Part 2
Part 3
Alternatively, uncensored final draft here.
"Look at those two," B pointed.
"I guess they need a ride." A flashed his headlights.
"Let's do it. They probably won't see a second car on this road tonight."
He slowed and reached a full stop. B switched on the interior light and rolled down his window. The one who approached was a long-haired hippie, blonde with sensuous lips, very friendly. "Hey, can we hitch a ride? Don't want to freeze to death here tonight."
"You got any money?"
He flashed a smile. "As much as you want."
"Get in here," B smiled back. He was attracted to this man's forthright musical voice, and A could tell he was attracted to his other things, too. He knew without looking.
They got in the back. B twisted around to shake the blonde's offered hand. "I'm D, and this here is E."
"B." He motioned with his eyes, "That's A."
"Very nice to meet you guys. I like you car," D answered blithely.
"So where are you headed?" B grinned at A with pride.
"Yorktown, not too far. Keep on this road and we'll be there by morning."
"It's so fucking cold here," B glanced at the silent E, taking in his red hair.
"Yes indeed. We got whiskey though, you want some?" D's fervor added positive heat to the atmosphere within the car.
"Hell yes!"
D pulled out a half-drank flask from his knapsack, took a swig, and offered it to B. Their hands overlapped as he took it, and D did not pull away. Blue eyes met blue eyes. B smiled with an understanding, and passed the flask to A after one swig. The latter thanked him as he took it.
"Where you guys from?" B asked.
"Texas."
"I love that place. Always wanted to meet a real cowboy."
"Go to a rodeo."
"I've seen that on TV once. I liked watching men wearing those hats, sitting on bulls, screaming as they get flung off. If it were me I'd make sure I'm grabbing a bottle with my other hand."
"Haha, you could try." D's laugh was resounding and infectious. The flask was passed back to him.
B fished out his weed, his back now against the glove compartment as he turned to face D. The occasional roadside light bathed his face in alternating light and shadow. His smile exposed flashing teeth, impish and untamed.
He rolled and lit a blunt, took the first hit, and offered to D. "I think you guys will love this."
The latter smiled back as he inhaled, licking his lips. "Very nice."
B stared with undisguised intent, unable to take his eyes off. D's lips were as blossoms raised in whiskey, vulgar yet tender. He kneeled on his seat and reached back, catching D by the chin. The latter opened his mouth, twisting it into a smile. B rubbed his thumb along D's lower lip as he hurriedly took a second hit, pushing the blunt to E. His hands caught the back of B's neck as he bit into his lips.
They had no need for further pleasantries or delays. Perhaps tonight was their only chance, and some people were not finicky about location or time.
E crossed his legs as he smoked, tapping A to pass. A held the blunt in his mouth, and E retracted into a corner to avoid the other two. He pulled his jacket on more tightly and closed his eyes.
B tore at D's hair, his nose digging into his face. Their heavy breathing was quickly masked by the sound of saliva.
D's fingers were rough, his stubble was rough, his every kiss and touch were all rough. He was like weaved hemp, simple, practical, sandy with a hint of assault. B liked this.
D tore at his flannel shirt. B's eyes were closed, his hands dismantling a disarray of blonde hair, his mind succeeded by body. When D's icy finger reached the exposed skin of his chest he shivered, goose bumps rising on cue, but he found D's stroke exceptionally erotic, along with the glossy look in his eyes and the beauty mark upon his neck. He aroused in him the will to fight.
And D did know how to please. B simply held onto his head, giving free reign to D's hands to snake his body like eels. He willfully trapped his moans within his throat, his body fevering to the point of sweat.
He pulled one hand free to recline the passenger seat, his other hand supporting his weight upon D's shoulder. He began kissing him from the neck down as if to weave him new skin using his lips. When he reached his bare shoulder he finally lost balance, tumbling into the back seat. D rolled to make room. But as he approached D's lower abdomen he suddenly stopped, leveling up to meet the other's gaze. B tugged at his collar, touched D with his nose, and clambered back into the passenger seat.
Perhaps they stopped out of the same consideration.
B straightened his clothes and fixed his belt, feeling the irrepressible heat of just moments ago steadily subside. Replacing it was a heavy and mysterious affection, an age-old and familiar fondness, so ancient that it no longer held any color of desire and was instead a calling, a buried remembrance.
D leaned against the door, watching E. E's eyes were open, watching him back.
"Do you mind if we do it in the back?" D asked.
"No," A slurred, the blunt still in his mouth. Both his hands were on the wheel, his eyes staring meticulously dead ahead. Smoke slowly trailed from between his lips.
