The marshmallows were melted, creating a sticky film on the top. I took a sip, finding it room temperature. Yet, it was perfect.
“I don’t think I’ve ever had hot chocolate, now that I think about it,” Killjoy said, and all I could do was blink at him. My utter shock got a small, deep chuckle out of him. “My childhood was rough.” He offered up the little peek into his life without any emotion. “Birthday gifts were whatever we could scrounge up or make for each other. Dad never did nothing. Christmas? Well, that wasn’t really a thing. The closest we got to celebrating was huddling in the living room together, watching Christmas movies on one of the four stations we could get with the antennas and foil, but even that was hard to stomach. Though dad was a so-called God-fearing man, he never took much stock in takin’ us to church. So, it was kind of a slap in the face, y’know. Here was this thing that we were supposed to be celebrating andenjoying, yet there was none of it around. Not even in a ‘Happy Birthday, Jesus’ way.”
“Did you ever have a tree?” I asked, feeling bad for little Killjoy and all his siblings. It seemed like they wanted to be a part of the festivities, and my heart went out to them for not being able to have any kind of magical moment.
“Nah.” He paused, a small smile playing at the corners of his mouth. “Well, one year, we kinda did. I found a live tree that someone had thrown out. Thing was half dead, which was no surprise since it was after Christmas. I dragged it home and we propped it up in the corner. It was so sad, but the youngest ones were so damn happy. They pulled out all the extra toilet paper rolls and practically wrapped the whole thing in it. Looked like a mummy tree more than anything.”
“Aww,” I said, melting at the image in my head.
“Yeah, but then Pa came home and saw it, he made us take it off and roll it back up. We were pickin’ dried pine needles out of that shit for days. Sure as hell didn’t want to wipe my ass and get one of them stuck in it.”
We both laughed softly.
“They have good lives now,” he said, like he was assuring me. “They get their trees every year. Hell, two of them have rugrats of their own. It’s nice to see how hard they are trying to give those kids everything despite the shit we went through. Wasn’t like we had any good role models.”
“But they did,” I said with a small smile and a little lift of my shoulder.
“Huh?” he came back with, brow dipped in confusion.
“You,” I supplied for him. My free hand landed on his knee as I took another sip of hot chocolate. “They had you. It sounds like you did everything you could to take care of them. And if they have good lives now, as you said, and they are giving their kids everything they never had, well, it seems that… you know,maybe you’re the reason they all have that. I mean, that’s just from an outsider’s perspective. Obviously, I wasn’t there and I don’t know any of you… so…”
“Y’know,” he said as his hand stroked over his beard thoughtfully. “You might be right. Maybe I didn’t fuck up as bad as I thought.”
We sat there in silence for a moment. I let him ponder what I said without pushing.
“What happened with the ex-boyfriend?” he asked.
I glared at him. Really? This was where he wanted to go with the conversation. I didn’t want my ex anywhere near this nice moment.
“Okay, never mind then.” There was a pause. He seemed to be thinking hard before he finally asked, “Do you like what you do?”
I really wanted this to go well, but usually, this conversation was a wild card. Most of the time, I could tell people’s intentions when asking it, whether it be genuine curiosity or a deeper look into porn work. And quite a few asked because they wanted to know how much I liked sex. Straight to the point, yeah, but also, it was hard to get away from that spotlight and just be me. There was more to me than my enjoyment of getting my hole stretched open and pounded.
Hey, it was better than talking about my ex, so there was that.
“I do,” I answered genuinely. “I like the freedom of being my own boss. And, you know, the other stuff. I like connecting with people in a different way than what some would consider normal.”
“Never looked at it that way,” he said with a nod. “I like the sound of that. How does that work? Do you do live stuff or do you shoot stuff then upload it?”
“I do both, actually,” I supplied with a smile, happy that he was asking questions like that. “Live sessions offer a chance to hang out with a bunch of people at once, but it does get overwhelming sometimes. Trying to keep up with everyone watching and what they are typing can be a lot. Especially when I’m trying to get off for them.”
“Yeah, I imagine that is a lot at once.”
“I’m good at multitasking, but even all of that is a lot to juggle,” I half-joked with a laugh. I was rewarded with a small, crooked grin. I was about ready to bust out of my skin. So, maybe I wasn’t really thinking when I blurted out, “Do you want to see?”
“Uh, no,” he nearly grunted. He shifted and cleared his throat.
I used the excuse of setting down my empty mug on the coffee table to hide my disappointment.
I had a feeling I knew what would be coming next.
‘Because… I like porn and all, but never really wanted to know someone who did it.’
“Don’t think that would be a good idea,” he went on. I stayed silent, waiting until it was all over and I could try to move on.
‘Because… I like you, but I don’t like that part of you.’
“I think that you should be proud of your work, and it’s good to see that you are. Anyone with you should be proud of it too, and you.”
