Reflex

by Madelynne Ellis

  “None on your shirt,” he muttered proudly, side-stepping while still bowed in order to face his friend. “Nor on my lap, or shoes.”

  He straightened, only for gravity to give him a downward nudge. He toppled sideways, bounced off Xane and landed on his backside, with his head against the rear wheel of the taxi. “Fuck, the sky’s heavy tonight.”

  Xane peeled him off the tarmac. Literally tugged, so that he was pried away from the ground an inch at a time. “Nah,” he said, once he had Spook upright in his arms. “You’ve just jellified your limbs. I can’t remember the last time you got this wasted. The novelty is almost entertaining.”

  “Not wasted enough. Can still hear them.” The voices were rumbling away in the background, not quite loud enough to hear clearly, but the whispers were like a constant hiss.

  “Hear who?” Xane’s breath wetted his already scalding cheek. He smelled of mints and expensive aftershave; stupidly pleasant, in fact. Xane always seemed to smell nice, even when he’d just rocked off stage and every inch of him was lathered in sweat. Pheromones, he guessed. Or in Xane’s case, phero-MOANS, based on the evidence. Spook wasn’t unique in finding himself drawn by Xane’s scent. Girls, boys, grown men, and bearded women, they all swarmed around him like moths drawn to a candle flame. But who could blame them? Breathing deeply of him certainly warded off the stinking miasma of the world.

  “Spook?”

  “Bastards,” he muttered.

  Xane nodded sagely. “Ah, yeah, them. Always hard to escape, even at the bottom of a bottle.”

  He wasn’t wrong, but that’s not what the drink had been helping with. It warded off the snakes.

  “Are you hissing for a reason?” Xane asked. His pierced eyebrow cocked up towards his hairline, where just a few teeny strands of blond were showing beneath the black dye. “I didn’t realise we were at a pantomime. Although anyone watching might be forgiven for thinking it. Speaking of watchers, if we stand around too long we’re going to get spotted. Ready to get back in the car?”

  The hell he was. More hairpin bends and being jolted. No. Thank. You. “How long?”

  “To our destination? Another ten minutes tops.”

  That he could maybe just about handle. Maybe. With the air con on full whack, and a shoulder to lean on. Although, apparently, he already had cramp in his neck. It was really sore. So too was his head, and his hand, and his hip. “Just kill me and leave me for the crows, okay.”

  Xane’s grip on him tightened, as if he thought he might run away. Like his feet were capable of taking him anywhere. “Not a chance mate. Do you know how difficult it is to land a guitarist of your calibre?”

  “I’m pretty sure we’re a dime a dozen.” A bottle materialised in front of him, which he automatically took a slug from. Water. He spluttered it everywhere. “The fuck! Where’s the vodka?”

  “The lining of your gut is currently gracing the paving. You’re not getting near another drop. Come on, back in the car. I promise, you’re going to be a lot happier once I have you tucked up in my bed.”

  He swore the cab driver spat a mint over the dash.

  “You mean we’re sharing?”

  Two mints.

  Xane brushed his lips against Spook’s damp brow.

  Make that a third, or he was just choking.

  “I can’t recommend the couch. It’s meant for polite conversations with the reigning monarch. It’s impossible not to sit rigidly upright. That, and you’ve dragged me away from my snuggle buddies.”

  That was true. No Dani. No Luthor. Just them and the driver. Even reeling drunk he knew Xane well enough to know that was going to cause issues.

  “No need to worry though, I’ve no plans to accost you until you’ve gargled some mouthwash.”

  Evidently, their driver subscribed to the school of thought that maintained heavy metal was the province of straight white men. He positively glowered at them in the rear view mirror for the remainder of the journey, words like ‘Fucking gays’ flashing like neon signs in the dark of his pupils. Spook made a point of snuggling into Xane’s shoulder, just for the hell of it. He didn’t fucking care what anyone thought.

  Incidentally, that drive was definitely nearer twenty minutes than ten, and not a second of it was passed in tranquil delirium, probably because every time his head nodded forward, Xane materialised a bottle of water from somewhere and forced him to drink it. If he dribbled a bit on the precious shirt, then that was Xane’s fault for making him drink while they were driving.

