[the blood of the land in my voice]
happy birthday,
tupelo_thief!!!
(ho-ho, not a fandom post)
(sorry for spamming people's flists)
HAPPY 1704th BIRTHDAY to tupelo_thief, my English gentleman & the writer of pretty much the best Zelda HSAU ever.
SO : as part of your birthday present, here are 2 fics.
Inuyasha Crackfic
title: The Magical Rock
characters: Sesshoumaru, Miroku, Inuyasha
summary: Miroku's lies become Sesshoumaru's stupid obsession.
@ inucomedyclub because I can't post it elsewhere till the contest is over :D
-------------------
Tomorrow, Demolition
It was a sticking stifling feeling: underneath these brooding skies, all these whispers of antiquity, I couldn’t feel anything but the neon of home. And anyway, it was this endless cycle- me and Conrad on glazed tired mornings (stiffness and hollow aching, every noise like beating drums), the thousands of shows, music every night and the rush of energy, and then me alone in the hotel room and Conrad off doing God-knows-what with this gaggle of his new followers- this eyeless, ghostless frail-bodied cloud of people who just looked to Conrad to stimulate their jaded nerves.
I knew that, and more, but then again, here I was, the stupid one, hanging on every signal of anxiety for a way out of- way out of what? Maybe my own mind, we’ll just throw that into the mix as well, that this inferno of impressions is just spun out of my out mind. I wouldn’t doubt it either- but looking off the balcony down at the rainy London street, where was Conrad?
-The sun was baby rising and I could see him saying goodbye to two people, ducking under awnings. Huge sunglasses and a button-down shirt, a tie for a belt, a hint of cigarette in his sunny smile. I thought, Oh God, I shouldn’t have come here at all.
"So, none of your new ‘friends’ today?" I asked, looking at him askance- so as to let him know, I guess, how much I doubted him lately.
"Yep yep, today, it’s just me and Shea," Conrad grinned, slipping his arm around me.
"I’m so sure," I snapped.
"You should be- today, well- okay, last night I was passing by this place- real nice place, full of light," he began waving his hands slightly, sunglasses falling a bit, "So anyway, I was walking with Kitty and Johnny, who I met just yesterday- they’re nice people, she makes seashell jewelry- seashell jewelry! Isn’t that something? It’s nice that people can make a living in such ways- well, so I was walking by, and it was a diner that reminded me of- guess?"
"I’m all out of ideas," I replied, rolling my eyes, "I’m dying for you to tell me."
There was a pause in his movements- the train of thought, cosmic and colored, seemed to stop- and the corner of his mouth quirked slyly. "Somebody’s sassy today," he said, words slow. He seemed to brush it off. "It reminded me of New York! And I’m thinking you might be a little homesick- am I right about that? Because, well, you know, everything we have is back in New York, Shea, and we’re tourists but to us everybody else is a foreigner. Reverse psychology? And also," he continued, his tone dropping from sun and air to low sincerity, "Kristie is back in New York, and she means a lot to you. So, I thought today we’d come here, like it was New York! Good idea, hm?"
I paused on that thought- slipped out from under his arm, nodded a little bit, then rain came into my mind and I remembered Kristie. "Sure, it is," I answered.
Conrad paused. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Well, you know," he said, stretching his arms out with that certain mechanical grace he had about him, "It was so nice of me to think of you, and all, and you know, I’m just such a nice guy for treating you to lunch-...?"
"...Should I say ‘thank you?’" I laughed.
"Wouldn’t be too out of order," he smiled, pushing his sunglasses down.
"Thank you, I guess," I replied, prim like it was a lesson.
"Never a problem, Shea!- let’s head in, huh? I hope it’s actual New York style stuff. Or else I’m not having it. I’ll alert the embassy if it’s anything less than New York style," he said, matter-of-factly.
"Have them sued," I answered, with a slight smirk.
"Exactly!- Or, I’ll reveal them in the Daily News as being frauds. Afternoon, table for two?" he greeted the sloppy looking hostess.
