Chapter Text
I allow the smoke to enter into my lungs, because that feels slightly better than death. He left already, I sent him off, saying I’ll clean up a bit. Really I needed time to think, but no thoughts come at this hour, which sets my stomach alight with trepidation, because I’ve never run out of thoughts before. I get up from the stained lounge and stand in front of “The glory of the working man” again. I’ve yet to add his tattoos, I think quietly and that’s all there is to say on the matter. It’s harder to paint someone you’ve had sex with, I admit, because then you’ve been closer to his soul and now it’s harder to see him at surface-level. I can’t look past his skin when painting.
I decide that doesn’t bother me, because the other option would be to never get fucked by him again and that notion brings a chuckle out of me.
I finish the cig and close the door behind me. Cindy’s nowhere to be seen, she’s probably disturbing civil peace somewhere in the burnt quarter. We’ll talk later then. My feet took me to my apartment door, but my fingers aren’t willing to search for my keys. I drop my bag at the entrance and leave for the Whirling instead.
I navigate through the usual Wednesday night crowd and slip into Klaasje’s room, climbing onto the roof balcony. She’s hidden herself from the nightlife of the Whirling after the merc got hanged. I don’t ask about it, because then she’d ask about my heartaches. Still, she’s dressed herself in glittery jumpsuits and high heels, as if to look good for the apathetic sky or the bloated corpse.
I know she knows it’s me and she knows that I know she knows. We’ve only had one conversation and that one hasn’t stopped for the weeks I’ve known her. We simply start back up where we left off.
“I went to the atelier again,” I state, approaching casually. She looks genuinely happy for me, and that being the rare sight it is makes me crave a cigarette again.
“And! I got him to bed with me.” She smirks in my direction, but her face drops ever so slightly, when I add: “...at the atelier.”
My eyes look for the horizon, but the quickly darkening sky is stealing that horizon from me. She doesn’t need to verbally express her concern for me, I’m already on the defence.
“He’s not one of those friends,” I gesticulate dismissively, “he got me to paint again,” I add with a satisfied sigh. That seems to lighten the mood a bit.
“So…” she starts, her voice smooth and inviting, “how is he then?”
“Well, he fucks like a straight man. A straight man, who’s had a few wild years behind him,” I echo his sentiment, “that’s what he told me. And I’m kind of tired of being the married straight man’s experiment or side chick, but…” I trail off, she picks it up: “He didn’t mean it like that. I take it he’s good?”
I hum in agreement, a smile spreading across my lips. “A total service top. You know, he almost made me believe there are tops who actually care to make their bottoms feel good.”
“But?”
“No buts. I have just have a myriad of experiences that prove the opposite,”
She gives me a glance: you know you can’t compare those experiences to this, she’s conveying, and I know that, but knowing doesn’t equate to believing.
“So he’s good at sex, got it. What else?”
I extend my hand. That kind of information is only shared if I get something in return. She fishes out a cigarette.
“He’s clueless and cares too much. He’s already hurt and it’s a matter of time before he gets hurt again, but he’s persistent and I can’t keep him safe, if he keeps turning up like that.”
Her cold eyes peer into mine. She sounds analytical, overly observant, when she says: “He’s your lightning rod.” I arch my eyebrows. “A lightning rod. He gathers your energy into one place. You’re way less all over the place when you’re obsessed.” She doesn’t deny that this obsession often leads to pain, but she doesn’t voice that factoid either, we both know it. And we both know we all need something to hold onto.
After a few topic changes and contemplative pauses I decide I’m tired enough and climb back down. I notice my Tuesday friend sitting at the bar, chatting with the redhaired driver. Mischief tugs the corner of my mouth upwards as I intentionally pass right behind him, tracing my finger absent mindedly across his back. He flinches and I know I don’t need to glance over my shoulder to see his eyes follow me as I head for the exit, but I do and our eyes meet and with a smile I disappear into the sparse crowd, as if this were a masquerade instead instead of a warmly lit place of refuge for the neglected population of Martinaise.
