SUFFOCATION

Arms folded and legs slightly apart, jeans riding low on my hips. It's cold, too cold and I pull at what's left of my jacket, the lining, black and thin and useless. Everything's used, worn and waiting to be discarded. My shirt is long ago black, a faint reminder of an AC/DC logo peeling away. My hair is too long and I shift on my feet, bite my nails.

The world is going on around me and I stand where I am, waiting in the dark. A car pulls up, stops, and my legs move. The window rolls down and I don't bother to smile. The wind kicks my hair into my face, my mouth and the taste is bitter. "How much?"

And my voice is flat and even, my fingertips are cold. I ask him, "How long?"

"As long as I need."

"A hundred," I tell him. He nods and I pull on the handle, slide into the car.

"What's your name?" I tuck my hair behind my ear and turn on the radio. It's Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody and I close my eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I wait in the car, flexing my fingers and the tempo changes from rock to pop and I stop listening. He climbs back into the car, Mr. Everything Silk And New. He turns the radio off, flips open a box of Marlboro Reds and peels the foil back with his thumb. He slides a cigarette out with his teeth and holds the box up to me. I take one and he closes the box, hands me a light.

I take one long pull and hold the smoke in my lungs as he maneuvers the car in front of the room, puts it in park. Room 4C. I've been here before. I exhale and reach for the handle.

He opens the trunk and pulls out a black duffel bag. I stand by the door, waiting. He closes the trunk and I swallow. "Don't worry," he says and he opens the door, "just a few… extras."

"Two hundred." I pause inside the door and the walls are a muted pink. Mr. Everything silk And New, he nods. I take off my jacket.

~~~~~~~~~~~

He straightens his tie and I stare straight ahead, my legs pulled into my chest, my arms wrapped around. Twenty dollar bills are on the bed at my feet. Ten, total, and I haven't touched them.

I'm too aware of the blood that is trailing from my nose and mouth, the various cuts and bruises. I use the back of my hand to wipe away the used tears. The smell in the air is acid and my own bile is on the floor in varying amounts. He picks up his duffel bag and wraps his fingers around the knob. He opens the door and turns back to me. "What's your name?"

I reach out and pick up the money.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I shower and old clothes go on over new wounds. I walk around the room and avoid the blood and bile and I touch the surface of everything. I don't bother to sleep and I'm tired. I push the money into my pocket and pull on my jacket. Outside is cold and my hair is damp. I stop at a diner and the waitress says its three forty-five in the morning.

I order a cup of coffee, a donut, plain, and she brings me two. "You're too skinny. What's your name?"

I take a bite and reach for the sugar.

Four fifty-three in the morning and she brings me my change. "You don't talk much."

"No," I tell her and sugar is pooled in the bottom of my cup.

"Why?" Her hair is mouse brown and she wears glasses. She's plain and pretty. Her name is Emily and I think for a minute that her parents must not love her.

"Why?" I repeat her question back to her and she doesn't ask anymore questions.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Its light outside and not so cold and I buy a paper just to look the part. The paper is rolled tightly in my grip and I ask a man with a dog if he'd mind sharing a smoke. He shakes his head and the dog growls and he hands me one. "Thanks," I tell him.

And he pulls the dog and lets some of the leash out. "Fucking kids," he mutters. But I don't care. I walk away, duck into an alley and find a dumpster. I open the paper and sit down, my back resting against the brick. I pull in my knees and rest my head on my arms.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Holy shit, dude. I thought you were fucking dead." I look up at Brandon and he's sucking on a lollipop. Drops of semen, some fresh and just drying, pepper his shirt and jeans.

"Not dead," I barely whisper and I stand up. I reach down to pick up my paper.

"Well, fuck man, I can see that. Leave that fucking paper man." And he twirls the lollipop on his tongue. It's cherry. I fold up the paper and slip it into my back pocket. I wipe the sleep out of my eyes and Brandon tells me that it's almost two.

He stops at a vendor and buys two slices of pizza, one for him and one for me. And two drinks, grape soda for him and water for me. "Thanks," I say and he takes a bite, wipes his mouth with the bottom of his shirt and tucks the soda into his pocket. He's still holding onto the lollipop.

He talks about brunch and I tell him that I thought brunch was earlier than this and he shrugs and says he doesn't know. He says, "Fuck it."

And I tell him, "Okay."

~~~~~~~~~~~

I rent a hotel room and two hours later Brandon comes back with clean clothes, two towels and a bar of soap. "Where'd you get these?" I ask and Brandon clears his throat.

"Does it matter?" His face is flushed and he reaches into his pocket and unwraps a cough drop. His throat hurts and he keeps swallowing hard and I know how Brandon got the new clothes.

"No."

"The ones on the bottom are for you," he tells me as he turns on the TV. I pick up the clothes and the soap and a towel. I don't look at Brandon but I hear him start to chew the cough drop and I see his movements as he wipes away what's left of his tears.

I close the bathroom door.

Brandon falls asleep and I watch an all day marathon of… something, before time is up. It's dark again and Brandon's regular in an SUV is waiting by the curb. Brandon walks over and disappears behind the tint.

More boys come and go. Some are girls dressed like boys and boys dressed like girls and they leave too. I get tired of waiting and sit down on the curb. It's cold again.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I don't look at the person standing next to me until they sit down on the curb, brown hair and brown eyes. Plain and pretty and she smiles and I almost smile and then I don't. "Hi," she says and her hands are in her pockets. She's short and her lips are pale from the cold.

"Hi."

"What are you doing?"

"Waiting."

"For who?"

And I ask her if her parents love her. She shrugs and says, "I don't know. I guess, at some point."

"Did you always want to be a waitress?" I ask and the soles of my Converse are white turned grey. She shakes her head and tells me no.

"I wanted to be someone else," she says and she turns her toes inward. Her sneakers are new.

"Who?" I ask. Another car pulls to a stop and someone gets out. I don't know who.

"What do you do?" she asks and I don't move the hair out of my face.

"Fuck." Her expression doesn't change and she looks over at me. "Who'd you want to be?"

She smiles and tells me, "Myself." A car stops in front of us and I stand up.

"How much?" And he looks at Emily. Mr. Family Man, he grins and adds, "For both?"

I open my mouth and Emily says, "three hundred." Mr. Family Man nods and Emily stands, crawls into the backseat and closes the door. I get in the car and reach for the radio.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Mr. Family Man is average, everything, and the wedding ring on his finger is gold. I sit on the bed and Emily takes off her jacket. She tosses it onto an empty chair and pulls her hair out of its ponytail. Her skin is pale and Mr. Family Man steps up behind her, both of them in front of me and he kisses her neck.

I don't take my eyes off of her and his knee nudges her jean covered legs apart. He pulls her shirt, white with no design, over her head and drops it on the floor. Her bra is pink and lace and small. "His shirt," he tells her and she reaches forward and helps me out of my jacket, my shirt.

Mr. Family Man takes a step forward and Emily is straddling my legs. He reaches out and runs his hand down my face, my neck and pinches down hard on my nipple. His right hand is inside Emily's jeans, his fingers pressing into her and she bites her bottom lip. He moves his fingers and sucks them into his mouth before helping Emily out of her jeans, her underwear.

Her underwear is white and she runs her hand through her hair.

He steps from behind her and his fingers are warm as he unbuttons my jeans and tosses them on the floor. Emily is standing over me and her hair falls down her back and over her face and the ends are dry. Mr. Family Man loses his clothes and runs his left hand through my hair. He grips tightly and his right hand guides Emily to her knees.

And he tells her to open her mouth. He tells her wider and her tongue is wet and hot and soft. He tells her deeper, harder. She follows orders and I wonder if a waitress is all she's ever been and her eyes start to water and she gags and I stop wondering.

I close my eyes and lay back. Mr. Family Man, average everything, climbs on top of me. His knees are pinning my shoulders to the mattress and he tells me to make it good. Make it worth the money.

He holds onto the headboard and all I can breathe is skin. My gag reflex is gone and I don't warn Emily that I'm about to come. She sits up and swallows and drops of my semen are on her breast, her mouth. She uses her finger to wipe it off and Mr. Family Man grabs her hand, sucks on her finger and bites down. "Get on your knees," he says to me and he pulls out of my mouth.

My jaw is sore and I move to the end of the bed, turn around and get on my knees. He maneuvers Emily under me and she smiles and whispers, "I've never been fucked before." I don't say anything and he doesn't bother with preparation. I start to sweat and it still burns like the first time.

He pushes forward with every thrust. His arm is around my waist and I can hardly breathe. He tells Emily to open her legs. He tells her wider and he guides me into her. Her hands are shaking and she wraps them around my arms. He presses his hand flat against my stomach, squeezes her breast and comes.

I come inside of her and her arms and legs are pulsing. She doesn't try to smile.

Mr. Family Man, he pulls on his jacket and lights a cigarette. His wedding ring catches in the light and he drops three hundred dollars on the television by the door.

I sit, my feet flat against the floor, boxers on, and Emily doesn't try to avoid the blood. "It hurt."

"I'm sorry."

"Not your fault," she says and she gets up.

~~~~~~~~~~~

One hundred and fifty dollars richer and it's midnight. I'm more than hungry and nothing looks good. I order coffee, hot. I order fries and a burger and I watch as it gets cold. "Hey. Seen Brandon?" It's Alex and his lips are dry and cracked. He rubs his arms. Someone stole his coat.

"Earlier," I tell him and he looks down at my food. He sits across from me and I drink some of my coffee. Lots of sugar, black.

"When earlier?" And he asks if I'm going to eat. I tell him probably not. I tell him he can have it. He reaches out and pulls the plate over to him. His veins are visible and his skin is ashen and I think we might look the same.

"Earlier." Alex swallows, grabs the ketchup and smothers the fries.

"Okay, geez," he says and I wonder if my answer was too forceful. "Brandon. God, he's such a fucking asshole." It's true.

"Him and his fucking lollipops. Asshole," Alex says and his mouth is full. "Food's cold."

I nod, tell him I know and I take a drink of my coffee. Alex swallows and sits back and takes another bite. "You sure you haven't seen Brandon?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Its rush hour and I sit at the bus stop not waiting to go anywhere. A man sits next to me and his brief case is new, his suit is new his shoes are new and he practices what to say to his absent somebody and the bus pulls to a stop in front of him. He has high expectations and at the end of the week he'll never be the same.

"Going somewhere?" I look up and Emily is standing in front of me. The sun is behind her and all I can see is shadow. Her hair is smooth. Her jacket is red and a purple scarf is tied loose and long around her neck.

"I don't think so." I hadn't really thought about it.

"You should," she tells me and the wind starts to blow and she wraps her hands, petite and soft, around the ends of her scarf. She doesn't sit down.

"I should?"

"See the world, something new. Be… normal," she tells me and she shifts her weight. "Being extraordinary," and she pauses, "it just takes too much fucking energy."

"Yeah," I say. I don't bother to think about how I feel about it.

"One day," and she finally sits, "one day I'll be so normal it hurts." She pulls on the ends of her scarf and for three minutes the only sound is traffic. I move the hair away from my mouth and she sighs. She crosses her legs and says, "Wanna fuck?" And I wonder about her definition of normal.

~~~~~~~~~~~

How I feel is anywhere but here and her hair smells warm and used and she pulls on her panties, her jeans, and stuffs her bra in her pocket. "I used to dream about dying, my own funeral."

"When you were young?" She tells me no. She tells me she dreamed it a lot, more as she got older and then it just stopped. She pulls on her shirt, pulls it down and I pick up my jeans off the floor. I tell her I use to dream I was already dead.

"Do you think that's weird?" I ask her and she seems surprised at my voice. She shakes her head and laces her shoes. She puts on her jacket and hands me my shirt, my sock.

"Does it really matter if it is?" She asks. I put on my clothes and run my fingers through my hair.

"I don't know. No, no, not particularly," is all I give back to her and she leans back on the bed. Her foot is resting on the mattress.

"Good," she says. "That's really good." I finish getting dressed and the taste in the back of my throat is her soap and it's caustic. "What's your name?"

I pick up my jacket from the chair and slip my arms inside. She can stay, she paid for the room.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm tired of diners and I walk down the sidewalk. My hands are in my pockets and I have enough money for food and no motivation. I see Brandon, leaning against the glass window of a local store. He sees me and smiles. He's wearing sunglasses. "Alex is looking for me. Fucking little junkie," he says.

"I know," I tell him. "I saw him." Brandon, scratches at his arm and clears his throat and I can see that his face is black and blue and purple. His lip is red and split and there's a lollipop, still in its wrapper, locked between his fingers.

He asks me if I have a smoke and I tell him no. I tell him I'll buy some. "You saw him, really? Fucking Alex?" I nod and Brandon pauses in the doorway of the convenience store. "He fucked up? He's such a fucking junkie."

"I thought he was your best friend," I say and I walk through the convenience store door. Brandon follows me inside.

"Yeah man, my best friend. I love him. He's still a fucking junkie," Brandon says and he asks the man behind the counter for a pack of menthol lights. Fuck the brand. I lay my money on the counter and Brandon is looking at the magazines.

"Someone stole his coat," I tell Brandon and all he does is laugh. We walk out of the store and he quickly lights a complimentary match. "What?" I ask as he continues to laugh.

"He sold that coat," Brandon says. "Told you man; fucking junkie." And he asks me if I know where he could score some blow.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Mr. Hairpiece, Mr. Too much Leather, Mr. Erectile Dysfunction, Mr. I Like To Watch, Strip For Me Slowly, Too Much Cologne, 5 o'clock Shadow, Going Commando, Hopeless Bottom. Mrs. My Husband Never Loved Me and I service them all. My only job is not to feel too much of what I'm feeling and I let myself wonder for a moment if my parents miss me at all.

I could go home. I could call. I could stop dreaming, but anything goes. "Where the hell are you?" I hear Brandon ask and I blink my eyes slowly. I'm standing bone still in the middle of the sidewalk, my arms at my sides and my knees locked into place.

"Nowhere," I say and he shakes his head. I don't have to see him to know he does and he sticks a cigarette in his mouth and lights the tip.

"Yeah," he says as a car slows down and he steps forward, "it looked like it." The car speeds back up and he leans back against the wall. "Damn Trick, one of my regulars. These bruises are costing me money."

"Did Alex ever find you?" I ask and I turn to walk towards him. I lean on the wall next to him, my body facing in and my jeans hanging lower than they were yesterday.

"No," he tells me. "I don't even know what he wants. I haven't talked to him in forever; in like a day and a half." And he asks me again if I know where to get any blow.

"You asked me that already," I remind him.

"What'd you say?" I don't move my head and my eyes watch the street. I'm too tired to work anymore tonight and my money is making my shoe too small.

I tell him I told him no. He asks me if I'm telling the truth and I say, "I don't know. I think so." Brandon clears his throat and sniffs.

"Okay."

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey," Emily says and I swallow the water in my mouth. She doesn't sit down across from me and her apron is tied tightly around her and her nametag is crooked. "You don't come here that much anymore."

I order two slices of pizza and root beer and she doesn't bother writing it down. She tucks her order pad into her pocket and taps her pencil against her thigh. "Where've you been?" She waits for an answer and I look up at her.

Her eyes are clear and her hair is pulled loosely away from her face. "Is it really that important?" I ask her and she doesn't blink. I didn't know we had become anything other than I know you and you know me. "Around," I tell her and she moves her head slightly. Someone calls her name and she turns to walk away.

Five minutes later she comes back with my food and she sits down in front of me. She drops her order pad and the pencil on table and I take a bite of my pizza. The pepperoni is spicy. She clasps her hands and licks her lips. "No," she says, "I guess it doesn't really matter."

I peel the paper off of a straw and stick it into my glass. I take a long drink and when I sit the glass back on the table Emily wraps her hand around the top, the straw held between her index and pointer finger and she presses the plastic between her lips. I watch the soda float to the top of the straw and her lips are moist.

She leans back and smiles, only slightly and I think I might love her. I think it might not be a bad thing.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon walks into the diner and sits next to me. He turns the empty coffee mug over and motions for the waitress to bring him coffee and he looks up and finally notices Emily. "Hey," he says and Emily nods and she gets up. "Who's that?"

"She's a waitress." It seems to be enough for him and he drinks the hot coffee in one swallow, motions for another. Emily moves behind the counter and someone orders pie and she takes the glass top off the container and sits it on the counter.

"Frank died," he says and he takes a drink from his mug. The same waitress who brought him the coffee comes back and asks if he'd like to order some food. He looks over at what's left of mine and says he'll have whatever I had. To go.

I think I'm supposed to be sad. "Who's Frank?" I ask and Brandon drinks the rest of his coffee. The waitress brings his food and moves away.

"Tall kid, blond," he says and it doesn't ring any bells. "Stood on the corner by the Chinese food place," he tells me and he bumps my arm with his elbow.

"Oh," I say, "him. I didn't know his name was Frank." Brandon sucks sauce off of his fingers and burps.

"Yeah, well," is all he says. "He's dead now."

"How'd he die?"

I want to know and Brandon shrugs and says he still hasn't found salvation. And then he says, "I guess he lived." And I still don't know who Frank is.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"What's your name anyway?" he asks. And I pull my shirt back down and reach for the waist of my jeans. The car is small and I rise out of the seat, slip the material over my hips and button them. My head hurts from his grip on my hair and my throat is swollen.

I blink and he hands me my money. A blowjob, twenty dollars and I take what I can get. I don't swallow for twenty dollars and I reach for the door handle. He doesn't try to stop me and when I'm standing on both feet he drives away. I spit his seed onto the ground and wipe my mouth with the back of my hand.

Walking out from behind the store and my natural instinct is to keep spiting but I bite it back and swallow whatever else I have left.

Back out into the darkness and the only light is every open store, diner, restaurant and bar. Alex is pacing the street across from me and Brandon is walking along beside him. It's not hard to tell that they are fighting. I cross my arms over my chest and the twenty dollar bill is clutched tightly in my hand.

I watch as Alex stops moving. I watch Brandon walk up behind him and put his hand on his shoulder, turning him. I watch Alex move in closer to get warm and Brandon leans his head in and they're kissing. Alex snakes his arms around Brandon and they move backwards between two stores.

I hear a horn honk and I stop watching.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Time moves fast and it's been too many days since I stopped counting down the time. Emily is walking ahead of me in a park I've never been to before and her hair is pulled to the side. She picks up a leaf and twirls it in front of her face.

I walk behind her and I can't remember the last time I bothered to eat anything. She reaches back and grabs my hand and I don't mind. "Were you born here?" Here, Anywhere, USA.

"Yeah," I tell her and there's no one else here but us. She weaves her fingers with mine and I can feel her heart beat.

"I don't want to die in the same place I was born. It's so… pleading," she says and she crushes the leaf and lets it fall to the ground. "You never talk about your mother, your parents."

She slips her hand out of mine and waits for me to say more of nothing.

"Are they dead?" I push my hands into my pockets and walk ahead.

"No," I tell her and she walks next to me, her shorter legs keeping up as best as they can. I stop walking after more than half and hour in silence and the park is more than a mile behind us. I look up at a two story Victorian, white and all the windows are new and insulated to save energy. People move around inside and I gesture toward the house. "They're not dead."

"Shit," she says. "It's so antiseptic." I want to knock on the door and have the illusion of being wanted. Instead I walk away. Emily turns to follow. "They kicked you out?"

"I left," I tell her.

"Why?"

I make it a point not to walk down memory lane. I don't know why I did and I quickly close the doors. "Because I could," is all I say.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I stand on the sidewalk looking to the left and I watch as cars and people rush past me, going somewhere. "What the fuck are you always fucking looking at?" Brandon asks and Alex is standing next to him, his eyes glassed over and his pupils wide.

"Alex found you," I say and I back up until my back is against brick. Brandon leans into the wall with his shoulder and sticks a lollipop into his mouth.

"Yeah," he says and he looks at Alex. "Fucking tweaked out little asshole, man. I swear." Alex looks hurt and he pulls his bottom lip into his mouth and scratches his arm. He has a new coat.

"Don't talk about me like I'm not standing right here," Alex says and Brandon rolls his eyes. "I can hear you."

Brandon reaches into his pocket and pulls out a cigarette. The ones I bought him are long ago gone. "I had to suck eight dicks to get that jacket," he tells me. Alex moves toward a stopped car and the driver's side window is down.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Are we something?" Her legs are folded, tucked under her in the seat. She wanted popcorn, lots of salt, no butter. I haven't been to a movie in years. I can't remember the last thing I saw that wasn't real and that thought makes me smile.

"Do you want to be?" I ask and my mouth is full, my tone is not so flat. The box of candy in my hand is heavy, Skittles. And my feet rest on the back of the chair in front of me. She shrugs and crumbles a piece of popcorn between her fingers. Her eyes catch all the light from the screen and the previews haven't started.

"Only if it'll help," she says and licks the salt from her fingers. We both stare straight ahead. The chairs in front of us are empty and a couple takes a seat.

"With what?" The lights dim and she takes a deep breath. I don't bother looking at her. She watches me not watching her.

"The definition of everything." And I don't want to try to understand. I already know what she's saying, asking. I knew before she did.

"If it helps," I say.

"Okay." She eats her popcorn and watches the movie. For the next two hours our job is not to think about anywhere but here. "I fucking hate the movies," she says and her head is leaning on my shoulder.

"Me too," I admit and neither of us move.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"You're like the invisible man. You're always with that girl, the waitress from The Hole. Are you fucking her? Whatever, come with me," Brandon says all in one breath and I don't ask him to where, or why.

We walk down the street and people move out of our way. Brandon's shirt is dried blood stained and a girl's hair clip, white, holds his blond hair out of his face. "Did you know that if you walk long enough in a straight line you can go anywhere?"

I ask him what about the ocean. I ask him, "What about the other side of the world?" I ask what if something interesting happens to the right.

He says, "Then you ignore it." He pushes past a younger boy and clears his throat. "Never mind. Fuck it, it doesn't matter."

"Where are we going?" I ask and I'm not trying too hard to keep up. He slows down and I start to think about how much money I have. I wonder if we should just get a cab. I'm tired of walking, but I don't say anything.

"The Box is squatting in a house up on Mission," he says and we turn a corner. The Mission neighborhood is old rich. "The owners, they're in France or some shit like that, eating snails and fish eggs and drinking wine with everything."

"Could have done that here."

"I'm almost sure they did. Do you know "The Box"?" I say no and Brandon tells me I'm lucky.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Who the fuck is that?" I look up at "The Box". He's tall and black and lean. His jeans ride low, his underwear showing and his belt is looking almost painful. He doesn't bother with a shirt and he moves back to let us in.

"A friend," Brandon says as he glances at me. "The Box" closes the door and locks it. His torso is littered with tattoos and a leather belt is dangling from his left arm.

"I told your stupid ass to come in the back. Motha' fuckers gonna know we here if dumb fuckers like you keep coming to the front," and he points to us over his shoulder. We move through the house and people are everywhere. The smell is sweat and sex and drugs. Not all in that order.

"I forgot," Brandon tells him. He doesn't sound sorry.

"Whatever," he says and we walk into a downstairs bedroom. There are people on the floor, on the bed and we step over their limbs. "Move motherfucker, damn."

"The Box" sits down on a couch in front of the window, the curtains are drawn tight, and we drop down into the two chairs facing him. "You still suckin' dicks down on 11th and Grand?"

"Yeah," Brandon says and he tosses a roll of bills onto the table.

"Baby wants to fly tonight," "The Box" says and he reaches for a brown paper bag. He grabs the money and reaches inside the bag. "You sure you don't wanna quit, come work for me?"

Brandon shrugs out of his jacket and pulls off his shirt. The scratch marks and finger bruises on his chest look painful. He says, "No thanks. I don't like drugs." And "The Box" hands him some packets, a belt, spoon, lighter and a needle.

"You don't talk much," he tells me and I nod. I watch Brandon shoot up and his eyes roll back into his head, his fingers trail down his chest and he drops the needle to the floor. "The Box" reaches into the brown paper bag and comes to stand in front of me. Brandon's hand finds its way into his own jeans and he moans softly.

"Do you like tricks or treats?" And he slips a finger into my mouth and I let the strips dissolve on my tongue. His cock is in my face, hard and leaking and my response is automatic.

I open my eyes and everything around me is way too black. People are moving off in the distance, another room somewhere and I know one voice is "The Box". I try to sit up and Brandon is heavy on top of me. His jeans and underwear are hanging on one leg and we're stuck together with semen and sweat.

I wake Brandon up, tell him let's go and he slips his leg back into his jeans, underwear. We leave and we don't have a reason to look at the time.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"You should really think about getting tested. There's a clinic on the other side of town. Really clean bathroom in that place. I love spring," Emily says and her glasses are in her pocket. Now it's only cold sometimes and how we walk is my hand in hers.

"You've been there before?" I ask and the street isn't too crowded. I haven't seen Brandon in six weeks. I saw Alex, red eyed and starvation small and he told me not to worry.

Emily nods and she says, "All the time. You should really go, ya know. Have to take a cab though. Or a bus, I guess."

"I don't know. Maybe," I tell her and she lets go of my hand. She stops on the sidewalk and the people behind us try to move around. She picks up a flower off the sidewalk, a weed, growing between the cracks and she sticks it behind her ear.

"If you're scared," she says, "I'll go with you." She's looking up at me and I lean down to kiss her. My hands hold the side of her face and after a moment I pull away. I drop a kiss to her forehead and the weed falls to the concrete.

In my pocket is two dollars and eighty-nine cents, all that's left from fucking and sucking and food; hotel rooms for a shower. Fucking Emily without pay adds up and I stick my hand in my pocket knowing I'm back at square one. "Maybe a bus," I say. Emily smiles and her hand is back on mine and she pulls me to follow.

"The test is free."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon sits down in front of me and where I am is at a diner on the corner of Smith and Moore. He looks around and waves a hand at the waitress. "I haven't seen you in forever," I say and Brandon leans on the table.

"I had to get away, man. Fuck big cities," he says and he tells the waitress to just leave the pot. She starts to refuse and he puts a twenty on the table. "Leave the fucking pot." She does.

"Where'd you go?"

"What?"

"You said you had to get away. Where'd you go?"

Brandon pours his own cup of coffee and it's bitter. He chokes it down. "Oh, yeah," and he wipes coffee off of his chin, "Just went. Stayed in California for a few days; saw my mom. It was way too damn hot."

"How hot was it?"

Brandon takes another drink from the cup. He reaches into his pocket and empties a small Ziploc bag filled with white powder into the liquid. "Too hot. She asked me not to come back; gave me some money."

"Could have been worse," I say. He says I guess. He says he thought it would be. He asks me if I've seen Alex.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The bus is loud and I sit with my back flush against the seat. It feels like forever and Emily finally stands as the bus edges to a stop. I follow her and its only half a block before the building comes into view. We walk in and everyone who is no one is filling the seats. Babies cry and people complain, a nurse yells, "Margaret Espera." And the nurse behind the desk smiles as we step forward.

"How can we help you today?" she asks.