She sat us at a large window, looking onto the street- pearl gray in the Atlantic sun, breathing cold and it seemed as though this city was made of corners, corners of stories and corners of different lives. We ordered- of course Conrad ordered a fucking feast- and waited while the waiter bustled around to get us our drinks.
Corners in my mind, and nothing but the hollowness and alone. "What did you do last night, anyway? After the concert?" I asked, as the waiter put down our drinks.
"Thank you- what did I do? Well, Rose invited me back to her apartment-" that was where my mind went on red alert, struck high- "-but Janice was there too, but that was okay ’cause she was okay joining, and also, I met Kitty and Johnny, and they were lots of fun. We played cards afterwards, then Kitty and Johnny walked me to our hotel because they live in the area, and also, did I tell you, that guy from the airport, I met him again! It was-"
"Rose invited you back to her apartment- and ‘Janice’- Conrad," I said exasperatedly, taking a too-forceful sip of my Coke. He looked at me curiously. I rolled my eyes. "Who is Janice, even?"
"-What’s wrong?" he asked, tipping his head. Then he smiled. "Sean, if you wanted to come, it’d be perfectly-"
"Don’t you ever think about other people?" I spat, flustered, looking out the window quickly- small movements so that I could be rid of this sudden irritation that flared behind my eyes. "What other people would think, and-" I had to stop- despite the fueling power of my anger, I knew that what I was saying would just obscure things more- that it wasn’t true, anyway, Conrad was always thinking of other people, and...
He laughed. "It’s fine, Shea, it’s fine with Frances- Frances isn’t like that-"
"I don’t mean Frances! Frances doesn’t care about anything, of course I don’t mean Frances!"
Conrad paused- an obviously confused look on his face, in some cold place while I was heated in anger. "What, then?"
"Nothing."
Then something in the air shifted- his presence polarized, constricted like leather and sun. "It’s obviously not nothing, Shea," he started, voice slow and soft. Then he smiled, and leaned forward, putting his hand on my shoulder as if to reassure me. "Well then again, it may be- ’cause it’s nothing you can’t tell me, right?"
"Keep your hands to yourself," I stuttered, moved my arm like he’d burned t- and then got up from the booth like a mannequin, like a stuffed dummy, and headed quickly to the bathroom, leaving his impressions lost. I knew I’d come back and it’d all be a joke, and he’d forgive it, or whatever, but at that moment, in the bathroom stall- I felt sicker than I had in quite a while. A question burned on my tongue, and I didn’t know how to feel. And this was where Europe started to drive me insane.
Sex, that was it- everything was burning into sex like summer and electricity, and it seemed like we weren’t even here for the concerts anymore. Were we here for the concerts?- They were debilitating flashes of feeling, incendiary, reactive; then it was nothingness, going back to all these stale relationships, bad food, everybody getting high and dropping E and- fuck...
Daisy was rolled over on her stomach one night, reading The Leopard while her nails dried coral pink. Louise kept calling me on the phone, and Daisy’s dog was ripping up the letters on the floor.
I was paging through her CD catalogue when she looked over to me- got my attention with the pearl black of her fast eyes, and the slashing of her mouth. "Why are you hanging around here so much?" she asked, and it was a comfort to hear a woman’s voice speak American- because the last time it had happened was Kristie saying, "I’m fine, everything’s fine..."
"What do you mean?" I responded.
"I mean you’re here all the time- your friend’s having fun, isn’t he?"
"I suppose he is," I grasped, with a gasping facade of max acid.
"He gets around," she said, and I looked over my shoulder, back at her. I could tell by the coolness of her gypsy eyes that she knew that she was saying one thing too many, but she was ruthless in her way I suppose. "He’s probably slept with half of the UK by now. You should be more outgoing- you only live once. Then you wouldn’t be so jealous..."
I said something, I can’t remember what, that was vaguely insulting and simultaneously entreating, and then went to look out the window. My hands were shaking. Could I really think of Conrad that way?- I had been asking myself what was what, and all I could conjure was emptiness.
