BEFORE
NOAH
When I was a little boy,I dreamt of being a ghost. Every Halloween, I’d cut out two holes in a crisp white sheet. Eventually, that innocence gave way to something more violent: the visage of a Hollywood horror mask modeled after the famedScreampainting.
It was a ghost just the same.
Recently, I found myself wanting to be a ghost again, to disappear into thin air without a trace. To just get so fucking far away until I don’t have a name, but only a face to be remembered in passing. A face that hasn’t been kissed by the warmth of the sun in two months.
A ghost.
Because people can’t find what they can’t see and can’t hurt what they can’t touch.
And that’s how I got on this highway.
Driving anywhere.
Everywhere.
Nowhere.
I drive at night because there’s less traffic on the road. Fewer people to see and the typical cruising spots are filled with suitable fucks.
Some nights I think I’ll drive until the wheels fall off. Other nights, I think about going out in a blaze of self-inflicted carnage, running my car straight off a cliff.
I’ve done things.
Bad things.
The kind of shit that can’t be undone with an apology or a bouquet of roses, not unless they’re laid upon the proverbial grave of the scorned. Bad things were done in retaliation for bad things done to me, like a merry-go-round of swords. Nobody escaped with clean hands. It was a vicious cycle. One that I had to break.
There’s nothing left for me back home.
CHAPTER 1
NOAH
The worldonly makes sense in short bursts of ecstasy.
Like clockwork, it always seems to happen at just about the same time. Sometime after the moon is high in the sky and right before daybreak.
Behind closed eyes, I can feel the gold chain that hangs from my neck as it slaps against my sweaty, slick chest. Can feel it swaying back and forth as I ride through the trauma, my hands pawing at the hairy chest of the stranger beneath me. The cross that dangles from the thin necklace is supposed to protect from demons. And yet, it doesn’t burn my skin.
The stranger’s fingers dig into my hips as he thrusts upwards, insatiably craving every inch within me. He buries himself to the hilt and my eyes snap open, catching a glimpse of my reflection staring back at me.
There’s a mirror hanging over the headboardthat reflects the perverse display. The only sense there is for a mirror like this to be hung over a bed is for moments like these. A smart motel owner capitalizing on the customer base of these parts of nowhere.
I don’t see myself in the mirror. I see somebody else. Someone I don’t know. Someone I may never know. The visage of my body has always betrayed the way I’ve seen myself. It’s strong and muscular, and I’m weak. Always have been and always will be. No matter how far I run, I will never escape that scrawny boy who lost his innocence in that trailer park. I lock eyes with the stranger in the mirror, lost in his dark burnt eyes that beckon me to remember who the fuck I was before the trauma.
Some things aren’t meant for knowing.
I’ve been lost since I first learned to walk.
But that man in the mirror? I’d fuck him too. Been fucking myself since I was old enough to fuck things up, anyway. Mama always said I was born to self-destruct. Like a star, it was fucking inevitable.
My cock slaps against the belly of the lonely man beneath me, who is not so lonely in the moment, but lonely nonetheless. Loneliness is like cancer—it can recede into the abyss, but the threat of recurrence is always there. A lingering shadow. A ghost waiting to swallow you whole because you can never quite outrun it.
The rush comes fast and hard, building up fromwithin. I drop one hand to the headboard to hold on while I jerk my cock with the other.