B felt a deep hunger clawing out from within his heart, striking him with hallucinogenic effect. Bit by bit he could no longer sense D's mingled breathing in the back or notice the car engine's lull, as if everything faded to oil stranded upon water, gorgeous in granules. Keenly-edged but blunt, scorching yet frigid, exhilaration in exhaustion, passion in despair, dry ice in flames. And A, his brother, sitting a mere arm's length away by his side, emanated an irresistible seduction through his impassive indifference, his monumental nonchalance. His tenderly amorous eyelids just so had to frame cruel pitiless eyes, his thin nose bridge chiseled toward thin nose alae, his lips closed wordless yet still asserting fervor. His delicate features held no aggression in despite of their knife-like frost. B studied him, poring. This is the face of my brother. An archaic castle braving the storm alone upon a cliff, persevering yet in precarious water. He felt parched as he stared, writhing in his seat, his right hand reaching for the blunt.
"You said you wouldn't smoke any more, I remember."
"Mh." His answer again came as a slur.
"Therefore..."
B caught it between index and middle finger, slowly withdrawing the burnt roll from A's mouth. His thumb put out the spark without his hand ever leaving his lip, his index finger lingering. He slid along the line of A's closed mouth, shutting his eyes to maximize sensation. He felt the gentle movement of A's lips against his fingertip in a snail-like dance, moist, unhurried, miniscule. Cautiously he kissed his finger, his lower lip stirring again and again.
A unthinkingly tightened his grasp on the steering wheel as he tentatively brought his tongue to B's finger. Tobacco, bitter salt, and a spiciness that tasted like a long-missed prelude to love. His next kisses came faster, stronger, aggressive with a tinge of almost impatience. B inched his hand closer, guiding A's lips down the base of his finger toward his palm, along his life line toward his wrist.
A felt an inner convulsion gradually take over his conscious mind, his open lips composing love upon B's wrist, his mouth liquid, his eyes mist. B's taste had always been his one Achilles' heel, more dangerous than any drug. He was lost in defeat without even yet touching him.
He hit the brakes abruptly, skidding the car to a stop.
D, crudely flung over in the back while in the middle of passion, vehemently cursed: "Shit! The fuck's wrong with you!"
But when he saw B hastily pulling back his hand, right away he laughed. "We can do this together."
B turned his head aside. "I'm gonna sleep."
A restarted the car.
-
Alternating light snores filled the ambience within the car. A switched the radio station, turning the volume low. No talk shows were on through the night, and music was soothingly hypnotic. A female jazz singer's voice was hoarse. A stared at the stretch of road ahead outlined by his headlights, ever-so-slightly starting to wonder whether taking this trip was an irresponsibly impulsive move.
When he was seventeen he decided to leave home. There were numerous reasons that drove him into leaving, but he did not enjoy recalling any one of them. He was often thankful that he was able to start over in a new place where no one knew him; no familiar faces, no rolling recollections. If he could stave off having to remember, then even powerful memories could eventually fade in time. He did not remember much about father. Even if he was bad-tempered and prone to occasional abuse, most of the time it was B who braved the belt or stick, while he stood quietly to the side. He thought pain was perhaps the bond between B and father, still a stronger link than what he had with the man. He was never scared of him; he pitied him instead. A man of such caliber and strength succumbing to age, while he himself grew only stronger with time.
Father never spoke much about mother. A felt he didn't hate her, but she made him morose. For a rugged man like his father, open discussion on feelings was not a manly dignified thing to do. One of the only things A learned from him was to talk less, do more.
At seventeen he told B he was moving, leaving everything behind to go to a completely new place. It didn't matter how difficult it would be, he just had to go. He could not erase himself, so he chose to erase his life instead. B did not say anything at the time, and A was too self-absorbed to notice. Later he heard from father that B shortly left, too. In his words: "As soon as you were gone he set fire to everything in your room like a madman. He really is a madman, got that from your mother. There was nothing and no one that kept him in check once you were gone. I was concerned that next time he'll burn down the entire damned house, so I told him to scram. He was gone the next day. Didn't pack anything other than his own self."
By the time A was 27, he was already married for three years and had had their first child. At a banquet one night he met a man who called himself F. They had sex. He really did drink too much that night, to the point that his compulsive conscious mind actually slipped control. Memories poured forth as if freed from a dam, and even he didn't realize he had repressed this much - it was more than enough to crush him. F traced a finger down his spine. "Your body is a piece of work. Have you had men before?"
"No," he lay with his back to him.
"Really? I don't believe you."
"How so?"
"Our kind is usually quite good at identifying others in a crowd. Just like how I found you from next to your wife."
"I'm not like that. I love her."
"You poor thing."
F stepped to the bathroom. A rolled onto his back, covering himself with a thin sheet. The spray of running water across the wall was extraordinarily apparent, as if he had never heard this sound before. Splatter splash the water ran, like how B stuck his thumb into a garden hose when they were eight, droplets drumming against a plastic sheet.
He was reminded of that person.