"Tests," Emily says and she's proud, "for everything."

"Fill out these forms. The doctor will be with you as soon as possible." We take the papers and move to the only available seats, sun faded and uncomfortable. I don't bother to fill out the papers and Emily knows the questions by heart. When the nurse calls us back we both stand and move together.

The room is sterile, enough, and I sit in the seat by the door. The doctor comes in and Emily is wide awake. The fluorescent lights are making me tired. "Good morning. I see you two are here bright and early. Emily, it's nice to see you again."

"That's always good to hear," she tells him. "This is my boyfriend." This is the first time she's said it and I feel something like fear and just as quickly it's gone. He takes a pair of gloves out of the cardboard box and adjusts his fingers, inside the latex. My paperwork is sitting on my lap and I roll up my sleeve. Emily flexes her hand and watches as the doctor, Dr. Do Good, ties a thick piece of latex around my arm. She leans in as he uncaps the needle and her fingers are smooth on my neck. "Roses are way too overrated." And she kisses my cheek.

I hold gauze to my arm as Emily smiles at the doctor. He sticks labels on the samples and she bends her arm to keep the gauze in place. He takes off the gloves, trashes them, washes his hands and says he'll call us with the results. Emily tells him that my number is the same as hers and he nods and says he'll see us next time. He says to make sure we tell the nurse.

Emily pays for the trip back. I tell her I'll pay her back. She asks, "Why?" I tell her because and she sits back in the cab.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex gets out of a blue mini-van and his shirt is torn at the sleeve. I sit on the curb and watch as he crosses the street. His fingers are hooked in the loops of his jeans to keep them from falling and he sits on the ground next to me. "Fifth car of the night. Nobody wants to fuck," he says and he shoves a ten dollar bill into his front pocket.

I stand up when a Volkswagon slows and then stops. I walk over and the guy asks, "How much?"

"How long?" I ask and the cycle is wash, rinse and repeat. He unlocks his doors and licks his lips. His voice is nervous and he looks around.

"I'm not gay," he feels the need to tell me and I ask him again, how long? "An hour, two, tops," he says and his dick is already hard.

I tell him, "One fifty and if you want a room, you pay." I get in the car. I turn the dial for the radio. I stop on Elton John's Tiny Dancer.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily's apartment is small. I walk around the room and stop in front of a wall of things she used to be. Her high school diploma, pictures and honors sash. She's smiling in the pictures and her hair is not so brown and her glasses are different. "I like your apartment."

She walks the two feet from the kitchen and sits next to me. "Thanks. I think you should stay here," she throws out. I tell her I don't think that would be such a good idea. She says she thought I'd say that. We sit in silence and it's nice. "What's your name?"

I tell her I'll stay. We fuck on her sheets and they smell like fabric softener. She doesn't ask me again.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"I think I might have got raped, but I'm not sure," Brandon tells me and he sits next to me on the bench. "You staying with that girl, that waitress?" I nod and take a pull from my cigarette. I blow the smoke out, away from Brandon.

"Alex is up at County General," I inform him.

"I know. That's the fourth time I've heard that today. That girl, that waitress, she's pretty."

"Are you going to go and see him?" Brandon runs his fingers through his hair. It's long and stringy and heavy with grease and too many days left unwashed. He looks up at the sun and crosses his legs.

"Do you think I look raped?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily stands in the hallway outside of Alex's room. Her arms are folded across her chest and her hair is falling across her shoulders. She sniffs and her right hand comes up to hold a tissue to her nose. She blows and wipes her eyes with the back of her hand. I stand next to her and I think if I try hard enough I might feel sad enough to cry.

"Did you know him?" I ask. She wipes her nose again and stuffs the tissue back into her pocket. My legs are slightly bent and the logo on my shirt is Iron Maiden.

"No. It just seems like crying would be the right thing to do."

~~~~~~~~~~~

No more money left and desperate times call for the same old bullshit. Almost too late and way too fucking early and I've walked down this street more times than I want to count. No hotel rooms tonight, its all about easy money. My throat is raw and I'm on my seventh bottle of water; another twenty dollar bill in my pocket and I cross the street.

I don't try to keep up with time. All I know is night and day and Hector comes to sit next to me. Hector is short and tan, his hair is shaved off and a pair of government issued dog tags hang around his neck. "We should just fucking leave. There's nothing left in this damn place." His accent is thick and he gestures idly, wiping over his mouth with the bottom of his shirt.

"You could always try walking in a straight line," I tell him. My eyes scan the streets for any potential customers. He scoffs.

"Man, fuck Brandon and his crazy ass bullshit. I'm talking about really going. Stop hustling, settle down. Get fucking jobs, get married, have babies. All that damn Betty Crocker bullshit," he says.

"Yeah," I say and I scratch my arm. Hector yells out to a girl named Victoria and she comes walking over. A half eaten apple is in her hand and she tosses a joint to Hector.

"Hey," she nods at me. She takes a bite of her apple and looks at Hector as she gestures to the joint. "You have no idea what the hell I had to go through to get that thing. It better not be shit." Her skirt is dirty denim and her shirt leaves nothing to the imagination.

"Who'd you get it from?" Hector asks. He takes a sniff and holds it between his fingers. Victoria pulls on the strap of her bra and we all watch as a police cruiser rolls past, Hector hiding the marijuana between his fingers.

"Some kid in the park; looked like he was eleven." My stomach rumbles and I take a step backwards. Hector puts the joint in his pocket and smoothes his hands over his white shirt.

"He holds good shit," Hector says and Victoria turns toward another girl a little further down the street. She walks away and she tells Hector to come and get her when he's ready to smoke that. She tells him not to be a dick like last time and tell her he forgot. He says he won't and he already knows he won't tell her. "Let's go get some food."

I don't see any cars so I shrug and say okay.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The top of the table at Mickey's, an Italian restaurant, somewhere between just the right price and cutting it close is off white and the lights are soft. Hector sucks on his teeth and a waiter comes over to our table. We're in the back, pushed as far out of eyesight as possible. "Good evening. Would you gentlemen like to hear our specials?"

"No, thank you Pierre," Hector says. The waiters name is not Pierre and he clears his throat to keep from losing his temper. "What's the cheapest thing on the menu?"

"Sir," he says, "if payment is an issue, perhaps you'd consider rethinking your choice for a…" He doesn't get to finish and Hector jabs his menu into the air.

"Bring us both a plate of spaghetti, with meatballs and some of that garlic bread. And two glasses of water." The waiter turns to walk away. I close my menu and lean back. I wonder if I can smoke in this section but I don't feel like lighting a match. "I heard Alex was bad. Did you go and see him?"

"Yeah."

"Well? How bad was he?" Hector seems almost amused. He waits with a complimentary mint in his mouth and I take another breath.

I lie and tell him, "I don't remember."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily is lying next to me on her bed and her arm is propping her up. She's facing me and her hands are held tight against her chest. My eyes are trained on the ceiling and my fingers are locked together, resting on my chest, rising and falling. "When I was younger I used to think I could fly. I'd practice jumping off the roof of the pool house," I say and I swallow, move my legs and the sun is coming up.

"I used to hate the water."

"Everyday I'd practice, all day. And one day I saw my brother go into the pool house. One of our cousins followed him inside. I watched through the window. I was eight. My brother was ten." Emily doesn't seem even a little surprise and she moves over on the bed. She rests her mouth against my shoulder and her words are nearly muffled.

"What happened to your brother?"

"When I was nine he showed me the inside of the pool house. When I was fourteen he taught me how to hustle. I found him when I was twenty-one, hanging from the pool house roof." I think I've had enough sharing and caring and the sun is a little higher on the horizon.

And she asks, "After that, did you still want to fly?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex is four days out of the hospital and he's pale. His eyes are huge inside his too small face. He's holding a withered napkin in his hand and his legs are anything but still. We're sitting in a restaurant. Table and chairs and food, every place is just one in the same. "I'm finished with drugs, seriously."

"Good luck." I order a burger, with cheese, no ketchup and Alex tells me that I am way too fucking weird. He orders a burger, with extra everything and when the waitress brings it to the table he pushes it away.

"Not really that hungry," is all he has to say. I bite into my burger and chew. Water is complimentary. We order two and refills. He shakes out two Tylenol with Codeine; doctor issued, and pops them in his mouth.

"Seriously man, I fucking hate the hospital. But, at least it was some time in a warm uncomfortable bed." I nod and swallow. "I heard you were staying with that waitress." And he takes one more pill.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily is pacing in front of me and I lean against the brick front of the clinic. How we are is free and clear and lucky and the pregnancy portion came back positive. I'm not sure if I should feel happy or sad and when Emily asks me to say something I tell her, "Sometimes I think my parents wish I was dead."

She tells me that she knows hers do and she leans against the brick next to me. It's perfectly warm now and her hair hangs longer than it did weeks ago. The ends aren't dry, she's using something new. It makes the sheets smell like peaches and I'm still getting used to it. "Did you ever want to be a daddy?"

"No." She tells me she didn't think so.

"I always wanted to be a mom," she says. Cars roll by, windows half down and all I can think of is nothing. Emily takes a deep breath, pulls a ponytail holder from around her wrist and secures her hair back and out of her face.

"I think you'd make a great mom." I say it and the thought is genuine. She cares a lot, equally not caring at all. She smiles and I remember the first time she brought me coffee, asked me my name.

"Really? Do you really think so, or are you just telling me that?" Her smile doesn't fade and she reaches out and touches my arm. Her fingers are warm. Her nail polish is chipped metallic blue. I tell her I really do think so and she pushes off of the wall. I follow her, just barely, and when she talks again her voice is louder than a personal conversation.

"I'm really glad you think so. I don't think I could get the time off for an abortion." And she stops, looks left and then right and we both cross the street.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Whose party this is we don't know, and the punch is less punch and more Vodka. Brandon moves his head to a beat that only he hears. A red cup is in his right hand, a cigarette burning down to the filter in his left. "Hey man. I heard some weird shit about you," a random guy tells me and his eyes are glazed over. He laughs and the punch in his cup spills on the floor. "Aw, fuck."

Brandon takes a pull on his cigarette. It's burned down to nothing and he drops it randomly into someone else's cup. The girl doesn't notice and she moves her hand to take a drink. I can warn her, but I don't and the song playing over the speakers seems louder.

"Whose party is this?" I ask. Brandon tells me he doesn't know. He asks me why it matters. He tells me to please chill the fuck out. "What the fuck are you gonna do with a kid?" he asks me as we move through the house, through the sea of sweating bodies.

"I haven't really thought that much about it," I tell him and it's the truth. A boy walks up, eighteen and counting, if you're willing to believe it and he clamps a hand down on my shoulder.

"Is it true what people have been saying?" he asks me. I just remember that his name is Trevor. Brandon laughs, way too hard and he starts to choke.

"Sure, why the fuck not," I tell him and I move away from them both. I can still feel his hand on my shoulder and I dip my cup into the punch. You don't have to take a drink to know it's spiked. The smell alone is a dead giveaway. I take my cup outside and more than too many people are standing around. They don't avoid the flowers or the grass.

Brandon finds me outside and he bumps into me. "This fucking party is all skanks," he says. "I fingered Sally Neels in the downstairs bathroom when I went to take a leak." I press the edge of the cup to my lips and drink more than half in one gulp.

"What are people saying?" Brandon shrugs his shoulders and drinks what's left of the mixture in his cup. It's empty and he lets the last drop fall into his mouth, tosses the plastic cup into the bushes and burps.

"Does it matter? Hell, do you even really give a shit?" He starts to walk down the grass and he waits for me on the sidewalk. We walk away from the party. We were there long enough to not quite hate it and we walk into a Mini-Mart. Brandon buys a pack of cigarettes, generic, and all the package says is cigarettes.

In some part of my body I think I do give a shit. I think I give a really big shit and the moment passes. I walk down the aisle, my eyes catch on diapers, nipples, bibs and organic baby food. "No," I answer Brandon, "I guess I really don't."

He pauses with his hand on the door, the chimer ringing loud to announce any potential customers. The girl behind the counter wants to be anywhere but here and she doesn't bother to look up.

"Come on. The night is still oh so young." And I follow him out of the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm outside. I'm on the ground.

I haven't had a trick in I don't know when. I'm tired and my arms and legs feel heavy. How I sleep is one arm covering my eyes, the other over my stomach and my shirt is riding up. My jeans are bunched and I let my mind stop working so much. I don't wake up until Emily leans over me. Her hand is pressing down on my chest and I move my arm to look at her.

"Good morning lover," she says and there is no trace of the sun in the sky. I ask her how long I've slept. She says she doesn't know. She says probably a long time. She says why don't I go "home" and sleep there. She pulls the keys from her pocket and holds them out to me. I sit up and she sits down.

I lean forward and hold my head in my hands. I consider telling her no but I reach out and take the keys. She smoothes her hands over her uniform and waits for me to say anything. "What time is it?"

She looks at her watch. "Ten," and she pauses and counts, "and forty-nine in exactly 23 seconds. I'm going to be so late." I wonder about everything I did last night and all I can remember is a collection of smells. It'll come back to me. It always does. "If you put your ear on my tummy I think you can hear the baby." And she pulls me down to listen.

I listen and I tell her I think it's too soon. I tell her, "I don't hear anything." She pushes me away and tells me yeah, she didn't think I would.

She says, "I'll be free for a fuck around noon, if you care." She kisses my cheek, my neck and I pull her in close. Her mouth is mint and chalky residue and I think I need to buy a toothbrush. She doesn't flinch and she pats my arm, getting up.

"Buy a toothbrush," she says and for two more hours I still don't move.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I buy two toothbrushes and I'm almost down to no more money. I'm holding a pretzel in my hand. I've peeled off the salt and I can't stop touching everything. "Why don't you sit down, make yourself comfortable," Mr. Business Trip says. He pats the space next to him on the bed. He's sitting up by the headboard. He's hunched over a square piece of glass and he cuts a thin white line.

There are five lines on the glass and he snorts two more, leans his head back, shakes and says, "Oh fuck." I sit down on the edge of the bed and my back is to him. I can see his reflection in the dresser mirror and he sits the glass on the nightstand. He moves in behind me and all my clothes are already not an obstacle.

He's hard. It's the drugs and he bites down on my neck. I wince and his tongue bathes the mark in saliva. I let my eyes close and I can feel him as he starts to rotate his hips, his erection pressing into my back. He wraps his fingers around my neck and his other hand is gripping my cock, working its way up and down and I bite my lip and want to come.

His fingers get tighter and his movements get faster. I can't breathe and every color is faded around the edges. Mr. Business Trip presses his forehead into my back, between the third and forth vertebrae and his cum is body temperature warm.

"Give me ten minutes," he says and he sniffs and he kisses my back.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily gets out of bed and makes her way into the kitchen. Pink boys style basketball shorts, a girls tank top size extra small and her hair is in tangles and knots. She's standing with one foot slightly raised off the floor and her socks are pulled up to her knees, sporadic holes and they're her favorite.

"The way I figure it," she says, "is that everything is going to happen anyway. I just have to catch up." It makes perfect sense to her. I sit in the bed, most of my back resting on the mattress. The angle is giving me a headache and my neck is purple, black and blue.

"What happens if you don't catch up? What happens if it's not the highest thing on your list?" Emily stops moving and seems to think about it. She shrugs.

"You don't get to pick the order of the list, ass. All you get to do is show up. You should really think about getting a job. I mean, parents should have jobs. That is the social norm, right?" I sit up a little further and she reaches into the sink and pulls out two cups, different sizes, designs. "I'd hate to think we were fucking up already."

"I think we're okay," I tell her. I'm not really listening. She knows it, I think. But she keeps on talking. She picks up the bread and opens the bag. Only the ends are left and she pops them in the toaster. It smokes immediately and she waves her hand in front of her face.

She's not really listening either and that's fine, it's okay. The toast burns and she smears butter on the top and takes a bite. I see her make a face but she chews and she swallows. The coffee is hot and steam rises from the cups as she pours. I search through the covers and find my underwear. "Want milk?" I tell her yeah, sure, why not and she pulls on the handle to the refrigerator. She looks around the inside and sighs. "No milk."

"Doesn't matter," I tell her and she lets the door close. A piece of toast in her mouth and her hands full, she makes her way back to the bedroom. There is something to be said for lofts. They leave nothing to the imagination. She sits down on the bed and holds one of the cups out to me.

I take it and it's hot. "Thanks," I say.

The burnt toast in her mouth she says, "Mm." She says, "No problem." She holds it out to me and I want to laugh but I don't. I clear my throat and rub my nose and it stings. Smoke from the toaster, the toast itself, is hovering near the sink and I want to wave it all away.

"Do you think maybe I cooked it too long?" she says. I look over and she's examining the toast. She stares like she's never seen toast before.

I say, "Next time adjust the setting."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon is more than pissed and his eye is black and blue. His hair is parted on the right side and his jeans are ripped. "Fucking asshole," he says and he shoves his hands in his pockets, looking for something that obviously isn't there. I just watch him walk from my spot on the ground, leaning in the shade in the doorway of a business, closed early.

"Who the hell are you talking about?" Alex wants to know and he can care less and the plastic hospital bracelets on his arm are starting to peel. I take a deep breath and put my hand over my eyes to look up at Brandon.

"Shut the fuck up," is all Brandon says and he turns to walk down the street. Alex doesn't take the time to be offended and he sits down next to me.

"What the hell is his problem?" he finally asks and I don't answer and he doesn't ask again. I fold my legs in and stretch them back out and cross them at the ankles. Alex picks at his jeans. I tell him I don't know. A woman, runway model long legs, a cell phone, walks past us. Her pace is fast and she tries not to make eye contact, but she does and I don't look away.

Alex bends his knees and steadies his arms across the top. "What the fuck are you looking at?" he yells. Her hand is holding her cell phone to her ear and she slowly raises her middle finger.

I tell Alex nice. I say, "A real ladies man." He looks at me and shrugs and rests his forehead on his arms. He's eyes are closed and he's rocking his knees from side to side.

Brandon comes back, an hour, two, later and we're still sitting. His nose is bleeding and he wipes it with the bottom of his shirt. He pulls a cigarette from behind his ear and sticks it in his mouth. His pants have too many pockets and he finally finds his lighter. He puts his hand up to block a wind that isn't there and the cigarette moves when he talks. He asks, "What's up?"

I really don't want to look at him but I can't look away and the blood on his lip is seeping into the white paper of the cigarette. I ask if he is sure he's okay. He takes the cigarette out of his mouth and frowns at the blood. He rubs his shirt under his nose again and seems content that the blood is not as persistent.

"Fine."

"Okay." Alex shifts, shifts again, gives up and lowers himself to the ground. His hands are under his head.

""The Box" got arrested. Drug possession," he says and he steps on the burning cigarette with the tip of his shoe. "I heard he put up a fight too. Stupid."

"Oh," I say. I say, "Really?"

Brandon lets his shoulders sag and says yeah. He says who really cares. He says, "Still, sucks though. He had the best stuff." I say I guess and I ask him the time. He tells me almost noon and I move to get up.

~~~~~~~~~~~

How Emily is, is already waiting. The bell on the diner rings and how we fuck is fast and hard, vertical against the cement. Her back is scratched and my knuckles are red and she wraps her arms, legs, tighter around me and I dig my fingers deeper into her flesh. Her orgasm is all muscle spasms and dry throat from trying too hard to breathe.

She lowers her legs and steps one and then the other into a tiny pair of panties, rimmed in faded pink with one missing bow. Her brain is barely there and when she steps up to me I run my hand up her thigh, into her panties. And I stretch the cotton and the crotch is more than slightly damp. It doesn't take long and my chest is pressing into her arm. Her right hand is wrapped tight around my wrist and the left is gripping my forearm.

She comes again and I wipe my fingers on her jeans. All she says is, "Damn." I make sure my jeans are zipped up. She fixes her hair. She doesn't search me for anything I might have to say. She leaves me standing by myself and goes back to work.

I take a step out of the alley and look left and then right. I see Emily walk through the door back into the restaurant and the boss is asking her where she's been. He's asking her who told her she could take a break. He's yelling and Emily is walking past him and he grabs her arm and yanks her back.

She looks down at his fingers and up at his face and she says something. She smirks and he lets go. She walks away and he doesn't move. He stands there staring after her and I wonder what she said.

~~~~~~~~~~~

A horn catches my attention and I look to my right, across the street. I walk over. He's too regular. He doesn't need the routine and his left hand is tapping the steering wheel. "Forty."

I stand back from the passenger side door and my arms are limp at my sides. "A hundred," I counter. He smirks, his tongue runs along the outside of his teeth and he shakes his head.

"No fucking way. Forty." I know he won't relent and he knows I'll eventually give in and I lean into the window.

"Forty for the first fuck; ten bucks for anything after," I say and I get into the car. I fuck with the radio and my fingers stop on Love Shack by the B-52s.

Mr. My Wife Thinks I Attend Gamblers Anonymous is one of the best fucks I've had in weeks. His thrusts are painfully slow and aimed. He speeds up and it's only round one. It never takes him long to recover. I feel bad for his wife. She has no idea he still likes to gamble.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily reaches for the mustard and squeezes it over her fries. She licks the few drops off of her hand and puts the bottle back. "I used to cut all the hair off my dolls," she says. The woman in the booth next to ours is sitting by herself. She's older and not quite so skinny, not quite so fat and she says something that I can't hear. She's not talking to me.

Emily picks up her burger and takes a bite, picking off an exposed pickle and letting it drop back to the table. "My mom stopped buying me dolls after a while. She said I didn't appreciate them. She said maybe I needed to know what it feels like to not have any at all."

My eyes are still stuck on the woman in the booth. Her clothes are pressed and holes are in her ears but no earrings. She looks forgotten.

Emily stops talking and she burps. She says excuse me. She says the baby is giving her gas. I take one of the fries off her plate and chew it slowly. There's too much mustard. She looks to her left and she sees the woman. The old woman's eyes are tired. She's not smiling and she seems to be waiting for something. Emily pauses for a moment and blinks and she says, "I wonder how it feels to be that happy."

The old woman suddenly laughs and Emily smiles. I wonder for a moment if they know something I don't. "Anyway," she says, "the joke was on her. I hated dolls."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex is way too calm. His bracelets are removed and his hands are clean. "The whole fucking world is coming to an end man," he says and he's not angry. He's not expectant. He's just stating his own set of personal facts.

I look down at the sidewalk and step over a crack. He tells me I just don't fucking get it. He tells me I probably never will. I cross my arms and we're walking down the sidewalk. Blocks away from where we usually roam and I tell him, "Okay."

~~~~~~~~~~~

"You know, they say that if you stare hard enough at something it'll be imprinted in your brain forever," Emily says. She's swinging and her hair is pulled back tight into a ponytail. I'm sitting in the grass, pulling blades and ripping them to shreds.

"Who?"

She moves her head from side to side and adjusts her hands on the chains holding the swing. "What?" I ask her who she's talking about and she says oh. She says, "I heard it somewhere, around." She lets the swing slow down and when she's completely stopped she digs her toe into the sand beneath her. "I really like the name Madison."

Her stomach has a little bump and she rubs her hand over her shirt. "What do you think?" I twist a blade of grass between my fingers and look over to where she is. She's looking at me and her jeans won't close.

"Whatever you like," I tell her and she seems to have been expecting that answer. She gets up from the swing and walks over to me. Her newly formed tummy is holding her jeans up and her shirt is way too short. I can see her skin and the collar of her shirt is a V-neck, three buttons and bleached glowing white.

She sits down in the grass next to me, lies down and rests her head on my folded leg. I pull the ponytail holder out of her hair and run my fingers through it. It's too long and she knows it, but she says who has the time to get it cut. She says she'll just pull it up. I tell her I like it and she bends her legs, rests her right on her left. Her feet are bare. Her flip flops are next to her in the grass and she closes her eyes.

All I say is, "Madison."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon takes a bite of the hotdog in his hand and we're standing in the electronics department of our local retail store. Random clips are playing and we've seen the same things for the past three hours. He looks down at his shirt and sweeps away the nothing he can't see. "This TV is huge," he tells me.

Emily washed my clothes yesterday and I smell like Spring Breeze. "You told me that." I tell him, "This is the fifth time you've said it. How long have we been standing here?" Brandon shrugs. He takes a bite and licks ketchup off his thumb. His hotdog is wrapped in aluminum foil.

Brandon shrugs. "Not sure. What's time?" And he turns his head to look at another TV. The picture is the same on all the channels. He watches like he's never seen what they're playing before. "We should go see The Sandman," he says. My face doesn't show any emotion and Brandon takes that as a hell yeah.

"I thought he was in Florida," is what I say. Brandon finishes the last bit of his hotdog and balls up the aluminum foil. He looks around the store and stuffs the foil into the space next to the flat screen television.

"Everyone is in fucking Florida." Brandon turns and hits me in the chest. "Everyone is anywhere but fucking here. Come on."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Everyone calls him The Sandman. His name is Eric. He's forty-something. His jeans are too small, belted below his beer belly and stained with grease and oil. "Brandon. Fucking ghost, man," he says and he pulls Brandon in close. The ever present cigarette is dangling from his lips. Tattoos are faded into his skin and he lets Brandon go. "Dude," he says and he's looking at me. "Still the fast talker I see." And he's laughing.

Girls walk around inside the house, some topless and barefoot. Eric, he grabs us both by the back of the necks and pulls us inside. "What, may I ask, brings you two fine gentlemen to my humble abode?"

"We were hoping you would be in possession of something heavier than marijuana," Brandon tells him. The Sandman sits and Brandon stands looming over him. A young blonde is circling me and I wonder for a minute if she's old enough to really be here. I don't think anyone would really know.

"That depends. Exactly how much are you willing to spend and what do you want?" She lifts her eyebrow and I move into the room, closer to Brandon and The Sandman. I sit down in one of the empty chairs in the corner and someone hands me a bong. The white, heavy smoke is still pooling from the top and without thinking I close my mouth around the top and inhale.

Brandon wraps a hand around the young girl's arm and pulls her out of her chair. Her eyes are vacant. Her shirt is navy blue and tight. She's not wearing a bra. "Fucking asshole," she says and she runs into the wall, using her hand to soften the impact. Eric and Brandon watch her leave the room and Brandon sits down in her empty seat.

"The usual?" Eric asks and he's already reaching for the portable safe he has sitting on the table. Someone screams in the other room and it quickly turns to laughter and I take another hit on the bong. A callused hand is reaching for the glass and I move out of their reach.

"Yeah," Brandon tells him, "and a couple tabs of 'E'. I cough out the smoke I have in my lungs and hand over the bong. I smile and traces of cannabis escape from my lungs and over my lips. Eric puts in the combination and opens the safe.

"I heard you were shacking up with that chick from Waterloo's. Everyone else calls it "The Hole". Eric, he calls it by its given name. I don't confirm or deny the fact and Brandon tells him.

"Hell yeah he is," and he's counting out the money that we pooled together. The girl next to me runs a hand down my chest and I move it away, uninterested. She giggles and turns to the girl next to her. My back is resting low on the couch and I tell Brandon only sometimes. I tell him, maybe more times than I remember.