So it was night now, and Byron Bert was driving us home from the latest concert- navigating through the thick traffic with a heavy, indifferent brow, while Conrad coiled in his energy in the front- threw off light in every direction, seemed to feel something in the atmosphere that I didn’t...
I slept in the back for most of the ride, and I was as lead. Conrad told him to stop at some godforsaken corner some blocks away from the hotel- the area was a strange combination of sleep and musical pulse. There were clubs, some 24-hour laundromats...
"Why here?" I asked, shoving my hands into my pockets as he walked windlessly, kicking a can of soda as he went.
"Oh, I just wanted to walk- I don’t think I’ve been on the street since we’ve been here, and that’s no good because when you’re someplace you have to understand the street- that’s the only way to get anything valuable out of it, I think," he answered, falling back into step with me. "I mean, museums and things like that are all nice and good, but that’s the past, and it’s abstractions, so it doesn’t say anything about- I guess what the city really is. Because it’ll always be different. Right?" He smiled.
I nodded, and looked back to the street- taking inventory of the cars, the snakes still night walking- anything to look away from Conrad...it was a vague nervousness now, in my bones and my veins. "I’m hungry," he yawned sleepily, "Is room service still opened?- Oh! I forgot to tell you- they have a cocktail called ‘The Red Dragon.’" He grinned.
"That’s just a little too awesome for me," I replied.
"I think that we should order that, then high-five each other and go to Tony Roma’s," he ambled, his words easy, his cowboy boots clicking on the empty sidewalk that leaned like palms, "Then play some football. Sad thing, really, that football has that stereotype- football’s pretty fun.- but rugby is better. It has that warlike aspect to it, which should be present in football but it’s not, because of Coca-Cola I guess...that whole empire of Mickey Mouse, all that stuff. Or not. It’s hard to tell, right?"
He kept talking like that until we reached the hotel...the lobby was silent, as it usually was when we came back. It had that massive indifference- the mouth of some quiet law, it seemed. The man at the front desk was pretending to read a magazine but was really obviously sleeping, dressed in authority blue.
We got in the gold elevator. Nobody was around, really. The pool was closed but chlorine was invading. The small tinny sound of the elevator bell sounded, and we stepped inside.
There was a sterile coolness- I felt in my bones that I needed to sleep, and I didn’t want to think about this anymore- just be carried away on some crystal blackness, that would be cold and fine...
"Hey, Shea," Conrad started, seeming to be starting on some kind of plan, "Are you having fun?"
I opened my eyes- helplessness blooming in my blood, and that feeling of being lost hitting me severely in the stomach- Oh God, not now..."I, I’m fine," I managed to answer from under the heat of my mind.
"Oh, okay," he answered; then we got to our floor, and grabbed my arm as we walked out- just held the bicep like it was a normal thing to do. My eyes darted, checking for people around. Why would I even do that? My impulses were strange then..."Because," he continued, with a smile, "It’s important to me. You know, I can have fun anywhere, but it’s different for you Shea, and I’d like to see you happy."
London seemed made of corners, this seemed to be one of them- edged between stars and space, between heat and gold, sterile empty and a pink feeling that flowed from out my eyes, blinded me to him. This was a sudden story that came into my throat like vomit, that guided my nerves in their incessant drumming..."You would, huh," I managed to get out lamely, trying to hear the spacey hum of the vending machines down the hall over his words...I leaned against the wall, trying to count what was lost from among the things on the floor.
But Conrad’s tongue was golden, and he had the gift of speech. His words wrapped around everything, even this strange urban fog. "I would. ’Cause, it’s pointless if you’re not happy," he said, standing in front of me with a smile that seemed strange to me...
My blood jumped into my throat, I felt like a captured animal, and I couldn’t do anything about the thoughts that I had, so I--- I said something, and I don’t remember it clearly, but the movement forward seemed to rush, and I reached my shaking hands up to hold his neck, to cup his face...then in some movement of madness kissed him- I could only feel the hitched breathing, menthol cold, and some kind of heightening sharp thought- his mouth tasted like afternoon, warmth...
