deadly nightshade | fever in, fever out

chapter 87: heart of glass

"in between, what i find is pleasing and i'm feeling fine.
love is so confusing, there's no peace of mind.
if i fear i'm losing you it's just no good,
you teasing like you do."
-"heart of glass", blondie

With the continual wall of noise from the rain outside, Joey managed to drum for a solid hour all for Sam. He pounded upon the kick drums as if the pedals had grown right out from the soles of his feet. He gave his black curls a toss back with a flick of his head every so often, but Sam thought about fetching a piece of string just to tie them back from his face.
He was tight in his rhythms and his grooves, such that he hardly moved his arms about when he pounded on the big bass drum next to him and the little tom toms up top. All the while, she pictured Frank and Dan going forth on their respective bass and lead guitar positions before him.
A little power trio for the whole world to see as far as she could see them in the future.
At one point, right as the rain outside died down a bit, he slowed down his grooves to a single tap on his snare drum and a couple of beats on his kick drum. Every other one, Sam expected to hear a tap of the snare but there was nothing.
"Interesting little bounce here," she remarked as she took her seat on the couch to take the pressure off of her knees and her feet.
"Called a 'ghost note'," he told her. "You expect to hear something—" He tapped the snare and kicked twice, and then nothing. "—but nah. Zelda does 'em a lot, I've noticed. Like during their more atmospheric, slower songs, she'll do the ghost notes so it has kind of a swirl to it."
He then hit one of his splash cymbals, and he returned to her with a twinkle in his eye. Drumming solid for nearly a whole entire hour and he hadn't even broken out in a sweat: instead, he had a soft rosy blush to his cheekbones and his bangs fluttered about as if he walked about a stretch of sidewalk.
"By the way, what was that song that the girls did?" he asked her. "The one where Zelda just went crazy on the drums? You know, we were in Boston and she just went completely ape shit on the whole thing?"
"Oh, that was 'Dead Witches', I think?" she recalled. "Minerva just did a crazy, like five minute solo, too."
"And Zelda was just going faster and faster with it, too! They actually got real thrashy and metallic there. I can see them going more in that direction at some point—Zelda's got the chops and Morgan does, too."
He hit the splash again and the rain picked up outside once more.
"I'm hearin' a little riff in my head right now," he confessed as he hit the splash twice more and then he held it still by the edge with two fingers while he still held the stick in his hand. He then gave his black curls a toss back with a flick of his head, and he stood to his feet, and he set the drum sticks down on the stool's head. She held still as he climbed out from behind the kit and made his way over to his record collection on the other side of the room.
"You got the—" he began with a little motion of his index finger. She hesitated for a few seconds, and then she remembered. She took out the box from her purse and handed it over to him. He took the leather strap out from its hiding place and he returned to the guitar.
She watched him slip the strap onto that white flying V; she then clasped her hands together and held them close to her as he slung it over his shoulder. He reached behind his head and slipped his hair out from underneath the strap.
The guitar stayed right up close to his stomach so he couldn't reach so low with his lanky drummer's arms. He held it high against his body, just how Alex had told her that one time.
"So high up," he complained, "high up on my body. Feels like it's choking me."
"Alex recommends holding it that high so it's easier on your wrists and your back," she told him, to which Joey frowned. "Joey, listen—take his word for it."
He then pressed his hands to his hips.
"Joey—he was in Aurora's wedding for god's sake," she insisted. "He's a good kid!"
He chewed on his bottom lip and he glanced down at the guitar with a serious look on his face.
"Still a freak," he stated in a cold tone of voice, and he turned to the side a bit so he could strum something.
The side of his face. The straight way in which his nose was shaped.
He warranted the work of stained glass. Something of so many colors, all the colors of the rainbow. The darkest shades of blue and purple all about the crown of his head; meanwhile his head and shoulders could be all those lovely shades of golden yellow and orange and even a bit of brown if she could find it for herself. She wished for Belinda's help right then, so he could in fact hold still for her.
