NF - Paralyzed
Deftones - This Place Is Death
The house smelled like cigarettes and cat piss. Too many people were crowded inside, laughing, shouting, drinking. I didn’t know whose house it was, but it had a fridge full of cold beer and half the outcasts of Wickeston High School inside, so it seemed like a decent place to be.
I’d come alone, but I knew plenty of people. Still, I didn’t talk much. I wasn’t here to socialize. I leaned against the mildew-stained wall between the fridge and the tiny bathroom, watching Lucas Bent make out with a girl.
It was obvious I was staring. Who was gonna tell me not to? Only Lucas himself, and he was too distracted to notice me. He had his hands all over that pretty blonde. Her name was Rachel…something. From the back, she almost looked like Jessica Martin.
They’d been going at it for a while. Swallowing each other’s tongues while the party milled around them, groaning and grinding like they didn’t have a care in the world.
Watching was giving me fucking blue balls.
Part of me wanted to leave. The beer made me feel hollow, and too warm. Every time someone brushed up against me in the crowded space, I wanted to lash out.
Was this jealousy? No. It was less vicious but no less feral.
Was it envy? Envy of Lucas?
Or of her?
Lucas said something that made the girl giggle. His cock was straining against the tight denim of his jeans, and he grabbed her ass to push her down against his erection.
Such a desperate slut, isn’t he? Grinding like a needy puppy.
I downed the rest of my beer and reached into the fridge for another. Lucas and I weren’t exactly friends, but Vincent liked him. Then again, Vincent liked most people, especially people that bought his merchandise. But from what I heard, Lucas Bent didn’t pop pills. No, the angry kid from Appalachia only seemed to really care about his car and his cigarettes.
And getting his dick wet.
I was a creep for watching, but so what? They weren’t looking for privacy, they knew people would watch. They probably got off on it.
The boy wants an audience. He knows he looks like such a whore, about to come in his pants just from kissing her. He needs someone to bring him under control.
Our eyes met, and I almost choked on my beer. Lucas always looked like he wanted to commit murder, but I wasn’t ignorant to the fact that he looked at me differently. As if murder wasn’t enough, and he was trying to think of something even more awful, more torturous. Like he was torn between hating me and…something else.
Like he was scared of me. A kicked dog, ready to bite.
He didn’t look away. Neither did I. He squeezed her ass and kissed her neck, his brown eyes locked on mine all the while. When he bit down on her shoulder, making her cry out softly in ecstasy and pain, I swear he smirked at me before he did it.
My dick was hard as a fucking brick. I shifted from foot to foot, tugged my filthy denim jacket down — but I couldn’t hide that thing.
Retreating to the back porch, I bummed a cigarette off a stranger. The moon was bright tonight, the night sky clear and twinkling. Standing against the railing, I exhaled and watched the tendrils of gray smoke reach for the stars.
But my isolation didn’t last.
The screen door slammed, and heavy footfalls approached. Although I didn’t glance over, I knew it was him. I could smell him. Motor oil and fresh rubber, sex and cigarettes. He hadn’t even fucked but he had that smell to him — sweaty, musky.
It was driving me fucking wild.
“You got a spare?” he said. His voice was as rough, with a thick drawl.
Shaking my head, I said, “Last one.”
Nevertheless, I offered him a drag. To my surprise, he didn’t take the stick from between my fingers. He just leaned forward and inhaled. His lips brushed against my skin, and I felt the need to jerk away as if I’d touched a hot stove.
But I didn’t.
He leaned against the railing beside me. His arms were bare, decorated with stick-n-poke tattoos, bruises, and scratches. He was tall, although not as tall as me, muscular but lean. The Ozzy Osbourne shirt he wore was so faded, Ozzy looked more like a ghost than the Prince of Darkness.
I tried to stare at the stars instead of him, but he was still there in my peripheral vision, drawing me in like a riptide.
“All those little lights out there,” he muttered. “And I had to be born on this fucking rock.”