I don’t remember how long that lasted, but I just- seemed to realize myself, and leaned back onto the wall. Conrad let out a veritable squeak and stepped back, putting a hand to his mouth nervously. "I think- I think I gave you the wrong idea," he piped, nervously, seeming to ruminate on what had just happened- to weigh his options.
I sighed heavily and could just feel the chains dragging on my ankles- oh, here we go again, and I knew it would turn out this way, so why did I even try? The darkness huddled from out of my mind around us, the atmosphere tightened- then it seemed to all be gold, pianos and guitars, floating from gun America mornings, and the look in his eyes was criminal, but hesitant...he leaned forward and kissed me this time, a hand loose on my neck...then broke it, rocked on his heels. "Your mouth tastes nice," he hummed happily.
Then on the way back to the room, he explained that he hadn’t meant it, but it was fine if I liked him, but he didn’t know that I liked guys, then guessed that I was bisexual, then said that he didn’t mind, but that he couldn’t return my feelings, and I was just so tired...he went inside and I lingered in the hall for a moment. My hands were still shaking, so nothing had been resolved. I fumbled to take my phone out of my pocket, and opened it with the intention of calling Kristie. Because, after Daisy and after Conrad, I could only see Kristie, like they were some veil and she the sun, and all I could think of was her name, the way she brushed her hair from her forehead, her eyes in summer, the way she felt...all I could think of, and this burned a tattoo in my brain, was Kristie. But I didn’t end up calling her. I just stared at her New York number eyelessly.
In the morning, Conrad was gone when I got up. He left a note on my bedside table that he had gone out to get breakfast and cigarettes, and did I mind if he got McDonald’s? Then he said he was sorry again and signed it sloppily, in his half-thinking script. I got up, feeling like I didn’t have any spirit at all, and washed up...then I went over to the balcony windows, and I just started laughing- dissolved into laughter that seemed strange and too shrill but manically kept on building. I was thinking, so fucking what? The sun was risen already, and it was cemented that whatever happened to me was going to be fucking horrible- so why not roll with that? Everything I did turned to shit. But it had more to do with cemeteries and sex than anything, so I just watched the traffic.
-------------------
♥♥♥
tupelo_thief!!!
(ho-ho, not a fandom post)
(sorry for spamming people's flists)
HAPPY 1704th BIRTHDAY to tupelo_thief, my English gentleman & the writer of pretty much the best Zelda HSAU ever.
SO : as part of your birthday present, here are 2 fics.
Inuyasha Crackfic
title: The Magical Rock
characters: Sesshoumaru, Miroku, Inuyasha
summary: Miroku's lies become Sesshoumaru's stupid obsession.
@ inucomedyclub because I can't post it elsewhere till the contest is over :D
-------------------
Tomorrow, Demolition
It was a sticking stifling feeling: underneath these brooding skies, all these whispers of antiquity, I couldn’t feel anything but the neon of home. And anyway, it was this endless cycle- me and Conrad on glazed tired mornings (stiffness and hollow aching, every noise like beating drums), the thousands of shows, music every night and the rush of energy, and then me alone in the hotel room and Conrad off doing God-knows-what with this gaggle of his new followers- this eyeless, ghostless frail-bodied cloud of people who just looked to Conrad to stimulate their jaded nerves.
I knew that, and more, but then again, here I was, the stupid one, hanging on every signal of anxiety for a way out of- way out of what? Maybe my own mind, we’ll just throw that into the mix as well, that this inferno of impressions is just spun out of my out mind. I wouldn’t doubt it either- but looking off the balcony down at the rainy London street, where was Conrad?
-The sun was baby rising and I could see him saying goodbye to two people, ducking under awnings. Huge sunglasses and a button-down shirt, a tie for a belt, a hint of cigarette in his sunny smile. I thought, Oh God, I shouldn’t have come here at all.
"So, none of your new ‘friends’ today?" I asked, looking at him askance- so as to let him know, I guess, how much I doubted him lately.
"Yep yep, today, it’s just me and Shea," Conrad grinned, slipping his arm around me.
"I’m so sure," I snapped.