-
Morning rises out of the dust and smog and fades into midday by the time I get out of bed. I’ve been getting out of bed later and later lately, but what motivation is there for me to get up when the world outside this room becomes more expensive and less hospitable by the day. I sigh and turn the other side in hopes to suffocate this melancholic voice echoing from my chest.
Yesterday’s events float into my consciousness and I can’t help but deny that the songbird in my ribcage overstayed welcome is connected to Tommy. He’s the ultimate reminder of all the could-have-beens, but just as easily as he conjures vague regret, he soothes it. I wish I had one of his shirts so I could drown in him when he’s not present.
The rest of Thursday continues in a calm manner. I share a smoke with Cindy on her balcony and inform her that the new model is a semi-permanent fixture from now and she approves, because he simply looks like a working man (he is, but I won’t elaborate just how good he is at working with his fingers. Or the fact that he sells FALN merchandise).
I don’t spend much more time on him, because a friend is coming over later today and that’s why Tommy isn’t coming over either. I’m almost sure it’s the Thursday friend, a regular who I haven’t seen in a while, but my friends aren’t always so strict with the days they visit me. I clean up here and there, shave myself and pop by Fritte because I’m not entirely sure I ate anything yesterday and collapsing today because of that is really not ideal. My revenue would go down.
I shift my weight between my legs, staring at the prices. The strike is fucking us all inside out and sideways. I gather sandwich supplies, squinting my eyes, so I don’t have to look at the price.
“A pack of Astra as well, please,” I add politely as I set my stuff down and the girl behind the counter rolls her eyes. She pushes herself on the old wheeled office chair to the cigarette cabinet and grabs a pack, mumbling about how she has to inform me about the negative health effects. I hope she gets out of here soon. Something tells me it’s too late for me.
The price comes out to 16.29 real and that stings, but with the size of my appetite this should last me a while. If I keep going like this, though, I might snap in half before next Monday at the fat hands of some La Delta pervert.
And so I fix myself a sad little sandwich and force it down, because my guests only like poverty, when it makes them feel powerful, not concerned.
I paint my eyes after showering and fetch one of the silk shirts one of them got me. Just as I set down the perfume bottle, Le Fantôme du Vesper, a subdued and elegant scent, hurried knocking echoes and bounces off my walls. I swallow and hope it’s anyone else besides who I know it will be. The problem with good sex is that it makes mediocre spoiled by comparison.
I call out that the door is open and in steps a man who absolutely is not the one I expected. I engage every muscle in my face to keep it from falling. Charles fucking Villedrouin. Instead, a slick smile falls over my features; a well practiced mask.
“Graad treated me well, thank you (I didn’t ask about Graad). My trip was cut short, however, and I thought I’d pay a surprise visit to my friend,” he announces, stepping in and placing his suitcase down. So I was right, he wasn’t supposed to come today. I take a deep breath, he seems to be in a good mood today. He’s taking his coat off and seems animated - more than usual. “In fact, I’m straight off the airship. What a nice function we had there, sampling all sorts of candy from Mesque, Seol, Samara….” Is he high? DId he take something? He’s fumbling with his suitcase now and I don’t know what to do, besides watch as he moves through my space, my life.
“Graad really did provide, but it’s all too proper over there,” I doubt he saw Graad beyond his hotel balcony, “I really missed this little safe haven.” He turns to me with a sigh, orientally ornamental box in hand. “I missed us.” I try to hide the way I flinched at that by pretending he caught my interest. There is no us. I’d forgotten how convincingly I’d sold him that idea. He’s walking towards me and I can’t back away without stumbling onto the desk behind me. “So I got you something I know you’ll love.” The way he emphasises “know” tells me I won’t like it at all. He bought it for his idea of me.
