Drawing Blood

by Poppy Z. Brite

  “Anything.”

  Zach glanced up, met Trevor’s eyes. “You mean you’ve never …”

  Trevor was silent. Zach’s eyes widened and he started to speak, but was apparently struck dumb with awe. Finally he said, “What did you do?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Jerk off?”

  “Not much.”

  Zach shook his head slowly, marveling. “I’d be dead in a week if I didn’t do something. I’d be splattered all over the walls.”

  Trevor shrugged.

  “Well—” Zach lowered his head so that the longer strands of his hair fell forward and tickled Trevor’s chest. Most of his face was hidden, but Trevor saw a fierce spot of color blazing in one pale cheek. “I would show you. If you wanted me to.”

  “Zach?”

  He looked up. His eyes were full of doubt and desire, enormous-pupiled, insanely green.

  “I don’t even know how to say yes.”

  Their hands found each other and intertwined. Zach squeezed Trevor’s fingers, brought them to his lips and kissed them. His tongue slid over the ball of Trevor’s thumb, soft as velvet. Trevor felt something uncoil deep inside him, some unfamiliar warmth seeping like liquor through his innards. Only it didn’t dull his senses, it heightened them; he was aware of every inch of his skin, every hair on his body, every pore and cell. All of them were straining toward Zach, thirsting for him.

  Then they were kissing again, carefully at first, learning the shape and texture of each other’s lips, testing the sharpness of the teeth behind them. Trevor felt Zach’s hands sliding down his back and straying beneath the waistband of his sweatpants, cupping his buttocks and squeezing, moving down to the sensitive juncture of his thighs and lightly stroking the downy hairs there. He had an erection for the first time in as long as he could remember, had almost forgotten what one felt like. It felt a hell of a lot better snuggled into the warm hollow of someone’s hipbone, that was for sure.

  It’s too fast! said a panicky voice in his mind. And too dangerous! He’ll drink your juices, taste your brain, crack your soul open like an egg!

  Hell, I think I want him to do all that.

  The thought released Trevor, gave him abandon. He sucked at Zach’s tongue and pulled it deep into his mouth. You became so used to the texture and mass of your own tongue that you seldom noticed it nestling in the cradle of your lower jawbone, pressing against your teeth. Having another tongue there felt alien at first, like trying to swallow some small slippery animal, a baby eel or perhaps an energetic oyster.

  Their hands roamed the planes and hollows of one another’s bodies. Now Zach’s clever fingers were teasing Trevor’s nipples, plugging into unfamiliar nerve endings, webs of sensation that seemed to radiate from his chest up his spinal cord and into his brain, down through the pit of his stomach to his aching penis. Never mind when he had last had a boner; he couldn’t remember ever having had one that felt like this.

  Then Zach’s hand slid down to cup it through the soft cloth, and Zach’s lips kissed a slow trail down his chin, along the curve of his throat and the hollow of his collarbone, and wrapped hot and wet around his left nipple. Trevor felt his heart lurch, his mind begin to dissolve in pleasure. He choked back a throatful of saliva. “Don’t!”

  Zach’s mouth paused but did not go away. His hand moved to the ridge of Trevor’s hipbone and squeezed gently. “Why not?”

  Trevor caught his breath, searched for a reply. “It hurts,” he said at last, though that was not precisely what he meant.

  “You mean it feels too good?”

  Silver motes swarmed in the air above his face; his vision was drowning in red filigree. Trevor closed his eyes and nodded.

  “Sometimes you just have to ride it. But we can slow down.” Zach shrugged. “I’ll kiss you all day if that’s what you want.” He lowered his face to Trevor’s, brushed his lips ever so lightly across Trevor’s. Trevor felt tears starting again behind his eyelids for the kindness of this boy.

  Do you want to do this? he thought. You were finally able to come back to this house, to come home. You haven’t had that damn dream in two nights. You’re on the verge of finding whatever is left here for you to find. Do you want to add this to the equation?

  But he was sick of listening to the voices in his head and the slow settling of empty rooms. There were other things to hear. Zach’s breathing and heartbeat, the whisper of Zach’s hands against the slight stubble on Trevor’s face, the liquid sound their mouths made together. Zach lay half on top of him, holding him loosely, kissing him languorously. It became impossible to think of anything but tastes and textures.

