Nights Without Night

by Marina Vivancos

  We’d gone home and told my parents of our predicament. They’d tamped down a smile and nodded severely.

  “That sounds very inconvenient,” my dad had said seriously, “seeing as how you’re always so far away from each other.”

  “We have to do everything together,” I had said.

  “Even poop?” my mom had asked. Isadoro and I had looked at each other.

  “We can stand outside the door for that,” Isadoro had decided.

  The curse had lasted three days. We showered and ate and slept together. We made plans about how we’d deal with the curse once we got to school. But then, on the Sunday night, mom came into my room where we were playing on connected Gameboys. She was holding a cup in her hands, and we squinted at her suspiciously as she neared.

  “What’s that?” Isadoro had asked.

  “A poultice.”

  “A what?”

  “A potion.”

  “For what?” I’d asked, even though I already knew.

  “For the curse. We found the cure.”

  Isadoro and I had sat up, looking at each other.

  “No, that’s not the right cure,” he had said. I had nodded.

  “How do you know? You haven’t had it yet.”

  “Doesn’t smell right.”

  “Well, this is a special, very effective version. See, if you drink this you’ll never be able to be cursed together again,” my mom had said. Isadoro and I looked at each other in a panic.

  “But we want-”

  “That’s not how it-”

  My mom had shushed us gently, sitting on the bed with us.

  “No, this is good. See, this way, you don’t have to stay with each other. You can go and see the world and when you’re together, you’ll know it’s because you want to and chose each other. You don’t want a dumb old curse making your decisions for you, right? Now you can choose each other,” she’d explained. We’d thought about it for a moment.

  “I choose you, Pikachu!” Isadoro had exclaimed.

  “I choose you, Charizard!” I’d shouted back before we dissolved into giggles.

  “Okay, okay. Drink up,” my mom had said.

  We’d drank the potion. The curse had been lifted. We could walk away from each other if we wanted. And we did—after fights, when we wanted space, when life had to be lived.

  But we always came back.

  **********

  We shower together. It’s a first for us, and it’s amazingly cramped and awkward. We laugh until we give up on even pretending it’s sexy and get out, managing not to slip to our deaths in our tiny bathroom.

  Back in my room, the curtains are drawn back, and the night is dark outside. A lamp glows over us as we lay together, our fingers tracing each other’s skin like it’s new terrain, when in reality it was mapped years ago. We face each other, two brackets containing a world of words within.

  “I’m thinking of going back to school,” Isadoro says. It takes me a moment to untangle the words. When they hit me, I feel my face light up.

  “Really?” I say, trying to contain my excitement. I don’t care if he goes to school or not. I care that he’s thinking ahead with enough hope to consider it.

  “Yeah. I mean, not now, obviously. But, you know. When things get better.”

  “What do you want to do?”

  “I was thinking…veterinary technician,” he says, and I almost jolt up in the bed before managing to calm myself down at the last minute.

  “Oh, my God. That’s perfect for you, Isa! I mean obviously only if you want but that…I can totally, totally see you being great at that. Can you specialize in certain animals? You could specialize in lizards or something,” I say excitedly.

  “Lizards? Why on earth would I want to specialize in lizards?”

  “I dunno, ‘cause they’re cool. They’d give you an edge.”

  “An edge to what? Unemployment?”

  “I don’t know, loser! Fine, specialize in puppies, we all know you want to!” I huff before breaking into a grin. Isadoro laughs, shaking his head against the pillow.

  We watch each other for a while, scooting a little closer, our hands still brushing each other’s skin.

  “I was also thinking…maybe we could get a place together. Like, a real home. Something with a few rooms, you know? One with lots of light for your art. A garden. We can get something for a good price that can be fixed up. It’ll give me something to do while I get my shit together, you know?” he says. His voice is tentative, but his eyes are bright.

  I’m speechless. I look at him as the picture he just painted hits me. I imagine a house, a home, surrounded by green. Near the forest, maybe, where Isadoro’s dark creatures will have space to breathe and lose their energy. Some place a little shabby, at first, so when it’s all fixed up we’ve put something of ourselves in it. So it looks and feels like us, like a place that was meant to hold us and everything we drag along.

  I imagine a room with an easel, smelling of paint and charcoal and thinner. Imagine the light bouncing off the colours on once-blank canvases. I imagine memories painted in light and darkness and then evolving into the present, the future.

  I imagine the art spreading across the house. Not just mine, but Iva’s and others’, people we have yet to meet. I imagine the pictures that will be taken by our future selves, filling our home with new memories.

  I imagine the long walks between the trees. A dog, chasing its freedom across the grass. Imagine the miles of fresh air and blue sky, for us.

  I imagine us. In the kitchen, cooking together. Tucked in the glow of the living room. I imagine the darkness of Isadoro’s room following us there and banishing it slowly. I imagine the light that will glow in the dark, that right now stretches empty and hollow, nights without night. Without rest or peace, but that will be filled with time. Working hard at it, letting the darkness out to the forest to be wild and what it is, and leave our room for us.