"You should be- today, well- okay, last night I was passing by this place- real nice place, full of light," he began waving his hands slightly, sunglasses falling a bit, "So anyway, I was walking with Kitty and Johnny, who I met just yesterday- they’re nice people, she makes seashell jewelry- seashell jewelry! Isn’t that something? It’s nice that people can make a living in such ways- well, so I was walking by, and it was a diner that reminded me of- guess?"
"I’m all out of ideas," I replied, rolling my eyes, "I’m dying for you to tell me."
There was a pause in his movements- the train of thought, cosmic and colored, seemed to stop- and the corner of his mouth quirked slyly. "Somebody’s sassy today," he said, words slow. He seemed to brush it off. "It reminded me of New York! And I’m thinking you might be a little homesick- am I right about that? Because, well, you know, everything we have is back in New York, Shea, and we’re tourists but to us everybody else is a foreigner. Reverse psychology? And also," he continued, his tone dropping from sun and air to low sincerity, "Kristie is back in New York, and she means a lot to you. So, I thought today we’d come here, like it was New York! Good idea, hm?"
I paused on that thought- slipped out from under his arm, nodded a little bit, then rain came into my mind and I remembered Kristie. "Sure, it is," I answered.
Conrad paused. "Well?"
"Well what?"
"Well, you know," he said, stretching his arms out with that certain mechanical grace he had about him, "It was so nice of me to think of you, and all, and you know, I’m just such a nice guy for treating you to lunch-...?"
"...Should I say ‘thank you?’" I laughed.
"Wouldn’t be too out of order," he smiled, pushing his sunglasses down.
"Thank you, I guess," I replied, prim like it was a lesson.
"Never a problem, Shea!- let’s head in, huh? I hope it’s actual New York style stuff. Or else I’m not having it. I’ll alert the embassy if it’s anything less than New York style," he said, matter-of-factly.
"Have them sued," I answered, with a slight smirk.
"Exactly!- Or, I’ll reveal them in the Daily News as being frauds. Afternoon, table for two?" he greeted the sloppy looking hostess.
She sat us at a large window, looking onto the street- pearl gray in the Atlantic sun, breathing cold and it seemed as though this city was made of corners, corners of stories and corners of different lives. We ordered- of course Conrad ordered a fucking feast- and waited while the waiter bustled around to get us our drinks.
Corners in my mind, and nothing but the hollowness and alone. "What did you do last night, anyway? After the concert?" I asked, as the waiter put down our drinks.
"Thank you- what did I do? Well, Rose invited me back to her apartment-" that was where my mind went on red alert, struck high- "-but Janice was there too, but that was okay ’cause she was okay joining, and also, I met Kitty and Johnny, and they were lots of fun. We played cards afterwards, then Kitty and Johnny walked me to our hotel because they live in the area, and also, did I tell you, that guy from the airport, I met him again! It was-"
"Rose invited you back to her apartment- and ‘Janice’- Conrad," I said exasperatedly, taking a too-forceful sip of my Coke. He looked at me curiously. I rolled my eyes. "Who is Janice, even?"
"-What’s wrong?" he asked, tipping his head. Then he smiled. "Sean, if you wanted to come, it’d be perfectly-"
"Don’t you ever think about other people?" I spat, flustered, looking out the window quickly- small movements so that I could be rid of this sudden irritation that flared behind my eyes. "What other people would think, and-" I had to stop- despite the fueling power of my anger, I knew that what I was saying would just obscure things more- that it wasn’t true, anyway, Conrad was always thinking of other people, and...
He laughed. "It’s fine, Shea, it’s fine with Frances- Frances isn’t like that-"
"I don’t mean Frances! Frances doesn’t care about anything, of course I don’t mean Frances!"
Conrad paused- an obviously confused look on his face, in some cold place while I was heated in anger. "What, then?"
"Nothing."
Then something in the air shifted- his presence polarized, constricted like leather and sun. "It’s obviously not nothing, Shea," he started, voice slow and soft. Then he smiled, and leaned forward, putting his hand on my shoulder as if to reassure me. "Well then again, it may be- ’cause it’s nothing you can’t tell me, right?"