"She's a pistol, man; a real firecracker. Not to mention fucking hot." He stops talking and all of his thoughts seem to evaporate. He shakes his head and blinks and says, "How the fuck did she end up with you?"

"I fucked her," is all I say. And the two girls next to me laugh.

Brandon tosses the money down on the table and sits back while Eric counts. "And knocked her up," he tells him. The Sandman only nods and his lips smirk around the cigarette in his mouth. After a few minutes he laughs. He puts the money in the safe and exhales slowly.

And all he says is, "Groovy."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Hello Mr. Fitness, Mr. Steroid Abuser, Mr. Protein Shake, Carbohydrate Watcher, Bulging Triceps, Mr. Spot Me. The gym is the perfect place to shower and make a few extra bucks and at the end of it all no one feels any less like a man. Because what happens in the men's locker room at the gym stays in the men's locker room at the gym.

I come out of the shower and my skin is red. They like the water hot and I run a hand over my face. My jaw is tired, my temples are throbbing. Four workout buddies leave the showers after me and I grab a towel. They each go to their lockers and I'm twenty, forty, sixty, eighty bucks richer than I was.

Water is still beaded on my back. I pull my jeans up and leave the button open. I pull my shirt back on and the smell of Spring Breeze is not as strong. I cross the gym, avoid the trainers and push open the door to the women's locker room.

And everything is equal opportunity.

Mrs. Soccer Mom, Mrs. Homemaker, Image Conscious. Mrs. Alimony. They all want something. They bring their own condoms. They say put it on. They say, do you think you can speed this up? I've got a pot roast in the oven.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon is standing, his feet are balancing on the curb and a lollipop, blue raspberry, is hanging from his mouth. "Okay. So, look, check it out," he starts and he turns toward me, "Jackie. You know Jackie, right? Anyway, it's not important. She goes into Feldman's and just tosses all this random shit into a basket."

I'm only half listening and my hands are in my pockets, my thumbs hooked through my belt loops. I say, "Is Jackie the one with brown hair or red?"

He pauses and says blonde. I say oh and he sticks the lollipop in his mouth, sucks, and pulls it back out. "So, she's pushing this fucking cart through the store and just keeps going right out the door."

"What'd she get?"

"I don't fucking know man. Damn," he says to me. And he throws his hands up. "You ruined the end of the fucking joke." I tell him sorry. I tell him I didn't know it was supposed to be funny.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I order a steak, still bloody. I order a baked potato and fries and she looks at me funny. The waitress, she says, "They're both potatoes." I say but not the same and she writes it down. I order lemonade; scratch that, a cherry Coke.

"On second thought," I say, "water is fine."

"Water it is." And she moves away before I can change my mind. My napkin is folded and unfolded. It's ripped to shreds by the time she comes back and if she notices she doesn't say anything. She sits the plate on the table. The edges of the fries are red, the blood from the steak is pooling.

I empty too much ketchup on my plate and run a wedged fry through the condiment. I eat the fries, lick the tips of my fingers and watch everyone move around the restaurant. I look at the bill on the table. I asked for it. I want to watch it while I eat. And I read the printed receipt, the bill, over and over again.

I can't afford this restaurant and I savor every bite. "Can I bring you anything else; the dessert menu?" I wipe my mouth with a napkin and I look up at her.

I say, "No." I tell her I think I'm good.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily is sitting on the floor. Her legs are folded, Indian style, and her hair is falling around her shoulders. Her glasses are crystal clear and thick rainbow colored socks cover her feet. She presses a line of Cheese Whiz onto her pointer finger and licks it off. My head is in her lap and her left hand is above my face. I'm tracing her fingers with my own and she eats more of the cheese.

What she says is, "It'd be nice if we had crackers." I frown when she offers me some of the cheese and she shrugs. She presses down and applies more cheese to her finger. Her stomach is rounder now. Time is passing too fast. I move my hand to touch her stomach and she smiles.

All I say is, "Yeah."

~~~~~~~~~~~

We're standing on the street and the wind is blowing. "What do you remember about your mom?" I ask.

"My mom used to wear these ratty ass knee socks," Alex says and every few minutes he looks behind us. After the third time I look too and I ask him who he's looking for. He says, "What? No one, forget about it. Anyway, she used to wear these fucking socks. They were full of holes and the soles looked like they were about ten inches thick."

I know he's exaggerating but I can't stop my brain from wondering what they would look like. He looks behind us again and I look and he punches me in the arm and says, "What the hell are you looking for?" I look at him and he looks at me and tells me that sometimes I really creep him the hell out.

"Whenever she'd get drunk, completely shit faced, she'd strip naked; naked except for those goddamn socks." Brandon rakes his hand through his hair. He grinds his teeth and he shakes his head.

I say, "Maybe her feet were cold." Alex thinks it over and says maybe. He says yeah, maybe they were.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon asks, "Dude, where the hell did you hear about this place?" He's jumping up and down. The colors in the room are glowing and everyone's moving and no one is thinking.

"Bobby," I say and we make our way through the people. A band is playing live on stage. Music is pouring from the speakers. People are breathing, some shallow and quick, others deep and paced. Every inch of the place is full of everyone living and about to die. Some are praying for it. Others like the illusion and I bump into someone. I don't say excuse me, they don't notice and the party rages on.

The walls are sweating brick and cement, below ground. And Brandon says, "He's a fucking tease." Brandon says, "How in the fuck did a dick like Bobby know about this place? Some things… just aren't right."

I tell him who knows. I say, "I think his sister fucked the lead singer of a band that used to open here." Brandon is still moving with the beat and his right hand touches my arm.

All Brandon asks is, "He has a sister?" I shrug because I really don't know and Brandon isn't listening. He's taking off his shirt. The boy dancing behind him pulls him in closer and Brandon's ass is pressing into him. I feel a hand snake around my waist and under my shirt and when it inches further down I grab the wrist and move away.

The hand and the person find someone else to grope; because its sex and it's all casual.

Brandon leans back and the boy whispers something in his ear. Brandon smiles and he nods. I move past them and Brandon tells me, "Meet me in the bathroom in twenty minutes." No, he stops me, "Make it thirty."

"Yeah."

And he keeps dancing and I walk away.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily is sitting on the bed and her legs are dangling off the side. She's holding the paper gown up to her body and she says, "My legs are cold." She tells me, "Sit down, you're making me nervous." I don't sit down and she smirks and she says, "Asshole."

The doctor comes in the room and he's wearing glasses and he sits in a rolling chair and he asks, "How've you been feeling?" He's talking to Emily and she says fine. She tells him that she's been feeling sick. She asks when the morning sickness is supposed to stop and he tells her, "Everyone's different."

"Wow. And you went to school for that?" she says and she pulls her hair from around her shoulders and lets it drop to one side. I keep myself from laughing and I lean against the wall. I stare at the doctor as he does the exam. He doesn't pay attention to me, Dr. Free Clinic on the Weekend.

"Are you the father?" Dr. Free Clinic asks. I'm still leaning against the wall and Emily is sitting up. The doctor, he takes off one glove and then the other and he puts them in the trash. Its marked biohazard and I wonder for a moment if on some level I should be offended.

"Yeah," I say. The doctor, he nods.

He says, "I'd feel a lot better if you were gaining a little more weight. You were only a hundred and five pounds," and he stops to check his facts. "Yeah, a hundred and five pounds when I first saw you and that was over three months ago. You've only gained a few pounds since then."

"It doesn't feel like a few pounds," Emily tells him and she doesn't wait for him to leave the room to start to get dressed and she's untangling her underwear from her jeans. "My jeans don't fit."

The doctor, he smiles. Dr. Free Clinic, he tells her, "I understand. But, for the health of you and your baby you need to gain some more weight."

He gives us pamphlets and Emily reads them as we walk down the street. My hands are swinging at my sides and every once in a while she reaches over and touches my arm. She reads words like healthy birth weight, safe environment, malnourishment, sudden infant death syndrome and neglect and she says, "Maybe not Madison."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon tells me that all the tricks are the same and no one's changing and he pulls a cigarette from behind his ear. He searches his pockets for a light. He doesn't have one and he looks and me. I don't bother looking for one. I know I don't have one and I shake my head.

"Fuck," is all he says but it's flat and even. He pulls the cigarette out of his mouth. He holds the filtered tip between his top and bottom teeth and he bites down.

Hector comes from across the street and his skin is hot and red. He's sweating and his shirt is clinging to his back. He pulls on the front, fanning himself with the cotton material. It doesn't help and he's still hot and he's still sweating. "It's so fucking hot man," he says and he pushes past Brandon to lean on the wall, in the shade.

"It's summer," Brandon tells him. I push my hands into my pockets and through the denim my skin is hot. I can feel it sweating but I don't complain. My shirt is heavy with sweat and dirt.

Hector pulls a lighter from his pocket, thrusts it at Brandon and tells him, "Don't fucking lose it. I can't afford another one. Couldn't really afford that one, so be careful." And Brandon takes the lighter, he lights his cigarette and passes the lighter back to Hector.

"Where the hell you been for the past week and a half?" Brandon asks and he inhales and exhales and the smell of smoke is everywhere. Hector glances past me, down the street, and I resist the urge to follow his line of sight.

"Got arrested, man, can you believe it. Goddamn Vicky man, she's a walking death sentence," Hector says and Brandon passes him his cigarette. Hector takes it and takes a pull and gives it back. Brandon takes it by the filter and holds it out to me. I take one pull and then two and give it back.

We all know about Victoria. Everyone knows she's nothing but trouble, everyone. And Hector says, "Let's go." We move and we all know we're not really going anywhere.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I jump down from the fence and move the hair out of my face. Brandon jumps on my back and my hands wrap around his legs to hold him steady. "You serious about that waitress chick?" Hector is walking next to us and he's humming.

I look straight ahead. The air is hot and dry and the ends of my hair are dripping with sweat. I run my thumb over my eyes and look at Brandon. "Serious enough," I tell him and he nods his head.

"You guys ever think about how in the fuck you're gonna take care of that baby?" I don't answer. We haven't really thought about it. We should. Emily probably has. "I can just see show and tell now: My mom is a waitress and my daddy is a hustler. We are one big happy family." And Brandon, he laughs. Hector lets out what sounds like a strangled snort.

We're walking through an abandoned baseball field and the dust clouds over our feet. Brandon makes a run for home plate and he's playing all by himself. Hector is wiping at his forehead. He's sweating and he takes off his shirt, sticks it inside the back of his pants and yells, "Let's go. Come on!"

I leave them both and keep walking. If I stop I won't start again and the day is halfway over, I think. I don't want to think about making it, about hustling, drugs, family lost, friends, taking care of more than me. I don't want to think about much of anything. The only thing I want to do is wait for nothing in particular. I can hear Brandon and Hector walking behind me but I don't bother to turn and look.

We reach the fence on the other side and where we've come from looks miles and miles away.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Standing in the shower in Emily's apartment and her hands are in my hair. The space is tight, poorly lit and everything we need.

She's working her fingers against my scalp and the shampoo smells like something other than peaches. She switched again, just when I was getting used to it. Water is falling over her back, her shoulders, and down her tummy. She's small and sexy and I press my palm to her flesh. It's warm, despite the cool temperature of the water. She smiles.

"They make coffins for babies. Almost don't look real. Someone sits there and makes these tiny coffins, almost like doll beds. God, to deal with all of that," she says and I kiss her. We switch places and my head is under the water. I'm taller and Emily isn't getting any of the water and she doesn't seem to mind.

"Death," I say. I reach up and move my own fingers through my hair to clear the shampoo. The smell is something, something fruit medley.

Emily is wiping at her arm with a red towel, new, stolen from somewhere and the dye is still bleeding into the bottom of the tub. "No. All those people crying," she reasons. "All those people crying and telling you their sad stories and wanting you to be sad, offering you a shoulder to lean on; only really hoping that you'll offer the same. To deal with all that must really be agony."

I lean my head further back and let some water fall into my mouth. I spit it out and run my hand over my face to move the water and I ask, "What about the babies?"

All Emily says, with her hand on her belly is, "That's the easy part. They're already dead."

~~~~~~~~~~~

How Alex is, is strung out. He's been in the same spot for hours and the only thing that tells us he is alive is the rise and fall of his chest. We're sitting on Eric's couch, aka The Sandman, and we're all high. "He lasted longer than I thought he would," Victoria says and she squeezes between me and Hector. She sits down and Hector moves over an inch.

"Really?" Brandon says. "I knew he'd start using again. He's a fucking goddamn junkie, and he always will be." But the look on his face is hurt and he bites his bottom lip. He bites his lip and taps at the veins on his left arm. A belt is pulled tight around his arm and he puts the leather back in his mouth to help pull it tight.

I say no. I say, "No, he was serious this time." I feel the need to defend him, even if his present state does not support my argument. I don't know why I do but I do and almost immediately I regret it. So I don't say anything else and someone hands me a rectangular piece of glass. White lines are on the top and I snort one line, two and then three.

I let my body fall back and my heart starts to race. I hear Brandon hiss as the needle punctures his skin and the heroin is pushed into his bloodstream. Vicky is straddling Hector's lap and her skirt is riding up. His hand is between her legs and she pulls her top lip into her mouth, throws her head back.

The last thing I see is Alex. The look in his eyes is nothing there. The last thing I hear is someone screaming and my own heart racing.

~~~~~~~~~~~

No one calls the ambulance. No one talks and Vicky is still screaming. I'm still too high to really move and all Eric keeps saying is, "Shit." Brandon is kneeling on the floor between Alex's legs, his fingertips digging into his too small thighs.

"Shit," Eric says again and he's pacing back and forth.

Brandon whispers, "Shut up. Shut the fuck up," and he runs his hand over his face, pushes his hair behind his ear. He presses an ear to Alex's chest and he listens. He listens and we wait. Vicky is quiet now, her hand is pressed over her mouth and her makeup is streaking down her face, all the colors bleeding together into gray.

"Shit," Eric says again. Hector just stares. His mouth is barely open and I move my lips, swallow, just thinking of how dry his throat must feel.

"I don't think he's dead," Brandon says and we all shake off a little of our fear but not all of it, not even close to a lot of it.

"How the fuck do you know, man? You're not a doctor!" Eric is panicking. Its three strikes and you're out. He's on his second turn at bat. He sold the drugs. Blame will fall mostly on his shoulders. He's older, it's his house, there are teenaged girls walking around. And the hits just keep on coming.

"I can hear his heartbeat, asshole." Brandon gets up and says, "Help me get him up. Get his feet. HELP ME!" I move without thinking, surprised at my limbs and grab Alex's feet. He doesn't weigh anything and he feels like lead. "Who has a car?"

No one does. None of us have a car and Brandon doesn't know what to do. He's starting to panic. He leans against the wall next to the front door, resting Alex's weight on his back. Eric doesn't put on a shirt. He grabs some keys off of the table and he walks past us and out of the door.

I steady myself and help Brandon move Alex out the front door and down to the street, the car. We pile into the back and Alex is leaning on Brandon. Brandon is whispering something in his ear and I don't try to hear. I close the door to the backseat and Eric holds up his keys. I open my hand and he drops them into my palm. "If you get caught, you don't know me."

~~~~~~~~~~~

How we wait in the emergency room is quietly. I'm biting my nails, down to the skin and my thumb is starting to bleed. I take it out of my mouth and inspect the damage. Blood is spreading around the base of my nail and I stick my thumb back in my mouth and suck. The taste is copper. I suck harder, pull my thumb out of my mouth and wipe it, pressing down hard on my jeans.

Brandon is tapping his foot against the floor. His shoe is loosely tied and I think that soon it's going to come undone. Brandon is leaning back in the plastic chair. It's uncomfortable and he stares straight ahead. His hands are clasped together and his knuckles are bone white. "Are you two here for the young man that was brought in earlier?"

Brandon stands up. I don't. I stay where I am in the seat and wait to see what this person wants. "Yeah," I say when all Brandon does is stand in front of the doctor's face.

He says okay and he glances once more at the file in his hand. "Your friend," is always how they start when they don't know what you are, "overdosed. He had high levels of cocaine, marijuana and several other prescription medications in his system. Do either of you know anything about that?"

He waits for us to answer. I say no and Brandon does the same. We say it at the same time and the doctor, he doesn't believe us. I keep sniffing, wiping at my nose, but I don't know anything. Brandon is soaring, so high he's calm. But no, we don't know anything about that. He doesn't believe us at all. All he does is clear his throat and nod. "We pumped his stomach. He's dehydrated, so we're giving him liquids through an IV."

"Is he going to die?" I ask. Brandon's arms are crossed tight across his chest and his molars are grinding.

"Right now," he says, "I don't want to make any definite diagnosis. We'll just have to wait and see. You're not family but I'll give you permission to see him, for a minute." Brandon sits back down and we wait for the nurse to come and take us to Alex's room.

I can't stop sniffing and when the nurse comes around the corner she tells us to follow her. She tells us that we can only stay for a few minutes, the doctor says, and he needs his rest. She pushes the door open and tells us, "I'll be right outside this door." The room is coated in antiseptics. Monitors are beeping and Alex is pale.

His chest is still moving, barely noticeable. Brandon is standing closer to the bed and he touches a finger to Alex's sheets. He drops his hand away from the bed before their skin can touch and make it any more real. And he says, "Shit."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily's hands are on her hips and she's waiting for the people at her table to make up their minds. Her sneakers are not so new anymore and the girl to her right tells her, "A cheeseburger with fries and a coke." Emily writes it down and the other girls in the booth say to give them the same. One says with a Pepsi, the other says lemonade and Emily walks away.

"Alex woke up this morning," I tell her when she walks past me. I twist in my seat as she makes her way to the order window. She pins up the order, spins the rack and screams for the cook to come and take the papers.

"Are they letting him out the hospital?" That's the only thing she wants to know. She's refilling the sugar, the creamer, and the toothpicks. Everything is just the same thing she did yesterday and I blink. I tell her I'm not sure. "He's going to die."

She moves away, hands the creamer to the woman at the end of the counter and comes back to stand in front of me. "We all are," is what I tell her. The cook is calling with the orders for the four girls. He's ringing the silver bell and Emily doesn't move from her spot in front of me. She stares and it should make me uncomfortable but it doesn't and I don't look away.

"It's all relative," Emily says and she moves away. She picks up all three plates and puts them on the tray. She makes sure they're balanced and walks over to the girls. I stay sitting at the counter and nothing happens all day. It's all just the same, the same and more of the same.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I stand on the corner. There is no sun. I've slept for days and I step up to a black Mercedes Benz. The windows are tinted and I bend down to look inside the window. The man inside, his voice is cotton heavy and he says, "Get in." I ignore the hairs that go up on the back of my neck. I walk around the car and open the passenger door, step inside and close it. The man, he doesn't look at me and he puts the car in drive.

I rub my palms over my thighs and glance around the car. The man, he stops at a stop sign, takes a left. I don't say anything and I move my hand to touch the radio. The man, he doesn't look and he grabs my hand. He says, "Leave it." And we drive on in silence. I feel small in the car, smaller than I am and from inside the car everything looks black.

He stops at a house. We're more than an hour away from where he picked me up and he gets out of the car. I don't move. I sit in the car while he walks around. He opens the passenger side door and tells me to get out. I do. My fingers are gripping the sides of my jeans and I follow him into the house. "Take off your shoes," he says and I do. He tells me where to put them and I move them out of the way of the door.

He doesn't say anything else but he moves down the hallway. I don't have to ask if I'm supposed to follow. All the doors leading off of the hallway are closed, bolted, and fire resistant. Steel doors and I swallow. My apprehension is pouring off of me and I falter in my step. He wraps his hand around my neck and pulls me forward.

His clothes are all black, labels, and very expensive. He pulls a key ring from his pocket, locates the one he's looking for and presses it into the lock. We walk into the room and it smells like fear. Bodily fluids, cleanser, it smells like someone tried too hard to make it all okay. He lets go of my neck and I stand in the middle of the room, it's all pitch black. I can't see my hand in front of my face and I can hear him breathing.

Bright lights go on and the room is bathed in light. I don't know if it's a good or bad thing and all I can see is red, stains, blood long dried and attempted to be cleaned. I back up, searching for the door but I don't scream. Leather straps and torture devices are in place around the room, bolted to the floors, the walls.

The man, he's not here. I look around and I see no one and I wonder where he went. He disappeared in the darkness. My heart is beating hard in my chest and my mouth is dry. I blink against the light and the fourth time I see a boy with black hair, curled up and sitting in the corner. He can't be more than twenty and he's staring at me.

I think for a moment or two that I must be inside of a dream. None of this is real. "What's your name?" I ask the boy. I'm surprised I have a voice. The boy, he stands up and walks over to me.

"He likes to call me Jeffrey. My real name's Miller," the boys says.

I ask him how old he is. I ask him how he got here. I ask him what in the fuck is going on. "I'm eighteen, two days ago," and he actually smiles. His hands are bound to the wall with chains and leather straps and he smiles. "I've been here for about three weeks. I don't know what it's all about but," he looks towards the door, the one the man disappeared through and lowers his voice. He was already whispering. "He doesn't kill anyone. I know that. He just likes to get off, he likes to torture and watch." Miller, he stares off into space and he backs up to his corner and sits down. "I'd rather die."

There is nothing left to say and after four hours standing I sit down on the tiles, my back pressed against the door.

~~~~~~~~~~~

He comes into the room. He tells me to take a shower; he watches me scrub. He takes all my clothes and leaves me to sit alone on the bathroom floor. When he comes back I'm shaking and he pulls me up by my arm and leads me back into the room.

I take every hit from the whip and I can't catch my breath. I can feel the skin on my back and legs burning, bleeding. I can feel it chipping away with every blow. I can't cry, but I do. My mouth is gagged and all I can do is cry and moan. I do both but it doesn't help. The man, Mr. Master and Slave, he doesn't talk. I can see his erection pulsing underneath his pants and suddenly he stops.

He wraps up the whip and releases my hands from the leather cuffs that are holding me in place. My body drops to the ground and I don't think about the cuts and the scrapes. All six feet and one inch of me is on fire. He looks down at me, empty eyes, hazel, and he smiles. He smiles and touches my skin and says, "Shh."

I lay on my back and it is more pain than I've known in a long time. My chest is heaving, soaking wet. It's only the first day, I think. All the windows are black.

He smoothes a hand over my head and pulls me up to kiss him. He's holding me to him, my skin is wet and burning and he deepens the kiss. Even with my height he towers over me and when he holds onto my wrists I cry harder. Miller is in the room, blending into the background.

Mr. Master and Slave he strips out of his clothes and folds each piece with precision. He guides me to my knees, to my back and I let myself try not to think. He's on the floor, between my legs and I close my eyes.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey." Miller's voice gets closer and I can feel the heat from his skin bouncing onto mine and I panic. My eyes open and I try to move away but my arms are cuffed to the wall just like Miller and he's sitting in the spot next to me. I tug on the chains but it's no use. I can't move. I turn my head to the side and all I can see is blood; blood and bile and anything else I had left in my system to give. "You passed out. I thought you were dead."

I clear my throat, once, and focus my eyes on Miller, his tanned skin growing paler. "Where'd he go?" Miller shrugs.

"Back through that door," he points and puts his hand back down. "He'll be back. He always comes back." I turn my head to look straight up at the ceiling and I don't have any more tears left. I let my eyes close.

~~~~~~~~~~~

How he lets me go is he doesn't say anything. He opens the door and hands me my clothes and they're clean. I put them on slowly. Every muscle in my body hurts and my lip, top and bottom are split and healed and split again. I follow him out of the room and into the car and the ride back is quiet. He doesn't look at me. He keeps his eyes on the road. He pulls to a stop on the corner of a street I barely know and I reach for the door handle.

"You were worth the drive," he says, "and the money." He holds out some money and I take it. I don't bother to count it and I get out of the car as fast as I can. I close the door but there is no force behind it and he drives away.

It's in the morning, early and no one is here. No is around, on the street, and for the first time in a while I don't know if I like the idea of being completely alone. I move out of the street, up and across the sidewalk. I sit down on the ground and the cuts on my arm make me winch as they brush up against the concrete wall. I count the money, all of it.

A week and a half; a thousand dollars and none of it worth it and I put the money back in my pocket. I don't look up and down the street. I sit and stare straight ahead. He let Miller go three days after I got there. He let him go and I felt guilty about wanting him to stay, about not wanting his torture to end. I wanted him to suffer with me.

I notice the police car at the end of the street and I stand up on my feet. I swallow down all the pain that it coursing through me and what I taste in my mouth is bitter. I haven't eaten in when I don't know. Food was not high on his list of things to do. Water is all he thought about and it was always two days too stagnant.

I start to walk and my arms are across my chest. I'm holding them loosely and my skin is black and blue. I turn a corner and the police car goes straight but the officers inside turn their heads to look at me but they have other things to do, higher priorities.

How I walk is completely alone and without the threat of immediate death all I can think is that I like the feeling.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily isn't too much bigger than she was when I left, or maybe she is and I don't notice. She doesn't bother to ask where I was. She doesn't ask where the bruises came from or why every night since I've been back I refuse to turn off the light. She doesn't ask. And she quietly cleans up the cuts every night. She looks at the bruises on my arms and her fingertips ghost over them. Only once does she cry and she wipes the tears away before I can fully see them.

"I'm glad you're okay," is all she says one night. The lights are all on in the apartment, the loft, and her head is resting on the pillow next to mine.

What I say is nothing. I put my hand on her stomach and she doesn't flinch as she puts her hand on top of mine.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Miller," is what Brandon says and he's circling me. "His name was Miller? Like, it's Miller Time, Miller?" Brandon is walking around the apartment, a soda can held against his chest. He's looking at all of Emily's things. He takes a drink and turns to me.

I stop in the middle of the story and Brandon's looking at me, waiting for me to confirm. I tell him yeah. I tell him at the time it really wasn't that funny. I tell him that to some people this isn't just a Lifetime story and all Brandon says is, "Stop being such a bitch."

And I say, "Yeah, just like Miller time."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily is standing next to me and Brandon is smoking a cigarette, brushing the extra tobacco off of his shirt. "Who knew there was a fucking line to get into rehab?" she says and she's wearing a hoodie. Its summer and she says the baby is making her cold. We move an inch with the line and the woman in front of us asks Brandon to please put out the cigarette.

"No," he tells her. And the woman turns back around. Emily pulls the cigarette from between Brandon's lips and tosses it to the ground. She stubs it out with her shoe. "Oh fuck you."

"No thanks," she says. We're waiting to see Alex. He's been in rehab for weeks and none of us have come to visit. We all have our own excuse. To get into the rehabilitation clinic you have to sign your name. You have to have some ID. You have to want to be sad, hear someone else's story. You have to know how to cry.

