Ficlets: Spearmint, Buttercream & New York Bagels
Lordy, my Management Without Borders group is full of so many annoying questions and stupid comments about sustainable libraries that I am resolved to not do any work on our report until the night before it is due. Two of them are screwing each other and IT GROSSES ME RIGHT OUT. They're touchy at our group meetings. I am like: YOU are balding and YOU say 'like' thirty times per sentence and keep implying that you're a ~*~writer~*~ and so should get to do the editing on this sucker. PLEASE. ALLOW ME TO PRESENT YOU WITH MY BFA AND 303904034 WORDS OF GAY SEX. HOW'S THAT POETRY COMING?
So, in that spirit, here are three mostly-interconnected-but-fundamentally-disjointed pitchforkslash ficlets that I wrote this weekend. Uh. I'd sue for some kind of lameness amnesty, but HEY, FANDOM OF THREE. I make no excuses.
Rating: G for gay.
Pairing: Zach & Owen.
Disclaimer: Did not happen.
New York Bagels
In New York it's kind of like nothing ever happened. It's hot and wet every day when they meet for cream cheese and coffee around ten, and Zach always has someone with him. Kristin has dirty hair like maybe she's been sleeping over, and even though Owen liked her in Quebec, liked her modesty and the way she took instruction without bitching, he wonders about the hair and then finds he doesn't like her anymore. Nick is always really quiet when he shows up. Ignoring everything Owen says, just to turn his face and make another familiar joke to Zach, who always giggles down into his coffee so he ends up hiccuping.
Owen scrapes excess cream cheese off his bagel and tries not to feel like an orbiting bit of dustcloud around some foreign sun. He has plenty of excuses for being here these past few days: a few interviews, a show on Friday. They've spent every night so far at someone's dirty apartment or in a bar in a basement. Wandering the streets late at night because the subway would probably take longer and these people are not the type who take cabs.
So it's Thursday morning and like, thirty-five degrees Celsius and Zach is wearing this white t-shirt that sticks to the back of his neck, wet, gulping coffee as he holds court with this revolving tableau of acquaintances and musicians and the guys behind the counter who never shut up but keep him laughing from his gut. Constantly. Every second sentence gets lost in it. The kid just smiles and radiates something delighted out over everyone. It's either the voice or the grin.
Zach says, as Kristin grabs her bag and throws out her trash on her way out the door, waving, “So what haven't you seen yet?”
It's kind of like the barometric pressure spins out of control: the focus of that half-grin turned on him, the deli counter deserted, the sun leaking in and sparking off metal cutlery, chrome trim on the table. Owen feels a sudden flash of guilt for not liking Zach's friends, for sulking through so many introductions. For not thinking New York is all that great, really, compared. For kind of wasting whatever time he has here in this last bohemian holdfast, with the underemployed and the boundlessly creative. Whatever stereotypes that exist, exist here. He says, “The tourist thing isn't really appealing right now.”
“Yeah? Well I always love it. I love going up to Manhattan, just for whatever. I'd walk the Brooklyn Bridge every day if I wasn't such a lazy fucker.” Zach laughs, a short burst of punctuation.
It's just late enough that everyone who has a real job is already deep in the bowels of their office tower, behind their glass wall of retail service, looking back out. They walk up to the subway, Zach talking about Coney Island and cotton candy and saying how in their video - the one they're doing for Cliquot, the one he talks about constantly whenever he thinks Owen the Canadian needs to be praised to someone else - they need to get some clowns, some freaky clowns for the accordion and do it all on the beach, burn everything. Keep it good and ashy, dirty dirty mourning.
Owen's gaze slides as Zach says dirty, and their eyes meet, and Zach lets out another staccato bark of laughter. It's not punctuation, it's his metre. How he tracks and measures himself. Zach reaches and touches Owen's forearm, turning to crabwalk half-backwards as he grins. It's the same grin that gets laid out everywhere and Owen, impatient, averts his eyes, almost jerks his hand away.
Buttercream
They take the train up to the island, mostly deserted and smelling like disturbed dust in the sunlight. Owen feels like he's in a Coca-cola commercial, the way Zach seems so contented with his sneakers perched on the filthy fabric of the seat opposite. Staring out at the cities, skin pale yellow through the smoggish light.
“You are such a poster boy,” Owen says across the aisle. He can't help himself. It's an insult, he's kind of disgusted, revulsed. Maybe at himself, but he's not sure. He feels like it's Zach's fault.
More laughter: “Right,” Zach says. “That's me.” He moues over at Owen: suddenly all pseudo-tragic narrow-eyed artist with that wild black tangle of greasy hair to bespeak his dementia to the audience. He is already walking the line between bum and indie cool. It's his smile, his soft chin, that makes him familiar, that's all.