  They kissed dreamily, then searchingly, then with increasing urgency. Then Zach was nuzzling his neck and chest again, but this time Trevor wasn’t scared, He arched his back, twined his fingers into Zach’s thick soft hair. Zach’s fingers strayed again to the band of Trevor’s sweatpants, found the drawstring and deftly untied the bow, His lips moved across the concavity of Trevor’s stomach, paused just above the cloth. Trevor thought his penis might simply explode soon. He imagined shimmering globules of semen dripping from the ceiling, nestling in Zach’s hair like diamonds on blue-black velvet.

  Zach looked up at Trevor and suddenly his serious, almost-scared face split into a wide dazzling grin.

  “This feels so good,” he said, “you won’t even believe it.”

  He tugged the cloth away and kissed the tip of Trevor’s penis, then took the whole throbbing burning thing into his mouth. He was right. All at once there was no more house, no childhood room, no dirty mattress under Trevor’s back. There was only this moment and this boy, only the smooth glide of saliva and fingertips and tongue, only the deep silken tunnel of Zach’s throat surrounding him. It was like nothing else ever.

  He felt a stream of pure white energy blazing along his spine, sending twin bolts into his balls and his brain, filling every cell with light. His scalp and the palms of his hands tingled madly. He felt his pores open and bead with sweat, heard himself moaning and Zach moaning muffled encouragement back at him. Does he really want me to come in his mouth? Trevor wondered. Can I do that?—can I—OMIGOD–

  Thought deserted him again. He felt like a man made of television static, of a million roaring, hissing silver dots. Then the stream of energy filled him completely and husked him out clean. A year’s pain seemed to leave his body as he came, ebbing from his balls, leaking out of his eyes, expelling from his lungs in short harsh gasps.

  For several minutes Zach stayed where he was, his mouth and hands still working gently. Then he crawled up and rested his head next to Trevor’s on the pillow. His lips were swollen, smudged with fresh blood and milky traces of semen. The light sheen of sweat on his face turned his pale skin nearly opalescent.

  Zach took handfuls of Trevor’s hair and pulled it over their faces. The effect was like being inside a sheer tent or a tawny ginger cocoon. Their foreheads and the tips of their noses touched. Trevor could taste his own come in Zach’s mouth when they kissed, a fresh, faintly bitter organic flavor. Was that how Zach’s would taste too? He realized he wanted to find out.

  He pulled Zach close to him and rolled on top. The feeling of Zach’s body beneath him was exhilarating, this complex, delicious bundle of blood and bones and thoughts and nerves and muscles captive in his arms, willingly so, gladly so. He laid his head on Zach’s chest. The skin stretched tight over Zach’s breastbone and ribs like a drum, milk-white, without hair or blemish. Tentatively, Trevor let the barest edges of his teeth graze one pale pink nipple.

  “AAH—” Zach stretched like a cat. “MMMM. Do that some more.”

  “Can I bite?”

  “Hell, yes.”

  Trevor’s teeth closed on the defenseless bud of flesh. He sucked at it, nipped harder and made Zach groan. He worried at it, gnawed on it. Surely Zach would yell at him to stop. But Zach only writhed beneath him and gasped appreciation laced with pain. If he wanted his nipples sore, Trevor didn’t mi
nd obliging him. They were pliant and tender between his teeth, flavored with the salt of Zach’s sweat and the faintly spicy taste of Zach’s skin.

  “ARRR … ah …” Zach groped for Trevor’s fingers. “Put your hand on my dick. Please.”

  His dick? The term jarred Trevor for an instant, reminded him of the Boys’ Home, snickers and whispers in health class, scrawled graffiti on toilet walls. It sounded like a word R. Crumb would use, Trevor thought irrelevantly—though Crumb drew penises rather more often than he mentioned them, with plenty of unsightly hairs, popping veins, and oozing come-drops. He realized he was terrified again, but now it was like being on a carnival ride that had started looping out of control; you couldn’t stop, so you just had to hang on tight and lean with the curves.