He’s standing way too close and places the box in my hand. “They brought a Samaran shaman, or a Mesque mystiic… I forget, nevertheless, they brought one of those mystics as entertainment. It really was a genius move, it was so captivating I almost didn’t want to go back to the endless meetings about a wave of strikes in Vesper this, or the oncoming dissolution of the state of Igaunija that. You know, it really is an interesting phenomenon, how capital is on the verge of capitulation in at least every Isola…” He stops with a mischievous smile. “But you don’t care about that, do you?” For once I actually do care about what he’s saying, but he doesn’t want me to know. Usually, he either thinks I can’t understand it or that I don’t belong in the same world as him, so the information has no value to me. I probably know more state secrets than any politician, because he thinks I’m safe to vent his work problems to. But now he’s keeping access to a world beyond Insulinde from me, because it might ruin the mood. Something worthy of interisolary collaboration must be going on.
He’s let go of my hands, which still hold the ornamental box, as he says: “I really should be telling you about the mystic. He told me about the customs in some backwards Semenine village, where courting rituals are replaced with a game of prey and predator.” His breathing grows heavier and he leans in closer, I have nowhere to go. “I’ve always said that the unenlightened, while less educated on the factual, are more in tune with the spiritual than us.”
I feel a hand on my thigh as he steps even closer. The smell of way too expensive Gottwaldian cologne and sweat. I open the palm sized box to find seven or eight small candies on the velvet cushion. “I really admire their unorthodox ways of pursuit. The mystic said that this Samaran candy can help you tap into the human in you.” A second hand on my other thigh. My heart beats faster at the thought of the unknown effects this “candy” will have on me, but I know I have to take one, or he’s going to force it down my throat. I still sometimes have dreams about the last time that happened. I wake up with a cold sweat and a stiff cock. A small voice at the back of my skull actually wants to take the candy (powerlessness can feel good, in a way. Then I'm not responsible for the shit I’m in). An even smaller voice wants to resist, so he has to work to make me submit.
The small orange disc on my tongue starts fizzing as it dissolves and my entire mouth feels a bit numb. An intense, sweet, in a citrusy way, and cold sensation spreads from my tongue to my nose canal.
“I thought immediately of you and I told the mystic of my most cultured student friend,” he’s almost panting now, breath tickling my skin. He signals for me to let him sit me on the desk by squeezing my thighs and I comply, because I almost want to see where this goes. His hands are already massaging in between my thighs as he asks: “May I?” I nod sharply, because he hates the thought of being a rapist, an upstanding citizen like him. His sex tourism and poverty-kink have morals, after all.
He unzips me with one hand and tries to fondle me with the other at the same time. I lean back on my hands for balance, placing the small box down somewhere. Leaving the silk shirt unbuttoned was the right call, because considering his feverish hunger, he would’ve just ripped those buttons off. He starts jerking me haphazardly, carelessly. He’ll be satisfied before I am, because he likes to play that he cares about me and he can only pretend for so long.
It’s probably the candy, but he works me up to erection faster than usual, burying his face in the crook of my neck. Quiet gasps erupt from my chest, but he likes it when I’m louder than that, so he tugs my cock a bit and I whine, loudly, surprised at his sadistic tendencies. I’m proven right, because before I get close to satisfaction, he’s already grabbing one of my wrists and directing it to his hardening cock. As I unzip him and start to jerk him off instead, he lets his hands roam my body, His fingers find my nipples and they toy with them.
Unexpectedly, a wave of nausea ripples through me and I can’t help but slump against him. I really need a shower afterwards - I take a mental note. He changes position and starts to suck on the other side of my neck instead, decorating it with hickeys, but when my bones become too heavy to continue the handjob, he hums in satisfaction and throws my arm around his neck. I still probably could’ve made the trip to the bed myself just fine, but I let him have this moment of power over me. I fall unceremoniously on my stomach once we reach the bed and he climbs atop me. This isn’t a predator hunting for prey, no, he thinks he already has me, this is a lion ripping apart the already dead gazelle. Except he fucks like an unfixed dog.
He pulls my pants down and I thank myself for getting myself ready beforehand, because unlike my Tuesday friend, he would never ever think of stuff like that. He rams in impatiently and I wonder where the Charles Villedrouin, the man so enamoured with the illusion of softness, he’s willing to pay my rent for it, has gone. He’s brave and animalistic today. Maybe he tried something new and exciting on that ship and finds me a suitable canvas for his experiments.
