Lovers & Devils [BxB]

Puppy love

      Beware of the dog. Usually, that sign tickled a cackle out of me, but now that I knew the significance, I sort of respected it. Black and eggshell white with a plastic sparkle, like clingfilm, nailed to a rich mahogany door on course of a patchily painted black wall. Ceiling roller painted black too, it was like a vortex tunnel. I admired the unblended passionate strokes of reddish-brown. It was a telltale sign that it was his room. Mammon must have been well liked to have his own den. I fetched a breath with some assurance, and knocked on the wood with the back of my hand.

"Come in!" he yelled.

I didn't know why I felt shy, the nervous flutter resulted a churn of my stomach. I stared at my distorted reflection on the subfusc hinge, hand frozen as if it was the sword of Perseus. Anything could happen, but I had to go with my core—like that strange man advised. I pushed the cold hinge down, more timid than I liked.
Mammon was rousting the large duffel bag that rustled on the pirate-plank bench running down the middle of the speckled floor, the legs like grey toiler plungers. A white towel draped over his shoulder, and that was when I detected the door at the right, fronting a set of boxing equipment. It must be the bathroom.

"I'm not sure if I should congratulate you...or bark." I smiled gawky and drifted in his direction. Bad joke, Luka.

He scoffed and rooted around in the bag harder. "You shouldn't have come here."

Ouch. I stopped near the middle of the bench, the milky boxing gloves spying me unable to deliver a punch like that. "I can...go."

God, I sounded so weak.

"No, fuck." He rubbed his face in annoyance and swiped his tousled sooty hair sideways. "You shouldn't have come here at all!"

I glanced at the washed wood lockers with black telephone-esque keypads like they would be on my side, but they were behind him. "Yeah. I probably...shouldn't have. I threw you off but that wasn't my intention."

Mammon gnashed his teeth, throwing down the duffel bag flap. There was light bruising on his nose from the head-butt. I could only focus on that, how much I wanted to pat it away as if pink dust. "Then what fucking was, huh? You come to my damn fight when I didn' fucking invite you."

"I wanted to see your last fight."

"Don' fucking say it like you have the right. After all that—"

I was a fool if I thought talking it out could work, but I was a bigger fool thinking this would work. I puffed my chest, legs eating up the distance betwixt. The duffel bag was barged off the scrawny bench by my knee, a gym bottle clattering and rolling on the floor shimmery like a tacky silver eyeshadow. Mammon bumbled against the lockers with a scoff and a marring metal clang on the wall—a high rise building shaking in our earthquake of emotions. I could read the umbrage on his lips, could smell the propinquity of sweat and pine. I wrapped my arms around his neck, the towel grazed by my seaside sleeve. I cupped his face and kissed him rough, wanting no space for regret—though I knew it was twiddling its thumbs.
Stock-still, I could feel his irises pricking my eyelids. It was almost like kissing a statue, cold and unresponsive, and I was promptly diffident. Until his arms caged my waist and fitted the crewneck slim. I felt an adrenaline rush, maybe from my nerves screaming to get away, or maybe from the unadulterated desire. Our tongues twisted, his nose brushing against the wing of mine. I whimpered at the finish of a metal rod snaring the side of my tongue and it blended with the sloppy sounds of our kissing.
Mammon pulled away and tided me a parting breath, looking down at me through his long lashes. His grey eyes slitted lazily, dilated pupils connecting the two waterlines.