6. Harley
Harley
Iwake up to the God-awful sounds of thumping and cursing in the hall outside my apartment.
I sit up and groan, my head pounding. My jaw aches.
What stupid shit did I get up to last night?
I touch my jaw carefully. No swelling, just that blow-job kind of sore, then.
What isn’t clear is why the fuck someone is bouncing bowling balls in the goddamned hallway.
Struggling to sit up and keep my head from exploding while I do so, I cradle my skull carefully and gulp against the nausea swirling in my stomach. Too much alcohol, too few poppers, I figure. Guilt tries to slap at me but I ignore it. I’m coping the only way I can.
“God, would you stop it?” I whimper when another loud thud sounds from outside my door.
I stand then yelp. A certain part of me is stuck to the inside of my boxers, or had been. Apparently I came sometime—probably in my sleep. The fact that I shot a load at all makes me kind of dizzy. I haven’t had an erection since before—well, just before.
“Mighta just ripped off my dick,” I mumble.
I let go of my head long enough to unfasten my pants and take a peek down there.
“Looks okay.” I dab at the spunk on my skin and in my pubes.
Some of it is still not fully dried. “Like it matters.” I glare at my traitorous dick.
That part of me hasn’t worked for weeks, and I don’t give a shit if it never works, or at least, I hadn’t.
But for it to work when I’m not aware of it just seems cruel, no matter how much I’ve decided I don’t care. “Bastard.”
I shove my pants and boxers down, grunting when I have another couple of uncomfortable pulls, then kick my clothes aside.
I’m already shirtless, so I stand nude in the living room.
Sunlight pours in the long windows of the wall facing west. It’s probably late afternoon.
Hard to tell, what with me being hungover and all.
A hot shower would help, though, then I need to decide where to go tonight.
Staying in isn’t an option.
I haven’t managed to spend a night here yet, nice as it is. And I’ve not stepped into the bedroom at all. There’s a nice guest bedroom now, something I didn’t have before, but I avoid that as well.
The bathroom has somehow moved twice as far away as it was yesterday, I’m sure of it. It has nothing to do with my aching head and jaw and—well, I reach behind myself and touch my ass, then my hole. Nothing tender there, and I’m relieved and mad about that at the same time.
“And I am done thinking about it already,” I snarl, then immediately regret the emphasis I place on the words. I whimper and enter the bathroom.
Yet again, I avoid glancing at the mirror.
No doubt I look like death warmed over, and that would be an improvement from how I feel.
I do grab the toothpaste and squirt some right into my mouth, because, ugh, that’s just nasty in there.
Gingerly brushing my teeth, I lean over and start the shower.
The room tilts and I gasp, choking on toothpaste as I flap my arms, trying to keep from falling.
I end up slamming against the toilet, my ribs going bright hot with pain while I cough and cough, splattering paste everywhere.
Then I sit there, halfway on the floor, an arm over the toilet seat, and wonder if I have a punctured lung or something, because damn I hurt.
“Such a pussy.”
I close my eyes then jerk them back open. Bad idea.
I pull and shove until I’m on my feet, then very carefully make my way into the shower. It dawns on me that I had my toothbrush in hand minutes ago, and now I don’t. Oh well, I’ll just buy a new one. The other must have fallen somewhere, behind the toilet most likely.
The dual shower heads batter my worn-out body with hard, stinging spits of water.
I turn my aching side to it, hissing and leaking a few tears when the pain shoots out from my ribs.
I deserve it, every bit of the pain. I went out again, blew whoever I could in whatever club I was in.
The only way I can get through that is with copious amounts of alcohol.
It makes me feel ill, dropping to my knees for some stranger, but being alone throughout the night is unbearable.
I know I’m not going to find a guy who’ll just chat with me for hours to pass the time. At least, not at the bars I go to.
But old habits die hard, and even though I feel a strange sense of betrayal over sucking some random guy off, I don’t know what else to do to alleviate my fear and loneliness.
A part of me is aware I’m probably only making it worse, yet I can’t seem to stop.
So I go out, hook up. Get drunk, use the drugs handed to me.
Do I have a death wish? I don’t think so, but I can’t see what use I am.
I can’t even get fucked, can’t stand to.
I grab the shower gel and pour it right into my palm. I slather it over my arms and chest, ignoring the sharp protuberances where my bones seem to want to tear right through my skin. Always thin, I’m now well past that and into gaunt. I know it, and figure I’m lucky anyone messes with me at all.
I stop mid-scrub, a shocking thought coming to me.
If I look sick, who would take a chance on me but someone else who’s ill?
Did I use condoms? Did I insist on that?
I’ve never worried as much about blow jobs as I should have because the stats are low, but I haven’t gone out sucking cock like I have the past few nights, either.
Jesus, I’m a fucking idiot.
I mechanically scrub myself clean, then scrub again, harder, this time with a cloth that feels like it’s made of sandpaper.
My skin stings and turns pink and even bleeds in a couple of places, but I don’t care.
I feel dirty, inside and out, and have since Dobson laid his hand on my throat and called me a filthy whore.
Why didn’t I remember that before now?