  When they eventually pulled up outside the Hotel de Paris in Monaco, Spook toppled out of the taxi and clung to a nearby three-headed lamppost while Xane paid the fare. He kinda wanted to dance. And piss. And piss and dance. And dance while pissing. He tried a few steps out, watching his feet with his forehead pressed to the cold black iron.

  “I’d ask what you’re doing, but I’m not sure I want to know.” Xane tugged him away from his crutch and dragged him up the steps into the hotel. The doors magically opened for him, keys were procured, and someone called the elevator. Xane pushed him into it, and stood opposite him, rotating his lip piercing with his tongue as they ascended several floors. “Please tell me you’re not going to spew everywhere again.”

  “I need to use the bathroom.”

  “Right. And are you going to be able to aim straight, or do I need to hold it for you?”

  “What is it with everyone’s fetish for groping my cock?”

  “Your determination to ensure no one ever does.” His tone implied that was beyond obvious. “Tell me about Allegra Hutton. It’s serious, or you wouldn’t still be in touch with her.”

  “She presses too many buttons,” he said, making his cheeks ache due to the size of his grin. “Oh God, Xane. The things I want to do to that girl. Her skin’s so pale, like buttermilk, and her hair. It’s so bright, so fiery. I want to screw her hair.”

  “Oh-kay.” Xane drawled, extending the vowels. “So, maybe just hold that train of thought a moment, and let’s have the rest of this conversation well away from public areas.”

  There wasn’t anyone around. Spook had no idea what time it was, well into the next day, he suspected. Also, they were in a metal box. Who was going to eavesdrop? “Have you never wanted to wrap somebody around you like that?”

  Xane cosied up tight to him as the lift doors opened and spat them out onto lushly carpeted hallway. “Kind of. Not quite so literally. I’m guessing you’ve minimal experience with hair caught in intimate places. It feels like bleedin’ razor wire. Seriously knacks.”

  “It’s just an image… fantasy.”

  “I know. We’re right in here.” He guided Spook around a corner to a door guarded by a grinning lion. Spook leaned against the wall as he waited for Xane to charm the beast. “What were you talking about earlier when you were speaking to her?”

  Spook crooked his head to one side. Boy did it feel heavy. Also, his throat hurt. “She wanted to wank… She wanted me to wank, so she could hear how turned on she gets me.”

  “Was that an admission of lust?” Xane’s cheeks lifted as he smiled. Sphinx appeased, the suite door opened.

  “Never said I didn’t fancy her.” Spook walked past Xane to enter. “Just can’t act on it. I can’t fall down that rabbit hole.” He nearly toppled into the thick pile of the carpet.

  “Why not?” Xane caught him by the waistband, preventing him from squashing his nose. He kicked the door closed behind them. Various standing lamps flickered into light, casting orange glows over the grandiose old furniture.

  “You know why.”

  “Tell me again anyway.”

  “Your sofa really needs to be closer to the door.” He didn’t remember this apartment being so diabolically large. Although last time he’d been here, so had the rest of the band, Xane, Ash, Paul… Elspeth, Steve. There was a gilt-framed picture of Xane and Steve sitting on the sideboard. Xane turned him away from it and guided him toward the severely upholstered sofa with its ostentatious
golden legs.

  “What’s so bad that you can’t allow yourself to be around a woman you clearly want to spend time with?”

  Xane didn’t need him to explain. He knew.

  “Spook?”

  “I want to hurt her,” he heard himself say.

  Xane bent down on his knees beside him. One hand clasped Spook’s shoulder, the other landed on his knee. “No you don’t,” he insisted, making painful eye contact. “Not really.”

  “You can’t see what’s in my head.”

  “No, but I know what’s in here.” Xane’s long fingers grazed the button over his breastbone. “You’ve a good heart. You’re a decent man. You’re no monster, Spook. There’s nothing more inherently evil about you than there is the rest of us.”

  The rest of the human race hadn’t done what he had. They didn’t crave the same things. “Cruelty and kindness aren’t mutually exclusive.”