But all she had was her journal and the art supplies she had on hand right there. Sam reached to her right for the journal in question and she opened it to a fresh page.
She kept her eye on his lush black curls and, quickly enough before he moved at all in comparison to her, she scribbled them down with the edge of the graphite. She kept her eye on the side of his face, right on that straight nose and those deep eyes. Not nearly as deep as Alex's eyes, but deep enough to warrant an extra bit of quick shading on the page.
Indeed, that in and of itself was a pose that she could challenge herself with: Joey standing to the side with his curls pushed back from his face and the white guitar cradled in his hands. She could even bring the slightly disgruntled expression on his face along with her.
Quick strokes of the pencil and she had the bare minimum of a sketch as he kicked a riff about as if he knocked a hockey puck about the room.
She took a glimpse down the sketch. Indeed, she found it to be the perfect way to translate it over to glass as well.
His fingers moved about at a slow pace along the fret board, which in turn caused him to grunt in his throat.
"You alright?" she asked him.
"I'm tryin' to go faster," he confessed. "Like for the new album or sump'n. I wanna be able to play those real quick and melodic riffs the way Scott always does." Indeed, he stopped and he flexed his fingers a bit.
"Well, if you keep working it, your muscles'll get stronger," she promised him. "It's like when you're making art, you're not sure of yourself at first. But then after a while, you keep your head down and you faze out everything around you. And the next thing you know, you're making your first masterpiece."
He gazed on at her with a thoughtful look on his face. He clutched at his wrist and that flat piece of silver around it with his other hand. Every so often, he flexed his fingers once more in order to better get the blood flowing in there.
Sam brought her attention up to his face and the way his eyes hooded at the very sound of that.
"You think so?" He brought the tone of his voice down to a husky one.
"I know so." She stopped and she squinted her eyes at him. "What's on your mind right now?" she asked him.
"Well, that's just—that was just really kind of you to say that to me," he admitted to her, still with his voice down low. He ran his tongue along his dark lips and he raised his eyebrows at her.
"What's on your mind right now?" she repeated.
"A certain something of sorts," he confessed. "I'm just looking at how your mouth is shaped, the very same mouth that gave me those kind words just now. You're always willing to get to the bottom of things, like my behavior towards what's his name. You're always willin' to compromise, too."
She held still in her spot on the couch and she wondered where exactly he was going with this.
"And so," he continued, "—I wanna know if you have a little ace of spades up your sleeve that you're not telling me."
"Who's to say it's an ace of spades?" she asked him as she straightened out her spine and rested her elbows on her knees.
"Well, I just think about the accident," he began, and then he took off the guitar from his shoulder and he leaned it against the wall right next to him. He ran his fingers through his black curls and he turned to her, still with those hooded eyelids. "The accident—and Cliff drew out an ace of spades before hand and he spared Kirk his life. The ace of spades, the dead man's hand."
"Where are you going with this," she whispered to him.
"I've noticed something," he continued, still in a husky voice, "the times in which the arts die off with someone like him. Things get a little darker and little more grim, all because of something so weird like the ace of spades. You know, in Native American lore, we believe that everything is made out from an eternal river bed of black mud, and we all crawled out from that mud. Somewhere along the sides of that river bed is some kind of plant that resembles to the ace of spades. The other side of my heritage, the Italians, believe in something a little similar with the same goal in mind. The goal that we all emerged from the darkness and we came forth into the world we all know today."
"To the earth from whence we came," she muttered, to which he nodded.
"And it just so happens that an ace—someone utterly excellent and not of this world like Cliff—returned to the darkness of the earth, the spade itself, and we lost someone who was more than a force to be reckoned with."
She sighed through her nose. This was another side of Joey she hadn't seen before, the side in which she wondered if he really was the hick that he claimed to be, or if that had been recycled from a mere perspective of living in New York City for a time. This young man of mixed race had far more layers than she had originally uncovered before.
"You know what else resembles to the ace of spades?" he asked her right then.
"What's that?"
