“So you’ll take care of all this?” I stretch over his shoulder and point at the screen, a little overwhelmed by it all.
“Sure.” He turns on the stool, grabs my waist. It makes me smile.
“Hey! I’ll spill some coffee!”
“You’ve had enough coffee. It’s time for breakfast. Or...” He checks his watch. “Brunch.”
I make us a sandwich and take Deck up to the roof where we can get a decent view of the city in the distance. He holds me from behind, warming me up against the chill. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” I say.
He inhales deeply by my hair. “Very.”
“No, the view, dumbass.”
“I love the view.”
He starts kissing the shaved side of my head and the moisture of his lips sends a chill down my spine. Maybe it’s also the sensation of his chest against my back. Then his lips reach my ear. I put my hands on the low wall and stretch my butt back instinctively, just to feel him. He hardens. His hands slide around my waist, over my woolen sweater. Then they move down, under it, just graze my stomach underneath...
Someone walks down below, wearing a beanie, baggy jeans too big for him. My eyes close. Deck’s fingers walk under my belt buckle, lower. When the tips touch the top hairs of my mound, I gush. I lean forward, eyes fluttering back. His left hand eases behind, over my jeans, to my ass. His right goes lower still, until his fingers just touch my nub.
I gasp, and the sound seems like it echoes over the entirety of Brooklyn. The low wall covers us from the waist down, but I wonder if anyone can see what’s happening from my facial expressions.
His left hand moves around, fights with my buckle and gets it loose, unzips me, and my pants part. His right hand moves into place. “Oh god.” I tighten my legs instinctively. His middle finger slips over my wet lips, flicks the skin of the right one, then just grazes over the skin of the left one. Two of his left fingers tickle my left lip. I feel my labia engorging, growing; the pressure mounting.
My breathing quickens, juice seeps out onto my right thigh. And then his finger goes deep.
And my head drops.
-7-
Simultaneously, I start rubbing his cock behind me with my ass. He plies me, in and out, with his digits. Slamming and pumping and “oh, FUCK”—
I look down, sure someone heard me, but no one has. It’s just the wind—a singing, howling wind—in my ears.
And Deck plies still, slamming me, pumping me, laying his fingers into me relentlessly until—
“Oh, mother”—it hits me—“FUCK!”
My ass stops moving because I lose control. My tongue goes cold, and I realize my mouth is open, and cool January wind is blowing into it. A drip of saliva drops.
And Declan braces my body to his while the orgasm just slams me, tears me apart.
As it starts easing off, as I begin to regain my senses and catch my breath, I feel him moving desperately behind me, rubbing me, pushing his beautiful cock against my clothed ass. In a rush, I move my hand behind me, fight with his belt—
“What are you do—”
“Deck, take it off, no one can see that part of you from down there because of the wall.”
He helps me, gets his buckle off. I see his pants drop. “Fuck that’s cold!”
And then I feel his solid cock, just snuggled between my buttcheeks. I open my eyes, relieved now and able to keep them on the environment. This is hot, but I’d hate for it to be all over the internet. No one’s looking. I move my hands behind me, and make sure each of my cheeks enwraps the length his shaft.
I feel his moisture, sliding up and down, faster, faster. He’s shaking, furious, riding insanely—
“Oh GOD!” It’s said as a whisper, but sounds like a deafening roar.
And he comes. I guess he’s covering the spew with his hand, because I feel his fingers grabbing his cock but I yank him toward me. “Just let it flow, Deck. Let it flow.” I move his hand away from his cock, and feel remnants of his goo slide over my ass. Oh god that feels insanely hot. He continues to slide up and down for about a minute.
He steps out of his boxers, then grabs them. I start to turn, but he holds me. “Just a sec. Cover me.”
He wipes my ass with his boxers, and also where the cheeks meet, inside. Then my lower back. He cleans himself off as well. Then puts his pants on.
“Can I turn around now?”
“Sure.”
I do. He folds up his boxers neatly, then puts them in his pocket.
I laugh. “This is crazy.”
He laughs as well. Then he holds me. And he kisses me.