I'm standing and waiting and I have my own sad story to tell, the bruises to prove it and I haven't taken a trick since I've been back. We get to the front of the line and the woman asks for our IDs. Brandon tosses down his ID, it's fake and he smiles. Emily hands the woman hers and mine and we all wait while she writes down our names. She tells us to the right. She tells us, "Visitation is an hour."

"An hour," I say and we walk through the hall. We're moving in step with the other visitors and I keep looking down at the cracks in the tile.

"Just long enough to make someone feel like shit," Emily says and the narrow hallway opens up into one large room. We make our way to a corner and wait, the underlying plot to the story of our lives. Brandon is twisting in his seat and Emily is rubbing on her stomach and scratching. She says she thinks she has a rash. She says that the baby makes her skin dry.

We wait and we watch and after five minutes Alex comes out from behind a guarded door. He looks nervous and when he spots us he waves and he smiles and I don't think for a minute that it's anything more than an automatic response. "Jesus he looks pale," Brandon says and he sits up. My eyes follow Alex all the way over and he sits down in front of us.

"Hey," is what Alex says. Emily unzips her jacket and hands it over to Alex, its navy blue and faded and what Alex says is thank you.

Emily shrugs and she says, "Its okay, you look cold." I see Alex smile and just as fast as it showed up it disappears and his eyes drift over to Brandon. They don't say anything and I'm too tired to fight for someone else so I sit and say nothing.

"You look good; better," Brandon tells him and Alex isn't smiling anymore. His eyes are just vacant and he lets the tip of his tongue brush against his lips. Emily looks comfortable and she's leaning over, into the conversation going on next to us, and she's talking like she's known the people forever. I'm just trying not to come into focus.

"Bullshit," is what Alex says. He says, "You are so fucking full of bullshit. I look like I've been through hell and back."

"Was it hot?" Brandon tries to joke. Even he doesn't buy it and the attempt at humor falls flat on the floor. "I was trying to make you feel better."

"Don't." Alex pulls Emily's hoodie on and he doesn't zip it up. He pulls on the zipper and stares into Brandon. "I have a million people here to tell me bullshit. From you," he says, "from you I want the truth."

And what Brandon says is, "I thought you were dead. On some level I think I hoped you were. I'm glad you're not." It's all the truth and Emily is paying attention again. I'm leaning back in my seat and Brandon's face is no expression at all.

Alex's right hand starts to tremble and he holds it steady with his left. Withdrawal symptoms and all he says, their eyes trained on each other, is, "Thank you." And no one says anything else and when the hour is up I feel nothing but relieved.

~~~~~~~~~~~

We don't see Brandon for days, weeks and after the first ten days we all stop looking. "This life, man," Hector says and he's splashing water on his face. We're standing in the bathroom of a local gas station and the walls are dingy white, covered in cum, piss, and we don't hesitate in touching the sinks, the urinal handles. I'm leaning against the door and Hector splashes water on his face again.

"What about it?" I look at Hector, his reflection and everything is backwards. He is wiping his face with paper towels. He's pumping soap out of the dispenser and putting his hands under the water. He's making a lather and spreading the suds over his chest, under his arms.

"Everybody's not cut out for it." He's wetting down more paper towels, soaking them and wiping the soap from his skin. He's bending and twisting trying to get clean. "The ones who manage to survive the shit, well, good for them." I'm still leaning against the door, my feet flat and hands stuffed into my pockets.

I wonder for a minute why Hector is on the streets. I wonder if he really needs to be and his reflection catches my eyes. "My mom and dad," he says, "weren't much for the whole parenthood thing. They pretty much gave up and soon it was my responsibility to take care of my sisters. I have four of them. I did everything for them. Started selling drugs, it was fast and easy, and then one of the men I sold to told me he'd give me fifty dollars and all I had to do was let him touch my cock."

"That's all, for fifty bucks?" Hector moves his shoulders and it resembles a shrug but not quite.

Hector gives off a laugh and pulls dry towels from the dispenser. He starts to wipe all the excess water from his body. I cough and cover my mouth and put my hand back in my pocket. "If only everything was that easy. I became addicted, first for the money. It was fast and easy and my sisters didn't go to bed hungry. But then, I liked the rush of not knowing what was going to happen. It felt," he starts.

And I finish his thought. I say, "It feels like cheating death." And he slips on his shirt and he says yes. He says yes, exactly.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily is sitting on my lap. My cock is still pulsing inside her and I'm holding onto her legs and she's taking small even breaths. Her fingernails are digging into my chest and I think about how different fucking her feels. She is a different type of dangerous. She moans and gasps and sits down completely. "Fuck," she says.

I ask her if she is okay. I ask, "Is it too much for the baby?" And she tells me to shut up and give her a minute.

She is panting and she leans down to press her lips to mine. Our tongues are wrapped together and when we pull away she rests her head against my hair and her breath is warm. She says, "I'm sorry." She tells me, "I'm sorry I yelled." She sits up and she's moving again. I press my hand to the small of her back and arch my back to meet her thrusts.

All night is the same action, different positions and I by the time we finish the sun is almost coming up and I'm exhausted.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Saving money isn't as easy as it sounds. It's harder when you don't have any and I drop a five dollar bill onto the pile on the floor. Emily is staring at the money while I count it and she's turning the jar around in her hands. An empty jar she brought from work, the smell of pickles is still strong. We've washed it three times and Emily says, "It's not nearly enough."

I'm sitting with my back to the sofa and my legs bent at the knees. I tell her, "Don't worry about it." I'm counting the money over and over again and the amount isn't changing. It's still not enough and I hand the money to Emily. She stuffs it in the jar.

Emily, her hair in two long ponytails and her glasses dirty she says, "I'm not." Her sweat pants have holes at the knees, around the ankles, and she tells me, "Not even a little." I can't see her hands. They're tucked inside her too long sleeves. I'm worried and she knows it.

She tells me it'll all be okay and she smiles. She puts the jar down and she stands up. She stands in front of me and she holds out her hand. I accept the offer and stand up on my feet. And what she says is, "Dance with me."

"I don't dance."

"That's okay," she tells me, "because neither do I."

We stand together with no music and my arms are wrapped around her waist. She looks up at me and she holds onto my hand and twirls herself. We're quiet and my chin is resting on the top of her hair. The time moves forward and we barely notice. It's dark outside now and Emily says, "I used to dance like this with my daddy. He loved to dance."

"He loved you," I say and wisps of her hair get caught on the moisture on my lips and I move my head a little to pull it loose. She turns in my arms and her back is pressed against me. I let my hands rest, palms spread open, on her belly. I can feel the baby turning and twisting.

She lets her head lean back and she closes her eyes. "No. He fucked me." And we stop dancing. She doesn't cry. There is no emotion. It's almost like she's talking about someone else. Emily, plain and pretty; I think maybe her father loved her too much.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"You can stop looking for Brandon," Alex tells me. "You won't find him, not unless he wants you to." And I tell him I stopped looking for Brandon a long time ago. A nurse walks by and she watches us for a minute before moving on.

We're sitting facing each other and Alex is biting the nail on his thumb. It's almost down to nothing and he takes his finger out of his mouth. "How long do you have to stay here?" I'm staring at Alex. The air here is thick and the people look paused.

Alex, he looks confused and he opens his mouth and nothing comes out. After a minute he says, "I don't know." He tells me, "Not too much longer. It's all pointless bullshit anyway." He straightens out his legs and stretches his arms before sitting back.

"They're trying to help you."

"Yeah, right," he says. I swallow and I don't know what else to say. I don't have anywhere to go and I've run out of words so I sit. "My mom is paying for this. They called her when I got admitted to the hospital. I have no idea where or how they got her number. Doesn't matter I guess. I suppose they'll care as long as her insurance holds out."

"That's fucked up," is what I say.

And what Alex says is no. He says, "No, that's just how things are." We talk about movies and television shows until its time to go. We haven't seen TV in years, only the promos and trailers, snippets that come on in department stores. Movies, well, the last one I saw was with Emily and I can honestly say I don't remember.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Dr. Do Good, he turns off the lights and sits down in his rolling chair. Emily is on the table and her legs are bent, the right propped up on the left and she's holding her shirt up. I'm standing next to her bed watching as the doctor squeezes clear gel onto her stomach. "Fucking hell, that's cold," she says and the doctor moves a wand over her stomach.

"Are we ready to see this baby for the first time?" he asks and we both watch the screen. He's moving the wand around her stomach and after a minute or two an image starts to come into focus. "There we go. That," he says, "is your baby."

"That is so fucking awesome," Emily says and she hits me in my side. I glance over at her and she's smiling and she repeats herself and I tell her yeah.

I say, "Yeah, it is." The doctor, Dr. Do Good is actually smiling and he tells us this is why he likes to work at the clinic. He says this is why he likes to see parents with their first pregnancies.

"Do you want to know the sex?" Emily looks at me and I look at her and I tell the doctor no. I tell him no, we don't want to know and he says, "Okay. Well, we are all finished here. You can go ahead and get cleaned up." He turns off the machine and the baby disappears. He turns the lights on and hands Emily some paper towels.

She wipes the gel from her stomach and hands me the wad of paper towels. I toss them in the trash and move to sit in the chair by the wall. The doctor steps out to get her some more prenatal vitamins and we're all alone. I'm looking at her pull her shirt down and I say, "Thank you."

Emily looks at me and she's running her fingers through her hair and smoothing out her shirt. She scoots to the end of the table and sits. "You are very welcome."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Bruises gone I can't afford to not work. I stand on the corner. It's lunch time, prime time and I wait for someone, anyone. I feel the person behind my back before I see them and I steady myself. "I'm on my lunch break," he tells me. "I don't have much time. Follow me." I turn and follow and we walk into a restaurant. It's packed with people shouting orders, yelling, making threats and pushing.

No one notices us and we make our way past them all and into the bathroom. He lets me walk in front of him and he follows me into the last stall. It's small and cramped and he presses a twenty dollar bill and then a ten into my hand and the bills are crushed. I could complain but I need the money and my fingers unbutton my jeans and let them drop to my knees, and then down to my ankles.

Mr. Junior Executive, he opens his zipper and pulls out his cock. He lowers his slacks just enough and reaches into his pocket. My hands are on the wall of the stall and I'm waiting. He's pulling out a condom, splitting open the wrapper and slipping it on. How considerate is what goes through my mind and he's pushing into me. "Ah, shit," is all he says and he's trying to keep it down.

He said he didn't have too much time but it's been twenty minutes and I wonder how long he gets for lunch. "Fuck. Oh… fuck," I scream and I feel like I'm breaking in two. I'm sweating and his hand is resting on my hip, the other on my collarbone and he's thrusting deeper and deeper and harder.

"Feel it," he says and he inhales deeply. He's clearing his throat and he stops moving. He's giving himself some time to move back from the edge and my fingers are grasping at the wall of the stall, searching for something to hold onto and my bottom lip is held tightly between my teeth. "Can you feel it?"

"Shit. Yes." I feel cheap and used. I feel everything that I am but right now I don't care. I can't care because I need to feel this feeling, this semblance of something. Mr. Junior Executive is smiling and he laughs and he's moving again. His left hand is wrapped around my dick and he's pulling with just enough pressure. I can't hold it back and I'm coming, hard, and I feel my body start to go slack.

"Oh, no you don't," he says and he wraps an arm around my waist to hold me up. "Time is not up yet." His hand makes its way from my collarbone to my throat and the pressure he is giving me is just enough. I don't fight it and my right arm bends back and my fingers grip his slacks. My left is holding his wrist and all his thrusts are angled and blunt.

"Jesus."

Mr. Junior Executive moves his hand from around my throat and puts it back on my cock. He's cursing and he's rubbing and when he comes inside me, inside the condom he doesn't stop. Ten more minutes pass and when he's too soft to go on he puts his hand on my hip and pulls out.

I fall forward and try to catch my breath. I'm panting and he's leaning back against the adjacent wall. His eyes are half closed and he's smirking. After another five minutes he pulls up his pants and straightens his tie. He looks presentable again and I still haven't moved. I'm not sure if I can. And he says, "Thanks for lunch."

~~~~~~~~~~~

There are always too many people around. I just want to be alone. I walk into the rental office and the bell over the door chimes. The girl behind the counter is dressed in all black and her hair is orange on the ends. "Hey."

"Hey," I say back. She's use to me, she sees me all the time. She hands me a key for a room in the back of the hotel, on the end and she says I can have it at least until the morning. She says don't fuck it up. "Thanks." I take the key from her and back out of the office. I walk along the sidewalk and I don't have to look to know where I'm going.

I get to the room and open the door and all the fixtures on the inside are the same as every place else. I close the door behind me and block out all the noise I can. I pull off my shirt and toss it on the bed. My shoes, jeans and tee shirt are next and when I lay down on the bed I wonder how many people before me have been on this same mattress, flat on their back and waiting.

I let my eyes close and when I drift into my dreams I don't see anything. It's perfection.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Too many calories," is what Emily tells me and she puts the can in her hand back on the shelf. We're walking down the canned goods aisle in the supermarket and Emily's bag is bigger than it needs to be. Filled with canned goods, fruits, vegetables and at least one box of Poptarts; everything inside is our little secret and we round the corner into frozen food.

I move around in her background, it's three in the morning and the store is almost empty. Emily, she tells me, "The only people who shop this late in grocery stores are people with something to hide. You know," she says, "serial killers, rapists and general doers of wrong." And I smile, I smirk and I know I've probably fucked all three.

I say, "We're here." I tell her, "We're in here and we're not crazy." What she tells me is speak for your own self. And she opens one of the doors and closes it and decides she wants something else. I'm standing next to Emily and the air from this section of the store is blocked off and stagnant. She says everyone is a little bit crazy and she puts a pint of Ben and Jerry's ice cream in her bag and moves on.

"Is that a bad thing?" I ask and I scratch at the back of my neck. Emily is walking, not too fast, towards the exit. She's putting distance between us and all the shelves. When we get outside she glances back just once and looks at me and smiles. I pull at the bottom of my shirt and let my hands drop to my sides.

We're walking, three thirty-five in the morning and Emily puts her hands in front of her and she moves them up and down and she moves her head just enough to push the stings of hair out of her face and she says, "Good or bad, who gives a shit. It just is."

I tell her okay. She doesn't say anything else for awhile and her hands just rest on her stomach all the way home. When we get to her floor we're both too tired to really sleep and we stay up. Emily, she says that she wonders what my hair would look like all shaved off and I shrug and tell her I don't know. I tell her it's not something that I really want to find out right now.

She falls asleep before the sun starts to come up and I ease her head onto an abandoned pillow, yellow on one side from age and neglect but as clean as it can hope to be and I stand up. Emily is curled up into a ball and I can see her stomach twist and turn and I feel something like pride but not quite and I go to the bathroom. I don't look at myself in the mirror. I know I look like shit and I put some water in my mouth, spit it out and pull my bottom lip between my teeth.

I know it's time to go back to work.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon is sitting on the wall next to an abandoned restaurant and he's smoking a cigarette and when I come to a stop in front of him all he says is, "Hey." I stand there and the only sound is us breathing and Brandon takes another pull on his cigarette and exhales, slowly.

When I finally get my mouth to work the only thing I can think to say is, "Hey." And I hop up on the wall next to him. I look behind us and if we fall it won't hurt too much, about two and a half feet down, various broken bottles, abandoned toys and whatnots to cushion the fall.

I want to ask Brandon where he's been but I don't. He reaches up to run a hand over his face and he has more track lines on his arm than I can ever remember seeing, they ghost and trail between his fingers, on his neck. They are everywhere and I let him think I don't see.

I know he knows I saw. "It is always all the same. We are all running from the same ghosts, man. We all want the same thing and no one is going fucking anywhere. We are moving in fucking… fucking circles," Brandon says and he's crying and he's wiping at the tears and snot that are trying to fall and he's sniffing and all I do is look. I have no words of comfort or wisdom. I don't want to help him. I don't want to be his absolute salvation. So I let him cry.

I let him cry until he has nothing left and when he is finished all I ask is, "Feel better?" And he looks at me looking at him and he takes a deep breath, reaches behind his ear and grabs another cigarette. He flicks a lighter and the tip lights up.

He touches the end of the cigarette to the flame and what he says is, "No." He tells me, "No. I don't want to feel better."

I say, "Okay."

Brandon looks at me and says, "My mom died."

"Sorry," I say. I say, "When?" I'm swinging my legs back and forth and I don't really care but it's the right thing to say. I'm staring at Brandon and he drops some ashes to the ground.

"I'm not sorry. She was a fucking bitch. She hated me, really hated me. And she made sure that she told me so whenever she could bother to actually talk to me at all." And I ask him again when and he says, "Couple days ago. My brother called me. Can you believe that shit? He just kept calling the number of a house I used to stay at. The lady there told me. I haven't lived in that house in over three years. So much for family ties, I guess."

And all I say is, "Yeah. Yeah, I guess." I scratch at the back of my neck and I tell Brandon that I didn't know he had a brother. He nods and licks his lips and inhales deeply around his cigarette. "Older or younger?"

He looks over at me and he smiles and drops more ashes to the ground and says, "Older, not by much. His name is Matthew. He loves me." He pauses. "I think. He always looked out for me."

"What's his name?" And he tells me he already told me. He tells me his name is Matthew and I say, "Oh."

~~~~~~~~~~~

"You're firing me?" Emily is standing in front of the cash register and she's holding her apron tightly in her hand.

Her manager, he says, "You got it."

"What the fuck for?"

"You talk to me any way you want. You're always late. You give free food to your homeless little druggie friends that like to hang out in here. And don't act surprised that I know. I don't have to put up with your bullshit. I don't have to and I won't, now get the hell out of my diner," Emily's manager tells her and pushes past her, his shoulder digging into her arm.

"Asshole," is all Emily can think to say and I'm sitting in a booth in the corner. I can hear everything. Everyone can hear everything and I stay in my seat until he pauses in the doorway.

"Asshole?" He repeats and it's more like a question. He walks back over to Emily and she doesn't back down, she looks right in his eyes and I'm getting up. I'm standing next to her quietly and watching. "Me, an asshole? You bitch. I gave you a job when no one would hire you. When you were strung out and filthy and couldn't do anything but nod your head, just barely. And I'm an asshole?"

"That was a long time ago," Emily says but her voice cracks and she's holding her arms crossed above her belly.

Her manager, all grease and sweat, he shakes his head and he says, "Not so long ago." And he steps forward and I step forward and Emily she takes a step back. Every person in the diner is watching and some are pretending not to see. "Get the fuck out of my diner. And if you're half as smart as I think you are you won't come back."

He pokes her in the collar and I don't hesitate. My fist connects with his face before I have time to think and I take a deep breath and can't believe how good it feels. And when he recovers and hits me back I don't see it coming. He hits me twice in the face and I swing again and connect again with his jaw. Two large cooks, Ben and Zack, come from the back and pull us apart. I spit out blood and the manager makes a noise like a groan and he's yelling something but all I hear is air.

Emily tosses her apron on the counter and she slips her arm under mine and helps me out of the diner. I spit out more blood and pull my hand across my mouth and it's suddenly too cold and I shiver and Emily guides me over to the side of a building. I don't know which one and I hold my hand to my mouth and I pull it away and I look to see if there is blood.

"You're bleeding."

"I noticed." And I sniff and taste blood in the back of my throat and I think for a minute that maybe my mother was right and maybe I am worthless.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I move to stretch and Emily is pressed into my side and she's not moving and for too many minutes all I do is stare. She coughs and moves and her eyes blink and she turns on her back and her legs kick at the sheets as she keeps moving to her left side and she doesn't move anymore. I think about getting up to go to the bathroom and then I don't move and I reach out and pick up the abandoned bottle of cheap beer, label peeled off and long ago expensive.

And I drink all of what's left and put it back on the table and think, again, about going to the bathroom and I force myself up and out of the bed. Emily doesn't move and I close the door behind me and wonder if I should lock it but I don't. I pee and I flush and I stand in front of the mirror. I look at myself and nothing makes sense and I'm more than okay with that and I start to cry. I wipe off the tears and turn on the cold water and splash water on my face.

"You're losing it," is what I tell myself.

Emily walks into the bathroom and her shirt is pulled up above her belly and her panties are black lace, boy cut, and she's standing in the door rubbing her right eye and she moves across the bathroom and when she passes me she presses her palm into my back and it's warm. She pulls her panties down and drops the toilet seat and sits down. She's running her hands over her stomach and I try not to notice the sound of her peeing. "We all are."

"What?"

"We're all losing it."

I say, "Oh." She's still peeing and she yawns and rakes her hands through her hair. She looks around for the toilet paper and wipes and gets up and when she's standing next to me at the sink I want to cry again.

Emily is washing her hands and her bare arm is touching my torso and the bruises are still faint and I flinch just because. What she says is, "Its okay."

I wipe the tears from my eyes and sniff and press my thumb and pointer finger to my nose and hold it still and sniff quickly. "What?"

"Crying." She's looking at me in the mirror but not at me and her hair is hanging uncombed and waiting. She's drying her hands on a towel.

"Oh."

And what Emily tells me is that it really is okay to cry. She says, "Don't pretend for me." I tell her I'm not pretending. I tell her that maybe its all just one big version of everyone's truth. Emily she shrugs and tells me, "Maybe."

"I'm not pretending."

I'm looking at myself in the mirror. I'm watching myself watch myself watch her and she reaches out and grabs her toothbrush. We don't have toothpaste and the best she can do is to wet the bristles and press them into her mouth.

"You're lying." And when I don't respond all she does is keep brushing.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Alex is sitting in front of me and he's not talking and I'm not talking and we're both comfortable. A nurse walks by, other patients and visiting parents and we still don't say anything and I sigh. "You don't have to keep coming here."

"I want to."

"No one wants to come here." And Alex lets his eyes trail around the room and I'm looking at him and looking out the window and staring at his hands. They're wrapped around a Styrofoam cup and it's filled with something that looks like coffee but I don't think it is and he takes a drink and swallows.

"No," I say. "No one wants to be seen coming here."

"Yeah," he whispers and he pauses. "Same difference."

I stare at him and I say, "That doesn't make any sense."

"Yes it does." I have on clean blue jeans, a white tee shirt and the same old Converse. Emily washed and I shake my head. What Alex says is that yes it does. He says, "It makes perfect sense."

"You can't be the same and be different," I say and my hair is moved out of my face. Alex is all skin and bones and he shakes and the liquid in his cup shakes and I wonder for a minute if he can feel it and then he moves in his seat and I frown and he asks me what's wrong and I tell him nothing. Nothing is wrong.

"I am."

"You're exactly the same."

Alex shakes his head and I wonder if his neck will break and he says, "I'm scared." And he takes another drink of the brownish black liquid and he forces himself not to gag as it makes its way down his throat. He thinks for a minute and looks at me with too big eyes and tells me, "I'm terrified."

"You'll be okay. You're going to be just fine." I'm giving him something to hold on to. I don't believe what I'm saying but that doesn't really matter.

"You're a good liar. I almost believed you," he tells me and he bites his bottom lip, moves his hand through his hair. Someone, Alex, shaved it all off. It's too long in patches and I wonder for a minute if it hurt at all.

"Is that a bad thing?" And all Alex does is shrug. A nurse walks by with a chart and stops and looks at Alex. She looks at the chart and at the cup in her hand and she smiles. She hands Alex the cup and a glass of water and waits for him to take the meds, show her that they're gone. When she walks away Alex looks at me and spits out the three pills in his mouth. And he says, "Therapy of the future; fuck what you're feeling, want to feel, and just take drugs."

I scratch at nothing on my chest and I'm suddenly uncomfortable and I want to leave but I stay in my chair because Alex is my friend. "Do they help?" I ask.

"What?" I know he heard what I said.

"Do they help?" And I pause on every syllable.

Alex laughs for the first time since I've been here and he tells me, "If you've been blocked the pills will flush you right out. Take too many, wrong combination and you'll never stop shitting."

Alex shifts in his chair and winces and I look over at the clock. Our sixty minutes is almost up. "Has this happened to you?"

Alex looks down into his cup and up at me and at the other people in the room and when he leans forward his shirt moves and I can see more of his collarbone and chest and I want to throw up. I can feel acid in my throat and I swallow it down and back. He whispers, "I haven't shit in six weeks."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily is walking down the street next to Brandon and they're talking and when she sees me she smiles and tries to walk faster. Her walk is more of a waddle and when she finally gets close to me she is out of breath. Her hands are pressing in on her lower back and she takes a deep breath. "Can you believe I used to run track?"

"You ran track?" I ask. She tells me it was a long time ago and she tells me that she misses it sometimes but not so much and that maybe the baby will run track and I tell her yeah. I tell her yeah, maybe.

"Fuck that," Brandon says. He pulls out a cigarette and lights it and offers it to Emily and she pushes his hand away. "What?"

"You really are a fucking retard, you know that," she tells him and she rolls her eyes and lets her back rest against me and she trusts me not to let her fall and I don't even think about it when I wrap my arms around her.

"That's the last time I try to be nice and generous to you," he tells her with a smile. He taps his head and pulls the cigarette out of his mouth. "I won't forget."

"Yes you will," she tells him and she's holding onto my fingers and she's looking under my nails and she tells him, "You forget everything." He chokes out a breath of air and its bluish white and thick and Emily turns her head and makes a face.

"You're probably fucking right. I can't remember a fucking thing." I laugh and I'm twirling Emily's hair around my finger. "You went to see Alex?"

"Yeah." Brandon nods. Emily is patting her stomach and her left hand is still holding onto mine.

"He's okay?"

"He's skinny, too skinny. I don't think it's helping him, that place." Brandon takes another pull on the cigarette and blows it out and he's crying but we pretend not to notice. "Maybe you should go see him."

Brandon wipes at the tears on his face and he sniffs and clears his throat and takes another pull on his cigarette. "Maybe." We don't say anything else about it and too many people are suddenly on the street and all I hear is traffic noise and too loud music.

Emily is tapping her finger, my fingers, against her stomach and she yawns and says she's hungry. She tells us, "We're all broke, we might as well eat something; my treat." She stands up and lets go of my hand and searches through her bag. Her fingers, perfect length and thin reappear wrapped around worn leather and she fans the wallet open. The driver's license photo is of her ex-manager, Mr. Fast Food.

"You stole his wallet?" I ask and my mouth is too moist and I swallow. Emily is smiling and she pulls out his cash. He has more than any diner owner and manager should. And I wonder if grease was all he was selling.

All Brandon says is, "Fucking sweet. I'm definitely getting dessert."

"I like to think of it as payment for pain and suffering." She's counting out the money and I take it out of her hand and count it and inhale and exhale and give it back to her. "He's an asshole and he's stupid. A combination that is not too good."

And Brandon is already walking down the street looking for a place to eat. Emily looks up at me and I lean in to kiss her and she's giggling and she says, "You need to shave."

"You don't like it?"

"It's relative," she tells me and she grabs my hand and we follow Brandon. "I like it fine. I like you better without it." I nod and her hair is blowing behind her as she walks.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon is flirting with the waitress at the restaurant and she's flirting back until one of the waiters whisper in her ear. She stops flirting with the news of whatever he told her and goes to get the order of another table and Brandon sits back. He puts a fry into his mouth, covered in ketchup and hot sauce and he says, "That dude is such a dick. I was this close to actual legitimate pussy." And he's holding his fingers half an inch apart.

Emily is smiling and her lips are covered in garlic sauce and the bib she's wearing is slick with water and steam and oil and grease and she sucks on her thumb and laughs. She's holding the end of a crab leg out to me and I wave it off and tell her no thanks. "You know him?" I ask Brandon and I'm dipping a hushpuppy in ranch dressing.

"Fucked him a couple times," Brandon says and he eats another fry. "It was a while back; might have given him crabs. Can't really remember."

"You're disgusting," Emily says and she shakes her head and cracks open a lobster tail. She lets out a small squeak when the juices jump across the table at her. I put the hushpuppy in my mouth and chew and swallow and wipe my fingers on my napkin.

"Like you've never had crabs."

"I'm having crabs now, dumbass."

"Cute. You're such a cunt." I'm listening to them go back and forth and I take a drink from my glass and motion at the waitress to brings us another pitcher of beer. Emily is drinking water and iced tea and she jabs me in the ribs and says to tell the girl to fill her up too.

I tell the girl and sit back in the booth and my arm is behind Emily and she's sucking the meat out of another crab leg and her left hand is twirling pasta around a fork. Brandon is eating fries off of his plate and Emily's but she doesn't seem to mind and he squeezes more ketchup onto his plate. The waiter, Little Boy Cock-blocker, he comes to the table and he doesn't say anything and when he walks away Brandon says he has to use the bathroom and he'll be right back.

He's gone for over half an hour and Emily is eating garlic bread and salad and Brandon's abandoned fries and she says, "Crabs must not have been too bad." I don't say anything and I reach forward and pick up my glass of beer and drink half and Emily sits back in the booth, her eyes heavy and beautiful and she says, "I think I'm full."

"Are you sure? Want any dessert?" She's thinking about it and looking at the menu and Brandon walks back to the booth and slides in and asks what he missed.

"Nothing monumental." He smirks and eats another cold fry. "Guess he didn't mind the crabs," I say.

And all Brandon does is smile and I look at Emily and she's motioning the waitress over to the table. The waitress doesn't know what to say so she stands there and Emily tells her, "Bring me the chocolate cake."

