56. Madness: One Step Beyond

We both stumbled as I crossed the threshold and he fell at my feet while I slammed the door and stood with my back against it. Let it not have been anyone important who heard all that, I prayed, my head spinning from what I’d drunk earlier in the night, but it felt like something stronger. Ziggy didn’t get up–he curled himself into a ball, cradled his bleeding hand and sobbed.

Okay. I wet a washcloth in the bathroom and knelt down next to him. “Let me see your hand.” I tugged at the sleeve of his shirt. “Come on,” I said, trying to keep the dramatics to a minimum, though it didn’t look like he was going to let me.

That should have been my first clue. You’ll see what I mean.

Anyway, the rest of him went limp as he stopped resisting and let me look at it. The damage wasn’t as bad as I feared, he’d split his knuckles a little, no major gashes, no need for an emergency room trip or anything of that sort. I wiped away the blood and wrapped the damp cloth around the back of his hand, folded his fingers to keep the cloth in place. He was still crying with his forehead against my knee. I’d never seen him like this, that was sure. It hurt watching him cry, twisted something inside me that I’d been trying to forget about. I stroked his hair before I could stop myself, anything to comfort him, anything to stop the animal noises coming out of his throat.

“Daron,” he said, his voice a hoarse whisper, “Why are women so wicked?”

That was not what I expected him to say, but then, what did I expect? “Because men are,” I answered tiredly.

“No, I don’t believe that.” He turned his face toward the carpet and I bent over to hear what he said. “Men aren’t the same.”

Well, talking was better than crying. Even if what he was spewing was the most melodramatic self-pitying crap I’d ever heard. I resisted the urge to rub my forefinger and thumb together (world’s smallest violin) and encouraged him to go on. “What do you mean?”

This launched a long explanation about women, about how “only a woman” could bewitch him into making such an ass of himself. Only she could make him say things like ‘I love you’ and promises like ‘I’m yours forever’ and how they should know ‘dammit’ that you don’t get someone to make a promise like that and then run off with some other man. Then he told me with odd sympathy how he felt sorry for Jay, because she would do the same for the poor guy, and break his heart, too. “The sadistic bitch,” he said, beginning to drop the sob story voice and get back to reality. Now I did rub my fingers together but he didn’t notice.

My legs were getting cramped from sitting there so long. “Don’t lie on the floor like that.” I coaxed him onto one of the beds, where he stayed half-curled while he talked and I sat next to him because he held tight to my wrist and wouldn’t let me move to the other bed. He seemed so miserable, I didn’t fight it. I wondered what drugs he was on and whether this was more of his true self coming out than I’d seen before, or if it was just the drugs talking.

“Men and women,” he was saying, “weren’t meant to get along. But then, how can we not? We can’t live without sex, it’s impossible.” And then he looked at me, right at me. He rose up onto his elbow, let the washcloth fall as he stared. “Daron.”

The way he said my name made my back flash hot and cold. His attention was focused entirely on me. “What.”

“Will you help me?” His eyes were pleading for something.

“What do you mean?” I tried to pull away but his hand was around my wrist. His thumb rubbed up and down along my veins.

“You can help me.” He dropped his eyes then, shy, his speech halting. “Show… show me.” He sat up more and put his other hand on my shoulder. “Show me what it’s like.”

I did not move as he wrapped himself around me. “What do you mean,” I repeated.

“Do you know how much I envy you? Having sex with your peers, others who you understand, whose desires you know because they are the same as yours…”

I wasn’t looking at him anymore. His breath was in my ear and his arms were around me, across my shoulders, across my chest. I wanted to whisper “How did you know?” But all I could do was swallow as he pressed himself close. I might have been shaking.

“Please,” he repeated.

“I, can’t.” Now my voice was the hoarse one. I tried to push his arms away, but the attempt was feeble. I wanted him as much as ever, the strings in my gut humming, breathing in the scent of him so close…

He was starting to cry again, simple tears leaking out of mascara-soaked eyes. “I need you, Daron.” He took my hands then and placed them on his chest.

For a moment I was unable to speak: there is no word for both yes and no. And then “Are you sure…?” I said it as much to myself as to him. Then I took his hand in mine and pressed it to the hardness in my jeans. He didn’t flinch and the thought that this might be the first cock he’d ever touched other than his own? Fuck yes.

I slipped him out of his T-shirt then, and traced the lines of his collarbone, his breast bone, and he shivered under my touch. “Oh, please…” he breathed, letting his head fall back.

I forced myself to go slowly, thinking this can’t be happening. I must have drunk too much and now my wildest fantasies were taking over my brain. Maybe I got slipped a tab of acid or something back at the party. But here he was, begging. I really had no chance of resisting, did I? None. Does that make what happened not my fault? The jury is still out on that one.

I rolled him flat onto his back and licked where my fingers had run, savoring the salty taste of him. This is wrong, I thought, but the thinking part of my brain wasn’t in control anymore. I ran my fingernails down his sides and watched him writhe under me. And I got him out of the rest of his clothes and held his naked body against my clothed one, feeling the heat of his skin seep right through the denim of my jeans.

I took my time but I knew neither of us would be satisfied with this little experiment unless I fucked him. I wanted to bury myself deep in him and feel him helpless under me and hear him crying in my arms with ecstatic pain and abandon. And he did. He did.

—

(BONUS SCENE: So, when this chapter was first published, a regular reader waved money at me to write the full scene of what happens that night in that hotel room. No, really, her comment was “I haz monies!” So I wrote a scene and said anyone who donated that week I would email it to. Now the offer is still good! Readers who are 18 years of age or older! who would like to receive the bonus short story/scene which tells this night in much greater and graphic detail will receive the file as a PDF for making a minimum Paypal donation of $1 ($1.33 to cover the fee…) You are of course welcome to donate more! Just put in a note with the payment that you want the “first time” story and that you are 18 or older! -ctan)