And I think that’s the best part of all.
-8-
Deck picks up his sandwich and takes a bite of it. “I’m so glad I met you Blaze Kablowsky.”
“Ka-what?”
“Dunno. I was trying to remember your Polish name. It’s kinda tough.”
“Kieliszewski!”
“Like I said.”
I put my ear to his chest, hearing and feeling it thump-thump-thump like a Deep House sound. Biting wind cuts against my other ear. He rubs my back.
Feeling stronger again—perhaps from the moment of closeness, perhaps because I’m just stronger around Declan—I say, “I knew her since I was five.” His grip tightens on my back, just by a fraction. “She was my closest friend. Her boyfriend’s name was Patryk Warta. Hers was... Hers was Savannah Lopez. A beautiful Spanish name. And she looked like a magnificent Spanish dancer. She was my Paz Vega, my Penelope Cruz. Catherine Zeta-Jones in Zorro. All those rolled into one. Growing up, we played with Barbies together, talked about boys together. She and Xavier came from a pretty rough family. You know, everything that’s bad in a family: Drugs, alcohol, angry father, mother with shiners every few weeks. Then the father left them and they were alone. Her mom was—is—an illegal immigrant, so she couldn’t get a decent-paying job. Me, I came from a pretty good one, I guess. We weren’t poor as such. I mean, we survived. So, in a way, I guess it’s weird that I started dropping before she did. But that’s how it went.” I let go of Declan, sit on the low brick wall. The wind rushes past me and I like it, because it keeps me in the moment, instead of sinking into that black pool where Savva’s golden eyes stare me down: Always smiling. Always smiling in my memory. Even when we found her dead body she was smiling.
“I can’t tell you why I dropped. I’d love to tell you why, but I can’t. Mamah loves me. She took care of me. So, it’s not a question I can answer. I also can’t tell you why I got Savva into it. Although I can guess why she herself accepted. That one’s easy. Or is it?” He sits next to me. “I mean, we assume, don’t we? We assume it’s the broken family. But is it really?
“So, we were one big happy tripping family. E became A and then speed—meth. I drew the line at C. I mean, I did it a few times, but it grabbed me—hard. Understand? It made my skin crawl when I didn’t get it. So I forced myself to stop when it was still early.
“Savva?” I look back at her building. “She never did stop it.
“By this time, Mamah had already left back for Poland. Money was tight, and you know A is cheap as sin, so it didn’t cost nuthin to keep the trips going. Weed also costs jack, so—right here on this rooftop—we smoked it up a storm. Sometimes on that one.” I point to her building. “She’d score me some E every now and then. She had a day-job as a PA in the city, so she made her cut of money. I was trying to make it as a DJ. It’s always been my dream, and I couldn’t imagine getting stuck in a day-job.
“Tolek—the dude who came over to Slambam on Wednesday?” Deck nods. “Well, he and I dated awhile. And, well, he gave me a lot of E. I never thought twice about it. I just figured guys buy girls things. And, in our world, well, we don’t go to restaurants, we drop, right?”
“Yeah.” He looks into the distance, over the sprawling city, as if I’ve spoken the truth of life itself.
“So I never thought anything about it.
“Xavier, her brother, he was dealing alread
y by this time. Got himself a piece. So, Savva wanted to do H. Long story short, he gave it to her. I mean, you’ve heard of Krokodil?”
He shakes his head.
“Well, it’s this crazy drug they make in Russia that looks like H and has similar effects to H, but will actually eat you inside out after taking it! Anyway, Xavier justifies that it was better that she got her shit from a thoroughbred dealer—which he is—”
“Yeah, Randy mentioned it at House Market that Xavier’s the bees knees of dealers. Only the good shit.”
“Right, well, he got the H for her. She was hooked instantly. I mean instantly. A year later, she killed herself. Speedball concoction. It wasn’t a mistake. I mean, she actually knowingly took her own life. She left a note and all, saying sorry.”
Finally the tears prick my eyes, but they don’t feel out of control. They feel like the natural progression of the body after talking about something like this. Savva’s face, in my mind, is distant. And she is smiling.