He lowered his gaze to his legs, much to her confusion.
"I'm guessing—aside from me of course—you've never really given a man a little blowing below the belt before?"
To which she slowly shook her head. It was something that never really crossed her mind in the past, such that when Joey mentioned it, it almost hit her like a dead weight to the head. She remembered that there were in fact people who thought about this sort of thing quite often.
"It's alright—I'm not very experienced myself," he confessed to her with a little shrug of his shoulders and a raise of one eyebrow. "But I do know what that looks like, though. I think to the first time I felt it from you." Indeed, she thought back to that evening in England, there in the hotel room where she had her mouth on him right before she had to board the red eye back home. He gestured for her to come on closer to him. She sighed through her nose and she gingerly stood up from the couch.
The only sound came from the rain outside and the pounding of her own heart inside of her chest.
She thought back to what her mother had said about the man she used to know, the man who resembled to Joey himself. He showed her the tip of his tongue and he glanced down at her breasts, and then her body.
"You know, a nice comment pleases me," he told her, "but the only other thing that pleases me more than that is if I feel a certain something. A certain something that will in fact give me more life than anyone else can imagine." Sam then shook her head at that.
"I dunno if I'm ready to understand you yet, Joey," she confessed.
"A lot of people don't," he assured, still with those hooded eyes; he then slipped his thumbs into the loopholes on his jeans to put more emphasis on his hips. "But then again—it's just you and me here right now."
She peered over her shoulder to the couch. Belinda was back home down in New York City. She returned to him as he showed her his tongue once more.
"There's a lot that I think about, too," he admitted to her. "A lot that—most people'd call 'backwards' or something that needs to be hidden from view. I don't think so."
She swallowed and shifted her weight right there before him.
"There's a lot that—most people would confuse, too. Not necessarily with me, but with two people such as you and me as well."
"Like what?"
He then nibbled on his bottom lip. "Lately—and when I say lately, I mean the past month and a half since you and I made it official between us—I've been thinking about just how attracted I am to you. How much I want you, too."
"Isn't that the same thing?" To which he shook his head.
"Attraction and desire are not the same thing, Sam. You can be attracted to a bowl of potato chips but that doesn't mean you want them, though. I just think about how much I want you, and how much I've been wanting you, too. Y'know, I think back to when we on the hockey rink together—and I just think about how good your body looked while on the ice. I think about how much I want you next to me and how much I want you on me as well."
She swallowed again, which caused him to raise his eyebrows at her. He then reached out for her and he gently held her by the shoulders.
"It's okay, there's nothing to be afraid of," he assured her in a gentle voice. "It's just us here. We've got all night, too. Granted I have to go tomorrow night, but for the time being, it's just us. You're all about me feeling comfortable—I give you the same mantra."
"How do we start?" she asked him with her head bowed.
"Well—like getting prepared for a round of hockey or anything physical, we gotta warm up. So—seeing as I'm the one who knows what it looks like—I suggest we start with me. We'll move over to you and find out what makes you tick next. Remember when we were in England and you blew me while we were on the bed?"
She nodded her head.
"Well, let's do it again. Except this time around, like I said, we actually have time so you can figure things out and I can, too. I will say this, I wanna try it out while I'm standing up."
"So you want me to get down on my knees?" she asked him, to which he nodded. She sighed through her nose again and then she dropped down to her knees right before his hips and his thighs.
"So what do I do? Do I just sit here on my knees?"
"Well—let's see—" he began, "your head is close to my hips so yeah. Just follow my lead."
"Follow my lead says the guy who isn't a lead guitarist," she teased him, albeit out of nervousness.
"You're good," he pointed out as he undid his jeans for her. He slid them down his sinewy brown legs and he showed himself to her. Sam was hesitant to do anything right there; instead, she glanced up at him with baited breath and a dry feeling on the back of her throat. She realized she hadn't had much to drink for herself right then.
"Do you remember what you did while we were in England?" he asked her.
"Put my lips around it?"
