WICKED BOY (28) (Patreon)

(THIS CHAPTER IS 3000 WORDS AHHHH. It took me six days to write so if you don’t like it don’t tell me or I’ll cry 🥲)

(FYI:  so I don’t scare anyone, Ez is NOT manipulating Milan.  Milan DOES need therapy but he’s a stubborn little shit.   We’ll go into this more as the series progresses.)

—

I'm riding on a motorcycle for the first time, in a place more green and lush than grey concrete, with a man more stranger than a friend. A shark is what his sister calls him.  A hedonist.  A playboy. A thief.  And my arms are wound tightly around his waist.

I lay my head against his shoulders, in the center of his arching bat.  I tell myself I wouldn't do this if the wind weren't so loud, if I could hear my heart thundering or settle my thoughts.  Maybe this action, under any other circumstance and any other sky, would scare me.

But then — what have I got to lose?

What have I ever had? I'm digging through every piece and part of me, and I'm coming up empty.  I'm tired, embarrassed, and something within me feels like a rag that's been twisted dry.  It's too late to tell him to turn around, so...

I hold on.

'I could be your new Lucas...

Then you wouldn't be so lonely.'

There are trees, trees, and more trees. They're overgrown and swooping into the road despite the chill, leaves so dark of green that they're lost without street lights. Birds disrupt and scatter from them, twittering alongside lonely katydid calls and cricket croaks.

The moon is obscenely large — the stars are easy to see.

I'm good company.

That's what I need. Company. Not another unhealthy, one-sided dependency built on a series of friendly gestures — or a man, from a background without privilege, who will watch me crumble until he can no longer stand my silver spoon.

Of course, if I lose my footing, this will end badly.

But if I accept it for what it is, a paid — honest company, a dumping ground for my unspoken sadness, maybe it won't. I can't twist it into something romantic, something like butterflies and heart flutters. I squeeze my eyes shut.

Of course — it will end badly.

"Hey.  It's gonna get pretty fuckin' bumpy," Ez calls back to me, and I nod, fingers curling inside of his jacket. The paved Huxley road turns to a dirt path on an effortless turn. Ez slows with each twist and dip of road and easily bypasses gathered water in his direction like he's memorized the nuisance of them.

We pass over a creek too modest to hear by means of a small, shabby bridge. There's no graffiti across its mortar underlay, unlike the edges of any Pennbrook overpass, just rocks, and water, a few tree-branches caught in the shallow waters. We've entered something quiet in Huxley, something untouched and hidden away.

There are no signs, or landmarks, or welcomings sprawled across metal: just sunken fences and abandoned farmhouses, the scent of dew and spring grass that's uncut and dominating the area around us. I find myself staring, regardless, more taken than I have been by any monument or cityscape.

The houses become too far back from the road to see clearly, few and far between, with winding rock and dirt driveways and lit porch lights. There are silhouettes of people on their verandas in pull out chairs, the smell of food, an older man burning a trash pile, and someone waves shortly from their porch swing as we pass.

"Do you know them?" I question - like this is a movie with a familiarity I longed for in childhood, like everyone in Huxley somehow sits inside the other's heart. The scene I imagined, the first night at the rest stop, of breakfast and family and gaudy eyelet curtains.

"They're waving." I tack on. The sound of my voice carries easily, though it's scratchy and sticky in my throat. It's much quieter here, and Ez doesn't drive nearly as fast.

"'Course.  I know everybody."  The man in front of me scoffs.  He doesn't sound too thrilled by it — but there's a soft fluctuation of affection, of sincerity in his voice. I feel him shift beneath my hands, the muscle of his stomach firm. He holds one arm out, though there's no one to warn of his impending turn, and slows further.

"Really?"  I say.  I'm awestruck by it.  I want to hear him speak that way again — with fondness and intimacy.  I don't think I ask it loud enough.  When he's silent, I'm sure I haven't.

—

Ez's driveway is tidy enough at first, with a neatly trimmed lawn and a singular chalky-white mailbox that corrodes at its edges.  Then, as we pass the trees and work into the clearing ahead, there are pieces and components of cars and scrap metal near a garden shed, a makeshift workbench, and lawn chairs around the remnants of a bonfire.

Ez's home holds an absurd dissimilarity to him.  It's brick, and where it isn't, it's white.  There's an enclosed porch with a screen, a porch swing like so many houses before it — an old, floral-themed couch adjacent to it.  The porch-light flicks out when we park, humming.  Moths flood underneath it, casting shadows against the concrete.

He has eyelet curtains.

"So..."

The lights of Ez's motorcycle bounce off his front door until they don't, until he props out the kickstand of his bike.

"You wanna' tell me why you were cryin'?"

I inhale. I glance towards an old transmission, weathered and useless.

Can I?

I open my mouth.  I find, like every time I've tried to before, I can't pinpoint the source of my sadness.

"I thought you lived at — at the rest stop."  I unlatch my helmet before he does. I feel strange at the idea of him taking it from me a second time.  I feel my walls trying to climb into place. I'm trying not to separate him from the man under dying neon-lights, snake-like eyes, a cigarette in hand, with his sneer and quiet laugh.