"Keep your hands to yourself," I stuttered, moved my arm like he’d burned t- and then got up from the booth like a mannequin, like a stuffed dummy, and headed quickly to the bathroom, leaving his impressions lost. I knew I’d come back and it’d all be a joke, and he’d forgive it, or whatever, but at that moment, in the bathroom stall- I felt sicker than I had in quite a while. A question burned on my tongue, and I didn’t know how to feel. And this was where Europe started to drive me insane.
Sex, that was it- everything was burning into sex like summer and electricity, and it seemed like we weren’t even here for the concerts anymore. Were we here for the concerts?- They were debilitating flashes of feeling, incendiary, reactive; then it was nothingness, going back to all these stale relationships, bad food, everybody getting high and dropping E and- fuck...
Daisy was rolled over on her stomach one night, reading The Leopard while her nails dried coral pink. Louise kept calling me on the phone, and Daisy’s dog was ripping up the letters on the floor.
I was paging through her CD catalogue when she looked over to me- got my attention with the pearl black of her fast eyes, and the slashing of her mouth. "Why are you hanging around here so much?" she asked, and it was a comfort to hear a woman’s voice speak American- because the last time it had happened was Kristie saying, "I’m fine, everything’s fine..."
"What do you mean?" I responded.
"I mean you’re here all the time- your friend’s having fun, isn’t he?"
"I suppose he is," I grasped, with a gasping facade of max acid.
"He gets around," she said, and I looked over my shoulder, back at her. I could tell by the coolness of her gypsy eyes that she knew that she was saying one thing too many, but she was ruthless in her way I suppose. "He’s probably slept with half of the UK by now. You should be more outgoing- you only live once. Then you wouldn’t be so jealous..."
I said something, I can’t remember what, that was vaguely insulting and simultaneously entreating, and then went to look out the window. My hands were shaking. Could I really think of Conrad that way?- I had been asking myself what was what, and all I could conjure was emptiness.
So it was night now, and Byron Bert was driving us home from the latest concert- navigating through the thick traffic with a heavy, indifferent brow, while Conrad coiled in his energy in the front- threw off light in every direction, seemed to feel something in the atmosphere that I didn’t...
I slept in the back for most of the ride, and I was as lead. Conrad told him to stop at some godforsaken corner some blocks away from the hotel- the area was a strange combination of sleep and musical pulse. There were clubs, some 24-hour laundromats...
"Why here?" I asked, shoving my hands into my pockets as he walked windlessly, kicking a can of soda as he went.
"Oh, I just wanted to walk- I don’t think I’ve been on the street since we’ve been here, and that’s no good because when you’re someplace you have to understand the street- that’s the only way to get anything valuable out of it, I think," he answered, falling back into step with me. "I mean, museums and things like that are all nice and good, but that’s the past, and it’s abstractions, so it doesn’t say anything about- I guess what the city really is. Because it’ll always be different. Right?" He smiled.
I nodded, and looked back to the street- taking inventory of the cars, the snakes still night walking- anything to look away from Conrad...it was a vague nervousness now, in my bones and my veins. "I’m hungry," he yawned sleepily, "Is room service still opened?- Oh! I forgot to tell you- they have a cocktail called ‘The Red Dragon.’" He grinned.
"That’s just a little too awesome for me," I replied.
"I think that we should order that, then high-five each other and go to Tony Roma’s," he ambled, his words easy, his cowboy boots clicking on the empty sidewalk that leaned like palms, "Then play some football. Sad thing, really, that football has that stereotype- football’s pretty fun.- but rugby is better. It has that warlike aspect to it, which should be present in football but it’s not, because of Coca-Cola I guess...that whole empire of Mickey Mouse, all that stuff. Or not. It’s hard to tell, right?"
He kept talking like that until we reached the hotel...the lobby was silent, as it usually was when we came back. It had that massive indifference- the mouth of some quiet law, it seemed. The man at the front desk was pretending to read a magazine but was really obviously sleeping, dressed in authority blue.
We got in the gold elevator. Nobody was around, really. The pool was closed but chlorine was invading. The small tinny sound of the elevator bell sounded, and we stepped inside.
