There wasn’t anyone around.Spook had no idea what time it was, well into the next day, he suspected.Also, they were in a metal box.Who was going to eavesdrop?“Have you never wanted to wrap somebody around you like that?”
Xane cosied up tight to him as the lift doors opened and spat them out onto lushly carpeted hallway.“Kind of.Not quite so literally.I’m guessing you’ve minimal experience with hair caught in intimate places.It feels like bleedin’ razor wire.Seriously knacks.”
“It’s just an image… fantasy.”
“I know.We’re right in here.”He guided Spook around a corner to a door guarded by a grinning lion.Spook leaned against the wall as he waited for Xane to charm the beast.“What were you talking about earlier when you were speaking to her?”
Spook crooked his head to one side.Boy did it feel heavy.Also, his throat hurt.“She wanted to wank… She wanted me to wank, so she could hear how turned on she gets me.”
“Was that an admission of lust?”Xane’s cheeks lifted as he smiled.Sphinx appeased, the suite door opened.
“Never said I didn’t fancy her.”Spook walked past Xane to enter.“Just can’t act on it.I can’t fall down that rabbit hole.”He nearly toppled into the thick pile of the carpet.
“Why not?”Xane caught him by the waistband, preventing him from squashing his nose.He kicked the door closed behind them.Various standing lamps flickered into light, casting orange glows over the grandiose old furniture.
“You know why.”
“Tell me again anyway.”
“Your sofa really needs to be closer to the door.”He didn’t remember this apartment being so diabolically large.Although last time he’d been here, so had the rest of the band, Xane, Ash, Paul… Elspeth, Steve.There was a gilt-framed picture of Xane and Steve sitting on the sideboard.Xane turned him away from it and guided him toward the severely upholstered sofa with its ostentatious golden legs.
“What’s so bad that you can’t allow yourself to be around a woman you clearly want to spend time with?”
Xane didn’t need him to explain.He knew.
“Spook?”
“I want to hurt her,” he heard himself say.
Xane bent down on his knees beside him.One hand clasped Spook’s shoulder, the other landed on his knee.“No you don’t,” he insisted, making painful eye contact.“Not really.”
“You can’t see what’s in my head.”
“No, but I know what’s in here.”Xane’s long fingers grazed the button over his breastbone.“You’ve a good heart.You’re a decent man.You’re no monster, Spook.There’s nothing more inherently evil about you than there is the rest of us.”
The rest of the human race hadn’t done what he had.They didn’t crave the same things.“Cruelty and kindness aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“I know that,” his friend replied.Xane got back onto his feet.He left the room, only to return a second later carrying an assortment of objects that he arranged on the stupidly shiny table.
Spook didn’t want to see himself grotesquely reflected in the wood.He couldn’t bear to see himself at all.Therefore, he turned so that his knees were pointing towards the window, and he was no longer looking at Xane.
The latter grasped his hand, but instead of insisting on his discomfort, he merely turned Spook’s palm up and inspected the freshly scabbed wounds there.
“Looks like it’s fairly clean.Probably best to leave it to heal, than go poking at it again.”
“I don’t just want to fuck her, Xane.”
He didn’t comprehend why he was staying this stuff aloud, but the thoughts were there in his head.Had been for so long now.
“Nor just warm her arse with a few slaps.I want to leave bruises behind.Big thick ugly bruises, and scrapes and criss-crossed lines, and bite marks and carpet burns.”
For some unfathomable reason, Xane didn’t call him a cunt, but remained on his knees, listening.He even gave Spook’s hand a squeeze.“The way I understand it, that’s what she wants too.”
“She’s just a teeny bit kinky.”Spook estimated about two inches with his forefinger and thumb.“She thinks she wants it, but she probably doesn’t.Not in the way I…” He lost his train of thought.His head had been full of rocks earlier, now it was full of feathers, with sharp pointy ends that kept digging into the backs of his eyes.“I’m like this much in comparison.”He stretched both arms out wide.“But that’s not even the biggest thing.”
Xane moved onto the sofa beside him, and began pouring things into the vessels he’d lined up on the table.
“’Cause I can hear her.”He twiddled a finger around near his ear.“In my head.Screaming.Begging me.I don’t know if she wants more or if she wants me to stop.I don’t know if she knows.Does she know where her limits are?Would she stop me?I don’t know if I’d stop.”