"...That a question?"  Ez chuckles again as he removes his helmet, the shadows of his dimples the first thing that catches my eyes. His sharp gaze shifts to me, and suddenly my heart is very much alive. "You not wanna' answer mine?"

"You called it your bedroom."

Ez shrugs.

"Every Goule needs a room. It's got a bed." He's dismissive at best, his eyes narrowing.  Something is unnerving about the way that his voice never fails in its resolve, how it pares like a blade, unwavering. "Now, answer my question."

There's a lump in my throat.  I try to pin him back into place. A Goule. He's nothing more to me — nothing less, and my heart shouldn't swell just because his curiosity is oddly analogous to caring.

"For what?" I continue, and Ez grits his teeth.  That strange expression that scratches beneath his calm demeanor is there again. He swings one leg over his motorcycle. I follow him, though not as gracefully. "Why do you need a room?"

"... Ain't you innocent?" He's lighting a cigarette. I watch him pull it between his lips, the cherry lighting fragments of his face. The moths flutter around the light behind him. I wonder if we're the same. "... I'm an escort. Why do ya' think I need a room?"

"Well. I'm... A client, too.  Shouldn't we be there, and not here?"

Ez tilts his head. His playful attraction — at times, seems much too real. He hums. He takes a step forward, and my feet feel weighted into the dirt. I try to hold his gaze, to see past the flirtatious uptick, but I melt underneath it.

"Let me rephrase."  I inhale.  "We're here — and not there. Why?"

"Mm." Ez's cigarette burns forgotten at his side, trapped between his fingers. His interest is smoldering alongside it, and heat creeps through my fingers, through the tips of my ears. "Bothered? 'Cause I have a perfectly good bed inside."

"That's not what I mean." My cheeks flush. "And. I told you that you don't need to flirt with me.  We've been over that."

"And I told you," Ez exhales, snide as ever, smile lazy. He glances towards the sky, and I can't help but chase his line of sight. "That I'm gonna be honest.  So I'll do what I wanna do."

He pulls the zipper of his coat down, and it catches at the edge, separates with a quick yank to the fabric.

"You said — you said that you don't do that." My nose wrinkles. "The bed?  You said you don't sleep with clients."

"I said I'm not a prostitute. I said that you couldn't pay me to fuck ya'." He's considering, flicks his cigarette, and watches the embers drop. His inquisitive regard chases the length of me. "Is this how you distract yourself - lookin' for half-truths?"

"... Distract myself?"

"When somethin' is botherin' ya'?" Ez's sly eyes are shifting towards me again, and I narrow mine. The way he can read these subtle parts — or how I become open, pliable, putty in his hands, is strange.

"Does it bother you?" I stare. It feels cold. Something in Ez seems to flicker to life with it. "That I can't answer your question?"

He smirks, but there's no humor to it.

"I think it bothers ya' a lil more."

A moment passes. Ez leans back against the wall of his home, studying me quietly. I let him — until I don't.  Until I can't.

"... How long have you lived in this house?"

"That's another fuckin' question about me, sweetheart." Ez is butting out his cigarette. He reaches, plastic rustling, and covers his motorcycle with a pale grey tarp. I chew the inside of my lip, uncomfortable. "Wanna talk about you?"

Finally, I exhale. I can't meet his eyes, and my hands shake at my side.

"I really don't know what I'm doing," I admit. "I mean.  You said I could be as ugly as I wanted until the money runs out. But — I've already been ugly."

"When?"

"Every time — every time I run into you somehow, that's it.  That's how you see me.  I'm a mess — crying.  I'm drunk.  I don't usually cry.  I'm —"

Ez scoffs, cutting through my rambling.

"Bullshit."  He sneers.  My eyes roam the shift of his expression.  "There's nothin' ugly about it."

There's an attraction that blooms more forcefully.  I want to ignore it.  I can't.  The tension between us quiets into something more comfortable.

After a minute, I'm able to meet his eyes.

"About eight years." Ez answers. His stare follows. "That's how long I've had the house.  I put a down payment on it when I was twenty.  Now I'm attached."

"I like it," I say, too hurriedly. Desperate to connect.  I blink. I do like it. But why did I say that? "Your house. It looks like — it looks like a movie.  And your yard is huge."

Ez's brows gather.

"I mean. Like the neighborhood and your porch..."

"Yeah?  Why do ya' like that?" Ez counters. "...That it looks like a movie?"

I blink, and glance towards his front window.  They look like the light would flood them with warmth.  His curtains allow it to pass, sheer and white.

"I like the curtains."

He softens.

"Why don't ya' buy them?"

"It's not..."  I chew my lip. They don't suit me.  I'd take something warm and taint it with a bad memory.  This home, and Huxley, and everything I crave.  It'll never suit me.  "It's not the same."

Ez nods.  It's not that he agrees or doesn't agree.  He just nods.

"...What do you do for work. Insurance?"

