Chapter 7
THE TESKEY brOTHERS
I’m mentally not here.
I’m sitting in this armchair,
leg tucked under me, waiting for Ben,
running away from memories that keep chasing me.
Eighteen fucking days,
and he’s still everywhere.
On my skin.
Under it.
Inside me.
In my head.
I can’t escape him.
Color melts over the city at this hour.
A sunset bowing across the horizon—
gold leafed edges, plum, ruby.
The same color red slashed across his jaw from the EXIT sign that night.
The falling sun paints the room,
turns the walls into a confessional,
turns the chair into a pew,
shattering all delusions
and forcing me to kneel before the truth.
I keep my eyes on the view,
convincing myself that the shake in my fingers is from the cold, and that I’m not falling apart without his mouth on my skin.
Focus: sunset, skyline, 613, Ben,
try to outlast the consequence of him.
Ben's approaching the doorway,
his sock-footed steps
almost muted against the marble,
the clatter of his phone in the metal tray.
He’s buzzing, I feel it,
like he’s pacing without moving,
voltage coursing through him,
every cell bouncing on their toes,
itching for the bell to ring,
ready to swing or explode.
He's wearing gray sweatpants, a white tee,
standing with his hands behind his back,
shoulders squared,
head down, eyes up—
the uniform of a Tongue Technician.
I’m looking at Ben, haunted by Andrew.
Convinced that
if I keep Ben’s mouth on my pussy,
it'll cast out the ghost.
If I hand Ben my body like an empty grave,
he'll fill the void with his tongue.
Just as Raymond taught me.
If it hurts, open your legs.
Ruin doesn’t get mourned.
It gets fucked out.
Grief doesn’t get held.
It gets devoured.
When you’re sad—come.
When you’re angry—come.
When you can’t breathe—come.
When it hurts—make it feel good.
Even if it only lasts for twenty seconds.
“Somethin’s off with you,” I say to Ben.
“You know it. I know it.
“Get it out before you explode.”
He lifts his head, handing himself over.
Eyes on me,
throat bare,
ready to be ripped apart.
He opens his mouth,
but only air comes out.
“Come here,” I say,
and he crosses the room,
sinks down to one knee.
I push my fingers through his hair.
“The fuck's goin' on with you?”
He takes my hand.
“I know I got no right. But fuck—”
The words scrape out honest.
He won’t meet my eyes.
He’s vibrating.
“I miss fuckin’ how I want.
“Y’know—straight dick in cunt.
“Hard. Without rules.”
He shakes his head,
trying to hold himself still.
“I’m losing my fuckin’ mind, Baby.”
Convenient timing, now that Brandon's gone and he's the only one left. As if I’m supposed to meet him halfway to keep him from leaving too.
This isn’t a confession, it’s a threat.
The hunger in his voice isn’t a request,
it’s a fucking countdown.
He’s too starved for his own tastes,
for the violence threaded inside the sex.
If I don’t open the cage,
he’s going to break the lock.
Or walk... which terrifies me more.
The violence I can take.
I’ve survived it before.
Just don’t go.
Leaving would kill me, and he knows it.
Pain’s not the villain of my story. Loss is.
“You wanna fuck me?” I laugh—
“No, you wanna fuck me your way?”
I drag my thighs open,
one over each arm of the chair, pussy spread.
“Start with makin’ me come, and we’ll see where I stand.” My fingers slide down the inside of my thigh. “And Ben? Just 'cause B’s gone doesn’t mean my standards left with him. He made me see the whole fuckin’ galaxy, and if you don’t?” I click my tongue. “There won’t be any dick-n-cunt for you.”
He grins against my skin, cocky.
Then his tongue hits quick,
flicking messy
like he’s writing a fucking novel in spit.
“I could eat you ‘til the sun burns out, Baby.”
Ah, yes.
Pure poetry.
Shakespeare who?
He keeps talking to himself,
to me,
to whoever he’s performing for,
moaning between licks,
telling me how good I’m feeling.
I don’t confirm nor deny.
He doesn’t care anyway.
He only wants to hear his own voice.
“Yo, you feel that stutter in my tongue?
“That’s me sayin’ hi to every nerve you forgot you had.”
My clit rolls its eyes.
I grab my AirPods and pop them in.
Volume up.
Reality off.
He’s still talking.
I’m picking a song.
Carly Rae Jepsen. Call Me Maybe.
The strings come in all pluck and bounce.
I drop my head back,
the manic pixie dream song taking over,
the music muting my screaming heart.
If Carly Rae gets a call before I come,
I’ll cut out his tongue and do it myself.
My eyes fall shut,
and I pretend I’m not here anymore.
I take myself anywhere else,
with someone else.
Back in the basement. Type No. 45.
But not the way it happened.
This time, it’s the couch against the wall.
The leather one I never sat in.
I’m sunk into it, dress hiked high,
back sweaty against heat-creased cushions.
