Evolution (11 page)

I sucked in a few deep breaths before asking, “What’s wrong with you?”

Again he ignored me, finding my collarbone again with his lips before sliding downward to engulf a nipple. I arched my back, pressing myself further into his warm mouth. Cigarettes and perfume masked the earthy scent of his hair. My body ached to continue, but my head reminded me of the pain he’d already inflicted.

I yanked at his hair, trying to dislodge him before I could succumb to sleep or him. The fuzziness faded while my anger grew. He still refused to acknowledge that I was anything other than a doll for his pleasure. And damn him to hell, there were stains on his pants, not blood, like on his shirt. At that moment I couldn’t decide which was worse.

My heart throbbed in stabbing pains that should have become familiar in the past few days. Yet I lay there another minute or two, debating, stunned, and silent until the burning of my anger brought it all down.
Have a nice life, pop star
. Damn him for playing with me. And damn me for letting him. I rolled out from under him, off the mattress, and to my wobbly feet.

“Looks like you’ve already had an orgy tonight. You don’t need me. So get the hell out of my home.” My apartment was trashed. Not just the futon, but dishes glistened in pieces around boxes on the floor; my CD collection had been thrown into a box that left the disks pouring free from their protective jackets. And the microwave sat beside the door, missing the plug that usually kept it connected to the wall.

“What the hell are you doing? You’ve destroyed my home, you heartless bastard. That’s all I had. Did your orgy go so wrong you had to come here and take it out on me?”

He rose from the bed to his full height, which was intimidating enough, but shadows made his face look surreal. Was he like Devon? Was there another person inside controlling him, making him do these awful things? Or was he just that cruel?

“Me?” His voice came out low enough to sound gravely. “You smell like girls, and
him
, that Australian ex-lover of yours.”

“Devon and I have never been lovers. Besides, you left me. Remember the note? ‘Have a nice life, pop star.’ Thanks for the souvenir, you jerk.”

“So you’ll do whatever will have you? Saxon’s almost ten years older than you.”

We so weren’t going there. “I’m not the one with stains on my pants proclaiming I’ve had an orgy.”

He glanced down at his clothes as though it were the first time he’d seen them today. I dug through my stuff searching for a blanket. Maybe some of it was salvageable. Uo would help me replace some of it. Maybe Cris would too. Odd how important the little things could become.

Kerstrande said nothing for so long I finally looked back at him, and he stood completely naked. I tried to keep from staring in dumb fascination, but my mouth went dry, and my body refused to move. He truly was the most beautiful man on earth, even as messed up as he was now.

His gaze wildly searched the apartment. “I need a bath. Have to get them off me.”

I blinked, trying to pull my thoughts and eyes from his obvious desires to the one he’d actually asked for. “I don’t have a tub, but there’s a shower in there.” I gestured toward the bathroom. He didn’t move. “KC?”

“Stop saying my name like that.”

“Do you prefer Kerstrande?”

He shivered. “Cold.”

Maybe he was sick. I touched his arm, which made him jump. “Sorry, sorry. Just follow me.”

Slowly I backed away, toward the bathroom. After I pulled back the shower curtain and flicked on the water, I waved him toward the hot stream. He didn’t move. Just stared, eyes locked on my hair. Now what?

I reached out to touch his arm. His eyes followed my movement, but his skin felt like ice. Maybe he really was sick. After stripping off my own clothes, I dragged him under the spray with me. Not that he seemed to notice, until I shoved him under the warmth of the water. He shivered for several minutes while I lathered up a washrag and began to wipe away the stains of the evening.

He’d trashed my apartment, acted like a heartless jerk, and I should have been angry. He just looked so helpless, so lost, that I couldn’t push him away. I could touch him all I wanted as I washed him but had to work hard not to linger too long in any particular spot. He didn’t move, speak, or even breathe, it seemed. Just stood shivering, eyes on me the whole time.

“What happened to you? Did someone hurt you?” I stroked his face with the cloth. The blood washed away, but the shadows didn’t ease. “At least tell me if you’re hurt.”

“Hungry. Cold.”

If I turned the water any hotter, it would be scalding. Blankets I could do, and food. Or at least I’d had those things until Kerstrande had gone berserk. “I’ll fix something to eat when you’re clean. It’ll be okay.” My heart beat harder while I stared at his shadow-strewn face. Last time he’d looked at me like that, I’d passed out. I was pretty sure now it hadn’t been a dream.

“Come with me—you’re too big to carry, so you have to follow me,” I told him, turning off the water and then drying him with a towel. I wrapped one around my waist after wiping away the water and then added one to his before leading him into the cool apartment. The air hit like a blast from the arctic. The futon mattress spread out easily enough. I dug through the boxes to find my blankets, making more of a mess, but covered him up and pulled him into the bed with me.

“I don’t have any clothes big enough to fit you, and I’m really tired. We can wash them tomorrow. After we figure out what’s wrong with you.”

“It’s you who’s not normal.” It was the most normal-sounding thing he’d said in the last forty minutes. But his expression changed too, becoming aware and dangerous all at once. I backed as far away as the blankets we shared would allow. He ripped my towel away and pulled me beneath him.

“This isn’t a good idea. You’re sick or something.” Never mind how happy he was. I could feel him pressing into my thigh.

“Hungry.”

“Okay, I can get food.” I’d forgotten about that anyway. I tried to get up, but he yanked me back down and disappeared beneath the blanket. My world spun in rhythms I hadn’t known existed when the heat of his mouth enveloped the most sensitive part of me.

“KC….” I tried calling him, but everything was lost in the warmth of his lips. I gripped the mattress, and his hair.

His eyes were closed, face relaxed but focused, lips looking so good.