~~~~~~~~~~~

How Alex is, is freezing cold and I put another blanket around his shoulders and his lips are blue. I sit down next to him and pull him in close and we're sitting on his bed. He's too weak to come out to the visitation room. I'm moving my arm up and down above the blankets and he's too tired to cry but he hums and I think it might be worse than tears. "I'm going to die," he tells me.

I think he's right and I say, "Don't say that."

"You knew it before I said it. It's not a huge revelation. Am I right?" I tell him yes. I tell him he is spot on. And he jolts forward when a shiver runs through him and he closes his eyes. He opens them again and his teeth are chattering.

"Yeah, you're right." He just nods and puts his hand in mine. No one can get him to eat and they've all stopped trying and Alex is giving up on getting better. We sit in quiet and I listen to his breathing and his heart beating and for twenty minutes he falls asleep but I don't move. My legs and arms are asleep and I have to pee. I'm hungry and I just sit and wait.

"Have you seen Brandon?" I move the hair out of Alex's face. It's too thin and dry. I pass my fingers over his lips and I tell him no. I tell him I haven't seen Brandon in weeks.

Alex smiles and says, "That's good." He says, "I'm happy." And he doesn't say anything else and when the nurses finally come he's been dead for forty minutes.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily is two and a half weeks from her due date and time is moving too fast and it seems like just yesterday and Brandon walks up and puts his hand on my arm and he squeezes and says, "Dude, you have got to try the fucking food. It's delicious." He's wiping his fingers on his borrowed jacket.

Emily is dressed all in white and when people stare she smiles and crosses and uncrosses her legs. Brandon is sitting on the arm of the chair that Emily is in and his hand is resting on her head and she brushes it off after a minute. "What's his mother's name, again?" I've asked four times. Still, no one knows.

"Who cares?" is what Brandon asks and he's looking around the room at everyone who knew Alex when. None of them know him, really know him but sympathy is the easiest emotion to fake and they all cry and pretend to feel bad to make themselves feel better for not caring.

Emily says, "I think its Rebecca." And I watch Alex's grandfather, sixty, maybe sixty-five, dip stalks of celery into too white dressing and take a bite and dip again. "Margaret?"

"Taste this," is what Brandon says and he shoves an oyster in my face and I open my mouth on instinct and it tastes like flesh and I swallow without chewing. "Tastes like shit, right?"

I nod my head and I tell him yeah. I tell him, "Yeah it does. Thanks for sharing." I get up from my chair in the corner and smooth my hands over my jeans and down my shirt and walk over to the table with all the food and pick up a glass of wine.

"Did you know Alan?" the grandfather asks and he's holding a carrot, the tip bit off. He's breathing deep and there is a wheeze coming from his lungs.

I drink the glass of wine, all of it and lick my lips and I say, "Alex."

"Alex?"

"Your grandson," I tell him and he nods and takes another bite of the carrot held between his fingers. All he says is oh. He says oh, yeah, that's his name.

"Did you know him well?" I'm uncomfortable and I wonder if I'll be as old as him one day. He's wiping his fingers on the lapel of his jacket and I frown.

What I tell him is, "Well enough."

"Good." I drink another glass of wine. I drink a second and a third and turn my head to the left and cough and my lungs burn and the taste in the back of throat is heavy and metallic and I drink another glass. Grandfather leans in and asks, "How'd he die?"

"He stopped breathing."

"No. What'd he die of?" he asks. Alex's mom is crying and then laughing and when someone touches her shoulder and whispers in her ear she smiles and nods her head.

I tell him, "Neglect."

He sidesteps closer to me and with his right hand wrapped around a glass of white wine, the rim pressed to his lips, he pauses and asks in a whisper, "Is that some new disease that the gays get?" I'm not so sure how much they know about Alex's "work" so I grimace and tell him yeah, something like that. I leave him to think and he's staring at the platter of vegetables.

"Could these people be anymore unplugged?" Emily asks but she doesn't want an answer and she toes off her shoes, leans back and scratches at a spot along her neck and sighs. I'm sitting next to her and my elbows are resting on my knees. I'm wearing jeans, last time washed unknown, white shirt, a suit jacket pulled from the back of Emily's closet and when I asked whose it was she just shrugged and said a guy she use to fuck.

"I think unplugged is putting it mildly," is all I say. Brandon stands up and drops his plate on the arm of the chair.

"Let's go," he says. He's wearing blue jeans and a white tee shirt, a black belt. "I'll grieve in private." Emily stands up and bends down to pick up her shoes and as we walk to the door she doesn't stop to put them on.

We're halfway down the street and Emily is walking slowly and Brandon is picking at the threads of his shirt. I'm smoking a cigarette and letting the ashes fall and Brandon asks, "Did he say anything?"

"Who?"

He asks, "Did he ask about me at all?" Emily is wincing and saying she has to pee, that we have to find a place with a public restroom.

Everyone knows I was there and I take a deep inhale and when I open my mouth to say something smoke hinges on the words and I say, "No." I tell him, "He didn't ask about you at all."

Brandon looks at me in the eyes and he swallows and it's thick and he says, "Thank you for lying. I always told you that you sucked at it. But, thanks."

~~~~~~~~~~~

It's starting to get cold again and I wonder what month it is. I'm standing in the middle of the sidewalk and its starting to rain and Brandon has been trying to light the same match for fifteen minutes. For more than a moment I admire his patience. A car stops and Brandon leans into the window and I watch them talk. Brandon shrugs and looks back at me and waves me over.

I stop walking and stand next to Brandon and rain is soaking my hair and my shirt. "Show me your cock." I don't hesitate and I lower the waist of my jeans, pull on the band of my underwear. "Nice. Now you." The man in the car points at Brandon and Brandon unbuttons his jeans and lowers his zipper. We both put our jeans back in place and wait, our eyes looking for cops.

"Look man, make up your fucking mind," Brandon tells him. Mr. Car Not Street Legal, he leans into the window and smirks.

"Okay. Both of you get in." And Brandon reaches for the handle on the back door and when he opens it he looks inside. It's empty and he gets in and moves over and I slide in beside him and Mr. Car Not Street Legal asks how much.

Brandon tells him a hundred and I can get more by myself but I don't say anything and when we take a right I lean my head against the glass window of the door and the song in my head is Gary Glitter's Do You Wanna Touch Me (Oh yeah).

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon is lying on his back, arms behind his head, legs crossed and he's staring at the ceiling. "It was all supposed to be better." He's taking small measured breaths. He's naked and the shape of his cock is slack and long. I'm sitting on the edge of the bed, back to him and legs crossed and my boxers are what I think use to be navy blue. I'm smoking a cigarette and pulling on the fine hairs on my leg. I'm tired and I don't like the feel of the hotel's comforter.

"It is better," I tell him and I press the cigarette back between my lips and breathe in smoke. Brandon scoffs and he runs his hand over his face.

"Jesus, man," he says after seconds have passed, "better than what?"

The room is all white walls and brass, trinkets found at yard sales and antique stores; a century old grandmother's idea of high style. The trick paid, Mr. Car Not Street Legal, Mr. I Like To Watch, Mr. Yes, Just Like That. He fucked us both and came when Brandon was six and a half inches in my mouth, three inches down my throat. He tossed two twenties and a bunch of ones on the dresser and left.

And my eyes focused on the black screen on the television, I say, "Everything." I let my gaze fall back to Brandon and the angle of my neck is making me uncomfortable but I watch him. Brandon is looking up at the ceiling and he moves his hand on instinct when I hold out the cigarette for him to take.

"You're so fucking weird," he says before inhaling. I don't try to deny it. I don't care what he thinks. I move my legs and stand up and slip into my jeans and Brandon is still not moving. I put on my socks, shoes. I find my shirt on the floor and halfway under the bed and I pull it over my head.

"Thanks."

"It wasn't exactly a compliment."

"I know. You better get dressed." Brandon still doesn't move and I'm ready to go. He tells me just to leave and he'll lock up and check out. I give him the key, pick up my share of the money and stuff it into my pocket.

My hand is on the door knob and he says, "He really was my best friend." And what I tell him is try not to stay too long.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The stairwell is brown and dingy and Emily is standing halfway between up and down. Her right hand is pressed under her stomach and her left hand is holding the handrail. "This is not the way this was supposed to happen," she says as she looks at the clear liquid on the stairs. I'm standing in front of her and reaching for her arm to help her down the last couple of steps.

"You had this planned?" I ask her and she laughs and it's cold when I push open the front door of the apartment building. She balls up her hands and shoves them into her pockets and we don't have enough money for a cab so we walk towards the bus stop.

We wait and half an hour later Emily is leaning into me and she's holding my hand and crying into my shoulder. She's taking deep breaths. I thought it was supposed to take longer for her to feel this much pain. I tell her to hold on. I say, "I'm gonna get us a ride." I tell her to just give me a second.

"Okay." She lets go of my hand and I stand up and walk to the curb and I didn't think it was possible to care this much about someone. I flag down a car and when I bend down to look in the window I don't recognize the man, or the woman.

"My…." I don't know why I hesitate. "My girlfriend is having a baby and we need a ride to the hospital. We don't have any money." The man and woman, husband and wife, best friends, they look at each other and then the woman turns back to me and tells me yeah.

She says, "Just hop right in." I tap the window and tell them thanks and when I come back with Emily the back door is already open.

"Thanks," I say when we're in the car. Emily is panting and the woman keeps saying to breathe, breathe, breathe and Emily tells her to shut the FUCK up.

The man, he laughs and takes a right. I can see the arrows pointing out the direction of the hospital. "You have to breathe or you'll tire yourself out. Childbirth is so beautiful, bringing a life into the world."

"HOLY SHIT, it hurts!"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily's hair is sweat soaked and plastered to her forehead and she's leaning back on stark white pillows, her eyes closed. Her legs are slightly bowed and her arms are slack and every couple of minutes she shivers. I'm sitting on the bed next to her and I'm not sure if I am breathing. Six pounds, five ounces, a hair full of dirty blonde curls later and I'm almost sure I've never loved anyone as much as I think I love this little girl.

"You're still awake," Emily breathes and she yawns and holds the back of her hand against her mouth. She doesn't try to sit up in the bed and her eyes are half closed and she's smiling.

"Didn't try to go to sleep," I tell her and my voice is flat and the baby is pressed against my chest and Emily smiles and says she looks good on me and I run my hand over her head. A nurse comes in and does a checkup and just as fast she's gone and Emily is falling back asleep.

"What do you want to name her?" My hand seems too big against her back. She's wrapped in a pink hospital blanket, Property of Mothers of Mercy Hospital stitched across the side, and the hat on her head is sterile white.

I look down into plain features, not quite so plain features and everything about her is perfect. I say, "Charlie." Emily laughs and puts a hand on her stomach and says it feels weird to feel so empty.

She says, "That's a boy's name." I tell her I know. I tell her I like it. And she tells me, "I can live with Charlie."

~~~~~~~~~~~

"This is so fucking trippy, man. Way too damn trippy. What the fuck are you two assholes gonna do with a baby?" Brandon asks and he's sitting down in the chair by the window. He's scratching at his arm, not looking at either of us, looking out the window. Emily is sitting up in the middle of her bed and she's holding her own breast and the nurse is trying to show her how to get Charlie to latch on.

"Shut up asshole," Emily says and when Charlie finally latches on she frowns at the pain and tries to relax. Brandon sits forward in his chair, cigarette tucked behind his ear. He stands up and walks over to the bed and stands next to the nurse and his expression is all tongue and cheek.

"When she's all done you think I can get a little taste? I love fresh milk," he says with a laugh and Emily pushes her hand hard into his diaphragm and he moves back and away from the bed, rubbing the spot. He's motioning for me to come over, closer to him, near the door and I follow. "Congratulations, dude, really. I'm happy that you have something other than just you to live for."

I say, "Thanks." He hits me on the arm and says no problem.

~~~~~~~~~~~

All the money we had is not nearly enough and we burn through it in weeks, all diapers and wipes and clothes. We're running out of options and Emily has been to four restaurants looking for work and no one is hiring and Charlie is oblivious.

We're sitting on the floor and my back is against the wall.

"Every dangerous beginning must have an equally as beautiful tragic end," Emily says and its late at night, her head is on my thigh and she's barely audible and we're sharing a joint and blowing the smoke out of the crack in the window above our heads.

"I don't think you're supposed to be smoking, anything." And Emily says to be quiet. She says just to be very, very quiet.

~~~~~~~~~~~

And in the morning Emily is not so high and crying and wiping tears on sheets. Charlie is in her arms and she's smiling and her fingers are tangled in Emily's hair. I don't know what to say and so I don't say anything and Charlie is kicking her legs and laughing. "Why are you crying?"

Emily shrugs her shoulders and says she doesn't really know. She says, "Maybe I shouldn't get high." And there is a pause and she hiccups and Charlie is two months old and all giggles. "I'm a really bad mother."

~~~~~~~~~~~

I sit on the corner of Mulhill Street and Dunnap and Charlie is in my arms and her head is leaning on my shoulder and when a silver Mercedes drives up and stops I tell them not today, not right now. They ask me when and looking down at Charlie I tell them I'm not sure, to come back tomorrow. And they're gone and Brandon comes walking down the street and takes Charlie in his arms and she wants to cry but holds it in. "I just fucked the hottest bitch."

I ask him, glancing towards the diner on the corner where Emily used to work, "How much did it cost her?" Brandon laughs and tickles Charlie.

"Oh fuck you man. It wasn't a trick, in the literal sense." Brandon tells me all about the girl. He talks until I stop listening and when I ask him what time it is he tells me, "Way to damn early." Charlie is sleeping and her face is turned into Brandon's stomach. I watch two boys and one girl, off in the distance and they're fighting and when boy number one punches the girl in the jaw Brandon hands Charlie over to me and moves to get a closer look.

Emily comes around the corner and her hair is slick and shining and she stands next to me and looks at the fight in the distance. "What's their problem?"

"What'd they say?" I ignore her question. It's not important, not our problem. And Emily tells me they said they'd call in a few days. She says she thinks she blew it. She bends down and takes Charlie from me and starts to walk away. I don't look after her and I don't follow and when Brandon kicks guy two in the crouch I take a cigarette out of my pocket, light it and take a deep breath.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"How much?"

"How long?" And it's back to square one. I don't lean into the window. I don't have time for fun and games and I'm waiting for an answer. The woman, all grace and poise, she's holding onto the filter end of a Virginia Slim and she's looking straight at me.

"I'll give you eighty," she says and now it's her turn to wait.

"You can afford eight hundred." My hands are in my pockets and the logo on my shirt is too far gone to read. My jeans are three days ago washed and I'm waiting. It's a game of hide n' go seek and we both are too good at playing our parts.

The woman is all patience and she taps ashes out the car window. She says, small smile, "I asked and you didn't answer." It's a battle of wills and she is waiting for an answer.

"How much can you afford?" I toss back at her and she actually laughs. Her foot is resting on the break of a black car, make and model unimportant and damn expensive. She's too thin and the veins in her arm are blue, her skin smooth.

"A hundred."

"Four hundred," I say and its catch me if you can. She puts the car in park and turns her body to the left to look at me fully and her eyes drop to the ground and all the way back up. I'm not squirming and a car behind me honks and someone yells, not at me, but I look.

"Get in," she says and she motions towards the passenger seat and I walk around the car and slide in. The leather is all soft and genuine and she turns her body back towards the wheel and she tosses her cigarette out the window and lights another. "Do you have a girlfriend?"

It's nice to play the game with someone who knows the rules and I reach over and press the power button on the stereo. The CD already waiting to play is Madonna and the song on repeat is "Like a Virgin".

And I tell her yeah. I tell her yeah, something like that.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"What's your name?" I don't answer her and there is almost no furniture in her house and I walk around, touching everything and she asks me please not to touch, she says, "The housekeeper isn't coming until next week. Fingerprints." I shrug and she walks down the hall and into a room and I hear glasses clanking and I follow.

"Oh," I say. She doesn't look up at me and she pours two glasses of wine and she picks hers up and drinks it in one swallow and pours another. I move closer and pick up the glass she poured for me and drink it down.

"Where do you want to do this?"

"It's your house," I tell her and she smirks and pours more wine into my glass and I wonder if she has anything just a little stronger. I wonder if she ever really drinks wine at all.

"Yeah," she says. "I hate wine. It seemed appropriate." She tosses what's left in her glass in the sink and when the glass hits the inside of the sink it cracks and splinters and she doesn't seem to notice, or care.

"What's your name?" She pulls the clip from her hair and untwists the bun and it falls long and jet black down her back and over her shoulders and her makeup is flawless. Her teeth are way too white, bleached and straight.

"You asked me that already," I tell her and she doesn't seem annoyed.

"You eluded the answer." She shrugs and clears her throat and checks her watch and says to follow her. I follow, out of the kitchen and through the house, across the tiled floors and up the stairs and its getting darker and darker outside and the stairs are curved.

"You have a husband." A statement not a question and she never stops walking. She's following the curve of the stair and waiting at the top. I stop next to her and she doesn't answer my question.

"And now it's my turn to elude, whatever it is that that was supposed to be. Now we both have two points." She starts down the hall and turns the knob on the master suite. The word bedroom seems too small and insignificant.

"Only two?"

And she tells me, "I would have paid eight hundred." She's taking off her blouse. Shirt is too common. She's down to her underwear, silk and smooth and fire engine red. Her bra matches and I close the door behind me.

I take off my shirt and let it drop to the floor. "I'm not worth eight hundred," is what I say. She walks into the bathroom and I take off my jeans and drop them into a chair. She's in the bathroom and I hear the water run and its more than ten minutes until she comes back and I'm half hard and wanting… something.

She comes back in the room and she's flushed and water is around her mouth and she doesn't falter as she walks back to the bed and sits down. When I sit down next to her she leans in and her breath is all prescription medicines and tap water and I wait for her to try and kiss me. "That's probably true."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily takes the four hundred dollars and she doesn't ask where it came from. She puts it in a jar and twists the lid tight and what she says is, "Charlie threw up today."

"Babies do that." I sit down on the bed next to Charlie and she's looking up at me and she's all gums and drool and she's not wearing any clothes, a diaper snugly on her bottom. Emily is sitting on the floor and she's resting her head on her hands and her elbows on her knees and she's looking at me. I pick Charlie up and let her lay on my chest and her skin smells like powder.

"What was her name?" Emily asks and she's not angry. I count the toes and fingers on Charlie's hands and feet and don't answer her. "Was she pretty?"

"Do you want to know the truth?" I'm not looking at her and my heart doesn't speed up or slow down and Emily coughs and moves her hand to wipe a tear from her eye and for a minute I feel something almost like feeling bad.

Emily is quiet for way too long and the air in the apartment is still. The pot on the stove boils eggs and the water is evaporated and the bottom is starting to burn. She's looking into me, past me and I turn my eyes toward her and wait. "When my mom had my baby sister; maybe a month or two after she was born, maybe six, I can't really remember and I guess it doesn't really matter, my dad started to take more showers when he came home from work."

I don't say anything.

Emily is staring. The traffic outside is not too loud and the people on the street are all muffled voices and shouts and somewhere in between. "He always smelled like someone else. And after a while they didn't talk so much anymore and they both pretended it was all okay. So, the truth," she says, "doesn't really help me too much."

"Yeah," I say and it's the only thing I have energy for.

"The question is still out in the open and you still don't want to answer. I'm still not sure if I want to know. So, instead of the truth, why don't you tell me the best version of whatever lie you like the most."

I tell her to repeat the question and she does. Charlie is squirming and grunting and starting to cry and I start to move slowly back and forth. "I don't know her name. She was ice. She smelled like Prada and leather. She didn't smell like you. I like how you smell."

"Is that the truth?"

"The simple version," I tell her. Emily unfolds her legs and stands up and walks over to the kitchen table. She takes the boiling pot of eggs off the stove and turns off the heat. She adds cold water to try and cool it down. She walks over to me and takes Charlie in her arms and starts to pull her shirt up and then her bra.

"I'll take it." She stops in front of my face and smiles. And it's sad and she says, "I'm sorry."

And I tell her not to worry about it. She tells me that sometimes she can't help worrying about it. She tells me that sometimes she dreams about bad things happening to me and she thinks it means that she loves me and I say, "Thanks."

Charlie is latched firmly onto her breast and I wonder if this is what they mean when they say family and she says, "You're welcome."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Between us, chicken wings, fries and ketchup. I'm holding Charlie in my arms and Emily is sitting next to me, her feet stretched and propped up on the bench across from her. Brandon is tossing another bone on his plate and picking up another. "Drugs, man," he says. "Drugs are the key to all your problems."

"How's that?" I ask. Brandon is laughing and holding his hand, fingers grease stained to his mouth and coughing.

"Drugs are dangerous," Emily says and dips two fries into ketchup. Her weight is dropping fast and she's almost as small as she was before the baby. She asked me if I thought maybe it was too soon for her to be getting small again. I shrugged and told her I didn't know.

Brandon says, "No fucking shit, man. Living is dangerous. You take your chances and hope the ones you decide to make don't kill you."

"And if they do?"

"If they do then you don't need to worry about the 'what if' part. You're fucked," he says and I start to laugh. The waitress in the diner looks over at our table and shakes her head. We're not that loud. She wants us to leave and she knows she's not getting a tip.

"What about drugs?" I ask and I eat another fry and it's dry. I add ketchup, some mustard, to my plate, dip another fry and take a bite. Brandon wipes his mouth with a napkin and leans forward on the table.

"You sell 'em. It's fast and easy and very, very lucrative. I'm not seeing a down side to this. We can do this together. You're smart as fuck. I have people skills. We'd be the perfect team." Emily is laughing and Brandon tells her to fuck off.

"Fuck you. People skills? You're a fucking asshole. You have no idea what in the hell you're talking about half of the time. You just make shit up."

"That's called people skills. I make shit up, to please the people. I wasn't even talking to you, damn." And Brandon looks back at me and sighs, glancing once more at Emily. "We get the drugs from Frank."

"Who the fuck is Frank?" I hand Charlie to Emily when she starts to fuss and yawn.

Brandon looks impatient and he's pulling on the edge of his hair and reaching for another fry, another chicken wing. "Frank has the drugs. Look, we get the fucking drugs from Frank. We sell 'em on the street, to the people, the ones of who I have the most awesome skills with." And he looks at Emily. She holds up the middle finger on her left hand. "We get money and then we get the hell out of this town."

"You say fuck a lot," Emily says. Charlie is falling asleep against Emily's chest and she reaches over and hands her to me. I take her in my arms and rub on her back and she's asleep in seconds. Brandon takes a drink from his glass of water and he swallows and burps.

"I fuck a lot too, but surprisingly no one seems to give too much of a <i>shit</i> about that. Besides, you say fuck more than I do. Cunty bitch."

"Such an asshole. I have no idea why you stay friends with him," Emily says and she's not talking to Brandon, she's talking to me.

I shrug and Charlie is slobbering on my neck and the waitress walks over and tells us to keep it down. She says that people are starting to complain. She says, "Maybe you guys should go." And I tell her we'll go in a while. I tell her we'll go when we finish our food, when we get ready. She frowns and taps her pen against her thigh and walks away. Her smell is all Tinkerbell perfume and fried food.

I look at Brandon and turn to look at Emily. "I like him," is all I say. Emily just smiles and laughs a little and shakes her head. She's looking through her pocket for something. Napkins and glasses are all over the table, used and waiting to be cleaned. Brandon is licking his lips and he's touching his stomach and when he moves his mouth to burp nothing comes out.

Emily picks up a dirty napkin from the middle of the table and wipes her hands and her mouth and she tosses it back on the table and Brandon picks it up and does the same thing. "I really think we should do this," he says and I shrug and say whatever. I shrug and tell him why not.

I tell him, "Yeah." I say, "Yeah, whatever." And Emily is moving to the edge of the bench and she's standing up. The waitress comes over and holds out a check and Brandon looks at the check and I look at her and she drops the thin piece of paper on the table and turns and walks away. Emily touches the top of Charlie's head and turns to walk to the back of the restaurant, to the bathroom.

"We should leave her a really big tip. Disgustingly big," Brandon says. He keeps talking and I'm looking at the totals on the paper and frowning and looking at what's left of the ordered food on the table and then back at the paper and back at the table and in my head I'm trying to do the math and twice the sum doesn't add up so I count again. "How much?"

"Your share or the total?"

Brandon is digging in his pockets and he's pulling out crinkled ones and fives and he's counting out loud. He's dropping the money on the table and he says, "Well, how much?"

"Ten dollars and twenty-six cents," I say. Brandon scoffs and rolls his eyes and picks up his pack of cigarettes, shakes two out and puts one behind his ear. He drops the pack back onto the table and one of the napkins falls off in the breeze and he picks up a five dollar bill and five ones and puts them in the middle of the table.

He grabs the rest of the crumpled bills and puts them in his pocket and he sits back in the booth.

"The government is raising the price of everything. I work my ass off, literally, for this money. At the very least they can try not to raise the price of everything." And I pull out a twenty from my back pocket and add it to the money on the table. I tell Brandon no. I tell him I think the waitress just made sure she was going to get a tip. What Brandon says is, "Well, well, fuck that bullshit." And he takes back one of his dollars and slips it back into his pocket.

I tell him well yeah, that'll show her.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"What did you think the first time you met me?" Emily is standing on the three foot wide ledge of her five story building. Her shoes are off and her toes are flat against the cement. She's looking down at the ground and leaning forward. I'm sitting on the ledge next to her and looking out and across the buildings and it's almost like we're all alone.

"Nothing." She turns her head to look at me and she laughs, but only just a little. I'm peeling off the skin of an orange and dropping the shredded rind into the open air and watching it until I can't see it anymore. Charlie is in the apartment a couple of stories below us, sleeping last we saw.

"Impossible," Emily says and her eyes are like glass. She turns her head away from me and shakes her head just a little to get the hair out of her face and she uses her left hand to hold it down and away. "Everyone thinks something when they meet someone. What'd you think of me?"

"I didn't think of you," I tell her again and I look up at her. She's holding her arms out to her sides and taking deep breaths and she's almost as small as she was before the baby. She's had almost eight months to get back into shape. Her shirt is riding up and I can see her belly button.

"You don't intend to be mean," Emily tells me and she's leaning her head back. She opens her mouth and closes it and sighs and sits down next to me on the ledge and she reaches for her shoes, makes sure they're still where she put them.

"You don't think I'm being mean, you know I'm not, and to try and pretend you do is almost no fun," I say and Emily nods and the smirk on her face is my victory and she leans over and presses a kiss to my lips. Her tongue is warm and wet in my mouth and she moans and moves closer and I tell her, "I thought you were too plain."

She nods and rubs her hands over her arms and she says, "What's your name?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

"What's wrong with your arm?" I ask Brandon and we're walking down the sidewalk and it's past one in the morning. Brandon is sucking on a blue raspberry lollipop. I'm smoking a cigarette and exhaling the smoke and he looks down at his arm and it's shaking.

"Nervous," is all he offers. We duck across someone's grass and listen hard for dogs or gun shots.

"When's the last time you had a hit?" And we're standing in the shadows in the back of someone's backyard and Brandon has his fingers curled around a link in the fence. He's looking at me and he doesn't know what he wants to say.

"I don't do drugs."

"And I don't fuck for money," I counter and I stick my cigarette in my mouth and press the toe of my shoe into the fence and pull myself up. I let go when I clear the top and drop down to the grass beneath me. Brandon follows and when he's straightening his shirt I tell him that maybe he should reconsider his stance on drugs.

We walk the rest of the way in silence.

The new lollipop in Brandon's mouth is strawberry lemonade and he tells me that it's not that good but he's eating it anyway. I want another cigarette but I don't light one and when we get to Frank's apartment we don't wait to be let in. There are people everywhere and the apartment smells like stale vomit and urine. "Where's Frank?" I ask a boy, teenager, and he says he doesn't know a Frank.

"This is Frank's house." The boy tells me what the hell ever and sniffs something into his nose and moves through the crowd. The scene is the same at every single party. Sex, drugs and rock and fucking roll and no one knows anyone and everyone knows everyone and its one more hit of cocaine and warm beer. I grab onto Brandon's arm and pull him back into my chest.

"Are we in the right place?" Brandon nods his head quickly and he's sniffing and he grips my wrist and pulls me forward through the crowd. Frank is in the middle of the room and he's dancing and sweating and he looks like he's running in place. His shirt is yellow, blue palm tree on the front and his shorts are terry cloth. He's wearing flip flops and a cherry red visor.

"Frank," Brandon says and he's standing in front of Frank and he's swaying from side to side and he's starting to sweat. I'm standing next to Frank and he keeps bumping into me and sweat from his hair hits my face and I wipe it off and I'm tapping Frank on the shoulder and he's shaking my hand off. He's way above the clouds.

"Grade A shit," is what he says and he's jumping up and down and he's blinking his eyes and he reaches out his hands and grabs onto Brandon's shoulders and grips tight. "I'm touching the fucking sky." Brandon is laughing and he's looking at me and shrugging.

"Yeah," Brandon says. He says, "Yeah, man. Hey, you carrying anything tonight?" Frank doesn't slow his movements and he starts to nod his head, hard. "Couple grams, at the least?"

I'm standing next to Frank and I'm getting impatient and Frank says to follow him. He says, "Come with me." And he lets go of Brandon and turns and starts to move through the crowd and people don't move out the way. We push through open spaces and when we get to the threshold of Frank's master bedroom he pushes his hand into my chest and says to wait a minute. He tells us, "Entrance fee. Let me see the cheese, Doughboy."

And Brandon steps forward and he's digging in his pocket, lollipop still sugar and sweet in his mouth, and he pulls his hand out of his pocket and hands Frank a wad of twenty dollar bills; a hundred dollars, maybe two. We wait while Frank pretends to count the bills and Brandon says, "I'm not fat." I roll my eyes and shove my hands into my pockets.

Frank licks his top lip and sucks his bottom lip into his mouth. He moves his arm from in front of the door and as he lets us pass through he says, "Of course not Daddy-O. You are fine, fine, fine." And Brandon looks at me and I look at him and then at Frank and I wonder when Frank became an extra in an eighties movies and when I focus on Frank again he's giving me a two finger salute.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The rent is three months past due and Emily is standing against the wall, one foot on the floor and the other against the bricks behind her and she's looking out the window. "Maybe I should fuck the landlord, buy us a couple weeks at least on the rent." I shake my head no and Charlie is sitting on the floor between my legs and she's clapping and laughing and when I touch her nose she giggles.

Emily is looking out the window of the loft and her apron is in her hand and what she says is, "I don't want to go to work. I know I have to." Charlie hiccups and Emily's gaze doesn't shift from the window. "When I woke up I think I wanted to die. It was too late."

"Oh," is what I say. I say, "You still have time." She shakes her head and says no. She says no, she was right the first time and I frown. Charlie is trying to crawl and she reaches out a hand and pulls it back.

I'm too tired to talk about anything so I don't and how I feel is nervous. Emily is watching me. Her eyes are clear and she's not asking me how I feel. "I'm nervous," I say.

She's gonna be late for work. She doesn't answer me and time moves by and twenty minutes later she tells me, "So am I." It's quiet and intimate. She doesn't wait for me to ask her why. She knows that I don't care. I probably do. Charlie makes a noise and neither one of us look at her. Emily's eyes are locked on mine, no maternal instinct ignites and after a minute or two Charlie is quiet and I wonder what it'd be like to bury a baby.

I wonder if on lower than surface level we'd even notice she was gone. We both love her.

In less than a blink our intimate connection is gone and Emily pushes off the wall and ties the strings of her apron around her back. Her hair is in a ponytail and she smiles at me, walks forward, bends and presses a kiss firmly to my lips. I tangle my fingers in her hair and I let myself smile as she pulls away. Charlie reaches for her and I hold her up and Emily kisses the top of her hair and in four steps she is out the door.

It's just Charlie and me and when she looks up at me, eyes wide and her smile nothing but toothless, I tickle her tummy and she giggles. And I don't think of money. I don't think of tricks; bags of too good weed gathered in a bag in the bedroom, heavy and waiting. I push it all out of my mind and for right now, here, we're normal.

I lie down on the floor and stretch my arms over my head. Charlie uses my shirt to pull up. Faded grey over almost pale skin and she's resting on my stomach, her head heavy, a toy dangling from her mouth. It's covered in drool and I press my right hand flat to her back and let my eyes close. Normal.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon is on his last cigarette and his hands are shaking and what he tells me is that there are no more secrets. "Everyone knows everything. They know where you are, what you do, who you know. Everything."

And he asks me if I know. He asks me if I really understand and I tell him, "Yeah man. I know. Everything." Charlie is sitting on my leg and my arm is around her, holding her and I say, "You need to calm down." I've moved beyond nervous. My anxiety is limitless.

"My mom's dead."

I tell him I already know. I tell him she's been dead for months. "She told me I could fly." And Charlie twists in my arms and stands and I hold her up and push the hair out of my face. Brandon is taking deep breaths and his hands won't stop shaking. Silence confessions of a junkie. I swallow down my own memories associated with flight.

"Maybe."

"Maybe, what." It's not asked, not stated, just said. And he asks me if I have a cigarette. I reach into my pocket and hold up the box. I have three and he takes two and tucks one behind his ear, searches his pocket for a lighter and inhales.

"Maybe she wanted to fly," I say. I shrug and Charlie laughs and coughs and Brandon waves the smoke out of her face, gets up and sits on my other side, down wind.

"No," is what he says and the cigarette is half gone and he's tossing pieces of rocks at the street and he says, "Maybe she just thought she could." I don't know Brandon's mother, didn't know her; past tense. But I think maybe she did think she could fly. Maybe she even tried and maybe nothing happened when she stepped into the air. No death or rush of adrenaline.

Maybe she opted for something else, a new sorrow. A husband, kids, house, money and happiness imagined. She got her own living death. She cheated everything until the test got too hard. What I say is, "Maybe she didn't have to anymore."