He and he used to kiss, even greater than this.
Their first real kiss was at that time. B's body was covered in suds, so A sprayed the hose all over him. B took it and sprayed back, and his clothes became thoroughly wet. So B said, "Just strip." Thus they chased each other around the yard, the sun slowly drying moisture off their body. A collapsed under the shade next to the house, and B sneakily followed, his face red from exercise. He ambushed A as he gasped for air, tackling him to the lawn despite protest. A lay unmoving, hushed by the sweet scent of wet earth and grass. He saw dews of sweat precipitate over the blonde peach fuzz of his brother's face, his pupils contracted in the sunlight, his nose wings expanding and deflating in time. B's hands were burning furnaces, while he was cold from evaporation. B felt him and said, "A, you're a block of ice." He pressed his face against his chest, and discovered to his wonderment the presence of that pounding object within his brother, throbbing for escape. B licked a runaway droplet on A's neck, and then backtracked his tongue up its trail to his forehead. Finally, he began licking his mouth, his tongue's dalliance quickly turning into an awkward juvenile kiss, out of curiosity, as if first trying the taste of an unknown fruit.
It was a summer diffused with the green scent of fruit.
A jerked his head. He was surprised by the onslaught of sensory memory from age eight playing in his head, movie-esque. Once slit even a tiny bit, it was like a tender overripe fig, discharging exuberant, bittersweet, milk-white juice.
A liked how B made trouble, liked how he soaked him wet, liked how he licked him as if pulling a prank.
They remained sexually intimate up until age seventeen, up until the first time he heard someone call him a "cocksucking faggot freak".
That night he lay on top of him, B holding his head as he always did while in passion's heat. But this time he pushed him away and lightly whispered, "Don't do that." B stiffened and got up, thinking he wanted to change position. But A refused any further touch or kiss, buttoned up, and moved aside. B looked at him with agonizing vacancy in his eyes, as if asking what he had done wrong.
If he was to rank his worst memories, then this stood undoubtedly at the top of that list.
At that time then A simply could not stop smoking. He did not know how to explain, because even he didn't know what had happened. He had no idea how he and B had come to reach such a point. The difference between them was, B was clearheaded and had always realized, but A was as if stepping out of a delusion for the first time.
A pinched the bridge of his nose. Too much remembrance invariably gave him headaches. He rolled the window open a slit, deeply drawing upon the fresh cold air.
He glanced at the unconscious B, quietly wishing he could turn back to that time. He ought to have told him, everything went wrong because of him - A.
All he had meant to say was to tell him to not be so flirtatious, to tell him to not seduce him so, for he was dangerously arrogant and weak-willed, while he - B - was so very beautiful, ethereal like a fleeing nymph. All he needed was one hint from him, and he would have fallen helplessly in love, dragging his ugly corrupted age-prone death-prone mortal skin sac, hopelessly in love. He wanted him to leave, to get away from him, to find his true love, or to travel free in the world. All of that would suit him better than him, for he was already a beached whale at that age, a last old remnant of an ancient dying tribe. After tasting every right and wrong, all that remained was regret.
Karmic retribution did not come tardy. From that night on, A lost his sleep.
-
"What time is it?"
"You're awake," A jumped.
B pointed toward his window, stretching his body.
"Oh, sorry."
"It's fine," he wiped the fog on his side. "Wanna switch?"
"No need."
"Then at least turn off the headlights."
A noticed only then that it was already light out.
"What were you thinking?"
"Nothing."
"Aren't you sleepy at all? What kind of stimulants were you on?" B yawned.
"I can't fall asleep."
"Always been like that?"
"Yeah."
"Wow, that can't be fun."
"We have food in the trunk," A said as he stopped on the shoulder.
B carried back two bags of toast. "Christ! It's fucking freezing out there."
"It must be below freezing."
"Where'd that whiskey go?"
"Somewhere in the back, probably."
B twisted around, explaining "I need that booze to warm me up" as he groped about.
D was probed awake and half-opened his eyes: "What, trying to rape me while I'm asleep?"
"Oh please. Where's the booze? I'm fucking freezing to death."
"You wouldn't be freezing if you had slept with us," he laughed. "Too bad A had to drive, so you had to sleep alone." In the morning sun B saw they were two still-young boys, not much older than when he left home.
-
[Note: This update gave me serious serious trouble like I've never had before, to the point I missed the deadline for yesterday while I edited.
(Possibly heavily because I wasn't into how long the B/D scene stretched - the only hint in this entire piece that smacks of fanservice instead of staying true to a worthy self-standing story. I faded the three paragraphs that I felt were entirely unnecessary, but incorporated them anyway because it's not in my right to edit the original work.)
Unless some major distraction comes up within the next 24 hours, the full story will wrap up tomorrow. Hell to the fucking yes.]
Part 5
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