There was a sterile coolness- I felt in my bones that I needed to sleep, and I didn’t want to think about this anymore- just be carried away on some crystal blackness, that would be cold and fine...
"Hey, Shea," Conrad started, seeming to be starting on some kind of plan, "Are you having fun?"
I opened my eyes- helplessness blooming in my blood, and that feeling of being lost hitting me severely in the stomach- Oh God, not now..."I, I’m fine," I managed to answer from under the heat of my mind.
"Oh, okay," he answered; then we got to our floor, and grabbed my arm as we walked out- just held the bicep like it was a normal thing to do. My eyes darted, checking for people around. Why would I even do that? My impulses were strange then..."Because," he continued, with a smile, "It’s important to me. You know, I can have fun anywhere, but it’s different for you Shea, and I’d like to see you happy."
London seemed made of corners, this seemed to be one of them- edged between stars and space, between heat and gold, sterile empty and a pink feeling that flowed from out my eyes, blinded me to him. This was a sudden story that came into my throat like vomit, that guided my nerves in their incessant drumming..."You would, huh," I managed to get out lamely, trying to hear the spacey hum of the vending machines down the hall over his words...I leaned against the wall, trying to count what was lost from among the things on the floor.
But Conrad’s tongue was golden, and he had the gift of speech. His words wrapped around everything, even this strange urban fog. "I would. ’Cause, it’s pointless if you’re not happy," he said, standing in front of me with a smile that seemed strange to me...
My blood jumped into my throat, I felt like a captured animal, and I couldn’t do anything about the thoughts that I had, so I--- I said something, and I don’t remember it clearly, but the movement forward seemed to rush, and I reached my shaking hands up to hold his neck, to cup his face...then in some movement of madness kissed him- I could only feel the hitched breathing, menthol cold, and some kind of heightening sharp thought- his mouth tasted like afternoon, warmth...
I don’t remember how long that lasted, but I just- seemed to realize myself, and leaned back onto the wall. Conrad let out a veritable squeak and stepped back, putting a hand to his mouth nervously. "I think- I think I gave you the wrong idea," he piped, nervously, seeming to ruminate on what had just happened- to weigh his options.
I sighed heavily and could just feel the chains dragging on my ankles- oh, here we go again, and I knew it would turn out this way, so why did I even try? The darkness huddled from out of my mind around us, the atmosphere tightened- then it seemed to all be gold, pianos and guitars, floating from gun America mornings, and the look in his eyes was criminal, but hesitant...he leaned forward and kissed me this time, a hand loose on my neck...then broke it, rocked on his heels. "Your mouth tastes nice," he hummed happily.
Then on the way back to the room, he explained that he hadn’t meant it, but it was fine if I liked him, but he didn’t know that I liked guys, then guessed that I was bisexual, then said that he didn’t mind, but that he couldn’t return my feelings, and I was just so tired...he went inside and I lingered in the hall for a moment. My hands were still shaking, so nothing had been resolved. I fumbled to take my phone out of my pocket, and opened it with the intention of calling Kristie. Because, after Daisy and after Conrad, I could only see Kristie, like they were some veil and she the sun, and all I could think of was her name, the way she brushed her hair from her forehead, her eyes in summer, the way she felt...all I could think of, and this burned a tattoo in my brain, was Kristie. But I didn’t end up calling her. I just stared at her New York number eyelessly.
In the morning, Conrad was gone when I got up. He left a note on my bedside table that he had gone out to get breakfast and cigarettes, and did I mind if he got McDonald’s? Then he said he was sorry again and signed it sloppily, in his half-thinking script. I got up, feeling like I didn’t have any spirit at all, and washed up...then I went over to the balcony windows, and I just started laughing- dissolved into laughter that seemed strange and too shrill but manically kept on building. I was thinking, so fucking what? The sun was risen already, and it was cemented that whatever happened to me was going to be fucking horrible- so why not roll with that? Everything I did turned to shit. But it had more to do with cemeteries and sex than anything, so I just watched the traffic.
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