~~~~~~~~~~~

How Emily is, is too tired to sleep so she cleans and her hands smell like bleach and her fingers are wrinkled and when she gets one surface clean she moves to another. "You're cleaning." Her shirt is tight and discolored where she's sweating. Her pants are thin sweats material and they're riding low on her hips.

She says, "I'm too tired to sleep." Charlie is watching from her crib, small hands around warm formula and she smiles around the nipple in her mouth. I glance at the clock and the time reads almost four in the morning.

"Come here."

Emily pauses and looks at me and she seems to think and changes her mind and what she says is that, "Everything needs to be cleaned." I want to need her.

"Why?"

"Because," is the only explanation she's willing to give and I put my arm down. It was outstretched to guide her to me and when she didn't come I was sad but not too much. She's squatting down, her hands over a bucket wringing out a towel.

"Come here," I repeat and this time she drops the rag into the water. I shift as she stands up and walks toward me. The front of her shirt is wet and white and the bra underneath is peach, beige, cream, the color of skin on skin. It's not important and when she steps in front of me I feel heat. I don't say anything and I pull her down and she straddles my lap and I lean forward to press my lips to hers.

"I want to fuck you," is what I say. It's crude and blunt.

She tells me no. She says, "Not tonight." Her eyes are soft and on fire and clear and she blinks. The tear that trails from her eye down her cheek is heavy and full of something and as quickly as it was there it's gone.

"I want to fuck you." I'm flat on my back. She's pressed into my side, her body resting halfway on mine and I move my hand to smooth the hair out of her face. Her breath is warm against my skin and she doesn't try to wipe her eyes. I shake my head to move the hair out of my face and Charlie's breathing is even and paced from across the room.

"Do you love me?" is what she asks. Her lips are slick with spit and her tongue is heavy and for a second I think she'll repeat her question but she doesn't.

And I tell her, "No. Maybe. Sometimes I think so."

"Most of the time… neither do I," she says and she pulls her shirt over her head and it drops to the floor. She knows the truth. I press my hand into her back and bring her closer. Her fingers dig into skin and I wince and lift up as she brings her hands down to the waist of my jeans. She pulls them down and drops them to the floor.

There is no more talking and her mouth is on mine and her panties are off and when I slide into her all she does is gasp and breathe deep and relax. I lean up and leave bite marks on her shoulder, across her collarbone and when she bites her bottom lip I wrap my hands around her shoulders and pull her down as far as she can go.

"Fuck," and she breathes it, slow and steady and needy and I thrust deeper, flipping us over and settling back into the space between her legs. My right hand is on the mattress beneath her and she slides her fingers over my face and into my mouth and her legs spread wider. I'm sucking on her fingers and her head is turned and her eyes are closed. I pull out and she's too drained to protest, too stimulated.

I'm touching her, my fingers cold against her skin and rubbing over her clit. She's soft and moist, tangles of brown hair on pale, pale skin. My hand is working up and down my shaft, stroking and maintaining the flow of blood. "Please," she whispers. "Please."

I lean back over her and press in and up and when my skin touches hers her legs wrap around my waist and her arms wrap around my back, holding me. I pump into her like she's not there, not real, not a person; just an object to be used. And she lets me. I feel her tighten around me and when she comes it's loud and hard and her body is shaking. I feel her falling apart and I ride her wave and when she starts to calm I move again.

Thrusting and moving and our bodies are sweat and pounding hearts. I come in her, all the way inside of her and she holds me tight. I pull out of her and move to lie on my back. Her hand is resting on her chest and every few seconds her body convulses and when I lock eyes with her all she does is smile.

"Are you ever going to tell me your name?" That little mystery is only mine to keep.

I put my hand in the space between us and she takes the invitation and tangles her fingers with mine. And what I tell her is, "Sleep."

~~~~~~~~~~~

I reach over to the nightstand and pick up my lighter, light the flame and my lungs fill with smoke. Emily is curled in on herself, tight on her side of the bed, on the edge and I rub a dry hand over my face and drop my hand to my stomach. Charlie coughs and I watch her push up from the mattress. She presses her face against the bars and smiles. "Hello," is what I say.

I watch Charlie crawl around her crib, picking up toys; her blanket twisted around her feet and legs. I close my eyes and when I open them again Emily is waking up and when she stretches and turns to me I offer her my cigarette and she waves it away.

"You didn't sleep," she says. She's blinking and rubbing sleep from her eyes. Her shirt is still on the bed, deep in the sheets and when she turns her body towards me her nipples are almost hard and red and feel too, too much. She pulls the sheet up and smiles. I exhale slowly and bluish-white smoke is filling the air between us.

"It's okay. It's alright." I'm reassuring her. Against what I'm not quite so sure and I bring the cigarette down to my mouth again and inhale. Emily is closing her eyes again and what I say is, "What time do you work?"

And Emily tells me, "Just five more minutes."

~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm sitting on the edge of the bed and my hands are hanging loose between my legs and my head is down and I'm waiting. The trick is behind me, Mr. Throwback, Mr. Hippy, Mr. Woodstock Revisited and his hands are snaking up and down my body and he's flying high, high, high. I watch him in the mirror, his reflection, and my skin is sweating and blotched red. "What's your story?"

I don't try to think of an answer. He kisses my neck and down my arm and his dick is pressed against my side and when I move my head our lips meet and he snakes his tongue into my mouth. I don't fight it. He paid for this and I take a deep breath as he bites down on my bottom lip. And he tells me, "I'm so fucking hard."

He's pushing me back on the mattress and crawls over and on top of me and reaches for the glass bowl on the nightstand. The white powder inside is almost gone and he rubs the residue on his tongue and over his gums. "Shit," I say when he kisses me, pushing a tab of ecstasy into my mouth.

"Fucking-A," is what he says and he's pressing his forehead to my cheek and in one long forced slide he's inside and my legs are wide and shaking and he's pressing, pushing, thrusting into me hard and slow and deep.

I turn my head to the right and float and my chest is heaving and my tongue is lead tinged with copper. He's biting the side of my mouth, my lip, and drawing blood. I touch his skin; glide my fingers over fit hips. And his lips are leaving open mouthed kisses on my neck and down my arm and when he comes my breathing hitches and my back arches without my effort.

I come.

"Damn. Goddamn," and he rolls off of me and every few seconds a shiver runs through him. "Fuck." Four heavy deep breaths and what he says is, "Ever been to Vegas?"

I laugh; giggle almost, from somewhere deep inside. And when I look at him his image is blurry and clear, clear, clear baby. "Vegas," is what I say into the too dark room. "Fucking Vegas. Yeah." It's not an answer to his question but all he says is right on. He says right the hell on and I close my eyes when he rolls into me and his cock, hard again, presses into my thigh.

I pull my bottom lip into my mouth and I feel him pulling my legs apart and repositioning and sighing and pushing them back and more open. I try not to breathe and when he snorts another line off my skin he doesn't bother to share and when he presses into me again I fade to black.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The trick leaves, Mr. Hippy, and I walk into the bathroom. I put the lid up on the toilet seat and throw up and when I stand up straight everything spins and I splash cold water on my face. The money is on the dresser, all crumpled ones that smell too much like pot. I walk back into the room and I want to take a shower but don't and I slide my clothes on over drying cum and spit.

I shove the money into my pocket and glance around the room, light a leftover cigarette and then decide I don't want it and put it out. Mr. Hippy, Mr. Woodstock, left a line of coke on the dresser and I roll up a dollar and inhale the powder. I let my eyes roll closed and the music in my head something by The Police and I can't remember the name but I hum it anyway.

"Just jump, I'll catch you."

I hear my brother's words but the voice in my head is only mine and I force my eyes to open. I glance one more time around the room; completely destroyed, and wrap my fingers around the handle.

I open and close the door to the hotel room and wipe a hand under my nose. I'm nervous and hot and I clench my teeth. Hector is sitting on the curb and he turns and looks at me when he hears the door close. "Long time, no… you know the rest," he says. "Want a cigarette?" He holds out the crumpled paper package and when I shake my head he stuffs it back into his pocket and shrugs.

"Seen Emily?"

Hector looks up and lights another cigarette, tosses the one between his lips to the ground and says, "Benny, the blowjob queen, she fucking overdosed at Jimmy's parent's house last night."

"Have you seen her around?" Hector is still talking and I keep my eyes trained on the parking lot. My vision is hazy and I pull my bottom lip, and then my top, into my mouth and the fresh splits send a jolt through me. The drugs in my system feel like lead on my chest and I want to lean back on the stairs.

I get up. My shirt is all white and wrinkled. Faded, faded blue jeans and belt pulled impossibly tight. The last time I had food was days ago and I'm not hungry. I walk away from Hector and I hear him talking to me but my head is swimming and I don't turn to answer. I move down the sidewalk slowly, my shoulder brushing against the sides of buildings.

I walk and walk. The voices in my head are my only company and I grind my palm into my eyes and blink. Someone grabs my arm and I pull loose and stumble backwards, my back bumping into what feels like tempered glass.

"Asshole," I hear and I shove my hands into my pockets, pull them out and fold my arms over my chest. I sit down hard on the concrete and fold my legs up, resting my arms on the tops of my knees and I know I'm about to cry. I drop my head forward and let the voices in my head take me into sleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"A quarter for all your thoughts," Emily says and she's squatting in front of me. My body is sore, bruises set in and I sit up slowly, letting my legs straighten out. I try to twist and stretch. It's beyond pitch black.

"A penny," is all I say and she doesn't smile. I blink my eyes open and repress a yawn. I feel like shit. I look down at my hands and they're bruised and bloody and throbbing.

"How long have you been sitting here?" I don't know, don't remember, so I stay quiet. I stare at her and she stares at me and something moves down the alley near the dumpster and I can't be bothered to look.

Emily doesn't help me up as she stands. She's waiting and her hair is falling over her shoulders. She dressed in jeans and her shirt is two tank tops, one red and one olive green and her shoes are a faded color that used to be. No laces.

I smile and press my palm to the ground to help myself get up. And I smile and say, "I gave my father a hand-job when I was twelve years old."

Emily leans forward and puts her hand out to help me up and she says, her hair falling in her face, "We have so much in common."

~~~~~~~~~~~

It's not as hot outside and Brandon is walking to the edge of the curb and back. He's nervous and I bite at the nail on my thumb, turning whenever a car slows to the curb. "What the hell are you doing, dude?"

And all I say is, "I'm not working right now. I'm not working today." Charlie is on my hip, her head resting heavy against my chest and she's slowly drifting off to sleep. Brandon shakes his hand out in the air and makes a fist and puts his hands in his pocket.

"Where the fuck is that bitch?" A girl, fourteen, fifteen, sixteen tops wanders over and bumps into Brandon. Her eyes are already glazed over and her hand is curled into her mouth and her scarf is too long and not needed.

"What bitch?" she asks and she's digging her boot into the ground. A runaway, she likes to travel light. "Bran, what bitch? Who're ya'll talkin' about?"

I roll my eyes and pull a cigarette from behind my ear and tuck my hair into the abandoned space. "Could you be more annoying?" is what I ask her. She turns to look at me and frowns before training her eyes back on Brandon.

"Come on Bran. You know I just have to know. Tell me. I'll suck you off," is what she offers and her hands are small. Her whole body is small, too small.

"Curiosity killed the meddling bitch, Patsy. And stop calling me Bran; makes me think of muffins and shit." She huffs and crosses her arms and ten minutes later when she decides that everyone is okay she lets go of the air in her lungs.

"Fine, don't tell me. I don't really care anyway." I roll my eyes and Brandon laughs.

"Did you even do what we asked you to do?" Brandon asks and I take a pull from the cigarette between my fingers and hold the air in my lungs. Patsy is squatting near the side of the Pizza Hut, her panties around her ankles. "Nice."

"You are the very picture of class, babe," is what I tell Patsy. "Classy." She holds up her middle finger and shakes her ass, stands up and pulls her panties up her thighs. She walks over to Brandon and opens the large bag that hangs across her neck and chest. It's a permanent fixture and she glances up and down the street. I do the same and she pulls out four large bags of the best weed we could find, bought from Frank.

What she says is that Frank said, "From me to you, love." She yawns and holds out her hand for the thirty dollars Brandon promised her for picking it up; for putting space between him and us. "Come on Bran, give me my money." Brandon digs into his pocket and pulls out fifteen. I give her another fifteen and all she says is, "I didn't even have to get on my knees."

"Lucky ducky," Brandon tells her. "Go away now. I'm sure some pedophile somewhere is waiting for you to fulfill their wildest fantasies." I hitch Charlie up higher on my hip and kiss her cheek, red from the heat.

"I'm not that young."

"You're definitely not that old," I say and she smirks and shrugs.

"I'd let the pervs keep the little fantasy. Make more money that way," is what Brandon tells her and he's stuffing the bags one by one into his jacket pockets. Patsy smiles at me and leans into Brandon before moving away and just as fast as she showed up she's gone. And Brandon stops pacing. He's not so nervous anymore.

"I think Patsy likes you."

And what he says is, "Patsy likes everybody." Charlie yawns and at half past four Emily rounds the corner and lifts her out of my arms. "What up, Em-Lay?" She smiles at Brandon and he kisses her cheek.

She turns to me and the smile is still firmly on her face and she tells me, "Hey."

"Hey."

And it's as simple as that. I love her so much that we don't need anything more and when she says she's starving I nod my head. "Let's go get some pizza. I feel like pizza." She starts walking fast.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily is sprinkling parmesan cheese on the top of her pizza, biting and chewing and giving bits to Charlie. "Did you feed her today?" Emily doesn't wait for my answer and gives her another bite.

Brandon is sitting next to Emily and he leans across the table to talk to me. "I've already got some potential clients," is what he says. "I've got people lined up."

"You just said the same thing twice," Emily tells him. I laugh and its low and Brandon takes Charlie out of Emily's arms and holds her up in front of him, her legs dangling over his crotch as he keeps her balanced on the table.

"Why does Mommy insist on trying to make Uncle Brandon look stupid?" Emily laughs and Charlie pats him on the sides of the face. She leans forward and gives him a kiss. I can't really remember how I feel about pizza.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"I don't like it," Emily says and she tosses her apron on the table and unbuttons her jeans. She sits Charlie in her highchair and pulls her hair out of the ponytail.

"Noted." I move past her into the bathroom and turn on the water in the shower and pull off my shirt. Emily is behind me and her chest is pressed into my back.

"It doesn't work that way. It's not just open and close when there are more than two people." And she puts her hand on my shoulder and spins me to look at her.

"I'm not asking you for permission. I'm not asking you to agree," is what I say and I unbutton my jeans and pull them over my hips. Emily moves back and turns to get her toothbrush. She's watching me in the mirror and our eyes meet. Silence. And we're having every single fight we'll ever have and we haven't said a word.

She's shaking as she breaks the eye contact and presses on the tube of toothpaste. "I'm asking you not to." She looks at me again. "I'm asking you."

"I don't have anything. I don't know if you've noticed."

"We."

"No."

"I'm not asking you for anything. What do you want, so bad, that you're willing to risk everything?" she asks me. My heart is beating in my chest, loud and insistent.

I tell her, "Awesome."

"Try not to be cute."

"I want to not get fucked every night by more people than I can count just so I can make it one more fucking day. I want that to actually bother me. I want to feel something."

"And you think selling drugs with Brandon is the best thing to do? If you tell me yes, if you really think so, then I'll drop it," is what she tells me. I don't say anything, nothing at all and she turns back to the sink and puts her toothbrush in her mouth and starts to brush. I step in under the water and let it wash over me. My head is bowed and my eyes are closed. After a few minutes she steps in behind me and neither one of us says anything. She's washing her stomach and down her legs. Her hair is long and made darker by the water.

"I don't want to fight with you," is what I tell her after too much silence. She doesn't say anything and I turn and squeeze shampoo into her hair. I'm running my fingers through her hair and she's shaking her head and I tell her to please not worry. I say, "Just trust me, okay."

"I trust you," she says. She says, "You're one of the only people I do trust." And I ask her who the other person is. I ask her if I know them, do I know who they are.

And she smiles and she says, "Myself." I nod and lean to kiss her again and she turns away from me and pushes past me and lets the water rain over her head. "I've never asked you for anything other than yourself," is what she says when all the shampoo is out of her hair.

"I know."

"I'm not demanding anything from you. I trust you. I trust you," she says. I could be happy that she's so accepting. I could protest and challenge her but I don't. I let her talk and I listen and when there is nothing left to say I step out of the shower and wrap a towel around my waist.

I hear Emily crying and the water is still running and I know that it must be getting cold. I don't go back into the bathroom.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The name of the game is score and score big and I'm glancing up and to the side and exchanging drugs for money. "Quality shit?" He's taking too long to decide.

And what I say is, "Come on, man." I tell him, "Come on. Come on." Brandon is on the opposite side of the street and he's stuffing money into his back pocket and he's smiling and shaking hands and moving on down the street. The man in front of me, with red hair and glasses too thick to not be prescription, pulls out a hundred dollars, all in tens and twenties and hands them, rolled, to me.

I hand him the baggie and move on. "Thanks. Nice doing business with you," he says. The next drop is <i>don't stop</i> and when I walk by he holds out his hand and I take the money and drop a baggie to the cement, never miss a beat. The day is going by fast and my jeans are faded and loose and my shirt is grenade green and the caption on front in bright yellow reads: EXPLOSION.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Nice shirt," Emily says and Charlie is sitting in a playpen in the corner, pulling on her hair and playing with her toes. The manager doesn't look at me as she walks past to deliver her orders.

"Tabby," I say to acknowledge her. She glances at me briefly and her eyes are something like angry but blank and she moves her mouth but nothing comes out and when she moves past me again she makes sure we don't touch. "She hates me."