The stars twinkled coldly. I’d had similar thoughts before, except I didn’t think the empty stars were any better than Earth. The universe was wide, chaotic, and cruel. Life was an anomaly in the chaos, and despite Vincent’s pseudo-spiritual insistence that everything had a purpose, I believed it was purely due to unlucky chance I was alive at all.
Clearing my throat awkwardly, I said, “Some of ‘em are dead stars. By the time the light reaches us, the star is already burnt out.”
I’d been in Lucas’s company before, but never really talked to him. He was a boy of few words, except when he was fighting. Then he didn’t stop running his mouth.
“Doesn’t that fucking figure,” he said. “Already dead. All that pretty shit we spend time staring at…dead.”
Damn, I hadn’t said they were all dead.
With a roll of my eyes, I remarked dryly, “Drinking sure makes you cheerful.” Probably shouldn’t have said it. He didn’t reply but he was staring at me, eyes burning a hole in the side of my head.
“You like to watch, don’t ya’?”
Ah, damn it, here we go...
“You’re not subtle,” he said. “Standing there staring. Touching yourself. I’ve knocked out teeth for less.”
Like a fucking maniac, I laughed. It wasn’t funny, but I also didn’t know what the fuck to say. So instead, still laughing, I said, “I wasn’t touching myself.”
He got in my face. Clearly, I wasn’t taking this seriously enough for him.
“What are you, some kind of perv?” he said. He shoved my shoulder, hard, then shoved again when I didn’t push back.
I wasn’t interested in fighting. Physical confrontation wasn’t my style. Taking another drag on the cigarette, I exhaled smoke in his face as I said, “If you think I’m perverted now, you should see my search history.”
His eyes narrowed. He was used to people backing down, and I’d caught him off guard.
His fists were already clenched. Grinning with the anticipation that he might hit me, I continued, “You knew I was watching. You liked it. It turned you on.”
He threw a punch — but pulled it at the last second. I’d seen him put holes in drywall, bust open his knuckles on concrete, knock out adversaries with one hit. He could’ve knocked my teeth out just like he’d threatened to.
Instead, he gave me a bloody lip. I grabbed his shirt, fisting it and grappling with him. I slammed him against the house, and he braced his arms on my chest.
“You don’t wanna fight me, Bent,” I said. He bared his teeth, veins taut and bulging in his forearms. “I don’t lose.”
“I don’t neither.” He was straining against me, trying to shove me back while I tried to keep him in place.
“What do you want, Reed?” he snarled. “Why do you fucking watch me?”
But I didn’t just watch. I studied. I learned. I knew the places she touched him that made his breath catch. I knew he bit his lip when she teased for too long, and his eyes betrayed that he wanted to beg, that he wanted to be good.
“Why?” I said. “You want to know why?” My emotions were too erratic to be around him, and yet, I couldn’t back away. Couldn’t leave. Couldn’t bear the thought of shattering the fragile tension. “Because of all the pretty dead things I see, you’re not dead yet.”
His mouth twitched — I’d been staring at those full lips for too long. We were knotted together, muscles trembling, breath coming hard and fast.
“Do something,” he said. He didn’t move, didn’t raise his voice. Just made his command.
“Do something?” My response was a whisper, and even that felt too loud. I was thankful the porch was empty, that no one could see us entwined. We were ready to fight each other and yet, this felt too intimate for an audience.
He lifted his chin, cocky and demanding. His bare throat elongated, bobbing as he swallowed. God, I wanted to wrap my fingers around it, to squeeze, to make him feel something — make him feel me. I wanted him to go back into that party with my bruises on him, with my fingerprints dug so deeply into his skin that they’d never leave.
Why? Why him? I barely fucking knew him. I didn’t even like him. He was an angry, temperamental asshole with no self control.
He was a scared, desperate boy.
He was an open wound with its stitches unraveling.
He was a mirror. A goddamn mirror of me.
Bringing the cigarette to his lips, I said, “You really want to know why I watch?” His brown eyes were locked onto mine, full of fury, full of need. But he took a drag, filled his lungs and held it like he was trying to burn the sin out of his body. “It’s because I see you, Bent. I see you walking around with a noose around your throat, throttling yourself with it instead of just giving it to someone who knows how to handle you.”