The autograph wall is across from me—
black ink, silver streaks, lipstick smears.
And then Andrew.
He's on his knees,
between my thighs,
lifting my dress,
bunching it high around my hips,
mouth catching mine mid-breath—
all open-mouthed,
slow-tongued,
warm and wet.
He guides my knees open,
every kiss rolls in wetter,
softer,
slower,
making me forget where I am…
His hand dips between my thighs,
fingers parting me,
dragging through my soaked slit.
He breathes into me between kisses.
“You get it now, huh?” he whispers into my mouth. “There's no walkin' us off. Too late for that.”
His eyes stay on mine as he pulls away,
mouth wet from our kiss—
hot, swollen—
and he licks me off his lips.
My back hits the leather.
My thighs fall apart.
Everything’s his.
And he lowers, breathing hot.
And I’m fucking pulsing.
Then his tongue drags through my pussy—
wide,
digging deep,
gathering my slick,
leaving a trail of his spit.
Bottom to top. Again. Slower.
I moan into my arm,
bite my skin to stay quiet.
But it doesn’t save me.
My hips rise, chasing his mouth.
“Look at me. C’mon…”
His bottom lip brushes my clit.
“Right here.”
His thumb circles lower,
his mouth hovering as he captures my gaze,
two navy eyes soaking me up,
the color deeper now.
Too deep to crawl out of.
“Eyes on me, Sonny. All of you, on me.”
Then his stare holds me,
tongue sinking back inside.
He licks through me, a slow curl,
then scrapes up my clit in one long drag.
Then again—mouth wetter.
I’m shaking against his lips
as heat's crawling through my hips,
wrapping itself around nerves, muscle, bone.
The sounds leaving me are half gasps,
all broken.
Again.
And again.
My hips lift into him.
But he grabs my waist, pins me still,
sliding his open mouth up the length of me,
and—
I break,
the climax bursting.
Heat floods.
My back arches into him.
The pleasure consumes me,
taking me far away.
Until my spine dissolves.
My breath slips out.
The basement falls out of focus.
Then Room 613 returns in spite of me.
Because none of it’s real.
Not the tongue.
Not the basement.
Not the voice.
Not the eyes.
Not Andrew.
I don’t have to open my eyes to know
I’m back in the penthouse,
with Ben still between my thighs,
still licking as if the orgasm was all for him.
I don’t want to open my eyes.
I know what I’ll see.
But knowing and seeing
aren’t the same thing.
Knowing cuts you,
but seeing pours alcohol over the wound.
And the second I open them,
I lose it all, all over again.
Ben pulls back, grinning.
His mouth is moving.
He’s still fucking talking.
I can’t hear the words.
The music’s too loud.
I pull the AirPods out,
and his voice cuts through.
Music buzzes from one earbud,
the other hitting the floor.
“Yeah. You came hard as fuck.
“Told you I had that tongue game locked.”
He’s looking up at me, waiting for praise.
“You felt that tongue?”
I feel...
I feel…
Sick.
“I—”
I close my thighs.
My heart’s slamming,
pissed, conned, and confused.
I drag my hand over my face,
covering my mouth even though Andrew never touched it.
When I stand, the ground tilts,
forgetting it’s supposed to hold me.
I came for Andrew.
The wet between my legs is still warm,
Ben,
and wrong.
And now?
I can’t be near Ben without wanting to unzip my skin and step out of it.
I walk—
no—
stumble—
into the bathroom,
door slamming shut behind me.
There's no time to lock it.
I'm falling to my knees, vomiting,
then dry heaving,
the acid in my throat more honest than the orgasm ever was.
My hands tremble across the tile,
my knees burning,
hair stuck to my face, my mouth.
I don’t usually puke after a clit lick.
That kind of sickness is reserved for after they’re inside me.
When I’m just a body, a hole, and nothing else.
This is all wrong.
I wipe my mouth, flush the toilet, run the sink,
splashing water on my face to erase Andrew.
It doesn’t work.
He's all I fucking see.
// 8:46 PM - EAST VILLAGE, NYC //
I’ve got graves in my head.
Men I've survived.
I buried them six feet deep.
Headstones labeled: Do Not Revisit.
They stay quiet,
until fear and anxiety grab a shovel
and let the memories crawl out when I’m weakest.
Or drunk.
Or needing punishment.
They’re not people anymore,
but bad echoes of my past.
But Andrew’s grave is carved into my chest,
and it’s empty.
He refuses to die in me,
has been throwing dirt at me since that night.
I kept telling myself it was a dream.
I’m also a fucking liar
who keeps truths in my lungs
so I choke before I confess.
Though I’m not too far gone to believe he wasn’t real.
I only wanted to smother reality until it died.
But it didn’t.
That night happened.
He happened.
The hands,
the kiss,
the whispers,
the fucking breathing,
how he felt in my hands.