They get off the train somewhere just south of Harlem, Zach saying he knows a place, Owen just relieved to not be going to the Met, or the park. And at least it's not post-apocalyptic up here: there are men selling shit on the street that Zach ignores or engages as it suits him. Owen just walks along feeling awkward and gawky. Gawky at the men, who are never white and sometimes frighteningly young, bold-eyed, attractive, uninterested. And gawky for himself and Zach, who are both so pale they're practically blue, even in August. Fucking black of the studio, night life, sensitive skin.
Zach turns in at another coffee shop. Is it any different than the deli in Brooklyn? Barely. They serve espresso here. There's a thirtysomething with a piercing, a crowd of white kids with laptops. Owen feels marginally more relaxed, easier in his blue skin, then hates himself so much that his skin crawls back into tension. Cat claws dug into his skin and tightening, tightening. A barrier of northern politeness melting and hardening like an ice wall.
A damp palm slides into his and Zach tugs him forward, gentle. There are two pink-iced cupcakes under the glass and one is handed to him in a napkin. Just sugar and butter, fuchsia like flowers. Between them and the coffee Owen feels his gut roil, his body absorbing sucrose like oxygen at the first bite. The hipster behind the counter watches. Zach is grinning again as they stand, loiter really, near the door and the newspaper stands. Owen tries to eat around the mess of icing and gets his nose pushed into soft pink buttercream for his trouble.
Zach snuffles and guffaws in mute, as Owen smirks at the reminder: his brother's wedding. Is he the tall blonde nordic bride, then? Maybe yes, because Zach takes a half-step closer and swipes fuchsia off Owen's beak, puts his finger in his mouth. Sways back, forward, watching with snake eyes. Then slips across one last faltering line and puts his mouth against Owen's cheek, chin, the corner of his lips. A kiss that is brief, but complete with a flick of tongue and pliant jaw.
Spearmint
Also just-south-of-Harlem there is a barbershop. It doesn't have the pole, but the tiles are black and white, blazingly clean. Zach steps daintily into the smell of it: antiseptic like a hospital, but the sweet spicy smell of aftershave, too. Owen thinks: boudoir.
When he was with Patrick, Owen used to go to this place in Toronto where the receptionist would rub her fingers up your spine in a way that made your loins twinge, your eyes roll back, your lips part. Then she'd leave you for the hairdresser who'd come and talk you into something time-consuming and trendy. Still, the smell of mint and eucalyptus turns him on, makes him yearn for slick fingers to knead the arch of a taut neck.
Here, the barber has beautiful hair, thick and dark at fifty-plus in a way that seems to shame Zach's box dye job of not-quite-black. The man has scissors at his hip, but when he goes to start - a lock of hair stretched skyward - he stops. Rubs his fingers and thumb together in dismay, and says, “We'll wash this first, I think?”
Zach stands up sheepish in his plastic gown, follows the man to the sink and puts his head back over the ceramic. His entire body is open, lines under the sheet, white soft throat exposed. The barber runs the water and lathers shampoo as Owen shifts from newspaper rack to counter, watching. The shampoo smells strongly of spearmint.
When the phone rings, the man disappears into the back, answering loud and pointed. Seconds pass, and Zach lifts his head in enquiry, eyebrows up, head a dripping crown of suds. He peers around so bemusedly that Owen has to step forward.
“You're gonna get soap in your eyes,” he says, and runs a thumb over each eyebrow, clearing it. Under the sheet Zach's arms twitch, and he smiles upwards, intent as a child. “Thank you,” he says.
Owen can't help it, he lets his fingers curve round into the suds. Steps around to the back of the sink. He pumps another coin of shampoo into a palm and digs in his fingertips. Pulling slow and stiff, he covers the entirety of Zach's skull twice over. Watches eyelashes flutter and hears the whining whimper fall out of a slack mouth as he does the thing, that receptionist thing, with his knuckles and uses the slide of the soap to delineate the base of the skull, each knob of vertebrae. Somehow, letting his fingers stray under Zach's shirt collar is as exciting as the thought of dropping a hand into his pants.
If Zach would let him. After five days of sleeping in a cheap hotel bed with nothing but a premature hangover to accompany him, Owen was maybe starting to think the kid was nothing but a cocktease. Or politely uninterested. Or getting it elsewhere. Alright to be a homo in Canada but not here where his myspace fans see him buying toilet paper and orange juice from concentrate. Maybe all along he really was interested in the strings.
But no - Zach's eyes flash open as Owen starts to pull his hands away, and he murmurs something inaudible. Sounds like a plea. Looks like it. Open mouth, a moan, the barber still shouting into the phone somewhere out of sight. It's just too easy.
