOD THINGS...
or
A BRICK. A WINDOW. AND A FIRE.
-1-
Blaze Ryleigh
In the morning, Deck’s on my yellow beanbag, under my mammoth wall shelf with the gazillion books on it. He’s reading my tattered and very second-hand (seventh-hand, maybe) copy of Stephen King’s Under the Dome.
“Got tired of reading 1984?”
“Actually...I didn’t know you had this one. It’s the one I’m currently reading on my e-reader. You have so many books on your shelf that it took me a while to find it.” He looks up, lets his eyes trail the length of the fifteen foot shelves. “You read all of them?”
“Yip.”
His eyes bulge toward me. “Over how long?”
I shrug. “The last year I’ve read more than usual, but I was always a reader.” I think it’s time I tell him about the last year of my life. I’ve given myself completely to him, and it’s only fair he knows. “You know, Deck, my friend... Uhm, the one...who...ODed.”
Find Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book Two) Page 3