It’s 8:47—again.
And my heart does that thing—again.
When the minute clicks over,
and it slams—again.
Every fucking day for the last eighteen.
This time,
I feel it on the sidewalk on the way to Type.
That stupid place, pulling me—again.
Because it hates me. It wants to punish me.
But—
Okay, okay. Fine.
That was a lie.
I’m not being pulled.
I’m choosing to go this time.
Willingly.
Stupidly.
Because I hate me.
I want to punish me.
Because I don’t want to forget anymore.
I want to remember.
I want to feel it.
Again.
Headlights pass by as I walk,
every beam bright and brief,
like strangers undressing my face.
I drop my head,
kicking half-dead leaves against the curb—
burnt-yellow, blood-red, sidewalk-brown.
It’s mid-sixties,
wind sweeping down alleyways.
I'm wearing my vintage trench,
a thin black turtleneck,
my faded gray don't-fuck-with-me jeans.
If I look dangerous, I’ll stop feeling weak.
It’s a thirty minute walk to Type.
On the way, another set of footsteps sync with mine for too long.
I tell myself it’s paranoia, or city shit.
Hunter’s locked up.
He can’t follow me anymore.
I turn to be sure, but he's not there.
I stop in the park anyway
to smoke a cigarette. Then another.
Because men don’t fuck with a woman holding a cigarette.
Ten minutes later,
I'm turning the street corner, and—
There it is—
same dumb building,
same haunted brick—
Type No. 45 stamped across the window,
proud of what it did to me.
I look both ways before crossing the street.
And then—
Andrew.
“Oh, shit.”
He’s there.
In the window.
He’s fucking there.
In the fucking window.
I flinch so hard, I stumble across flat concrete,
almost twisting my ankle.
I glance around, checking if anyone saw.
Then—
no time to care.
I need to take cover—
Where do I go—
There.
I dart sideways into a shadowed entryway,
heartbeat stuffed in my ears,
hands shaking,
a wildfire burning across my skin.
Don’t look.
Don’t look.
Don’t—
I look.
And there he is,
at the table in the corner
with everything.
His mouth. Hands. Ears. Hair. Legs. Elbows.
He’s all there.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
Now I can’t unsee him.
Can’t uncome here.
Can’t unmove.
Can’t unbreathe.
I press my back against the shadow and stare at brick.
What the fuck is he doing here?
At this public place?
I forget my eyes are wide
until the cold burns them.
I blink.
Not only my eyes, but my heart blinks.
My lungs blink.
Everything blinks.
Then—slowly—I look again,
peeking around the corner.
He’s holding coffee to his mouth,
not drinking,
lost, thinking, dazing, somewhere else.
I lean my shoulder into the brick.
It holds me the way I wish he would.
A black button-up shirt's rolled halfway up his arms,
a tie undone and hanging around his neck.
One knee's bent and bouncing,
the other's stretched out.
And he looks...
Gorgeous.
And wrecked.
And exhausted.
And he's sitting there with—
Two coffees.
I freeze.
Two?
Not one. Two.
And my brain blanks,
unable to remember how to think or swallow.
My stomach turns inside out.
He’s with someone.
Because why the fuck wouldn’t he be?
I was the one who left.
I’m the one who always leaves.
And now I’m the one standing outside,
cold, cracked, nauseous.
I slip the pack of cigs out of my coat pocket and light another one.
I should’ve stayed home.
When I exhale, my breath is shaky.
My throat closes up.
My eyes burn.
He goes blurry.
I blink again—
once, twice—
shaking the tear from my eye.
It's watering because of the cold.
The wind.
The smoke.
Not because of whatever the hell is happening in my chest.
I press my thumb under my eye as if I’m fixing mascara,
refusing to let anything fall from my lashes.
In the distance,
a siren yawns instead of screams—
a classic New York lullaby.
I can’t move,
so I melt into the dark and watch him.
Three cigarettes. Four. I don’t know anymore.
There’s a pile of butts and ash on the recessed ledge next to me.
Every now and then, he leans back,
then sits up,
then drops both elbows on the table,
then wipes a palm down his face,
then leans back again.
His fingertip draws lazy circles on the rim of one of the coffees.
He doesn’t scroll through his phone.
No one ever shows.
He’s waiting. Alone.
And then he looks out the window.
Not directly at me,
but close enough I stop breathing.
His shoulders tense,
his arm crosses his body
and clutches his bicep,
holding himself together.
I don’t move. He doesn’t move.
Then we breathe.
Inhale, together.
Exhale, together.
At the same time, 'cause he still has me.
And I know it’s stupid,
but I swear he feels me.
Like something in him knows I’m watching.
My breath's still in his hands.
My pulse's still trapped under his touch.
Like he knows I’m close.
And I am.
Just outside,
smoking it all down
with the street between us.
The one I'm not crossing.