When my moans aren’t loud enough, he wraps his greedy fingers around my throat, suffocating the little noise that could still escape from it. Out of instinct, I try to thrash and squirm, but to no avail. Bones of lead hold me in place. My mind has been a bit fuzzy ever since I landed on the bed, but the oxygen deprivation robs all coherent thought from me. All I know is that tears form at the corners of my eyes. Once he’s tortured me enough, I feel the stale air of my bedroom rush back into my lungs, and I heave vocally, as he continues for a bit, before flipping me over. It all goes a bit hazy from there: I know he doesn’t finish in me, stuffs into my throat instead and slaps me for something, but I don’t know for what, maybe my teeth grazed his ever so expensive dick? Teeth were involved in at least some way, because I will find teeth marks on my inner thighs and on my waist in the morning.
This is so unlike him... That is my last thought, before I pass out for an undefined amount of time.
… a bit exciting in a masochistic way. I finish my thought as consciousness rushes back in at full force. The mental effects of the drug didn’t last long, at least. It’s a different story regarding the physical effects, though. My bones still feel dense and sore, as if I just walked for an eternity through the pale.
I immediately suffocate that thought from before, because my situation is easier to stomach if I don’t actually enjoy any part of it. Responsibility and all that. Enjoyment gives agency and agency means responsibility. I can pretend to enjoy it, though. That way I can sell the illusion that nothing about my life needs to change.
I need a smoke - a familiar voice starts up in my chest cavity again and a void opens up at the very back corner of my subconscious. And I know something a bit more kind is waiting for me behind that door.
As I start to feel the extremities of my body again, my brain also registers a warm parasite weighing me down on my stomach. Raising my head to see sets off a headache, but now I’m aware of a second warm body besides my own. The Sunday friend has drifted off, laying on his side, hand resting on me.
At least he hasn’t grabbed me into his embrace.
Slowly, carefully, I escape, swaying on my feet. I hear him stir for a moment, but I mumble something about going for a smoke.
When did I get so naked? Did he take my clothes off along the way? Whatever, I grab the nearest clothing object, that orientalist robe, and shield my used body with it. On the way out I notice a considerable wad of cash, but something is off about it. I lean closer and identify defunct Samaran currency. A panic would’ve set in if I wasn’t so horribly numb and if my mind wasn’t faster than my body. Maybe Birdsnest’s Roy can take these. I still hate the man in my bed, because I’ll get less in return, than what we agreed on, but I don’t have enough energy to hate him physically. Of course he’d think such a prank would delight me. Of course he cannot imagine needing every last cent.
Cold, so very cold March air embraces me, but it feels amazing on my overheated body. I’ll wake up with a cold tomorrow and I’ll have no money to treat it, but then I can cancel my meetings and sleep, because consciousness is the greatest curse of all.
I sigh as the cloudy night sky greets me. She was waiting for me along with my Tuesday friend. He had been standing patiently next to the door for god knows how long. Wordlessly, he wraps his coat around my shoulders and I can't help but stoop, propping my head on his shoulder, but I immediately try to pull away.
“I smell, like…” sex and disrespect, would’ve been the ending of that sentence, but he holds my head in place. That’s not enough of an excuse for him. I take as deep a breath as I can manage and his hand remains on my head, fingers in my hair. I grab onto his shoulder for balance and comfort. We stay like that for a moment.
“How much did you see?”
“Only as much as you wanted me to see.”
“How lucky, then, that you didn’t see or hear anything,” I sigh.
Then I depart to look him in the eyes. The taste of the vaguely citrusy candy and upper-class cock lingers. I reach up to steal the cigarette from his lips, because of course he stood here smoking, waiting for me to come get fresh air. I would’ve kissed him, but not with this mouth. I inhale as much poison as I can as he fishes out my very own cigarette for me. It tastes like nicotine and him. Warmth spreads from my lungs. The little tremor in my brachioradialis calms. The quiet of the world seems friendlier. As I exhale, he steals his cig back and lets the lit end ignite my cig, placing it, then, in between my lips.