“Oh God….” I tugged his hair while he pushed me to higher peaks of pleasure than I’d ever been before.

Finally, his lips moved away, tongue lapping upward until he found the still-fading bruise on my neck. It ached in memory. “Not yet,” Kerstrande mumbled, mouth against my skin. His face was peaceful, almost like he was dreaming. His long lashes went on forever and ever. I wanted to kiss them, feel them flutter across my face. “Soon.”

No kidding, soon. He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me against him close enough to almost be one person instead of two. My body nearly flew off the edge each time he touched me. My heart sung with happiness that he was truly here, in the moment, touching me like I wanted him to. I wanted him but didn’t have the voice to give life to the words.

“Soon,” he whispered.

No, it was more like now. The racing of my heart seemed to pour down my spine and spurt in liquid fire between the two of us, lasting so long it made me dizzy. His mouth was locked to my neck, attached like he never wanted to let go.

The fuzziness poured back in, stealing the air from my lungs. We’d need another shower, but I couldn’t open my eyes. Sleepiness wrapped me in a tight embrace and dragged me down. “KC?” I called to him, voice sounding hollow and strained. Something was wrong. “K….”

Chapter 11

W
HEN
people talk about dreaming of drowning, it’s likely they’ve never actually experienced the feeling of having water fill their lungs until the world turns to black blotches of nothingness around them. My last day of high school had been filled with such a moment, and even to this day, nearly a year later, I feared large bodies of water. Until that point, I’d loved swimming. It was my only physical skill and the one I thought I’d make it through high school with since gym was a required class.

The jock who held me down didn’t usually get into the water. But that day, he and three of his buddies had all jumped in, pushed me around, and kept shoving me under. Every time I thought I could get a breath, back down I’d go until my lungs burned.

Their words meant little to me, as I’d heard them a million times before. Faggot, queer, cocksucker; they were never very original. Nothing about me back then said gay. At least I didn’t think it did. I kept my hair dyed black, wore the appropriate baggy jeans and T-shirts, and never put on makeup or even nail polish. Sure I was small and skinny, but I could have been a goth kid, or just a nerd. Yet “fag” is what they called me. Nearly five years of the torment should have prepared me for anything, but I guess we all still hope for the best from people even after we see their worst day after day.

That day, I remembered looking up through the swirling water and seeing my best friend, Rob, standing at the edge of the pool watching. He’d come back as a TA from college and had been helping the gym teacher, Mr. Berry, with basic things like attendance. He helped a lot of the teachers, hung out with a lot of the jocks, and flirted with girls he had no right to be looking at, but apparently had no interest in helping me.

His expression was one of shock, I remembered. Maybe a little horror, even. I don’t know all the details for sure because I blacked out while he seemed to stand frozen in place. When I came to, I was in the nurse’s office, freezing, still in just the tiny gym-required, Speedo-like suit, and the second I woke up, a coughing fit hit me so hard I couldn’t stop even after I started retching up blood with the chlorine water. They had to call an ambulance to take me to the hospital.

My mom asked what happened while I recovered in the hospital later that night. Rob told her some kids at school were messing around, and I’d just happened to get bumped by them a little too hard. Bumped. Ha. He said no one had been close enough to help, and the boys hadn’t realized right away that I was drowning.

The feeling of the water rushing over my head, the pain of it filling my lungs, and the fear of knowing I was going to drown were things I’d never forget. Knowing my best friend, the guy I thought of as my big brother, had let it all happen—in fact, stood by and watched—broke my heart. To this day I still couldn’t help but get buried in depression whenever I thought about it. And obviously it still gave me nightmares.

As the dream shifted with my memories, I thought about sitting in the principal’s office a week later, him telling me the accident was all my fault, and perhaps I should look into attending another high school since delinquents like me were not welcome at Jerome High School. I’d never been in trouble the entire time I’d gone to the school. Sure, my grades were average at best, but I showed up every day, kept my head down. But he wasn’t referring to actual problems I’d caused; he was referring to my sexuality, which he’d apparently made judgments about.

I’d been sixteen, and all I could think of at that moment, as I walked out of the school for the last time, was that I was never going back. They weren’t going to make me live in fear anymore, and I was going to stop hiding who I was since everyone hated me anyway. The conversation with my mom had been one of the hardest.

“Mom, I’m not going back,” I told her that day.

“You want to change schools?” she’d asked. I hadn’t told her the truth of what happened, but I suspected she knew. She ruffled my hair and smiled at me like I was used to. Mom was good like that. Kind and always working hard to take care of me and Uo.

I shook my head. “Mom, I’m gay.” I felt the words come out and almost expected a slap or something, though my mom had never raised her voice, and certainly not her hand, to me.

“And because you’re gay you can’t finish school?” Sometimes she saw right through me.

“No. I’m not going back at all. I’ll take the GED instead, get a job. It will be okay.” Anything had to be better than all the bullying, the betrayal, and the fear.

She rubbed her thumbs over my cheeks, wiping away tears I didn’t realize were falling. I was giving up, and to me that was almost worse than dying. But I couldn’t go back or they might just kill me. “You know you can come home whenever you need, and I will help as much as I can. That’s what moms do.”

I let her hug me and cried, feeling worthless and terrified, but seeing no other option. I knew she didn’t understand; she wanted me to stay with her and finish school, maybe go to college. But she was dating again, and I was just the messed-up homo kid no one really wanted.

Cris helped me get a job and study for the GED, which I, thankfully, passed. He also helped me find the tiny studio I called home. All the dependency I’d cast out on others before then, I reeled in and forced myself to deal with—food or lack of it, clothes, the junker car I bought, gas. I even took to digging in the garbage to find furniture. Life was awful, but no one tried to hurt me, not physically or emotionally. No one cared anymore, and that felt really great for a while.