Owen leans, elbows on either side of the sink, thumbs on pink ears, and kisses Zach's upturned, up-side-down mouth. With soft lips, a needy tongue. The smell of spearmint so thick it's like a harmony, resonant in the air.
So, in that spirit, here are three mostly-interconnected-but-fundamentally-disjointed pitchforkslash ficlets that I wrote this weekend. Uh. I'd sue for some kind of lameness amnesty, but HEY, FANDOM OF THREE. I make no excuses.
Rating: G for gay.
Pairing: Zach & Owen.
Disclaimer: Did not happen.
New York Bagels
In New York it's kind of like nothing ever happened. It's hot and wet every day when they meet for cream cheese and coffee around ten, and Zach always has someone with him. Kristin has dirty hair like maybe she's been sleeping over, and even though Owen liked her in Quebec, liked her modesty and the way she took instruction without bitching, he wonders about the hair and then finds he doesn't like her anymore. Nick is always really quiet when he shows up. Ignoring everything Owen says, just to turn his face and make another familiar joke to Zach, who always giggles down into his coffee so he ends up hiccuping.
Owen scrapes excess cream cheese off his bagel and tries not to feel like an orbiting bit of dustcloud around some foreign sun. He has plenty of excuses for being here these past few days: a few interviews, a show on Friday. They've spent every night so far at someone's dirty apartment or in a bar in a basement. Wandering the streets late at night because the subway would probably take longer and these people are not the type who take cabs.
So it's Thursday morning and like, thirty-five degrees Celsius and Zach is wearing this white t-shirt that sticks to the back of his neck, wet, gulping coffee as he holds court with this revolving tableau of acquaintances and musicians and the guys behind the counter who never shut up but keep him laughing from his gut. Constantly. Every second sentence gets lost in it. The kid just smiles and radiates something delighted out over everyone. It's either the voice or the grin.
Zach says, as Kristin grabs her bag and throws out her trash on her way out the door, waving, “So what haven't you seen yet?”
It's kind of like the barometric pressure spins out of control: the focus of that half-grin turned on him, the deli counter deserted, the sun leaking in and sparking off metal cutlery, chrome trim on the table. Owen feels a sudden flash of guilt for not liking Zach's friends, for sulking through so many introductions. For not thinking New York is all that great, really, compared. For kind of wasting whatever time he has here in this last bohemian holdfast, with the underemployed and the boundlessly creative. Whatever stereotypes that exist, exist here. He says, “The tourist thing isn't really appealing right now.”
“Yeah? Well I always love it. I love going up to Manhattan, just for whatever. I'd walk the Brooklyn Bridge every day if I wasn't such a lazy fucker.” Zach laughs, a short burst of punctuation.
It's just late enough that everyone who has a real job is already deep in the bowels of their office tower, behind their glass wall of retail service, looking back out. They walk up to the subway, Zach talking about Coney Island and cotton candy and saying how in their video - the one they're doing for Cliquot, the one he talks about constantly whenever he thinks Owen the Canadian needs to be praised to someone else - they need to get some clowns, some freaky clowns for the accordion and do it all on the beach, burn everything. Keep it good and ashy, dirty dirty mourning.
Owen's gaze slides as Zach says dirty, and their eyes meet, and Zach lets out another staccato bark of laughter. It's not punctuation, it's his metre. How he tracks and measures himself. Zach reaches and touches Owen's forearm, turning to crabwalk half-backwards as he grins. It's the same grin that gets laid out everywhere and Owen, impatient, averts his eyes, almost jerks his hand away.
Buttercream
They take the train up to the island, mostly deserted and smelling like disturbed dust in the sunlight. Owen feels like he's in a Coca-cola commercial, the way Zach seems so contented with his sneakers perched on the filthy fabric of the seat opposite. Staring out at the cities, skin pale yellow through the smoggish light.
“You are such a poster boy,” Owen says across the aisle. He can't help himself. It's an insult, he's kind of disgusted, revulsed. Maybe at himself, but he's not sure. He feels like it's Zach's fault.
More laughter: “Right,” Zach says. “That's me.” He moues over at Owen: suddenly all pseudo-tragic narrow-eyed artist with that wild black tangle of greasy hair to bespeak his dementia to the audience. He is already walking the line between bum and indie cool. It's his smile, his soft chin, that makes him familiar, that's all.