“Because I don’t want to fucking remember any of it!” I throw the rag then ball up one hand into a fist and hit the tile wall. “Ouch! Fuck! Ouch! God! Ow!” I shake my hand and curse some more until my knuckles stop throbbing so badly.
Then I look at my hand. “What is wrong with me?”
Inspecting it, I figure I’ll have some bruising to go along with the little scrapes on my knuckles, but nothing worse, which is a damned good thing. It’s not like I have health insurance, and with the way I’ve been so careless the last few nights, I don’t want to risk exposing anyone to anything.
I need to get tested, then do it again, and again and as many times as it takes to know if I’m healthy or not. Or I can just keep doing what I’m doing, and I’ll die soon enough, won’t I? Probably not even from any disease. I’ll OD or someone’ll just kill me. Is that what I want?
“I don’t know. I don’t know.”
I wash my hand and try not to think, but I can’t shut my brain off this time.
I don’t think I want to die, but I feel useless, worthless, and angry—no, more than angry.
There’s a rage building inside me, growing every day.
It started there in my bedroom and grew around the fear, the hurt, the abuse—at Dobson’s hands and my own.
It has the power to destroy me if I let it, and I’m not sure I’d fight against that end. Don’t know if I have the strength to.
Don’t know if I’m worth the effort.
“Stop feeling sorry for yourself.”
I’m getting sick of it, of hating myself for not being man enough to fight off Dobson that night, or any of the lackeys he let torment me.
Granted, I never had the highest self-esteem.
I barely scraped through high school and was lucky to work at the gas station, but I didn’t loathe myself like I do now.
I force myself to look in the mirror. I deserve the dark bags under my eyes, but the fact is, despite those, I’m probably more attractive to a certain sort of man than ever.
I look young, fragile, almost model-esque, though I’d never judge myself that handsome.
Still, the thinness accentuates the sharp blades of my cheekbones and makes my eyes seem even bigger, my lips fuller.
With some photo touch-ups, I wouldn’t be so bad.
The green tint to my skin is icky, though.
I quit looking at my face. My chest is scrawny, my arms toothpicks, my dick flaccid. At least I still have a little bubble to my butt, nothing like it used to be, and not that it really matters.
My eyes light on my knuckles and I sigh before toweling off sloppily.
There is, unsurprisingly, a first-aid kit in the cabinet.
Since everything I need except self-esteem has been stocked in the apartment, I figured the kit would be there.
I didn’t have one before, but it’s neat, filled with just about everything someone would need in an emergency short of an actual doctor.
I take out a packaged antiseptic wipe and tear it open.
There’s a mild sting as I go over my knuckles but nothing too bad.
After tossing the wipe, I close the kit and put it away.
My stomach rumbles and I try to remember the last time I ate properly.
Probably, if I don’t include some snack when I just had to eat or fall over from hunger, then it would’ve been sometime when I was with the shifters.
Cooking is too much effort and anyway, I’m nowhere close to being a chef.
Mac and cheese, I can manage, but even that, one of my main comfort foods, sounds unappealing.
Besides, it’ll be dark in a couple of hours, and I need to decide what I’m going to do.
I avert my gaze from the bedroom as I pass it.
The living room isn’t quite so pretty now, with my laundry piling up in one corner and the bags of new clothes I bought in another.
I shrug. I wasn’t willing to check for clothes in the bedrooms, so I’ll just deal with the mess.
Rationally, I know I can’t keep avoiding the bedroom. Or maybe I can. As long as I do laundry and fold my clothes, maybe buy a nice cabinet or something to store them in, what does it matter if I live in the living room?
A check of the time makes me groan. That creepy feeling is trying to come back, the one that makes me want to curl up on the floor and totally lose my shit like I did the first day I returned. Every night, I flee from it, and tonight won’t be any different.
Except maybe I’ll stop and buy condoms this time. Flavored ones, because latex tastes nasty. No lube, because none of those things are going near my ass. I can let men use my mouth, but that’s it.
The hard part’ll be staying sober enough to remember that.
“Fucking idiot.”
I dig through the bags until I find tight black pants with silver stitching and a shiny silver long-sleeved shirt.
That’ll do for tonight. I check myself in the mirror as well as I can.
Maybe I need a full-length mirror. I tousle my hair, not overly concerned with it.
I could style it all nice and everything, but ten minutes of dancing and I’d have product running into my eyes, so why bother.
My right hand aches slightly and my ribs are tender, but I decide to skip the ibuprofen. I don’t know what I ingested the last few nights and don’t want to risk having my liver or kidneys shrivel up inside me.
“Stupid to be afraid of that, considering,” I tell myself.
I force my gaze to stay on the mirror. “Tomorrow, you’ll go get tested somewhere. Tonight, you won’t get so stoned you suck any and every guy around. And no condom, no sucking. Remember that.” I point at myself for emphasis and scoff as I turn away from my reflection.
I shouldn’t go out at all, but I am. I can’t stay in the apartment, and anyway, I’m already contaminated by Dobson and his men. No amount of cleaning myself will remove the filth they left in me.
I make sure I have my wallet and keys, then leave, locking my door behind me and silently thanking God I don’t meet the new neighbor in the hallway.