  “I know that,” his friend replied. Xane got back onto his feet. He left the room, only to return a second later carrying an assortment of objects that he arranged on the stupidly shiny table.

  Spook didn’t want to see himself grotesquely reflected in the wood. He couldn’t bear to see himself at all. Therefore, he turned so that his knees were pointing towards the window, and he was no longer looking at Xane.

  The latter grasped his hand, but instead of insisting on his discomfort, he merely turned Spook’s palm up and inspected the freshly scabbed wounds there.

  “Looks like it’s fairly clean. Probably best to leave it to heal, than go poking at it again.”

  “I don’t just want to fuck her, Xane.”

  He didn’t comprehend why he was staying this stuff aloud, but the thoughts were there in his head. Had been for so long now.

  “Nor just warm her arse with a few slaps. I want to leave bruises behind. Big thick ugly bruises, and scrapes and criss-crossed lines, and bite marks and carpet burns.”

  For some unfathomable reason, Xane didn’t call him a cunt, but remained on his knees, listening. He even gave Spook’s hand a squeeze. “The way I understand it, that’s what she wants too.”

  “She’s just a teeny bit kinky.” Spook estimated about two inches with his forefinger and thumb. “She thinks she wants it, but she probably doesn’t. Not in the way I…” He lost his train of thought. His head had been full of rocks earlier, now it was full of feathers, with sharp pointy ends that kept digging into the backs of his eyes. “I’m like this much in comparison.” He stretched both arms out wide. “But that’s not even the biggest thing.”

  Xane moved onto the sofa beside him, and began pouring things into the vessels he’d lined up on the table.

  “’Cause I can hear her.” He twiddled a finger around near his ear. “In my head. Screaming. Begging me. I don’t know if she wants more or if she wants me to stop. I don’t know if she knows. Does she know where her limits are? Would she stop me? I don’t know if I’d stop.”

  Xane patted his knee again. “You would. Of course you would.”

  How could he be certain?

  “Spook, your totality consists of more than a few repressed sadistic urges. You’d stop because consent matters to you, and because you’re not a psychopath. You wanting to mark her skin isn’t about hurting her. It’s about pleasure and release. Yours and hers.”

  “Is it? And that doesn’t strike you as even a little bit weird?”

  “What the actual fuck is wrong with weird? What would the band be if we carved out the weird? Or the rest of society? Who the heck wants to remove all the diversity from it? Not me. It’s okay to like what you like. Spook, just because a few fuckers did a number on you in the past—”

  He raised his hand for silence, but Xane didn’t stop.

  “—doesn’t mean you have to tie yourself in guilty knots for the rest of eternity. She wants you and you want her. That should be the beginning and end of it. Fuck. Enjoy yourselves. To hell with what anyone else thinks.”

  Xane wasn’t getting it, but shaking his head set Spook’s brain off sluicing from side to side like he was riding a water slide. He clawed a hand around his forehead to try and still the sensation.

  “Drink.” Xane passed him the taller of the two glasses he had lined up on the table.

  “I’m guessing this is not vodka, and that pink stuff in the shot glass you’re saving for yourself isn’t raspberry gin.”

  “It’s also for you. And correct, not vodka, and not raspberry gin, or in fact any other variety of gin, vodka, tequila or mead.”

  “There’s pink mead? Who the fuck makes pink mead?”

  “Lindisfarne monks,” Xane responded, as if that was common knowledge. “Well, once upon a time. I don’t think there are actual monks running the distillery these days.”

  Spook lowered his head towards his knees. Pink mead. There was something horribly, horribly wrong with that idea. Xane wrapped Spook’s hand around the highball glass. “Maybe just get on with the task at hand and worry about the other stuff later.”

  “Drinking?”

  Xane nodded.

  A quick sip instantly revealed the contents to be nothing but dreary old water. His insides were swilling with enough of that stuff already to want to down any more of it.

  “All of it,” Xane insisted, and for some reason, he complied. The water seemed to bypass his stomach and land straight in his bladder.

  “Still need to piss,” he mumbled, wiping his lips on the back of his hand.

  “Bathroom’s that way.”

  “That’s not what the bowl there for?”