  I imagine him. Filling that space with me. Being mine, in the soft way that people can be yours. Without curses, without pain. A choice.

  I open my mouth as I stare at Isadoro. I can’t speak. I close my eyes, feeling everything at once.

  Isadoro pulls me against him and just holds me for a while, understanding.

  “Are you sure? Together” I ask. Not because I doubt him, but because life has never been this kind.

  “Yes. Iván, together. Everything together,” he replies.

  I breathe out and then in, tucking my face against him. I can see the road ahead. It’s long and winding. Difficult, like life is. There is distance yet to travel, but distance doesn’t matter. We know how to weather the difficulties, now.

  Together.

  Fin

  A Note from Marina

  Hello! Thank you so much for reading Nights Without Night and taking this journey with me. I hope you enjoyed getting to know Iván and Isadoro as much as I enjoyed writing about them.

  If you did, please consider spreading the word any way you can. Reviews, social media, word of mouth – you have an amazing ability to impact my life and help me continue writing! Any little helps.

  You can find out about future releases by signing up to my NEWSLETTER

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  More Stories by Marina Vivancos

  Sicken of the Calm

  Fox Lake 1

  Summary

  Joaquin would never forget the boy who came out in the middle of the school cafeteria when they were both fifteen. Ezra. His unapologetic bravery was something that would haunt Joaquin who, despite being the captain of his high school football team, was too reserved to come out before college, let alone approach the boy he admired from afar.

  Joaquin is in his third year at Fox Lake University when he sees Ezra again. Joaquin expects the distance between them to remain unbreeched, but Ezra, as brash and impetuous as he was in high school, crashes into his life. At first, it’
s just a shared class project, but it doesn’t take long for things between them to heat up. Before Joaquin knows what’s happening, he’s squirming on a chair as Ezra watches him jerk off, those clear, intent eyes pinning him in place. This starts a friends-with-benefits relationship with the aim of exploring a submissive and Dominant dynamic in bed, dipping a toe in the BDSM world together.

  However, nothing is ever so simple. As their sexual relationship amps up, so does their friendship deepen, fed by those gentle moments after sex, underbelly-soft and vulnerable. As Joaquin gets to know Ezra better he realizes that his assumptions about who Ezra is, and even the assumptions he has made about himself, have to be challenged in order to break the cycles that may lead to their relationship breaking apart.

  Excerpt

  “Fucking Excel. I swear to God…they do this on purpose, I’m about to…How is that the y-axis? Who decided that should be the y-axis!” I bark at the computer. Ezra snorts and I whip around to glare at him.

  “Do you want to try to get this to work?” I growl. Ezra holds his hands up, still grinning.

  “Nope. You’re doing amazing. Fuck Excel, go you,” he says. I roll my eyes, turning back to the computer. “What’s the problem? Is it the data?”

  “It’s not the data. It’s the program. It’s the—look! Why does it do that? Why would it think that’s the data for the y-axis I just-” I pull the hair on my head.

  “Ok, dude, I think we need a little break.”

  “I don’t need a break.”

  “Uh, yeah, you do. We can do something relaxing.”

  “I’m not doing fucking yoga with you,” I say. Ezra snorts.

  “Well, then I’ve run out of ideas. That’s all I do, yoga 24/7, no other way to relax. Well, that, and jerking off.” There’s a pause. “Maybe you should try that.”

  I turn to glare at him, expecting to see a teasing grin. Instead, his face is quiet. Intense. My whole body stills like it’s sensing a danger my mind hasn’t caught up to. I know I could just roll my eyes and make a joke of it, but the moment stretches past the point of no return.

  Slowly, Ezra sits back, still pinning me in place with his eyes. I can feel every breath in my tight chest, in my throat, in my dry mouth.

  What the fuck is going on? What the fuck is going on?

  Ezra slides his chair to face mine. Slowly, slowly, he lifts one of his long legs and places it on the side of my wheeled chair and pushes gently. The chair slides away from the desk until it faces him. The mouse clatters on the desk as I release it from my suddenly sweaty hand.

  I wait for the joke to end. Wait for him to sit up, to throw his arms in the air, to wink and tease. Instead, the stillness thickens and settles like honey, sweet and oppressive.

  “Why don’t you show me what you like?” Ezra says. His deep voice makes my own mouth open, but I can’t think enough to protest. His foot is still on the side of the chair. I can feel the pressure of it on my thigh. I can’t move and I can’t think and I can’t-

  “Show me what you like, Joaquin,” he says, and my name in his mouth makes my chest tighten. I’m caught in the current of his demand. A soft sound leaves me, a formless breath, “ah”.

  My head is a single white room. My hand is no longer mine. It’s Ezra’s, and it moves down between my legs. Presses against my jeans and the hardening beneath. My breath stutters and his lips part slightly, a flash of tongue. Everything is happening too quickly for the fog of my thoughts to catch up, even if I wanted them to.

  And, God, I don’t.

  Continue Reading…

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  Summary

  Damien is nine years old when his parents die. What should have been the worst moment of his life begins a journey shadowed by loneliness and pain. The night of a full moon, four years and seven foster homes later, Damien flees to the forest, desperate to escape everything.