We untangle from each other and take a few steps to lean on the balcony edge again. Edge. I’m still on edge from something. I sigh.
“He was rougher than usual”
Then peek at him. He’s observing me with focus and sympathy. I smile wryly as though I can read his mind.
“Don’t worry, I like it rough.” The hickeys and bruises, running mascara, sullen state I’m in - it all must paint a pretty vivid picture of what went down.
I have a retort already ready as he’s connecting the dots between what I just said and how he fucked me on Wednesday.
“...and, I like it gentle. With you. I like different things with different friends.” I’m sorry that I have to compare you to those bourgeoisie pigs, but belittling my situation is all the comfort I can give myself. I’m a suffering prostitute, who pretends to like it.
I don’t have to look at him to know that the look he’s giving me is woven through with incredulity. He’s so fucking sorry for me, and that’s one of the reasons I like to love him. He doesn’t pity me, he’s just sorry. I like to think of myself as fairly independent, but compassion every once in a while is comfortable.
“Rough sex is… good,” I repeat myself, “just maybe not with them.” I choose my words deliberately. It is one thing to admit this stuff to yourself, but out in the open?
“They really just don’t care about anyone’s dick besides theirs. I don’t think I finished again today.” I confess to the rotting corpse and the Whirling’s trash container and the wind, that carries the last sighs of winter. That last bit would explain why I’m still so on edge.
“I could help,” he posits, as if it were nothing. My cheeks redden. A hand brushes against my hip. I reach down and interlock fingers with him, bringing his hand to my lips and then letting go.
“As much as I’d love you to, I’ll take care of it myself later.” I don’t want to see you witness me in this state. The guilt would end me and not in the way I want to be ended. He nods. I continue.
“I’m not really sure how much or how little I hate them. I don’t hate them for the sex, I hate them for their lifestyle of power abuse and exploitation, I think. But the sex is all a part of that, so I really just…” I trail off.
“It’s like the more the embodiment of the lie of upward mobility fucks me in the ass, the less reachable it becomes.”
He nods again.
“Isn’t there a way out? To move before they break you down? It’s clear he’s intending to keep you here.”
I cover my eyes with my palm and then massage the bridge of my nose. I sigh.
“No,” I’m about to add something else, but all that comes out is: “No.” Resolute and laconic.
“And I truly am sorry for saying this, but you’re not just saying that, because getting out of a shithole like this is fucking scary?”
I laugh, but not at him.
“Where could I go? Neither of us have cash and I’m fairly well off, compared to how other whores live. I just have to. I don’t know. Not let it get to me.” But I’m letting it get to me. I stopped eating and waking up a week ago. I stopped painting 2 months ago. That’s how I’m letting it get to me. Charles is paying for classes I don't attend.
“He has my documents, my real name. He owns this apartment.” He might as well own me. “He pays my bills. I leave without a trace and he’s either found me, but angry this time, or he cuts his losses and moves onto someone younger. Either way I’m fucked with no money of my own. If he wanted to, indebting me would be easier than breathing for him. Or blackmailing me, for that matter,” I chuckle at the despair of this situation as I add: “He’s got so much shit on me, Tommy.” But in a way, I wouldn’t have made it to 24 without him. The stipends meant for immigrant students only get you so far, when you’re studying art.
He pauses, thoughtfully.
“Then we stay afloat.” The use of we tightens my throat. He hasn’t accepted this life yet, though. “And when you see an opening,” our eye contact holds enough hope to blind the founding fathers of the commune, “then you slip through.” And he adds, as if it’s as simple as that: “And then you’re free.”
And for that tired night on the balcony I let myself believe such a tale. For now. He’ll be by my side as long as he can. Nothing in this life under the blue skies of Revachol is guaranteed to last forever, so I refuse to sell myself the myth of immortal love - the harbour is bound to open again - but for now I’ll love him and let him love me in the quiet moments inbetween. There’s a certain sadness in his eyes, that tells me he isn’t sure if he will ever see his wife again, and that same quiet sadness soothes the voice in my ribcage for just a while longer.