  Xane threw a scornful look at the ceiling fan. “No it isn’t. Don’t be a savage. Bathroom, and try not to piss on your feet.”

  It took a moment or two to stand, but walking wasn’t nearly as tricky. Spook ambled off and returned to find Xane still holding the shot glass of pink stuff, though his gaze was on his phone screen.

  “All good?” Spook fell back onto the sofa, which possessed zero give, thus he wacked his head against the backrest. Xane looked up at him with his smoky-grey eyes, his contact lenses no longer in situ, and nodded. He turned off his phone. Then pushed the plastic glass into Spook’s hand.

  “Gargle. Don’t drink.”

  Yeah, even without the warning, he wouldn’t have swallowed. The overpowering tingle of extra strong mint seared the fuzz from his tongue and the roof of his mouth, leaving him gagging. Luckily, Xane had a bowl already positioned right under his nose.

  “Mouthwash?” he protested.

  “Mate, we’re sharing a bed. I don’t want to die when you roll over in the night and breathe on me.”

  Valid point. “Make sure it’s only air we’re exchanging, not anything more… more… intimate.”

  “I can’t imagine what you’re suggesting.”

  “You said in the lift… And I know there’s no Dani or Luthor here. A whole night without a fix and you’ll be…”

  “I’ll be what?”

  “Desperate for any sort of fuck.” Funny how easy it was to be honest about the world while your head was see-sawing. He toppled sideways so that he was spread along the sofa. It provided all the comfort of a concrete block, so his ear was screaming from the pressure within seconds.

  Xane sniffed, and sat back. Shoulders raised as he stuffed his hands into his pockets. Tiny crow’s feet appeared around the corners of his eyes. “I can handle one night.”

  “Really?”

  “I’ll watch porn and jerk off.”

  “That’s not going to make you warm and fuzzy.”

  The lines around Xane’s eyes deepened, and his mouth drooped at the corners. “Shut up, Spook.”

  “Good to know I’m not the only one who doesn’t like the truth.” Their issues might be different, but their coping strategies sucked in equal measures.

  Xane got to his feet, so that Spook was left staring at the ends of his long hair swishing against his arse. “You know, it might be a good plan not to piss off the person who’s looking after you. I
didn’t have to bring you here. I could have let you stew on the bus.”

  “Not trying to. Am grateful. Your sofa’s fucking uncomfortable.” Truly, it ought to be done under the Trade Descriptions Act. Sofas were supposed to be big, soft, squishy things that you could lose things down the back of, and lie on while stuffing your face with junk. They weren’t supposed to beat you up when you sat on them.

  “Yeah.” Xane bent and screwed the top back on the mouthwash bottle. “Come on up, you.” He grabbed both of Spook’s hands and tugged until he was upright on his feet. “Let’s get you put to bed. You look like roadkill already. There’s no sense in you feeling like it tomorrow, too.”

  Comfort sounded good in theory. Spook just didn’t want to move. Actually, he wasn’t entirely sure how that was precisely accomplished anymore. Xane slung an arm around his shoulders. The skin of his bare chest was warm and fragrant, a spicy mix of the comfortable and exotic as he drew Spook close to support him.

  Spook rested his head against Xane’s shoulder. He couldn’t recall when the other man had removed his jacket. Actually, the last few hours seemed to have consisted of nothing but isolated snapshots with nothing concrete in between.

  Xane pulled back the bed covers.

  When had they gone from A to B?

  He turned to ask, and a burst of light reflected off one of Xane’s nipple rings. Immediately, he reached out to touch it.

  “Uh, nope.” Xane shoved him square in the stomach, so that he toppled backwards onto the mountain of marshmallows at the head of the massive white bed. “We are not going there.”

  “You need to put your bed in the lounge.” This… this was utter bliss for bodies. “Burn the nasty sofa.”

  “It’s an antique.”

  “Then sell it for heaps of cash to some horrendous git.”

  He stretched out, sinking deeper into the pillows.

  “I don’t usually spend much time on the sofa,” Xane confessed.

  Of course he didn’t. Whoever Xane brought back here probably barely saw the lounge en route to his bed. Let alone spent enough time there to encounter the couch.