With great effort, I release the chokehold on my dick, push off the bed, and tuck myself away.
This need is maddening, more than I can bear.I’ll starve it out.Let it dry up and shrivel.
So I throw myself into work, scrubbing the guest house until my knuckles split.Then I drown in the Internet, mindless scrolling through black holes of nothing.Then I fill page after page of my sketchbooks until the pencils bleed down to nubs.
But no matter how many distractions I choke on, the truth keeps stabbing through.
I want him.
Man or not.Enemy or not.Even with the manipulation, the murdering, and all the pain he caused Dove.I want him.
And I want Dove, too.My prickly, runaway princess bride.
She hasn’t said it, but I know she’s been denying Jag for years, pushing him into the enemyzone.But he’s still here.A Peeping Tom in the window.A voyeur behind the cameras.A shadow curling in the edges of her thoughts, now coiled in mine.
Jag and Dove are a package deal, tied together, shackled in trauma and history.As long as he breathes, he’ll be the weight that presses behind every kiss I steal from her, every laugh and sigh and breathy moan I claim.He’s the name that burns both our tongues, whether we speak it or not.
And doesn’t that fucking suck?I hate that he’s under my skin.Hate that I can’t cut him out without cutting her, too.Hate that the only way forward might be through the come-soaked sheets in his bed.
I wipe a hand down my face and catch sight of the closet door.The cracked opening shows me what I don’t want to see, the saxophone case wedged up on the shelf, black leather dulled with age.
My chest caves, and my body moves without asking, dragging me into the closet, reaching up like a starving man.The case comes down hard into my arms, and I open the latches.
Brass glints in the dim light.My throat closes.
Still, I put it to my mouth.Because I’m a masochist.Because the sound makes me feel human.
The first note pours out, low and rusty.My fingers remember, moving with precision, muscle memory etched so deep no amount of trauma can erase it.
The sound swells, vibrating through the empty house, through my ribs, through the scared boy inside me.
For a dissonant riff of beats, I feel alive.But memory doesn’t stay dead for long.
Denver’s voice cuts through the melody.
Play it again, boy.
Slower this time.
Remove your underwear.
Let me hear you.
His shadow stretches over me, the slimy heat of his stare dripping down my body, every quiver of my embouchure feeding his sickness.I see him, clear as the brass in my hands, legs spread in that chair, one hand buried down his pants, the other stroking his drink as he watches me blow out every note.His panting.His arousal.My shame.
The melody fractures.My breath stutters, and my fingers wobble on the keys.The sax slips from my grip, and my chest crumples, every breath airless, strangled, a scream with no sound.
My vision whites out, spinning, and I slam to my knees, gasping, the past and present indistinguishable.
The next thing I know, a hiss of water slaps my face.Then a cascade.I blink.
I’m in the shower.Naked.I don’t remember undressing.Don’t remember turning the knobs.
Through the steam and spray of water, I can see what I’m doing.From outside my body, I watch my hand move, throttling my erection, beating it in a ferocious, mindless frenzy that I can’t stop.
It’s not pleasure.Yes, it is.
It’s not punishment.Yes, it is.