Emily smiles and pours sugar into a container. She nods and says, "I think that would be putting it mildly." I sit down on a stool in front of Emily and glance at Charlie. She catches my gaze and screws the top back on the sugar. "Tabby doesn't mind that I bring her to work," she says, her voice grateful.

"She doesn't think it's bad for business?"

"Probably thinks being short one waitress is worse. She can't keep any staff here. It works in my favor. Want anything?"

"Not from you." Emily shrugs and understands and I wrap my hands, fingers tapping gently, around my white coffee mug.

Emily moves away when the cook rings the bell and I order a coffee, cheeseburger and two orders of fries, vanilla milkshake from the only other girl behind the counter. "Big appetite," she says with a laugh. I move my eyes up her body to her face and smile around the group of fries in my mouth. She's beautiful, too beautiful to work in a diner and when I let myself notice her contrast to her surroundings I feel weak and move my eyes from hers.

"Yeah," is all I say and after an uncomfortable stare she moves away. I can hear Emily's voice in the background, soft and firm, fake smile set in her tone.

All of a sudden I want to feel sick.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"It doesn't make sense," I say. Emily is walking next to me, her hands in fists in her pockets. Charlie is bundled in a blanket against my chest and gazing wide-eyed at the trees as we walk through the park. There are more people here than last time but we hardly notice.

"Why does it have to?" I'm looking ahead, as far as I can see and Charlie turns her head to the other side for a different view.

"Because everything does, in some way," I tell her. "Everything eventually falls into place. Even if to us it all seems like bullshit." Emily is thinking, picking apart my every word. For a long time she doesn't say anything. "She's too beautiful to work in a diner."

"There is no such thing. You do… what you have to do… to get by, survive. She might be beautiful, but not too beautiful for the diner. She can be beautiful anywhere." Emily is walking and her pace is slightly ahead of mine, her face slightly tilted up.

"Hmm." I don't say anything else and Emily presses her hands deeper into her pockets. I glance down and Charlie's eyes are closing. "Do you want to go back?"

"Tell me," she says. Her pace is slowing and she falls back in step with me. "Do you ever regret it, leaving home? Do you ever think you should have stayed?" I don't answer and I don't look at her, I can't. I walk and my breathing is hitching, tears want to fall but I hold them back.

When too much time has passed I say, "I had a brother." I see her look at me, her mouth ready to say she knows, to say I told her all about that. I shake my head. "Another brother, a younger one," I tell her. "He… followed me everywhere. All the time, damn it was annoying."

"Just like you followed your big brother," she says softly and she smiles.

I don't smile and Emily listens. "When I left home he followed me. My mom called everyone she knew, everyone he knew, any friend she could think to call, she called." We turn a corner and come face to face with the house I grew up in, again. The curtains are shut tight and the light on the porch is on. "She couldn't find him," I laugh. "He was always the best at hide n' go seek."

"I was working a corner, directly between uptown and downtown. It was perfect. The cops knew we were there, of course, but they were some of our biggest customers. No way were they gonna haul us in, too many questions," I tell her. I run my hand over my face. "I picked up a trick. Huge cop; still dressed in his uniform, still pumping adrenaline from his late night shift. He wanted it hard, as hard as he could make it. I bit through my tongue for the first time that day."

Charlie moves, yawns and coughs, settling back into a quiet sleep. I hand her over to Emily and take a deep breath. I put my hands in my pockets.

"Of course Kenny was with me. He always was and he stayed quiet, curled into a ball in the bottom of the tub where I'd told him to stay, his hands over his ears." I pause and see the scene in front of me like it was yesterday. "I was still new to the work, the job. It hurt like nothing I'd ever felt before. When I was too beat up, too bloody to keep going he let go of my hip and my arm and let me fall to the mattress."

Emily doesn't cry. I'm glad and I swallow twice and clear my throat. "I had told Kenny to be quiet. But, I could hear him… through the door of the bathroom. So could the cop. He was so fucking… pissed. He went into the bathroom with Kenny and slammed the door behind him. I wanted to get up but I couldn't move. Every breath hurt and when I heard Kenny start to scream my body froze. He screamed for what seemed like hours and then there was nothing. More than silence; so quiet it was pulsing."

Tears are pooled in Emily's eyes and she is pressing Charlie into her chest, rubbing her hand up and down her back. "When he," I take a minute to think, "When he came out of the bathroom all I could see was his outline. He didn't say anything, not one word. He sat down on the bed next to me and turned on the TV. My eyes focused on his right arm, covered in specks of red."

I breathe slowly. "Shouldn't bring your brother to work with you," is what he told me and turned the channel. "I wanted to attack him. He turned off the TV and stood up to look at me. He didn't say anything, just pulled on his uniform and left. I stayed in that room for two days before I called anyone."

"Your brother?" We're leaning against the fence across the street from the house. It's getting darker.

"He was never the same," I tell her and chance a look in her direction. She's looking at me and her eyes aren't scared, they aren't running and she nods once. "He stopped talking after that," I say "stopped following me around so much."

I pull a cigarette out of my pocket and light it fast, sucking on the end and pulling in smoke. My hands are shaking and I want to cry and I take a deep breath to hold in the tears. One more hit of smoke and my nerves are anything but calm and I pull the cigarette from my mouth and flick it to the ground.

I don't feel like talking anymore. And all Emily asks is, "What happened to him? Where is he now?" Charlie is waking up and blinking and Emily hitches her higher on her chest.

I swallow and exhale and tell her, "Hmm." I say, "It's getting dark."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily is staring at me, her eyes unblinking and her hand resting under her face, pressed against the pillow. Charlie is sleeping next to her, her right hand resting over her chest and her breathing coming in slow ups and down. "You're going to leave." She says it calmly and without giving any accusations.

"No."

She shakes her head, only slightly and I let out the breath that I know she's been holding. "You are. And I won't blame you. I won't be too upset. You'll leave and you won't feel bad." I don't say anything. I bite my bottom lip, hard, and blink slowly.

I let my tongue trail over my top lip and I tell her, voice quiet and pleading but calm, "I'll come back."

She nods and tells me she knows. She tells me, "I know."

I pack my bag before the sun comes up and Charlie is watching me and I kiss her goodbye and I tell her I'm sorry and I tell her I'll be back. I tell her, "I love you. I think." And I mean it more than I have meant anything. I stand and stare at Emily for too long and she's relaxed, skin flushed and seeming to plead.

I touch my hand to her cheek and let my fingertips dance over her skin. I want to kiss her but I don't and I whisper that I really don't feel all that sorry. I whisper, "I'll try to miss you." She seems to smile and relax into the mattress.

~~~~~~~~~~~

What Brandon tells me is that this is awesome. He tells me, "This is just way too choice." The voice over the loudspeaker is graveled and strained and announcing that our bus is on time.

I sit next to him and my hands are in my pockets, not nervous and he's looking around the terminal and sweating. I tell him to relax and he huffs and hits my shoulder with his and tells me I should take my own advice. "I'm calm," I say.

He turns his head to look at me and says, "Yeah. You're the picture of fucking serenity." He's fingering his lip, bruised and chewed from a trick the night before. His fingertips are burned and red. "What'd Emily say?"

I ignore his question and the song playing low over the loudspeakers is something, something by someone I can't remember. The voice is ripping through the air again and she says, "All passengers for bus number 12, leaving from gate 15, may now board," repeating the message over and over.

Brandon is on his feet before she's finished, hair pushed back and the sleeves of his jacket dirty and grease stained. "Shit man, that's us. Come on. Get up." He picks up his bag and flings it over his should as he starts to walk towards the gate. I get up and follow, picking up my packed book bag and letting it sit heavy in my hand.

And when I get to the bus I show the driver my ticket and follow Brandon back and to empty seats towards the back. "You're a shit. You know that, right? A real Grade A fucking asshole," Brandon tells me.

I let my bag drop between my legs and run a heavy hand over my face and through my hair and when Brandon leans his head back and closes his eyes I tell him, "Maybe that's just better for everyone."

He's my best friend and he tells me, "Yeah." He says, "Huh, yeah. But 'maybe' is all relative."

I tell him I don't really follow, and he laughs low and somewhere deep in his chest. He laughs and he says, "Just forget it." And the song I'm humming is <i>Thriller</i> by Michael Jackson. He sleeps most of the way and when he opens his eyes were in another one name town. I'm leaning my head against the glass window and thinking. I glance up and lock eyes with a passenger two rows up and sitting on the aisle.

He tilts his head and I swallow. He gets up and makes his way to the bathroom and Brandon is pressing his hand into my thigh and he coughs. "No time for hard to get," he says. "We need the money."

I get up and tell Brandon to watch my bag and I follow the passenger, Seat 31, into the bathroom. He locks the door and the space is cramped and his chest is pressing into mine and he says, "Hey."

"Hey."

"How much for a blowjob?"

"Thirty bucks," I tell him.

"A fuck?"

"A hundred."

"Kinda high," he says.

I let my hand trail into the back of my hair and I'm waiting for this to be a different conversation.

"Worth it. What do you want?" He's thinking it over, deciding.

"How much… umm… how much for both?"

And I tell him to drop his pants, lean back and try not to be too loud. I put my hands on his hips and pull him forward and the words on my lips are, "A hundred and forty for both. No exception." He nods and I swallow him down, my lips stopping at the base and holding steady as I swallow. He's moaning after three minutes and I dig my hands into his skin and let his hands tangle in my hair.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Seat 31, he bites his top lip and flexes his hand around the base of his dick and he's not coming but he wants to and the bus is putting on its brakes, I sigh and dig my fingers into his arm and my fingertips are white and Seat 31 arches up and into me and he opens his mouth but doesn't moan and I take a deep breath.

He's pulling out and stepping back and fastening his pants, buckling his belt and what he says is, "Is this what you do?" And he pauses and looks at himself in the mirror and I want to use the bathroom and don't and pull my jeans over my hips. "You know… for umm, a living?"

I lie and tell him no. I lie and say, "No, not quite."

Seat 31, he doesn't believe me and he nods and Brandon is hitting his palm against the door and saying we have to get the fuck off the bus and we both ignore him. "Really?" He's not that convinced. He knows its all smoke.

He's counting out my money and he hands me the bills and I tell him, "No. Yes." And he doesn't ask anything else and he pulls open the door and walks past Brandon, stopping to pull his things from the overhead compartment and when he gets off the bus Brandon leans into the bathroom and smiles.

It smells like familiar things and he's grinning and he says, "And people say romance is dead." I push the money in my pocket and walk past Brandon, snatch my bag from his hand and head for the door of the bus.

The bus driver just stares and when don't apologize for making him wait and after we've stood in front of the bus station for a half an hour Brandon starts to walk and I follow.

The song playing somewhere is Fade To Black by Metallica.

~~~~~~~~~~~

We've been staying with people who know people we kinda, sorta, almost know. A boy, maybe thirteen, walks past me and smiles and winks and pulls a cigarette from behind his ear and when I blink he's gone and I wonder if he was ever really there and a woman comes and sits next to me and smiles.

I don't remember her name and she smells like something forgotten and it's almost erotic but not and she taps out ashes on the side of an empty beer bottle. "Where'd you guys say you were from?"

Brandon smirks and grins and snatches the weed from her free hand and picks up a bong and says, "We didn't." And the boy, thirteen or whatever, walks past again and he stops in the doorway and motions for me to follow him and I think for a minute that I will and then I don't.

He shrugs his shoulders. He's not really all that disappointed and I notice cigarette burns on his arms and I take the bong when Brandon hands it to me and inhale deeply.

"It's fucking cool," The Woman says and she asks the young boy, "Have you seen Derek?"

And the young boy stares at her and rolls his eyes and says, "Trippy." He pushes off from his spot against the wall and I take another hit off the bong.

The front door bangs open and the walls of this room, the kitchen? Are pale, pale, yellow and the door slams shut. The Woman doesn't blink and four tall boys, all way too skinny, hair greased the same, clothes black and the same, shoes the same, dark circles under their eyes, the same. Leather jackets and cigarettes hanging from identically pierced lips and the tallest one bends down to kiss The Woman and she pushes him away and tells him, "Fuck you, asswad."

And all four boys start to smile, the same, and leave the kitchen and Brandon starts to laugh and I'm stoned and the young boy, thirteen… or, you know… whatever, comes back and opens the refrigerator. It's empty and he sighs and blows a ring of smoke into the air.

And the young boy says, "You're such a goddamn bitch," to The Woman. I sit lower in my seat and reach for a cigarette. It's already half smoked and I light the end.

Brandon gives The Woman the bong and she wraps her fingers around its shaft, long and smooth, and when her lungs are filled with smoke she lifts her mouth off the end and says, "Fucking kids."

~~~~~~~~~~~

How I feel is sober and the hand on my chest is someone I don't know and I shift and stop moving. I pull on my hands and the ropes are too tight and I can't feel my right hand and the hand on my chest moves again. "You're awake," they say and I can't think of anything to say so I don't say anything and the hand on my chest moves down to my cock, wraps strong fingers around it and starts to pull.

I don't bother giving him a name, Mister… Mister.... Fuck it. I arch into the hand and the ropes hold me down and he laughs and I close my eyes and bite my tongue, the inside of my cheek. My dick is red and swollen and raw and every movement is painful and that only turns him on.

"What's your name?" he asks me. I sigh. Most of them ask. "What is your name?"

And there is no song, only silence.

~~~~~~~~~~~

What I am when I call Emily is sorry I left. She answers the phone and I don't say anything and what she tells me is, "Hey."

I can hear Charlie in the background and I want to say something but I don't so I hang up the phone. She doesn't call me back.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"I'm tired," is what Brandon tells me. I nod and take a bite of my pizza, drink some of my soda and swallow. I can't remember the last time I had food.

I look at him and I know what he means but I can't be bothered with the complex and I say sleep. I tell him, "Just. Sleep."

"Yeah," is all he says and I feel bad for a second and then decide that I don't and I take another bite of my pizza. It's pepperoni and sausage, burnt and cold, and a little hot and when a waitress walks by I tell her to bring me another slice.

Brandon is fidgeting in his seat and his arm has scars from needles and fingernails and he drinks some of his root beer but not the pizza he ordered and he wipes a shaking hand over his mouth. "The tricks here are…" And he doesn't finish the sentence and I start to get nervous about what he might have said.

"Are?"

And he nods. I swallow the lump of food in my throat and I say, "Are, what?" He shrugs and takes another sip of root beer.

"Want to see a trick?" he asks. I don't.

~~~~~~~~~~~

And just like that Brandon disappears. I haven't seen him in three weeks, maybe four and I'm leaning on a brick wall thinking of being anywhere else. A car pulls up and the driver tries to talk to me and I turn my head. I'm not in the mood to suck and fuck, but I'm broke so I let him suck my cock for twenty bucks and when he asks me to come in his mouth I do.

~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm standing on the corner and Brandon walks up and slings his arm over my shoulder and says, "What the fuck man."

I look at his arm and my eyes trail down to look at all of him and I look back at his eyes and say, "Where'd you go? Where were you?"

Brandon tells me, "Hear no evil and see no evil." He pops a cherry lollipop into his mouth and takes a long suck and smiles and its just like it use to be when…

~~~~~~~~~~~

We're standing in a record store and the clerk behind the counter is maybe a boy or a girl and Brandon picks up a record and then another.

Its dark outside and Brandon tucks his hair behind his ear and says, "I really think I'm fucking done with music."

And I don't say anything for too long and then I glance at the clerk and then back and I tell him, "Nice."

He buys the record anyway.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon is in the bathroom crying, still. And how I feel is claustrophobic. The Woman is sitting in front of me and she's not wearing a bra and her shirt is loose, the collar cut away.

One of the four boys, all the same, walks by shirtless and a beer bottle is pressed against his lips and when he pulls it away he wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. "What's wrong with your friend?" The Woman asks. The boy, her son; her son's friend, I can't tell. He nudges her thigh with his knee and she sits forward and he slides in behind her.

I tell her, "He's looking for Alice."

The boy, one of the same, traps a too pale hand underneath her shirt and cups her breast and I can see his thumb slide over her nipple, hard and pressing against the fabric. She's moving back against him, her hips rolling.

The younger boy walks into the room and picks up the beer bottle his, what, brother, has been drinking and takes a long drink. He stops, standing in front of me. His legs are touching mine and he's staring at me. Behind him his mother, I think, moans and lets out a whimper.

"I give good head," is what he says and he lights a cigarette that he got from wherever.

My arms are crossed and I hear Brandon blow his nose and I roll my lips into my mouth and hold onto my bottom lip and say, "So do I."

"I don't have a gag reflex."

And I tell him, "Welcome to the club."

The Woman on the couch moans, "Oh God," and the young boy, thirteen or whatever, stares into me. He turns slowly, quietly, and I follow him up the stairs and into his room and…

~~~~~~~~~~~

I pick up the phone to call Emily. I tell her, "I think I'm almost ready."

And she tells me, "I know." She says, "I know but not quite." I hang up the phone and feel bad for a week and smoke weed and cigarettes and drink too much. Maybe fuck the too young boy, again, and then maybe the brother too and throw up.

And then I start to cry and stop. My head hurts.

~~~~~~~~~~~

How Brandon is, is arrested for public indecency. I blow five guys and fuck three to get him out and it takes me two days to raise the money and when he sees me he says, "You look like shit."

~~~~~~~~~~~

It's almost morning and we're sitting in the ruins of a drive-in movie theatre. The white screen is torn and brown around the edges. Brandon says, "I should have went to see Alex. I should have done more of everything."

You always miss the ones you fuck over. Right? And in my head is Loverboy by Queen.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily calls someone who calls someone, who calls someone, who calls someone, who calls The Woman, who tells me. How Charlie is, is sick. I'm not there.

And I let a doctor fuck me for free. I feel less guilty.

~~~~~~~~~~~

How I come back is quietly and Emily is sleeping. Charlie is next to her, mouth open and nose red. She's wearing a white t-shirt and grey sweatpants. I put down my bag and sit on the bed and pick her up and she's still kinda warm. "Her fever was high. I gave her Tylenol. It worked but not really. I took her to the doctor; ear infection." I nod my head.

I smooth a hand over Charlie's head and she smells like soap and heat and I kiss the top of her head. "I'm sorry."

"No."

"I should have been here."

"No."

"You're way too good for me."

And she says, "Hm."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Charlie is big now. She's walking and I don't remember that much time passing. Her hair is longer. "I think she missed you," Emily says.

Emily is different too and I still like her, love her. This surprises me. Her hair is curly today, not straight. But she's still plain, plain. And that makes me less nervous.

~~~~~~~~~~~

How I feel is like nothing really changed. We left here but never really left and everything is just all the same. "How much?" I'm standing on the corner of 6th and Maine and Brandon is here too and he's talking but I'm not listening. The trick looks over at Brandon and back at me.

"How long?"

He looks at his watch. He tells me he has a meeting. He needs to calm his nerves. "Forty-five minutes. Exactly."

He's antsy and I tell him to calm down. Just relax. He tells me, "Forty-three." He fucks me and finishes, with five minutes to spare.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"I think you should just let go of the whole idea of letting go." I'm sitting across from Emily and the lights are something like dim and Charlie is holding onto a book and biting the edges and I keep shaking my head and telling her no and Emily puts another piece of chicken in her mouth. Someone passes in front of the apartment door and we hear a door open and then close and then lock.

"What good would that do?" I ask her. Emily switches her fork for a spoon and pushes a mouthful of mashed potatoes into Charlie's mouth and then wipes it with a napkin.

She shrugs and Charlie takes the spoon out of her hand and she says, "Probably none."

I tell her, "I like the illusion."

Emily smiles and Charlie walks away and comes to sit in my lap and I give her some chicken and Emily says, "If you say so." And we don't talk about anything for a long time. Emily cleans up the plates and I give Charlie her bath and she babbles the whole time and when she falls asleep I crawl into bed next to Emily and we fuck until we can't feel anything.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Where we are is in the park watching the sun give up and Emily says, "As long as you really, really think you are." Her response is four days too late but she says it anyway.

She tells me she never really liked the color red and I tell her groovy. I tell her, "Insidious."

~~~~~~~~~~~

I pull on a pair of sunglasses. They're slightly cracked on the left lens and I take them off and put them in my pocket. I'll throw them away; or maybe not. Brandon is naked on the bed and his eyes are closed and he licks his lips once and says, "I'm having a moment of clarity."

I'm miles away from sober and I look around the room from my spot at the foot of the bed. "Where are we?"

And Brandon tells me, "Where exactly is anyone?"

I ignore him. "Whose house is this?"

"I can't remember the last thing I ever really knew," is what he says. He opens his eyes and looks at me. "Where are you right now?"

I tell him here. I say, "Dude. Man. I'm right the fuck here."

He reaches out and trails fingers, coated in perspiration, down my bare back. He stops at the base of my spine and taps out a rhythm, some song I don't know, and he whispers, "Exactly." I want to ask him what the hell that's supposed to mean. But I don't really care and his voice is making me sad. I let him fuck me. And before he comes I fall asleep.

~~~~~~~~~~~

We get a cab and realize we're way too broke and get out two blocks later. We walk and Brandon tries to hold my hand. I pull away and he shrugs and lights a cigarette and hands it to me and I want to take a pull but I don't feel like it and I give it back. We'll work tonight and buy food. Brandon will buy drugs and we'll both get high, high.

My hands shoved in my pockets I ask, "You miss Alex?"

"No."

"Not even sometimes?"

"No."

"You're lying."

He shrugs and his hands ball into fists. And he says, "It's always a possibility."

"You lying?"

"Maybe."

I tell him he's so fucked up. I swallow and think and say, "You're fucked."

He tells me, "I know. But thanks." I push open the door to a pizza place. I eat and Brandon doesn't. He hasn't eaten in days and I don't ask him why.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon is sitting next to Emily and his hand is touching her thigh. She pushes it off and lights a cigarette and Brandon touches her again. "Tell me how much your father loved you," is what Emily says to him.

He pulls his hand back but doesn't sit up and he lights a joint and he says, voice more than calm, "I want to rape you."

I tell Charlie no. I tell her to be careful. We're sitting on the stone steps of a park, location unknown. Emily laughs and Brandon moves his hand up, sniffles, and squeezes. Charlie is in the grass. She's wearing a red dress. Her shoes are white sneakers. Her hair is pulled back from her face with clips and she smiles. And Emily asks him, "How does the truth taste?"

Brandon tells her, "Bitter." I'm tired of the conversation so I try not to listen. The song stuck in my throat is Bitch by Meredith Brooks.

Emily leans into him and her face is blank and she says, quietly, "Come on, show me, show me where Daddy touched you."

I swallow the lump of lyrics in my throat and the music gets louder.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Try not to blink," Brandon says.

I look at him. Emily's back is pressed against my chest and I watch him. He lights a cigarette and looks over at Charlie's crib. I ask him, "Why?" And Emily moans and moves, the shocks of a too intense orgasm still holding onto her. Brandon grins and the tips of the fingers on his left hand touch his cock, pressing and coaxing.

He says, moving to crawl up the bed, between Emily's legs, between mine, and he kisses me. He exhales smoke and I take it in. He tells me, "It's only an interlude."

~~~~~~~~~~~

There is nothing to say. There is blood on the sheets and scratches on skin and the taste in my mouth is copper and dry. Emily gets up and closes the bathroom door and I hear the shower start.

Brandon is gone.

Charlie is awake and rubbing her eyes and I stare at her for a long time until it gets too painful. Emily comes out of the bathroom. Her hair is wet and she doesn't try to dry it. I get up and when I come out of the bathroom Charlie is eating cereal. Emily is staring at the bed, at the blood. All the blood. She reaches for her back, touches her shoulder, with the memory.

And I finally say what's been on my lips since the knife was pulled out. "How long has it been since your last confession?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

How it is, is getting cold again. I'm standing on the curb. "Hey," a boy I don't know says. He walks over and stands in front of me. He's young. I take him seriously.

"Hey."

"You seen Brandon? That fucker owes me two hundred bucks." I tell him no. I tell him the truth. He yells and crosses and uncrosses his arms. "Shit! I need that money." I blink and look past the boy and I see Brandon and the boy looks and sees him too. Brandon turns and runs. The boy follows him and when a car drives up I get in.

And the trick says, "Paper or plastic?"

I tell him, "You decide."

~~~~~~~~~~~

The trick moves gently and it makes his touch unbearable. I turn my mouth away from his and he gently touches the side of my face and brings it back. His thrusts are slow. He whispers in my ear, somebody else's name. "I'm sorry. I love you. I'm sorry," he says and he licks my ear, sucking the flesh into his mouth and tugging, skin trapped between teeth.

I don't speak. He pauses and his right palm is pressed into my chest, his left holding only my hip and his skin is flush against mine. Stomach to stomach, chest to chest and when he starts to move again it's harder and faster.

He moves his hand between our bodies and presses on my cock. He doesn't want me to come, not yet. And he bites on my chin, his hand moving to pull on my hair. He asks me, "Do you know how much I hate you?" His words aren't for me. I don't know what to say. And I bite my lip. He thrusts again and his thumb is pressing at my throat.

And I tell him, "No."

~~~~~~~~~~~

"What's your name?" I'm standing perfectly still and waiting for nothing.

I ask Brandon why it's so important. I ask him why he needs to know. I tell him, "Come on man, you already know my name."

Brandon's too wasted to argue. He looks at his watch and says, "Come on man, we're gonna be late."

"For what?" I get up and follow him. We really don't have anywhere to be and we meet people who we sorta know and talk to them for what feels like too long. Five boys and three girls and Tremor, small and latin, always shaking, asks us if we're going to Tickle.

I'm watching the girl next to Tremor. We've fucked before. She's Tremor's baby sister. He videotaped the whole thing and sold copies online for fifteen dollars. She smiles at me and leans into Tremor, her hand ghosting its way down his back. Brandon says, "For?"

Jackie, not the sister, rolls a cigarette between her fingers and says, "I hear Raymond's gonna be there." I watch Brandon stiffen and then try to R-E-L-A-X. Tremor smirks and Mena, his sister, his lover, smiles.

Johnny Bricks breaks from the background and slips an arm around Brandon. They walk away and Tremor says, "I thought that was old news."

A girl I don't think I know says, "You think everything is old news."

Petey Pete, the youngest in the small group tells me, "I heard you had a baby."

I nod.

"A girl?"

Yes, yes. I nod. His interest makes me uneasy. "What's her name?"

"Charlie."

Brandon and Johnny Bricks come back and Brandon pulls a lollipop out of his pocket. "We'll meet you at one," Brandon says and he nods.

Petey Pete tells me nice name. He says, "Real nice."