But, this time, I think she’s smiling because I told someone. Someone I think she would like.
Declan puts an arm around my shoulder, and what he says only makes me love him more. Because, again, he doesn’t sympathize or treat me like a baby or any of that shit. He just states the truth:
“Life’s a bitch, ain’t it?”
And that just makes me laugh. A lot.
-9-
He tells me about his pops, how they got into a physical argument just before Deck left home. The reason for it being that Raymond Cox had been screwing Catalina—his eventual murderess—the very night Declan’s mother was dying in the hospital. He tells me how Trev happened to come by just in time, and if he hadn’t, Deck would’ve maybe not stopped hitting his dad.
Catalina pulled out her famed Beretta that night, had it aimed at Declan’s head. “But she wasn’t so far gone yet in those days, I believe. Pops stopped her. Told her she was fucking crazy for pulling a gun out on his son, and she actually listened to him back them. Almost four years ago. On Thursday, he said the same shit and, well, it didn’t work this time.” He stops talking for a second. He looks away, and I see the back of his hand go to his eyes. Then he shrugs. “Ain’t nuthin we can do about that shit, Blaze. It happened. We just gotta move on.”
“You know, you’re the first person who never tried to make me feel better about it all. I mean, who never told me not to blame myself or tell me to forget it or not to cry about it or whatever.”
“What’s the point? It happened. It’s sad. Fucking sad. But we move on. We wake up. The sun shines, or it doesn’t, but we do move on. If you wanna regret it, go ahead. If you wanna cry about it, do it. If you wanna blame yourself, blame yourself if you feel it’s right. I don’t think there’s any point in analyzing our reactions to just absolute fuck-ups like a friend’s suicide or a father’s death or, even harder for me, a mother’s death. Now that was hard. Pops? It’s sad. It’s tragic. But mom...” He lifts his sweater sleeve and looks at the Priscilla tat on his arm, points at it. “That one stung. And? What should I do about it? Sometimes it hurts. Sometimes I think about her. Blaze, I won’t lie to you, sometimes I even cry about her. It was horrible the way she died. Pops was quick and sudden. Mom, well, she suffered; it ate her away; and it makes me sad. And I let myself be sad. I welcome it. Because if I wasn’t despondent about it, then I wouldn’t be human. I guess that’s the point. We’re human. So, you gave your friend drugs. And, well, she took them. So what? Who’s fault is it? Yours? Hers? The dealer’s?
“It ain’t nobody’s ‘fault,’ Blaze. It’s just...life. And what you wanna do? Go around establishing who’s to blame for a tragic and horrible event? You’re gonna die one day. I’m gonna die one day. We got a limited number of days on this earth. And what’s the point in spending them figuring out if you’re to blame or someone else is to blame or, my favorite, if some ethereal god is to blame. So, you made mistakes. She made mistakes. A great tragedy was suffered. Nothing’s gonna change that. And whatever you feel about it ain’t gonna bring her back. So, go ahead and blame yourself, or not. Point is, just go ahead and experience the human emotions associated with that event. Because that’s what they are: Human emotions. There ain’t no explaining them. Personally, I think that’s what makes us better than the apes. That we can feel. So you wanna say I should stop feeling sad for my mother’s death?
“Fuck that! That’s the day I’ll consider myself deader than dead, and dumber than an animal. Because if I don’t feel the melancholy of her passing, I think I will have lost the last vestige of what it is that makes me human. And I know I’m also a hypocrite for saying this shit. Because I know why I drop. Or, should I say, dropped. Past tense. I mean, I’m not like you, Blaze. I dropped because it made me forget. Plain and simple. And I know I’m being hypocritical. It doesn’t change the facts. It’s not right that I dropped to chill out. Would I have dropped after pops was killed if I hadn’t known you? That’s one of those imponderables, because I do know you. So I can never answer that for real. I’ll never know. And I’m just glad I found you.