They get off the train somewhere just south of Harlem, Zach saying he knows a place, Owen just relieved to not be going to the Met, or the park. And at least it's not post-apocalyptic up here: there are men selling shit on the street that Zach ignores or engages as it suits him. Owen just walks along feeling awkward and gawky. Gawky at the men, who are never white and sometimes frighteningly young, bold-eyed, attractive, uninterested. And gawky for himself and Zach, who are both so pale they're practically blue, even in August. Fucking black of the studio, night life, sensitive skin.
Zach turns in at another coffee shop. Is it any different than the deli in Brooklyn? Barely. They serve espresso here. There's a thirtysomething with a piercing, a crowd of white kids with laptops. Owen feels marginally more relaxed, easier in his blue skin, then hates himself so much that his skin crawls back into tension. Cat claws dug into his skin and tightening, tightening. A barrier of northern politeness melting and hardening like an ice wall.
A damp palm slides into his and Zach tugs him forward, gentle. There are two pink-iced cupcakes under the glass and one is handed to him in a napkin. Just sugar and butter, fuchsia like flowers. Between them and the coffee Owen feels his gut roil, his body absorbing sucrose like oxygen at the first bite. The hipster behind the counter watches. Zach is grinning again as they stand, loiter really, near the door and the newspaper stands. Owen tries to eat around the mess of icing and gets his nose pushed into soft pink buttercream for his trouble.
Zach snuffles and guffaws in mute, as Owen smirks at the reminder: his brother's wedding. Is he the tall blonde nordic bride, then? Maybe yes, because Zach takes a half-step closer and swipes fuchsia off Owen's beak, puts his finger in his mouth. Sways back, forward, watching with snake eyes. Then slips across one last faltering line and puts his mouth against Owen's cheek, chin, the corner of his lips. A kiss that is brief, but complete with a flick of tongue and pliant jaw.
Spearmint
Also just-south-of-Harlem there is a barbershop. It doesn't have the pole, but the tiles are black and white, blazingly clean. Zach steps daintily into the smell of it: antiseptic like a hospital, but the sweet spicy smell of aftershave, too. Owen thinks: boudoir.
When he was with Patrick, Owen used to go to this place in Toronto where the receptionist would rub her fingers up your spine in a way that made your loins twinge, your eyes roll back, your lips part. Then she'd leave you for the hairdresser who'd come and talk you into something time-consuming and trendy. Still, the smell of mint and eucalyptus turns him on, makes him yearn for slick fingers to knead the arch of a taut neck.
Here, the barber has beautiful hair, thick and dark at fifty-plus in a way that seems to shame Zach's box dye job of not-quite-black. The man has scissors at his hip, but when he goes to start - a lock of hair stretched skyward - he stops. Rubs his fingers and thumb together in dismay, and says, “We'll wash this first, I think?”
Zach stands up sheepish in his plastic gown, follows the man to the sink and puts his head back over the ceramic. His entire body is open, lines under the sheet, white soft throat exposed. The barber runs the water and lathers shampoo as Owen shifts from newspaper rack to counter, watching. The shampoo smells strongly of spearmint.
When the phone rings, the man disappears into the back, answering loud and pointed. Seconds pass, and Zach lifts his head in enquiry, eyebrows up, head a dripping crown of suds. He peers around so bemusedly that Owen has to step forward.
“You're gonna get soap in your eyes,” he says, and runs a thumb over each eyebrow, clearing it. Under the sheet Zach's arms twitch, and he smiles upwards, intent as a child. “Thank you,” he says.
Owen can't help it, he lets his fingers curve round into the suds. Steps around to the back of the sink. He pumps another coin of shampoo into a palm and digs in his fingertips. Pulling slow and stiff, he covers the entirety of Zach's skull twice over. Watches eyelashes flutter and hears the whining whimper fall out of a slack mouth as he does the thing, that receptionist thing, with his knuckles and uses the slide of the soap to delineate the base of the skull, each knob of vertebrae. Somehow, letting his fingers stray under Zach's shirt collar is as exciting as the thought of dropping a hand into his pants.
If Zach would let him. After five days of sleeping in a cheap hotel bed with nothing but a premature hangover to accompany him, Owen was maybe starting to think the kid was nothing but a cocktease. Or politely uninterested. Or getting it elsewhere. Alright to be a homo in Canada but not here where his myspace fans see him buying toilet paper and orange juice from concentrate. Maybe all along he really was interested in the strings.
But no - Zach's eyes flash open as Owen starts to pull his hands away, and he murmurs something inaudible. Sounds like a plea. Looks like it. Open mouth, a moan, the barber still shouting into the phone somewhere out of sight. It's just too easy.
Owen leans, elbows on either side of the sink, thumbs on pink ears, and kisses Zach's upturned, up-side-down mouth. With soft lips, a needy tongue. The smell of spearmint so thick it's like a harmony, resonant in the air.