He looked like I’d slapped him. It made me grin, made another laugh bubble up in my chest.
“I see how goddamn needy you are. Like a bitch in heat.”
“I’ll fucking kill you —” He knotted his fingers in my shirt and pulled me closer. Chest to chest. Noses practically touching.
“Try it.” I wanted him to hit me again; maybe it would knock some sense into me. I had enough problems in my life without getting tangled up with Lucas Bent. “Come on. That’s what you came out here for, isn’t it?
But no. It wasn’t.
I couldn’t be sure when it happened, but he wasn’t holding me back anymore, wasn’t fighting me. His breath was coming short and fast, his heart hammering hard enough that I could feel it against my chest.
Then, in a millisecond, he was melting into me — his lips met mine and I didn’t know who’d kissed who, who’d given in first. But once it started, I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t pull him close enough, couldn’t consume him thoroughly enough to satisfy.
He kissed like it was a competition, like all the anger he felt towards me was being channeled into primal desire. Tongues and teeth collided, tainted with cigarettes and cheap whisky. He gripped the belt loops on my jeans and held me against him, his hard length pressed against mine through the denim.
God, his mouth was soft. His upper lip was prickly with a five o’ clock shadow, and I could smell his cheap soap, his sweat, the motor oil on his clothes.
We stopped, only because we needed to catch our breath. But we didn’t move apart, not even an inch. There was sweat on his forehead, despite the cold night air. My fingers were wrapped around his throat, and he was looking at me like he’d just seen God.
“Tell me to stop.” My voice shook, and I wished it didn’t, but either he didn’t care or didn’t notice.
“Don’t you fucking dare.”
The boy from Appalachia had put a noose around his own neck, but now he was dangling the other end in front of me.
Take it. Never fucking let go.
I wanted him. Needed. Something in his soul matched mine, something dark, aching, and feral.
I didn’t know what to call it, didn’t know how to articulate this knowledge to him, or if I even needed to. I kissed him again — taking the lead, shoving him back so hard his head knocked against the side of the house. He was fighting me again, but fighting to keep me close, to kiss me harder, gripping so tight his fingers were bound to leave bruises on my arms.
But I wanted his violence, his pain, his walled-off black heart. I wanted to swallow it whole, to lay claim to that wretched wildness inside him.
I was fucked up, sick in the head without doubt. But all the things I feared, I saw in him. All the things I wanted to control, to conquer, to overcome — were in him.
He bit my lip hard enough to break the skin, and I laughed into his mouth, laughed at his messiness, his anger, his need. He made a choked sound as my hand tightened, growling like a dog.
“Goddamn…” He gasped out the word as our mouths parted. Leaning down, I brought my lips to his neck. He stiffened, shuddering as I exhaled. I kissed him slowly, until goosebumps prickled over his skin and his breath hitched. He moaned, a soft and desperate sound, so unexpected that I paused.
“Do you believe in God?” I said.
He shook his head, irritation drawing his eyebrows together. “No. No, I don’t fucking believe…”
“You do now.”
He stared at me for a long moment. Then he reached down, and grabbed my wrist to lift the hand holding what remained of my cigarette. He brought it to his mouth, and this time, he was intentional about letting his lips brush my fingers.
“I’m a sinner,” he said, exhaling smoke with his words. “And a blasphemer.”
“I accept nothing less.”
He swallowed hard. He found a scar on my face, and brushed his rough fingers over it, avoiding looking into my eyes.
“I don’t fucking listen,” he whispered, like this was his confessional, and I was the faceless priest behind the screen. “I’m not a good person. I get worse every day. I don’t worship. I don’t pray.”
Cupping his head, I pulled him in. This time, I could feel the uncertainty in his kiss. The vulnerability, the tenderness. The gentler I was, the more he shook. The softer I touched him, the more frightened he looked.
“That was a prayer,” I said. Another kiss, deep and slow, until a strangled whimper escaped him. “That was worship.”
“Shit…” His eyes darted around, but there were no witnesses. Just us, in veneration beneath dead and dying stars. “I guess you’ll make a believer out of me, Manson.”