Jeremiah Quick (33 page)

She wasn't going to wax poetic. Not about
his prick, at any rate. But then she found herself talking anyway,
saying, "You're beautiful. Perfect."

"Oh, I'm a far cry from perfect, baby doll.
I can be the meanest of the mean."

She nodded at that. "I know."

And she had the scars to prove it, didn't
she? He'd taken her out of her life. Yeah, not exactly against her
will, admittedly, but still without her having a clue what he
wanted.

Though maybe at the time his intentions were
as vague as her own motivation. Maybe they fell into this thing
together without intent at all. That happened to people all the
time. It was possible. Anything, at this point, was possible.

"So look. Touch. Do what you do," he said,
and his voice was teasing, but the expression on his face utterly
serious.

So she did.

She touched him gently, reverently, letting
her fingertips explore the planes and contours of his body, dipping
into each hollow between each rib, feeling him, learning him,
hoping he could feel how much she loved him.
Do you feel it
Jeremiah?
Do you want me to stop?

He sighed beneath her hands.

She almost asked the question out loud, but
the sigh was him settling, relaxing. Accepting.

The bones of his wrists and ankles jutted
out like hard bolts, and she thought of the creation of
Frankenstein – monster on the outside, mass of confused mush and
pain on the inside, driven to seek love, to find understanding,
needing to know how the hell this happened.

Jeremiah, needing Jamie.

Jamie, needing absolution.

His shin bone was the flat of a knife blade,
hard and angled under her fingers, traceable beneath his skin,
seemingly not attached to anything else, never mind tendons and
ligaments.

He vibrated beneath her hands, humming some
tune, and she found herself humming along.
Love me to death or
leave me alone…
It was something from his playlist.

His hip bones were hard shells, curving
inward, and she pressed her thumbs into their inner curve, hard
enough that he grunted and shifted, and his cock, upright and
ready, bumped her hand.

Her worship was the right technique.

And as she lowered her head to his cock, he
trembled, more than the song,
more
than his chest
vibrating.

Her tongue liked his taste, and darted out
in quick licks to gather each seeping drop, though she didn't take
it into herself, but pushed it along his shaft.

His hands found her hair, wrapped around the
braid, alternately pushing her away and pulling her in, controlling
the pace.

That was fine. She wouldn't reject him, not
ever, and certainly not like this.

Her fingers bit harder into his hips,
holding onto him, the
Jeremiah Quick
chorus running through
her head again, but after a few minutes she pulled away, and he
didn't fight it. She wasn't ready for this to be over.

She crawled up his body, pushed his torso
down until he lay back, and laid herself right out on top of him,
like lovers, ignoring the stickiness of her wounds.

He felt perfect beneath her, like he
belonged there, like they'd done this a hundred times.

Except this one time would have to last
forever. There was sadness in that – there was – but there was also
an intense gratefulness to be allowed this moment at all.

Pretty framed his face between her hands,
looking into his clear eyes, then leaned down to speak quietly
against his ear. "I love you, you know. I always have and I always
will."

She licked her lips, slowly, with tongue
pointed and sharp, then clicked her teeth together at the same
moment she dug her fingernails into his sides. She watched his
pupils dilate.

His arms came around her then, and he held
her in a grip that felt fierce in its constriction, squeezing the
air from her lungs and making her gasp and then squirm.

She kept her fingernails tight against his
flesh and dragged them from his back to his front. He groaned and
bucked up against her, his cock pressing into her belly, still
leaking.

She smiled into his dilated eyes. "You like
it when it hurts."

He blinked, not smiling. "Sometimes."

She pressed her mouth gently against his,
not really kissing, and kept it there, digging her nails in harder.
She felt him shudder, and then, without warning, he bit her, hard
enough to make her squeal, and a flutter spun out of control in her
stomach. Her thighs squeezed his hips, and her nipples went
tight.

"You like it, too," he said, and she sighed
against his mouth, unable to voice a denial.

"Fucker," She finally said, and, "I'm really
going to miss you."

Chapter 44

S
he.

She gentles me with her hands.

The same as she used to gentle me with
chocolate,

In small pieces and careful increments.

She doesn't laugh or giggle – none of those
shy things –

Or sigh and huff.

She's never told me to eat more,

never exclaimed over me or declared me too
thin.

But she lets her fingers walk over my skin,
hesitating here and

there as if my bones are fallen
branches.

She whispers my name.

I whisper hers back to her, but inside my
head.

Every touch says, "I love you."

Every press, "I'll miss you."

It's hello and goodbye, in the same
breath.

I feel bad about that

but I can't change my mind.

She.

She is mine, yes.

But we're only meant to collide for these
brief times

No more.

I cannot be swayed.

Jamie's calling.

If she loves me that much.

Only if.

Chapter 45

H
e inhaled a
breath, then put his hands to her hips, shifting her up and back,
so he could press himself into her; held her in place for a brief
but violent fucking. After a minute or so he slid his hands all the
way up her back until he grasped the end of her braid, and he
pulled it, yanking her head back, hard, but now fucking her very
slowly, very gently, until she thought she would go mad. And he
murmured, so softly that she almost didn't hear, "You'll be all
right. You've got sunshine on your side."

And then she cried.

And because it was him, she jerked her hair
loose from his hand and dipped her head so he could eat her tears –
that was his role. Hers was to submit, his to take.

He licked at her eyes and she discovered she
didn't hate it anymore – she expected it. It would probably be
weird until the end of never to not have him around to do this. It
was a piercing vulnerability.

How would she cry when no one wanted her
tears?

They showered together, after, and while
they'd been very, very serious before, now they giggled and teased
like lovers, or like friends who'd known each other for years and
years.

No shyness.

No awkward silence.