“I guess the point is: You gotta be tough to survive. You gotta be made of steel to know it’s OK to feel sadness, and then go ahead and feel that sadness for as long as it takes. I wasn’t that strong when my mom died. Maybe now, mourning my pops’s death, maybe I’ll be subconsciously mourning my mom’s death as well. Because I never did that. I was too high as a motherfucker to really feel her passing. But now, I mean, with you being there, I actually felt...OK...about her going. It’s almost like the drugs were putting up a wall preventing me from just going through those natural emotions that people are meant to go through. Know what I mean? I’m sorry. I’m talking my ass off here.”
My mouth is agape with wonderment.
“Blaze?”
I close my mouth. “You’ve just answered every question I’ve ever had about...damn...everything!” I hear screeching tires.
“I did? I was just thinking out loud.” A door slams.
I love you, Declan Cox. I grab his hand and squeeze it; rest my head on his shoulder. We sit like that for what feels like forever.
Only it isn’t forever. Because everything that starts, must end...
And the end of this moment starts with the sound of a smashing window.
And ends with the unmistakable whoomf of an incipient fire.
ADULTHOOD
MAD, OVER-THE-RAFTERS, IN-YOUR-FACE, FUCK-THE-WORLD-AND-EVERYONE-IN-IT, PASSIONATE LOVE
-1-
Declan Cox
Each sound in itself was not that threatening. But, put together, they filled me with a sinking coolness that made me grip Blaze’s waist like she was about to fall off the rooftop’s low wall.
And then we ran.
The sounds were these:
One. Screeching tires. Two. A door slam.
Three. A smashed window. Four. “DECLAN, I’M GONNA GET YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!”
I know that voice. And that Brooklyn Italian accent...
Five: Screeching tires again, followed by rapidly disappearing laughter and catcalls—like old-time cowboys and Indians firing guns ahead of a backdrop of cacti and a setting sun.
And, finally, six: The sound that brought about the most bone-crunching dread of all: That whoosh and KABOOM of a hungry fire.
Below us.
-2-
I didn’t think. I grabbed Blaze, opened the roof door, and pushed her in. She protested, a little, but my hands were too strong. I was working on impulse. Instinct. Save her no matter what, Deck. Because Dino Moretti came for you, son. And if she dies because of you, then you’re one sick motherfucker.
I was amazed at the lack of flames in the building. At this stage, the worst was rushing through my mind: An entire building on fire. The Bronx in the nineties. The Latin Kings Gang. Everything. But the environment didn’t match my black thoughts.
Nonetheless, we still ran.
Until Blaze stopped. “My gear. I need my gear!”
Her hand’s in mine. I’m three steps down from her. She’s tugging away, trying to go to her door. “Blaze. No!”
“Deck, I must! Without it... It’s all I have!” Her eyes tear up. And she says something that breaks my heart: Her head sinks to her palms, and she mumbles, “My books. All my books.”
I stride up two steps, grab her shoulders: “Blaze, please, baby. Please. I have some money. I can replace all that shit for you. Your gear, at least. But...please...baby. We need to get out of here.”
That’s when I feel the heat rising.
-3-
Shouts fill the stairwell. A male voice: “LET’S GO, LET’S GO!!! GET THE FUCK OUT—” Thump thump karash! “OW! FUCK!” He must’ve fallen...
Sirens in the distance. Oh, thank god.
Blaze: “OK, let’s go. Forget the gear.”
We take the stairs two and three at a time, Blaze’s sweating hand constantly in mine. I’m never letting you go. Ever.
On the third floor, seven floors below Blaze’s loft, we finally see the flames, licking the walls. And we feel them.
It’s not as bad as I thought. One apartment, it seems. Red tongues slide from underneath the door. Yellow-dressed firefighters are here already. “Sir, ma’am—this way!”
Blaze takes the firefighter’s hand, and lets go of mine. But it’s OK, because she’s leaving mine for someone safer. Even in this moment of awe—staring at a firefighter with an axe by the door—I ponder this philosophical conundrum.
DECLAN, I’M GONNA GET YOU, YOU MOTHERFUCKER!
Someone safer...
Find Me (Truthful Lies Trilogy - Book Two) Page 5