"Right! We'll just take it slow—just like that—yeah! Yeah, there you go. Here—lemme help—"
He buckled his knees so she could have a bit more flesh in her mouth. She looked up at his face as he lingered right above her.
"Just like that," he gently encouraged her, "like you're sucking on a Popsicle!"
She giggled at that, and she moved her head up a bit more so she could have more in her mouth.
"Okay, move down—there you go—that's my girl—"
He then thrust hard into her mouth, such that it took her by surprise at first. But he kept on moving, kept on going forth with it. She held still underneath him as she let him move in closer to her. Salty and taut; but she could feel nothing on her end. But she kept it at. It was to please him, and she loved seeing the smile on his face all the while.
If he was happy, then she was happy herself.
She then took her mouth off of him, and he showed her an eager grin.
"Okay—let's go upstairs—I'm gonna give you your turn now." He then dropped his pants all the way and he took her by the hand. He led her upstairs to the loft, and he almost jumped into bed for her.
Gingerly, she took off her top and her jeans for him.
"When you say it's my turn now," she started as she climbed onto the bed next to him, "does it mean I'm on top?"
"Yes!" he said as he lay flat on his back underneath her. He spread out his arms from his body. "Yes! Gimme what for on top."
"It's almost like you're my canvas," she told him.
"Nah, I'm your paint brush," he retorted. "Like when you take your brush or your pencil and just move it about in between your fingers to paint your next masterpiece. Climb on top—just like that—how's that feel?"
"Weird," she confessed, "like it—it hurts—ow—ow!"
"Okay, c'mere—lemme touch ya—lemme touch ya—on your tits—how's that?"
"Tickles."
"Okay—"
She giggled at the feeling of his fingers there.
"You like that, don't ya?" he teased her with a big goofy grin on his face.
"It tickles!"
"Well, y'know when it tickles, you get a li'l sump'n else goin'," he pointed out.
"Like what?"
"Between your legs. Don't ya feel it?"
"No," she confessed. "I don't, no."
"Wow," he said, taken aback, "but that does feel good, doesn't it?"
"It does, yeah. But I just—what you're telling me is a little weird, though. I can just try it willy nilly here, though."
"You don't wanna fake it," he told her with a shake of his head. "Last thing you wanna do is fake it. How 'bout this?"
He pressed his lips to her skin and she gasped.
"Ooh, yeah, you like that, don't ya?" he teased her with that lopsided grin on his face.
"Yes! Do it again!"
He kissed her again. "Okay—we're doin' it in the face of the epidemic—it's alright, though—I trust you."
"And I trust you," she blurted out.
This was something else, something new, something that she never got the chance to do with Cliff when they were together. She swore Joey was nothing more than one of her best friends and the first man she met when she first moved to New York, the first man next to Frank of course, but she took things to the next level here in the bed. She stared right into his face, right into those dark eyes, those dark eyes of venom and deadly nightshade. He was her paint brush and her body served as the canvas. Together they painted their first masterpiece.
She gasped and she slid right off of him.
"Okay, that's enough," he pleaded, "—that's enough!"
Sam climbed off of his body and she lay down there on her back next to him. Quick and concise, but more than worth it.
Joey let out a long low whistle at the feeling: she rolled her head over the pillow for a better look at his face and his neck. It felt so strange, to lay there next to him when she didn't feel the same thing that he felt for her. But he lay there with a smile on his face and a warm soft blush inside of his dark skin: his Adam's apple poked out from his soft throat and his black curls splayed out from all around his head. She had drank up his venom and he had drank up something from her as well, something sweet and nourishing to his liking.
"You okay?" she asked him as she lay still right next to him and with her hands rested upon her bare chest.
"More than okay," he replied to her in a broken voice. "That was just—that was just everything I ever wanted. Right there. That hit the spot more than something to eat after a long day of not eating anything. Phew."
He rolled his head over the top of the pillow and he gazed on at her with those hooded eyes once again.
"Yeah, that was—that was something," she remarked.
