“Have you ever smoked pot before?” I asked.
“Yes, but it’s been a while.”
How long had it been since you jacked off? Or had sex? Or, like, ate a slice of pizza? And what happened to the human lover you’d mentioned? Was he part of the reason you no longer had a body? Probably too personal. I didn’t want to make you more depressed or ruin your high. But what if you’d eaten him? I glanced up at you. Were you hungry right now? It was probably just the weed making me paranoid.
“You look worried,” you said.
“You can’t, like, read minds, can you?”
“No, my power is seduction.”
“What doesthatmean?” I licked my lips. My mouth was dry. Smoking weed gave me the worst cotton mouth. And I couldn’t seem to stop looking at your lips, which were also Tyrell’s lips. It was confusing as hell.
“I can persuade people into behaving differently than they otherwise might,” you said.
“Like, getting people to have sex with you?” It was on my brain, and I couldn’t seem to shut up about it.
You smiled slowly.
“That’s one iteration, but that’s relatively easy. Seduction doesn’t have to be sexual. In Latin it means ‘leading astray.’”
“And there’s the whole blood thing.” I held my breath, hoping that I hadn’t offended you.
You blinked and stared at me like you’d been caught, which you kind of already had. I thought you might try to deny it.
“Yes, there is the whole blood thing.”
Did I really want to know any more than that? You said I was safe, and I hoped it was true. It didn’t make sense that you would rescue me from getting my ankles broken only to kill me later, though it would be just my luck.
“When’s the last time you’ve eaten?”
You chuckled. The high must have been kicking in, because your eyes were a little glassy as well, but you knew what I was getting at.
“I have very good self-control when I want.”
“That’s… good to know. So, what are you going to do with Derek’s finger?”
“I don’t know. Make it into a keychain? Unless you want it.”
I could just imagine my mom snooping around in my room and finding it. I thought she’d freaked out when she found my stash. That would be nothing compared to a severed finger.
“I don’t think so. But did you just make a joke, Henri?”
“Yes.” You grinned. So proud of yourself.
“Which one was it? The finger, I mean. Which digit?”
You pulled it out of your pocket and showed it to me. It looked pretty gruesome, waxy and bruised with dried blood on the stubby end, still with the ring on it and a tattoo of a “T.” It looked like it had already started to stiffen up from rigor mortis.
“Holy shit,” I uttered.
“What?”
I giggled. It must have been the weed. Or I was just a sick fuck.
“Derek’s knuckle tattoos. They used to spell out ‘thug life.’ Without his pinky, it’s ‘hug life.’”
I started laughing, and then you did too, which sent me into a fit of giggles. I couldn’t stop. Maybe I was still in shock, or it was the leftover adrenaline or whatever, but we laughed until we were both crying. Whenever one of us would stop, we only had to say “hug life” to start it up again. My abs were killing me.