  Instead, he finds the Salgado pack, and the earth beneath his feet shifts. Damien has seen the Salgado children in his school: Koko, who is in his class, and Hakan, two years older and infinitely unreachable. Damien is suddenly introduced into a world that had only ever existed in his imagination, where there is magic in the forest and the moon. He meets creatures that look like monsters, but Damien knows that monsters have the same face as anybody else.

  Over the years, Damien and Hakan grow closer. First, just as friends and foster brothers in the Salgado house, and then into something heated and breathless when Damien joins Hakan at college. Despite what he may yearn for in the darkest part of the night, Damien knows, deep down in that bruised and mealy part of his core, that he’s not good enough to be part of the Salgado family, their pack. He’s not worthy of calling Hakan his home.

  Even though he knows in the end it’ll hurt him, he’ll hold onto this for as long as he can.

  Preview

  The full moon was a ghost in the deepening blue. Damien paused a moment to look at it. He could almost breathe out here. He’d stayed too late in the public library and knew there was a scolding waiting for him at the McKenzies’, so a few more minutes in the autumn air wouldn’t make a difference. For now, the sky was clear and filled with colour.

  The McKenzies were his seventh foster carers in four years. The first few were protocol, he was told. Short-term carers, starting when he was nine and his parents had disappeared amidst the broken glass and warped metal of a crashed car. As sugar-coated as his social worker had made the last few carers, however, Damien knew they were his fault. He had learnt what words like “exhausting” and “troubled” and “a bad apple” really meant. It was the last one that stayed with him the most. At night, he would imagine himself being sliced open from one point of his soul to the other and finding everything inside was mealy and bruised and ruined. Every time he overheard that conversation, the “I can’t do this anymore” conversation, it got a little worse in that place inside.

  Damien tried to be quiet as he finally reached the house. He opened the gate to the front garden carefully, but it announced his arrival with a whine. He cleared his face of any expression as the front door opened and Mrs. McKenzie stepped out. He looked at her immaculate brown hair, her immaculately painted face, her immaculate sleeves and collar and skirt hem. She was beautiful like a painting was beautiful. Something you could look at but couldn’t reach.

  “What on earth happened to you?” Her voice was deceptively quiet.

  “Sorry,” he said. She was looking at his dirty clothes with a hawk’s stare. Some kids in his class had pulled a prank on him and it had ended up with his jeans and sweater covered in mud. It had dried, caked into cracked segments that flaked off when he walked. He’d been surprised when the librarian had let him in, but she was probably used to Damien by now.

  “Come here,” Mrs. McKenzie said.

  It went against every animal instinct to approach her, but he couldn’t do anything else. As soon as he was within range, she snatched his arm, yanking him forwards. That was something adults seemed to love to do: force you to do things you were already doing. Damien clenched his teeth and didn’t make a sound against the pain that lanced through his shoulder. Thirteen was old enough to weather that sort of thing, he thought. There’s no use complaining about things you’ve brought on yourself. That was something he’d heard a lot.

  Mrs. McKenzie was talking as she dragged him to the backyard. It was a familiar wave of acidic water. “Look at you” and “Why do I waste my time” and “Can’t leave him alone for a minute,” even though Damien was always alone.

  “Stand there,” she said, setting him firmly against the garden shed. “Don’t even think of stepping onto my white carpets looking like that. Take off your clothes then, come on!” she snapped, as if it were obvious. Damien looked down at himself incredulously.

  “But it’s cold,” he protested, dread curling in his stomach.

  “You should have thought of that when you were covering y
ourself in dirt. Don’t make me ask again.”

  She picked up the hose lying on the grass and looked at him expectantly. They stood like that for a moment, silence and cold air between them, before something went unnaturally still inside Damien.

  He started stripping methodically. His mind was blank like it got sometimes, as if he couldn’t look at himself inside. When all his clothes except his boxers were on a pile beside him he grabbed at his elbows as the cold air bit into him, managing to swallow his yelp whole as the water was turned on suddenly, the hose directed at him. The water was so cold that he couldn’t breathe for a moment. The chill permeated his skin and went straight to his lungs. Even when he managed to catch a breath, it came out short and pained as Mrs. McKenzie covered half of the hose opening, so the water hit him sharply, slicing away at him.

  “There we go,” she finally said. “Stay here.” She disappeared into the house.

  Damien tried to clamp his jaw shut, but his teeth were chattering wildly, his whole body shivering. He tried to keep that white stillness inside, but it was trembling out with the cold.

  By the time Mrs. McKenzie reappeared with a towel, Damien was bent over in half with his arms around his waist to try and keep some of the warmth in.

  “Damien, don’t be dramatic,” Mrs. McKenzie said as soon as she saw him, handing him the towel. “Dry yourself and go straight to your room. No dinner. You can spend that time thinking about your behaviour.”

  Damien grabbed the towel with stiff fingers, not bothering with a reply. Going to bed without dinner had happened too many times to count. He used to keep some cans of food under the bed before they had been found, sparking another round of the very popular what’s wrong with Damien?