Pretty washed Jeremiah's hair, marveling at
the long black fall of it, letting it slide through her fingertips
like warm water. He had to bend his knees so she could lather it
properly, so she could reach the top of his head to massage his
scalp.

This made him grin. "I'm about to start
scratching my ear with my foot," he said with a laugh. "Just call
me old dog Quick."

Pretty laughed, too, and couldn't help but
give him a wet slippery hug.

Too soon, though, and they were dry, staring
at each other with solemn expressions, his eyes lidded and content.
Pretty thought hers must be filled with fear and dread.

Jeremiah put on makeup, white face, then
black and red and smudges of gray, and so intricate and careful
that when he was done he looked like someone else. His lips were
deep burgundy, black-lined and rich. He drew two perfect tears
beneath his left eye and one beneath his right, and along the curve
of each cheek he carefully drew feathered fans in dark red that
mirrored eyelashes, and brushed over, but didn't obscure, the
painted tears.

"Are you sure this is what you want?" Pretty
asked, watching him.

"One of the three to be the death of me," he
said, in a sing-song voice, the corners of his mouth quirking
up.

"I'll be the death of you," Pretty said.
"Isn't that my line?"

"Yes. You'll be the death of me. It's my
line, too."

But nothing could bring back the levity of
earlier. Pretty supposed dying was like that.

He told her one very important thing – he
didn't have HIV. Jamie'd been dead for over a year, and Jeremiah
had tested twice, hoping for a death sentence, but by some
unfortunate miracle, he was clean.

For Pretty, this was a huge relief, an
uncoiling of something tight and terrified that had lived inside
her since he'd told her the story of Jamie.

And then it was time. There was no getting
around it, nothing else that needed doing first. They had reached
the moment. The climax.

"Do you want chocolate?" she asked, in some
lame attempt at a stall.

He shook his head. "No. But… we have to go
to the dungeon. I want it to happen there. It needs to happen
there."

They dressed in the house and undressed
again in the garage. Somewhere in between, he handed her a
black-bladed knife, and its sharp silver edge gleamed in the half
light.

And then he told her what kind of
preparations he'd made, what she'd have to do, after.

She tried to listen, but started crying. He
pulled her to him and… what else? Stole her tears.

Because that's what he did. That's what he
always did.

He leapt onto the mattress, and it squeaked
beneath him, skin on vinyl. "You should tie me down."

She supposed he was right. "It will probably
hurt more than you expect, " she said. "Maybe we should have a code
word for if you change your mind."

"Code word," he said, making quotation marks
in the air with his fingers. "That will be enough. But I won't
change my mind."

He directed her to the restraints, and she
closed them around his wrists and ankles, looped the ends around
the bedframe, buckled them in place. Tugged them. He twisted and
pulled at them, but was secure.

"Are you sure?" she asked again, and her
knees were wobbling and she felt her mind almost separate itself
from her body. This could not be undone. This could never be
fixed.

"Yes. But… music. Please."

His iPhone was already docked. He told her
to find
Beautiful Thing,
by Romantic Torture. "Put it on
repeat. It has to be that one. Loud."

Pretty started the song. Turned up the
volume until it was almost unbearable. He mouthed 'thank you' and
lip-synced the words, or maybe he was singing them, too soft for
her to hear, and he stared at Jamie's scrap of fabric, which almost
seemed to be moving in time with the music. Surely it was Jamie's
song…

Pretty climbed on top of him, straddling his
hips with her thighs. She played the flat of the blade along one
hip, lifted herself to tease it against his scrotum, black metal,
gleaming silver edge.

Now his gaze shifted back and forth, her,
the fabric scrap hanging from the rafters, her again. When she ran
the blade edge carefully and slowly up his torso, she felt his cock
nudge against her.

A sense of power like nothing she'd ever
felt flowed into her, like water, like magick, like she had control
of every living thing in the universe.

She didn't, of course. Only this one living
being.

"Fuck him while you do it."

She almost jumped, the voice was right next
to her ear, easily heard despite the music.

She settled a little on her haunches, enough
for Jeremiah's cock to find her opening, and he thrust his hips up,
eyes closed, mouth tight, and slid into her.

She kept playing with the knife. His eyes
opened, locked to hers, and he mouthed, "Now."

She thrust the knife straight into X he'd
drawn with red Sharpie, the edge of the blade toward his face.

It was both harder and easier to do than she
thought it would be. Harder because she had to lean forward to push
it with her weight, and it hurt her cut hands something awful.
Easier because she committed herself to the wounding.

It was terrible.

He didn't seem to react to pain so much as
to the sensation of being punctured, and that was with a moan that
sounded like pleasure or relief.

And yes… somewhere in this she ground her
hips hard against him, felt his cock swell.

He didn't scream, or flinch, or even wince,
and never stopped looking into her eyes. She flicked her own eyes
away for partial seconds, but he never did. They were heavy on her
face, like the weight of the whole world, like she was the only one
in it who mattered.

She supposed, in this moment, she was.

Dark blood welled out from around the blade
and stained his pale skin. Pretty leaned forward, grinding against
him again, and licked at the place where it seeped from around the
blade, slower and thicker than she would have expected.

She sat up, staring into his eyes again, and
tried to push the blade toward his throat. It wasn't like cutting
butter. She ended up sawing at him, pushing hard, and now he
bucked, writhed, and she couldn’t imagine he expected it to be like
this.

The whole of time stretched out. It felt
like she was sawing for hours, the blade hitting rib bones and
sliding away, then catching on, what, connective tissue? Softer,
stickier something that she was able to cut through. She struggled,
and there was more blood, enough that the knife hilt was slippery
in her damaged hands.

He convulsed underneath her now, which made
her eyes to fly to his face, worried for him, worried he might beg
her to stop this when it was already too late.