Pure Punishment

by T. L Smith

  “You need a cold shower,” I mumbled. I thought I heard him mutter something about that not fixing it but chose to ignore him. This is what I did best, ignored Cain’s attempts to turn my body into a flaming erogenous zone. His touch was enough to launch my heart into flutters, and his words could completely melt me. I blindly ignored it all. “When do we have to leave?” I wondered out loud.

  “Harry has a gig lined up for us in Phoenix in two nights, then we are off the hook till New Year’s.”

  Harry was our agent and had proved to be a very good one. He was a ruthless businessman and great at marketing both himself and his artists. He had also auctioned Cain and me off to the highest bidder for a New Year’s Eve gig with all proceeds going to a foundation for homeless kids. It had become a tradition of sorts, this being the third year we had done such a thing.

  “Where are we playing for New Year’s?” I asked with a grin, hoping, no praying it was in New York. It had been almost seven months since we had last played in what Cain and I now referred to as our adopted home. We each had our own apartment in New York, and it was about as far from my home in Seattle that you could get. And the further away the better. Seattle might have been where I grew up, but it was as far from a real home as you could get.

  “Vegas.” My smile dimmed a little. Vegas wasn’t a bad place to play for New Year’s; it was, after all, the city that never sleeps, Disney Land for adults if you will. And oh, how I loved to party. I was just hoping for a little more time in New York. “Harry promised after Vegas we could take some time off and do a few local gigs in New York. We can actually unpack our suitcases and stay a while.” My smile returned. I perched myself on the arm of the sofa, and Cain tugged on my braid. “I’m going to head out for a bit. I need to finish my Christmas shopping. Wanna come?”

  As much as I loved shopping, I knew I would be too jittery and paranoid to survive the holiday season crowds, and I didn’t want to ruin it for Cain. I had finished my Christmas shopping a month ago. Since my family consisted of two, holiday shopping rarely took more than one trip to the store.

  “Shall I bring you back some cheesy fries?” he whispered. Even though I was stuffing my face with bacon and eggs, as he spoke, my stomach growled noisily at the mention of my favorite post party snack. “I’ll take that as a yes.” He laughed. Cain planted a chaste kiss to my forehead before shoving his feet into a pair of Converse sneakers and grabbing his wallet and room key. “Behave,” he called as he left the room.

  I knew he didn’t mean his parting command in jest. Cain truly wanted me to behave myself, and more than anything, I knew he wished I had accompanied him. At least then he could keep a close watch on me. Cain also loved sliding his hand into mine and tugging me from one shop to another. It was something normal, almost domesticated, an indulgence we rarely submitted to. I wasn’t normal though, and I most certainly was not good enough to fill the domesticated void in Cain’s life. I sighed as the weight of silence descended on me like a ton of bricks, the thoughts of inadequacy filling me to the point of despondent pain. My appetite suddenly gone, I placed my half eaten breakfast back on the tray. After an hour, my hands began to shake, and my leg bounced in an urgent tempo as my thoughts raced from one negative notion to another. Things were getting bad, and I was going to need a timeout soon. Much to Cain and Harry’s frustration, I refused to go to rehab, claiming I had a handle on my addiction. You couldn’t really call it an addiction, since I had it under control. When the binges became too frequent and my body struggled during the hours between a hit, I cut myself off and detoxed. I could go months without a drop of whiskey or line of coke, so it was no addiction. The fact I was inevitably lured back to punish myself with drugs and alcohol should have proved my complete lack of control. But I could pretend I was in command of my mind and body with the best of them.

  I picked up Cain’s guitar and strummed a few useless cords. Maybe Cain would put in a call to one of the bevy of beautiful women I knew he had available to him in this city. Cain was always painfully discreet about meeting up with women to satisfy his more carnal needs. In fact, I never saw him with other women, and he never spoke about them. I knew he had women readily available wherever we went though. Some of them were repeat offenders at our gigs; the familiarity with which Cain looked at them and spoke to them was easy to see. It made my stomach curl to think of him with others. It was wrong of me to feel that way; Cain was not mine to feel any ounce of possession over. I tossed the guitar to the side. What I needed to do was figure out a way to make up for last night. I had yet again dragged Cain into my merciless world of drugs, and he had again reverently cared for me and protected me from myself. I knew he was angry this morning over my drug use last night, but as usual, he didn’t say anything, and he didn’t try to make me feel guilty or less worthy of his friendship because of it. I wanted to give Cain a night of laughter, a night where he didn’t have to worry about me. I wanted to give Cain the joy he deserved. My eyes, which were currently darting around the empty room with nervous anticipation, landed on the closed door to my bedroom and an idea crept into my mind. With a small smile, I pushed the tray of food into the hallway outside our hotel room door and disappeared back inside to prepare for a night of diversion.

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