"Ah."  I scratch my arm. My awkward passion falls away.  "... I'm an actuary."

"Hmm."  Ez ascends the three concrete stairs to his front porch. I follow, sparing a glance behind us.  "And you just road on a motorcycle? Knowin' the statistics?"

I laugh mildly, and Ez is staring again.

"What's funny?"

"I feel like no one ever knows what an actuary is." I shrug. "I mean — outside of the insurance companies... Ah.  But.  Could we not talk about my job?"

"Thought ya' wanted to tell me things.  You're not tellin' me much."  There's no heat to his tone.  It's just an observation. "You not like your job or somethin'?"

"I don't."   The porch enclosure is floored with cement and a rough carpet; there's a chalkboard hung low with little sketches—a plastic container of bubbles. Ez unlocks his front door, and the lump in my throat feels like it's going to choke me.

"Then why don't ya' quit?"

My chest heaves.

"I can't."

Ez chuckles, mean and strict.

"Sure ya' can."  He hums.  "So why don't ya'?  Ya' like the money?"

"I hate the money."

My tone changes.  Something in my voice cracks.

Ez turns at that.  We're face to face, in the entryway of his home, a welcome mat beneath my feet.  His head tilts.  He waits, and I start — I stop.  I swallow down each soft noise that threatens to spill.  Every secret that wants to pull free.

"I thought I could leave and,"  I roll my hands over the edge of my sweater, interlace my fingers, pull them apart again.  "I did, for a bit.  Or. Thought I did."

Ez is staring at my hands.   There's the same quiet, calculating calmness to him as there was months ago.

"How can ya' think you've left a job but haven't?"

"Because I still needed — I still needed money."  I'm laughing at the notion.  My eyes feel warm again.  "Because — I needed my silver spoon and the expectations that come with it.  The friends.  I don't know how to live without it.  And I'm afraid — if I don't have it.  I just won't."

I can't look at Ez.  He's silent.

Then he asks,

"Live?"

It's much quieter than anything so far.  I'm crying again.  It's so embarrassing — that I'm always crying in front of Ez.  I'm standing in his home.  I'm tainting it with an ugly memory.

"I don't know what I want; it's just — I... On the motorcycle. I don't know." I rub my hands over my thighs. I adjust my glasses. "I thought my night was fine.  I'm just like this."

"Is it touch?  Did I fuck up somewhere?"  Ez doesn't turn his back to me but toes his shoes off in the foyer. "Is it 'cause you had to hold on? I need to know these things."

"It is — but it isn't. I don't know." I huff, frustrated. My cheeks feel hot. I stare at my feet, my fists balled at my sides. "There was... but I don't know."

"Do you hate bein' touched?"

"I haven't ever been touched in a way I haven't hated," I say back, but my chest shudders with the next inhale, and Ez's jaw sets again. I glance back towards the carpet.  "But.  If I tell someone that...  They could use it to hurt me."

"Why do ya' say that like it's your fault?"  Ez's voice is soft — there's no way it's soft, I want to say.  But it is.

"Ah — But, um, you.  On the motorcycle,"  I swallow.  I close my eyes.  I say this is where I put my sadness.  "If the touch doesn't hurt, I get confused.  I feel desperate.  I mix things up.  It's stupid."

Ez doesn't say anything for a long time.  He doesn't say anything, and all I can hear are the crickets singing outside.  I look up — finally, only to be sure that he hasn't left.  The porch light runs through his window, up his thigh, over his chest, and the right side of his face.

"Did ya' mix things up?"  His tone is indecipherable.  I hate that I can't read him.  "...With me?"

"... I can call a cab."  I whisper, "I don't know — I don't know why I said all of that.  I — maybe I'm not..."  I laugh, in the most depreciating way, "Ah.  Tamela's right.  I don't think I'm cut out for this."

Ez's expression is as shielded as ever, and my eyes flit over his features, digging for an ounce of malice.  I can't find a single thing I recognize.

"Ez?"

"Can I touch ya'?"  He asks.  "Say no, if ya' wanna say anything but yes."

I nod, but immediately I avert my eyes.

"Yes."  I don't think I can look at him when he asks something like that, when he sounds so gentle saying it.  His socks are black.  He's quiet, and I wouldn't know he was approaching if my eyes were closed.  But I can't close them.

I feel his fingers first, how they slide past the trimmed hair above my ears, how his palms cup my chilled cheeks.  His thumbs, boyishly arched and rough, press under the lens of my glasses, swiping the warmth of tears away.  He takes another step, and my chest presses against the bottom of his.

My heart is a bee in a jar.

"Can I keep goin'?"

I inhale.

"Yes."

His hand winds into my hair, and he pulls me forward.  My nose presses against his collarbone, my cheek against his skin, and he's warm and smells like cedar, like earth and spice and gasoline.  And then his arms are around me, strong, and I feel myself shift into him, startled — still.

And he stands like that, hugs me tighter when I loosen in his hold.  And I let him.

I'm bitter on my best day, cold and empty — on my worst.  His arms encircle me.

--

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