  Zach had grabbed his hand and was pushing it down, making a weird, urgent growling sound in his throat. He wore only a pair of skimpy black briefs made of some soft silken material, Trevor’s fingertips skated over the cloth, and his hand closed on the warm pulsing shape beneath, He rubbed his face over Zach’s ribs and the hollow of his stomach, pressed his lips against the silky cloth. He heard Zach’s breath sobbing in and out.

  Trevor hooked his thumbs into the elastic of the briefs and tugged, and Zach managed to squirm out of them without untangling his hands from their grip in Trevor’s hair. Zach’s penis—Trevor could not quite bring himself to think of it as his dick—bobbed up and brushed softly against Trevor’s lips. Trevor cupped his hands around it, felt Zach’s heartbeat throbbing between his palms. The skin of the shaft was textured, slightly rippled beneath the surface. The head was as smooth as satin, as rose petals. Trevor rubbed his thumb across it, squeezed gently, heard Zach suck air in through his teeth and moan as he let it out. He could see blood suffusing the tissue just beneath the translucent skin, a deep dusky rose delicately purpled at the edges, crowned with a single dewy pearl of come. It was as intimate, as raw as holding someone’s heart in his hands.

  Zach’s body shifted beneath him. Zach’s legs wrapped loosely around him. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Zach arching his back off the mattress, rubbing thick handfuls of Trevor’s hair up across his belly and chest.

  All at once it hit him: this was power too, just as surely as smashing your fist into someone’s face, just as surely as putting a hammer through someone’s skull. The power to make another person crazy with pleasure instead of fear and pain, to have every cell in another person’s body at your thrall.

  And this way, the person was still alive when it was over.

  “Please suck my dick,” Zach said faintly.

  “I—” Trevor searched for the right thing to say. “I’d love to,” he whispered at last, and slid his hands under Zach’s butt, and very carefully took Zach’s penis deep into his mouth. It seemed to nestle against his tongue and the walls of his throat as if it had been made to fit there. He slid one hand up between Zach’s legs, cupped his balls and felt them draw tight, felt the skin shivering, seething. Zach was tossing his head and moaning, trying not to thrust too hard. Trevor grabbed his bucking hips and swallowed him deeper, willing his throat muscles to open, to liquefy. He almost gagged, but forced the reflex down. He wanted this in him, this taste, this chance.

  Chance? he thought, what do I mean by chance? But before he had time to ponder it, Zach screamed “OHHHH, TREV!” and snarled his fingers in Trevor’s hair so hard the strands felt as if they would rip out of his scalp, and his whole thrumming body surged forward and seemed to pour its energy into Trevor. He felt it spilling hot over his tongue and down the back of his throat, crackling from Zach’s fingertips into Trevor’s temples and straight through his brain, even emanating from Zach’s solar plexus in steady waves. His body was like some kind of big nervous battery.

  Trevor kept sucking until Zach’s penis was soft and slippery in his mouth, until his lips were buried in the crisp, glossy thicket of hair that stood out so black against the juncture of Zach’s pale thighs, The taste in Trevor’s mouth was much like his own, but had its distinct notes; slightly herbal, slightly peppery. He wondered if his own come would poison Zach’s bloodstream with caffeine.

  But Zach’s body was slowly relaxing into him, twining round him. Trevor slid up on the mattress so that Zach could lie comfortably against him. His fingers traced patterns in the sweat trickling along Zach’s spine. He kissed Zach’s eyelids and the faint dark smudges beneath his eyes, savoring the tender crepey texture of the skin against his lips, the feathery brush of the lashes, the small secret motions of the eyeball. He kissed the graceful arcs of Zach’s eyebrows, the slope of his narrow elegant nose. Then their mouths joined again in a long, lush, sated kiss. It seemed that even with sore lips Zach could not get enough of kissing him. Trevor had never known it was possible to feel this close to someone, had never dreamed he would want to.

  “So what do you think?” Zach asked after a while.

  “I think it was worth about a million drawings.” Trevor felt a guilty pang as he said this. But if the Bird story hadn’t been destroyed, this might not have happened. He knew he had more drawings in his hand, in his brain. Zach was right; he didn’t need the house to dole them out to him.

  Zach shook his head. “If it was enough of an asshole to tear up your story, maybe it’ll be sorry. Maybe it’ll put the pieces back together.”