And Tremor says, "Whatever."

~~~~~~~~~~~

"I don't think happiness truly exists," Emily says. She's sitting in the bathtub and her hair is pulled back, the ends wet and curling around her neck. I nod once and then again and look at my hands. My back is against the tub, my legs propped up at an angle. My shoes are on. I'm almost always ready.

"I don't think I have anything else worth remembering," is what I say. Emily moves in the water and it sounds so far away. I push the hair out of my face and let my arms rest on my knees.

And Emily says, "I'm my greatest deception." She's rubbing a bar of soap in her hands and she's smoothing the lather down her arm and she takes a deep breath and leans forward. She presses a kiss to the back of my neck and before I can say anything she leans back in the tub and sighs.

"Deliverance," I tell her.

She doesn't care anymore and she says, "What?" And she washes up and down her legs, over her breast and she says, "Or something close."

"Good enough."

And when she gets out of the bath she lets the water drain and she dries off, but not all the way and we fuck on the bathroom floor and she doesn't come and when I roll off of her she asks, "Was it good for you?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Where the fuck have you two been?" Brandon asks and he pushes a beer into my hand and then one into Emily's. Tremor is leaning against the bar and his hands are under Mena's shirt and she's moaning and her lips are kissed swollen.

"Traffic," is what I tell him and I take a drink from the beer and frown and then look at the label.

Emily says, "Jesus Christ, is this the best they've got?" And she's leaning across the bar, almost completely on the other side and he legs are in the air. She smiles at the bartender and her mouth is moving and he's smiling and saying 'yeah, okay'. And she slides her body the rest of the way over the bar and starts to make a drink.

The bartender is too built, too sexy, too everything I'm not and he knows it and he tells her, "You're good at this."

Emily says, "Thanks," and pours another drink, a shot. She smiles and I feel physically sick and turn my back to the whole act of foreplay. I've seen the show. I know the ending.

I sit my beer on the bar and walk away, across the club.

The VIP section is marked, a velvet curtain dropped to hide all the sin and I find the opening and walk through. It's dark, darker than the club and I don't wait for my eyes to adjust. Brandon is right behind me, a cigarette already burning and held between his fingers.

Girls and boys and everything in between are taking up too much of the space. We find a spot on a sofa towards the middle of the room, push and force our way between two twinks. After five minutes the twink next to me, dark hair, dark eyes, closes his mouth over my neck and starts to suck. His hand is pressing between my legs and I don't move and Brandon hands me the cigarette, burned down to almost nothing.

The twink says, "God, you're so fucking hot," and the pressure on my neck gets stronger.

Brandon takes the cigarette and takes a pull and drops what's left into an abandoned martini. "Why are we even here?" he asks.

I shift and say, "It was your idea."

"Raymond is supposed to be here."

I tell him, "I thought that was old, old news." I say, "Jackie's a fucking cunt, and a liar." Brandon huffs and scratches through his hair, lights another cigarette and leans back. The twink next to me shifts and his cock is hard, covered by loose denim and pressed against my leg. He's slowly moving, moaning and when he bites down slightly I grunt.

"Nothing is ever old news. Water under the bridge is bullshit," Brandon says. He's always so positive. And when I look up I see Raymond, standing in the middle of the room. Black jeans, black shirt, expensive, black hair, olive skin, he smirks.

"Fuck," Brandon says and moans. He pulls his bottom lip into his mouth and bites down. Raymond crosses the space and stops in front of us.

He looks at me and smiles and I watch him, my body blank. His eyes trail to Brandon and he smirks. "Some things never change," he says. His voice is low and smooth and I feel Brandon twitch.

The trick pressed into my side and wanting says, desperately, "Fuck me."

And Brandon asks, "You still an asshole?"

Raymond laughs and says, "Probably. It's not something you let go of so easily." Brandon pulls back his emotion and sighs and I remember every tear he cried over this… person.

"Unlike other things, easily forgotten," Brandon challenges. I'm working my hand into the jeans of the twink and he moans when I press lower and <i>in</i>. Brandon is on his feet when Raymond holds out his hand and when Raymond bites down on his already swollen lip and pulls him in closer and lets their tongues touch and takes a deep breath Brandon whimpers and grips his hand around Raymond's neck and holds him close.

The song blasting over the speakers is something techno, scene fitting and I unbutton the twinks jeans and press my palm to warm flesh, my fingers sliding in pre-cum and the twink leans his head further into my neck and licks his lips.

"Oh. Fuck," Brandon says and I hear him over the music. Raymond smiles and it's predatory. And when they disappear from the VIP section, through the curtain the twink pulls himself into my lap and his hands are on the button of my jeans and he's pulling them open and I'm lifting up and his jeans are on the floor and when he slides down on my dick I lean my head against the back of the sofa.

And the song blasting through the club, pounding into my skin is… Oh fuck me. Yes…

~~~~~~~~~~~

I come and the twink swallows and wipes cum off his cheek and sucks two fingers into his mouth. "What's your name?" he asks breathlessly. His chest is heaving and I'm slipping my jeans back on and over my hips and standing.

I reach into my pocket, pop a tab of Ecstasy and let it dissolve on my tongue and I tell him, "Thanks." I walk through the VIP section, through the club and out the front doors and Emily is leaning against the bricks, her hair sweat-styled, her shirt tight, her nails painted devil red. I walk up to her and pull her in close and kiss her. She lets me and opens her mouth.

We walk home and the air is cold. My pupils are blown wide and everything is too loud. Emily says, "My sister called a few days ago." She doesn't want my words and she tells me, "I talked to her, told her I'd meet her for lunch."

I say, "Family bonding."

Emily doesn't say anything and we fuck in the lobby of our apartment building, my back pressed against the mailboxes. She's already wet, already fucked and I pretend not to notice and she pretends not to care and when she comes I ask, "You fucked the bartender?"

She tells me, "Come on." She says, "The babysitter has to go home." She walks up the stairs and pulls out her keys and pauses at the door and says, "No."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Brandon tells me he is so over Raymond. He says, "Really. I'm over him." I'm filling miniature Ziploc baggies with weed. I'm measuring and counting and Brandon asks, "Are you listening?"

"You love him," is all I say. I close a bag and toss it into the shoebox with the others. Charlie is sitting in front of Brandon, chewing on a toy. Brandon tickles her and she giggles.

Brandon says, "No." He's quiet and I get through two more bags and he tells me, "I loved Alex. Raymond is beyond definition."

Charlie pulls up on the end of the couch and toddles over to me, gripping the collar of my shirt to keep herself upright. She's grinning and watching my hands intensely, slobbering dripping out of her mouth from the new teeth breaking through. She's almost one and I can't believe that much time has passed and I lean over to kiss her cheek. She kisses me back and I wipe the drool away with my shoulder.

"Do you think she knows what you do?" Brandon asks, nodding towards Charlie. She's bending down to get her cup that's sitting on the floor next to me.

I shrug. "Don't know. I doubt it. I don't think so," I say. Charlie bites on the spout of her cup, adding to the bite marks and drinks, her head tilted back.

"You ever think of not doing what you do?" Emily asked me that once. Or did I ask her? I don't remember. Charlie drops the cup and yawns.

"Yes," I answer honestly. "Sometimes it's all I think about."

"I don't think I'll ever do anything else. I'm not really sure at all that I want to," Brandon says. "But, I'm alone. Emily loves you, ya know. You have a daughter." I don't want to hear him. He's serious and he sniffs and his hand twitches and he slides from the couch onto the floor to help me.

I move Charlie's hand out of the shoebox and open another small baggie. How Brandon is, is contemplative. He's biting the inside of his cheek and there are tears in his eyes and he says, "All I ever wanted to be was something great, something tangible."

Charlie leans her head against my leg and reaches for her cup, curling it into her chest. "You are," I tell him."

He huffs and closes his baggie, grabs another and he says, "A fucking hustler." He spits out the word and puts more weed onto the scale. "I wanted my mother to be proud. I wanted my father to be wrong."

"It's not too late," I tell him. I wonder for a minute if I'm talking to myself and Brandon laughs and its low.

"Yeah it is. I've given up trying. It's easier to just pretend to not care."

I laugh and say, "Yeah. Well, you're not too fucking good at that either."

He laughs.

~~~~~~~~~~~

What Brandon says is that her name is Kansas. He says she makes him better, makes him try to want to be something else completely.

Her hair is dyed pitch black, the ends a dark pink. She's short and thin, her fingernails bitten and painted white. She half smiles at me, at Emily, and turns her attention to the counter, asks for coffee without cream. "And no sugar," she says and waits a breath. "Okay?" The man behind the counter shakes his head and mutters something and the girl she pushes herself away from the counter and walks towards the back of the diner.

"Nice," Emily says. Brandon reaches across the table and takes Charlie from my outstretched hands. She loves him.

Emily twists her hair around her finger, pulls a band from around her wrist and ties it all back into a ponytail. She's leaning into me, only slightly and when she looks at me and smiles a little, moves back into her own space, I don't feel much of anything. Charlie is sitting on Brandon's lap eating fries.

A boy walks up and stands at the end of our table. I glance around the restaurant, nod at the boy. He nods back and reaches into his jean pocket. I take fifty dollars from the lingering boy, give him two baggies of damn I want to feel and stuff the money in my pocket.

"You love her?" I ask. Brandon is leaning back in the booth, a cigarette in his right hand. He snorts loudly and turns his head to the side; breathes out a stream of thick smoke.

"Or something like that," he says with a sigh. I guess that's enough and don't ask anymore questions and when the girl sits down on the seat next to Brandon she says that the bathroom is a fucking waste of time. She says she thinks maybe now she smells like raw sewage.

Emily reaches for her drink and the waitress brings over the coffee, no sugar, no cream. Emily asks where she used to live. Emily asks if she has any family. Kansas smiles and takes a quick drink from her mug. She says, "I'm from all over really. But, if you want to be technical then I guess I'm from Michigan. I have a little sister but we're more like competitors than relatives."

Charlie whimpers and Brandon lifts her up, hands her back across the table and taps his ashes out onto his plate. "Fry," she says and tries to share. I tell her no thanks I'm not really that hungry. I tell her to feel free to eat them all.

~~~~~~~~~~~

We're sitting and the floor is cement and wet, puddles littering the ground and people moving in all directions, all a little too fast. Charlie is sleeping against my shoulder and Emily is laying on the ground, her hair pooled around her shoulders and her eyes halfway closed. A crystal high. I'm breathing deep and the sounds around me are all blending into each other.

Kansas is sitting on Brandon's lap, her forehead pressed against his and his hands are leaving trails up and down her arms. What I hear him say is, "I need to love you. I'm ready for something else."

She smiles and pulls her bottom lip into her mouth, licks it and lets it go. She moves in closer to him, grinds down on the beginnings of his erection and closes her eyes. And what she tells him is, "Light me up, Baby. I'm coming down hard."

~~~~~~~~~~~

How I feel is like its time to shake it up. "What do you do?" I ask Mr. Junior Executive. He hands me a business card and tells me to give him a call if I ever feel like I need a… change.

I watch him get dressed. He pulls up his slacks, too expensive and slips his tie back over his head. "I mean it," he tells me when I don't answer. "You can do better than this."

I shake my head. "No," I say. "No, that isn't true."

And he tells me, "Yes." He tells me, "Yes it is." And he pulls on his jacket, grabs his wallet and keys and leaves. I look at the business card in my hand and think about calling him. I want to call him. I want to change. I want something different. I want to be unpredictable.

The song in my head is Losing My Religion by REM.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"I think you should do it." Emily is walking next to me and Charlie is holding her hand and pointing at something that only she sees. "Why the fuck not, you've got everything to lose."

I slow my pace and think. I look at Emily, still walking and her gaze catches a glimpse of what Charlie is pointing to and she smiles. I feel warm. I want this. I want this normality. The business card is heavy in my pocket and I reach behind my ear and grab a cigarette, light it and breathe deep.

How I feel is all fucked out.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"It's bullshit man," Brandon says frantically. His eyes are blown wide and he's pacing in front of me. "All of it. You can't get away. We tried and the further away we ran the more fucked up everything got. You can't run away from your destiny man. You just fucking just… can't," he says too loudly.

"I can try," I tell him. Emily is working in the diner and Charlie keeps pointing at her through the window.

"Mama," she says with a smile. I pick her up and nod. She won't say Dada. I don't mind. It should bother me. It makes me feel better about everything. I don't want the title, don't need it. I wouldn't mind hearing it, just once.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The phone is heavy in my hand and I dial the number. "Hologram," the voice answers.

"Yeah," I say. The voice waits and I can feel the impatience. "I want to talk to Davis Jefferies," I say." The voice sighs and says please hold, says please wait while I connect you.

I cross my arm over my chest and hold the phone too tight. I'm watching the people walk by on the street and when the phone beeps I feed it another quarter and continue to wait. A new voice filters through the line and it's low and vibrating. "This is Davis Jefferies," he says.

He's on the phone and I don't know what to say. Suddenly everything is loud and I can't think. I open my mouth and say, "You gave me your card, told me to call. If," I say, "If I ever wanted a change."

He says, "I remember you. Have you finally decided? Are you ready?" What I tell him is that I'm not really sure. What I tell him is that I am sure as hell running out of options and my luck is counting down. He tells me, "Close enough."

I put another quarter into the machine and he gives me an address, tells me to come by tomorrow, early. He tells me to just try to show up. I tell him, "Showing up is one of the few talents I do have." And he tells me he doubts that. He tells me he finds that highly unlikely. Before I can protest he hangs up the phone and I'm left with a dial tone.

There is no song and the rules say to make sure you pay attention.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Emily is sitting at the table and Charlie is in the bathtub. Emily says, "I think its good that you called. You can't waste all of your time waiting to be something."

I twist a cigarette between my fingers and Emily gets up and walks into the bathroom. She picks Charlie up and lets the water out of the tub, walks back into the room. She sits on the floor and puts a diaper on Charlie and I ask her if she ever regrets meeting me. "Would you take it back?"

Emily slips a blue sock onto Charlie's foot and shrugs, She tells me that sometimes she thinks everything would be better if she had just learned how to pretend it was all better. She says to answer my question, "I don't really know."

~~~~~~~~~~~

The lounge we're sitting on has a clear view of everyone.

Kansas is standing in the middle of the almost empty club and she's dancing by herself, her hair pulled back, the edges re-dyed to dark grey. Her bra is black and her jeans are riding low on her hips. Brandon leans into me, his lips pressed against my neck, his right hand snaking into my jeans and he tells me, "Just relax and feel me."

I lean into his touch, let his lips ghost over mine and when he inhales my cock, swallows me whole I bite the inside of my cheek, close my eyes and try not to moan. I'm not successful and when his tongue pushes against my slit I push him away.

I'm panting and when Brandon wipes his mouth with the back of his hand I tell him, "No."

"You love me."

I don't try to deny anything. "Yes." He sits back, his hands resting in his lap, and studies me. Kansas is dancing harder, pulling one of the few random people in the club into the middle of the floor with her. "Maybe more than anyone."

Brandon smiles and leans back into me, his finger touching my lips. He shakes his head. "No," he says. "But, that's as it should be. Come on." He pulls me up and I tuck my dick back into my jeans and follow him. He passes by Kansas and kisses her hard before letting her go and leading me out the back door of the club. We turn to the left and start to walk.

We never needed to have a destination.

~~~~~~~~~~~

What Emily says is, "Just relax. You'll do great." I smooth my hand over my shirt and tell her I'm not so sure. My hair is pushed out of my face, my jeans washed by hand in the bathtub. Charlie is sitting on Emily's hip, her hand pressed into her mouth, teething. My shirt is white. I don't fasten the top button, the tie around my neck loose and only slightly used.

~~~~~~~~~~~

How I am is nervous and when the woman in the blue skirt, beige shirt tells me to follow her I hesitate before standing and letting her lead me down a long hallway and into a corner office. "Thank you, Jill," Davis Jefferies says. She nods and smiles and closes the door as she leaves. "Sit."

I don't sit and Davis waits. "Is this your office?" I ask, walking around the office, looking at the awards on the walls, the accomplishments, the degrees and certifications. He watches me walk and I can feel his eyes follow me around the room.

"Yes," he tells me. "I try not to make a habit out of squatting in other people's offices." I let myself laugh, slightly, and when he sits back and crosses his arms I turn my attention to him.

"Am I right to assume that that would be frowned upon here?"

He nods and leaves his arms tight across his chest. "Frowned upon wouldn't be the words I would use," he says to me. I grip the back of the chair in front of his desk and lean forward, my tie hanging in the air. "You called me," he reminds me.

I think I am right to assume that the pleasantries are over.

"You said if I ever wanted a change I should call you," I start. "I called." I shrug my shoulders and he points to the chair I'm leaning against and tells me to sit. He says to sit, please. I sit and let my legs fall open. My arms are resting against my body, my hands in my lap.

"Do you?" he asks me. "Or are you simply just too bored to care?" I think about what he's asking me and when the secretary, Jill, buzzes the office and tells him that he has a call on line 1 he tells her to have them call him back. He tells her to hold all his calls, he's extremely busy.

I let my eyes settle into his and I take a deep breath. "Do you want the truth?"

"Please."

"I'm not sure. I know that I'm tired of fucking people for money," I tell him. "Even though sometimes the company isn't that bad." He smiles and it's genuine.

He's twirling a pen in his hand, tapping it against his mouth. "I like you. I think you're a lot smarter than you want most people to think. Fuck, I think maybe you're not even that aware of it. But, you're honest and that means more to me than whatever the fuck else it is that you think you haven't got."

I don't move. His words seep into my skin and they're almost all more than the truth. It should feel uncomfortable that he knows me this well but it doesn't. "What exactly do you do here?" I ask him. I'm sitting up, interested.

"Graphics, Websites, and Software development," he tells me. I sit back and scoff, press my palms into my thighs. My hair is falling in my face and I brush it away.

"Shit. What the hell do you want me for? I don't know fucking shit about any of that. I haven't even touched a computer in ten years."

He smiles and stands up. "Don't worry," he says, "they tell me it's just like riding a bike. You never forget. And I have a feeling you know more about it than you're letting on. I don't think there will be much of a problem. Starting salary is two hundred per graphic. You set your schedule. Your talent goes up, the price goes up. How much you succeed is up to you."

I watch him as he comes to stand in front of me. "Do we have a deal?"

"That's it? No strings attached?" He shakes his head and extends his hand. I shake it. "And everything else is business as usual?" I clarify.

He smirks, loosens his tie and says, "How much?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

I'm standing on the curb and my hands are in my pockets. My tie is hanging almost undone around my neck and Brandon tells me, "I think Kansas might be a little crazy."

I tell him I suspected as much. I tell him I'm not all that surprised. I tell him, "She has nice hair."

He nods and says, "I think the dye is affecting her brain." I look across the street when Brandon sighs deeply. "Patsy."

Patsy crosses the street and stops in front of us, her friend following closely behind. She's chewing on the end of an almost burnt out cigarette, her feet in worn out Nikes and her left hand balled into a fist and shaking with cold. Her friend, Polly, is best friends with Marshall who is best friends with Johnny White, but not really, and what Patsy says is that someone told her Cal was in the hospital.

Brandon scoffs and snatches the cigarette from Patsy and says, "Who the fuck is Cal?" Polly scratches her head and we all look up as her fingernails scrape across scalp. "If it wasn't for your tits you'd look like a little boy."

Patsy laughs and crosses her arms above her head. Polly looks down at her tits and then up at Brandon and says, "Fuck you, asshole."

I say, "Cal is dead."

Patsy pulls a pack of cigarettes from her bag and asks Brandon if he has a light. He gives her a book of matches and tells her to keep it. "Thanks," she says. She lights her cigarette and stuffs the book of matches and the pack of cigarettes into the pocket of her coat. "He's not dead, he's in the hospital."

"Do you have a reputable source for that information?" Brandon asks and he's leaning on a broken parking meter. Patsy gives him the finger and turns to me.

"Why are you wearing a tie?"

I smirk and tell her, "Something important might happen and I want to be ready." Polly pushes Brandon's hand away when he tries to grab her tit and smacks him in the head.

Patsy asks me, "Are you like a Boy Scout or something?"

~~~~~~~~~~~

Richard, a staff member in the graphics design department, is sitting at his desk with his right hand on the mouse. He's showing me how to access and use the graphics program. It's fairly simple. I know more than he does but I don't say anything. "What's your name anyway, man?" he asks.

He's chewing on a piece of gum and moving the cursor around on the screen. I cross my arms and ask him if he's ever commissioned a design. I hit a nerve and his jaw clenches and he looks over at me and asks, "How'd you get this job anyway?"

I tell him, "I'm really good with my hands."

~~~~~~~~~~~

Hey baby, no one ever said to quit your night job.

I climb out of the car and step onto the curb, lighting a joint and stuffing the money into the front pocket of my jeans. Brandon is across the street just barely in the shadows, a red cup in his hand and a slurred smile plastered on his face, Kansas on her knees in front of him. "I hate the rain," Hector says. His hood is up on his jacket and he's holding a bottle of Jack Daniels.

"Makes business slow as shit," I say.

Hector unscrews the top from his bottle and takes a long drink, offering the bottle to me. I take it and drink deeply before handing the bottle back. "No man. I just hate being wet." I laugh and take another pull off my joint.

Emily is pushing her order pad into the pocket of her apron and she's brushing a stray piece of her hair out of her face, laughing. She walks away from the table and says something to the cook. He nods and she walks behind the counter.

I'm watching her through the glass and when a young girl in a blue coat leans into the counter Emily seems to still. She's wringing her hand and crossing and uncrossing her arms, glancing around the diner to see whose looking.

"Who's the girl?" Hector asks, taking another drink and wincing as it burns its way down. "She's hot; looks a little young though."

I shrug. "Emily's sister, I assume," I tell him.

Hector clears his throat and spits on the ground, tells me that assumption is the mother of all fuck ups. Charlie is in the corner of the diner crying, confined by the small wraparound gate. "Heard you got a fancy new job," he says.

I tell him actually it feels just like getting fucked.

The girl in the blue coat trails the length of the counter as Emily moves, wincing when Emily turns suddenly to face her, anger on her face. I snuff out the tip of my joint on the brick of the diner, put it in my pocket and make my way inside. Hector follows me.

"You can tell him to Fuck. Off," Emily says. I walk over to the corner and pick Charlie up, wipe the tears off her face and kiss her cheeks. "Fuck him and his goddamn money."

"Em. Please." I sit next to the girl in the coat and smile. "He just wants to help," she says.

Emily comes to a stop in front of me and looks up at the ceiling, her hands on her hips. "He can help me by leaving me alone. And if he's so goddamn sad and sorry he can bring his ass down here and talk to me himself and stop sending you as some kinda referee."

"Mama," Charlie says through her sniffs and Emily looks at her and smiles. The girl in the red coat follows her sisters eyes, looks up at me and then down at Charlie again.

Emily leans over the counter and grabs her hand and says, "Hey baby. Hey you," she says looking at me. The girl in the blue coats asks who I am. "This is my boyfriend."

"Is this your daughter?" We both nod at the same time and the girl reaches out and touches Charlie's hair, lets her grab onto her finger.

"Her name is Charlie," Emily tells her. The girl in the red coat laughs and Emily says, "Don't look at me. He named her."

~~~~~~~~~~~

The girl in the red coat, her name is Melissa. She's eighteen and still lives at home. She comes by to see Emily at the diner, takes Charlie to the park. Emily doesn't like to let her go but Charlie seems to love her. One day, her hands clutching a warm coffee mug and her hair pulled into a bun, Melissa asks, "Have you ever thought of getting a nanny, I mean, so you wouldn't have to take her to the diner all day?"

Emily is dipping a tea bag into hot water and tells her, "Not enough money." Before Melissa can respond Brandon and Kansas come walking through the door with a duffel bag full of marijuana; Courtesy of Little T.

~~~~~~~~~~~

The mockups for the graphic I designed is sitting on Davis's desk and my mouth is stretched around his dick. He comes and says that the graphic is some of the best he's seen. I stand up and sit on his desk. "Does is bother you much, being a hypocrite?"

He stands up and grabs his jacket off the back of his chair and grabbing his portfolio. "I've got a meeting in twenty minutes," he says and when he gets to the door he pauses. "And the question you should really be more concerned about is does it bother you."

~~~~~~~~~~~

The song in my head is Where Is My Mind? by The Pixies.

It's dark and my hand is pressed against Emily's back. The room is hot and my skin touching hers is almost on fire. It's the hour right before morning. I can hear Charlie sleeping, snoring slightly.

Emily shifts her hand closer to my chest and lets her fingertips ghost against my skin. She says, "I went to college. But not really."

I ask her what she means and we're both talking quietly but not whispering, our faces almost touching.

She tells me she used to sit in the classes and take notes, ask questions. She says she loved history and science, hated art. "Being creative is too close to perfection," she tells me.

She lets her hand linger ad then pulls it back. I nod and she shifts closer to me, her hair falling over her shoulder, her breasts buried in the sheets. "Some people would say different."

She shrugs her shoulders and the thin sheet covering her from the waist down slips lower. "Good." She tells me she loved all the professors; the worse, the better.

"You're in love with imperfection," I say.

"I'm in love with the truth."

"Imperfection isn't absolute truth?" She knows I'm pulling her in. I want to feel her emotion.

"No," she says. "But I think it might be the closest."

~~~~~~~~~~~

What every person needs is a time to reflect.

It's been almost a year and a half since the beginning and I don't think I've learned too much. I'm standing on the corner with a cigarette in my hand and the weather outside is numbingly cold. A car pulls up and the driver rolls down his window, says, "How much?"

I tell him, "Fuck off." He drives away and I take a long pull off my cigarette. My hair is longer than it used to be and the color of my shirt is faded navy blue, my jeans are worn. The song in my head is Dazed and Confused by Led-Zeppelin.

I haven't learned anything. Except maybe I know that truth depends on your point of view. And when I see Emily walking towards me on the sidewalk, Charlie on her hip, I smile. I'm not surprised anymore that I don't have to try.

Brandon comes out of the convenience store fastening his jeans and what he says is, "Damn that bitch is good." He pulls a bottle of stolen Vodka out from under his jacket, takes a glance back through the door and twists the cap.

"You are such a gentleman," Emily tells him as we turn to the left and start to walk.

Brandon takes a long drink and says, "Baby, you know I try." When Emily sighs I reach over and take Charlie from her. She yawns and leans her head on my shoulder. Brandon pulls a lollipop out of his pocket, un-wraps it and pops it in his mouth.

Emily lets her hand touch mine, just briefly, and what she says is, "I think maybe it's time for something new. It's time to shake it up." Brandon takes a long drink from his bottle and nods.

"I'm definitely up for that," he says. "Did I ever tell you my theory about walking in a straight line?"

We're standing at a red light and Brandon is leaning against a rouge mailbox. Emily's hands are crossed over her chest and she's waiting patiently. Charlie is sleeping and I press my hand to her back. What I say is, "My name is Chase."

They both turn to look at me and Brandon says, "Welcome to the world, man."

Emily is quiet for way too long and after we've crossed the street she smiles and says, "Ever fucked in Canada?"

So, I guess that's it. The world is still going on around me, and maybe sometimes I wake up and take notice. Maybe sometimes I fuck to ease the pain. Maybe I make more pain to justify everything else.

Maybe it doesn't really matter. And maybe, ultimately, you don't really give a fuck.

Return to KaMiKaZe's