  Trevor snorted. “And Scotch-tape them.”

  “Yeah, with the Magic Tape.”

  “Yeah, with nine hundred thousand yards of it.”

  Zach settled into the curve of Trevor’s arm. Trevor felt the sweat cooling on their bodies, the damp morning chill that pervaded the room, and pulled the blanket over them. Beneath it, Zach moved yet closer to him. It was like being in a warm pocket of space reserved exclusively for them, like a safe haven, like a womb.

  “I’m sorry I hit you,” Trevor said. It was way past the time for an apology, but he had to say it anyway.

  “I’m not. It got us this far.” Zach yawned, pushed his face into Trevor’s chest. “I was scared to try anything with you before.”

  “Why?”

  “Well—” Zach shifted position, draped an arm across Trevor’s stomach, stroked the small sharp hill of Trevor’s hipbone. “I don’t usually have sex with people I respect.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because I’m a dumbfuck, I guess. I don’t know.”

  Trevor just looked at him.

  Zach began to talk much as Trevor had done yesterday, spilling his sordid history, detailing more damage than he probably even realized: the condoms he masturbated with, the empty French Quarter trysts, the obsessive need to feel other flesh against his own but not to have to think about it. By the end he was crying again, just a few slow shameful tears.

  Trevor cupped Zach’s face in both hands and licked the tears away. His tongue darted into the salty corner of Zach’s eye, rounded the curve of Zach’s cheekbone, slipped back into Zach’s mouth. Zach pressed gratefully against him, and Trevor felt himself wanting it all to happen again. He didn’t know if it was possible so soon. But Zach seemed to be showing him that anything was possible.

  It lasted much longer this time. Zach’s hands worked him expertly, stroking, squeezing, fingering and probing, building up a rhythm so exquisite that Trevor thought he would spend his seed between Zach’s warm slick palms. That would have been fine, but Zach began to make his way back down, kissing him everywhere, tracing a wet glistening maze of spit along his body, then sucking him deep and slow, excruciatingly, maddeningly slow. It was almost painful, yet Trevor wanted it to go on for hours.

  Zach was sprawled between Trevor’s legs, his left arm wrapped loosely around Trevor’s waist, his right hand doing something ingenious. Trevor felt Zach’s penis growing insistently hard against his thigh. He moved his leg against it, reached down and barely managed to graze it with his fingertips. He wanted to do something to make Zach feel good too.

  “Can I—how do we both—”

  Without breaking rhyth
m, Zach shifted so that his hips were beside Trevor’s head, his boner within easy reach of Trevor’s mouth. This position seemed a marvel of physics, but Trevor grasped its advantages immediately; it leaned their weight into each other, pressed the flat planes of their bodies tightly together, and stretched their throats wide open. It seemed as if they could go on for hours this way. And so they did, until their exhausted bodies were all but bound together by a moist web of spit and sweat and semen.

  Then they slept again, easy sated sleep that lasted into the afternoon. The house was silent around them. Their dreams were set only to the soft patter of rain on the roof, to the slow even rhythm of one another’s breathing.

  A tourist from Atlanta was found murdered Tuesday in a warehouse used to store Mardi Gras parade floats. Elizabeth Linhardt, 36, had reportedly been mutilated and an attempt made to burn her corpse. An anonymous source stated that the victim’s head was found in the mouth of a ten-foot bust of Bacchus, partially chewed …

  Travis Rigaud of St. Tammany Parish accidentally shot himself while cleaning his collection of handguns—five different times with five different guns, twice in the left foot, once in the right calf, and once in each hand, severing two fingers. “I finally sold the handguns,” said Rigaud, “but I still have my rifles and this bad luck won’t keep me home come hunting season, even if I should miss everything by a mile, no, cherie …”

  A man was pulled over by state troopers near Chalmette with 148 poisonous snakes in his car …

  Eddy let the newspaper slip to the floor and draped her forearm across her tired eyes. She wore only a pair of black bikini panties. Her armpits were dusted with the fine dark hair she’d allowed to grow since she quit the Pink Diamond. She still wore small silver rings in her nipples, but she had unclipped the delicate chain that usually connected them. She could smell the sweat on her skin, a faint odor of lemons and musk, and thought soon she might get up and take a shower.