"Yeah, I'll say," he added in a broken voice. "I figured—you know. We've known each other for quite a while and everything. We might as well take things a step further."
"Makes perfect sense, oh yeah." And for that brief pocket of time, she had forgotten the rest of the world around them. She rolled her head to the right of the bed, where she was met by the little clock there. A brief pocket of time was enough for her to realize that they were in fact running out of time.
"Been meaning to tell you this," she began, "but—next year, for my senior project, I'm gonna have to go with my counselor out to California. For how long, I dunno."
"California!" he repeated as he rolled his head over the top of his pillow; through the darkness, she could make out the disheartened expression on his face. "You're leavin' me?"
"Well, not right now," she assured him as she rested her hands upon her belly, as soft and delicate as the bedsheets underneath them. "Like I said, it's next year. Way after you get home."
"Yeah, but we'll be workin' on our new album then," he pointed out. "At least that's what Charlie said."
"It's tentative, though," she continued, "so who knows? Bill might have a change of heart."
"I hope he does." He then paused for a few seconds. "Besides, why California of all places?"
"He didn't say. And the thing that gets me about it is if I go out to California, I won't be around to see you." She confessed that to him in a soft voice, to which Joey's face fell.
"Well—I mean, does it actually have to be out in California?" he asked her.
"Like I said, that's according to my counselor Bill," she said, "he told me that it's going to be way out there, but that's as far as he went with it, though. For all I know, it could be something really huge, that it just—has to take place in another state."
"Clear on the other side of the country, too," he added.
"Right when I got settled into a new apartment, too," she said. "You know, I've been thinking about getting away from the mundane for a bit. But—nothing like this, though."
"You need to stretch your legs more," he told her. "Like you gotta get yourself out of that apartment and into the streets more. At least that's how it was for me growing up in 'Swaygo. If I had cabin fever—which was often being a kid without a way of getting over to Syracuse or Rochester—I always picked up a hockey stick or my drum sticks and just went nuts with 'em."
"I've been thinking of getting into more physical arts," she confessed to him. "Like what Belinda does. Glass work and leather crafting. Making things with my hands."
"You should," he suggested to her, complete with a raise of his eyebrows. "I just think to when you and I were in the hockey rink together and skating in particular came to you so well. It's all within you, Sam I am. It's all within—this body—" He inched closer to her and he pressed his lips onto hers once more. She kept her hands upon her chest as he ran his hands down the curves of her body, down towards her hips and her thighs. He gave her the softest groan from the back of his throat all the while, and then he lay his head back down on the pillow next to her. Even in the darkness, she could make out the look of disappointment on his face.
"Look at it this way," he told her again, that time in a soft faraway whisper, "if you go out to California, you'll actually be closer to Metallica and Exodus and everybody out there."
"That's true." When he said that, she thought about Testament. She would be closer to them, too. If nothing, wherever Bill planned on taking her out there, she knew that she would be within range of them, as well as the place where James and Lars scattered Cliff's ashes.
She sighed through her nose and she lay her head back down on the pillow underneath her head. She gazed up at the ceiling overhead. She thought of falling asleep but alas she couldn't. Their whole act back there had jarred her awake despite it being late at night. Joey however fetched up a yawn.
"I'm feelin' kinda in the mood for a bit of snugglin'," he confessed to her right then. "We had a little moment and now we deserve a round of snuggly snuggles."
"Some snuggling and some cuddles?" she teased back at him.
"Yes, yes, yes—I'm in need of some cuddles. I've been a good boy after all."
"If you say so," she further teased him. She then rolled over onto her side so he could have a better look at the curvature of her body.
She cuddled up right next to Joey, complete with his arms around her. The warmth of his body cradled her like the warmest feeling, like the top of her bed back at her parents' house. She could still taste him on her tongue and she knew she would be sore come the morning light, but she had crossed a new threshold with him in the meantime.
Sam lay her head on his chest so she could better hear his heartbeat. In comparison to the rain on the rooftop, his rhythm was in fact much louder and steadier, and far more soothing to relish in as well. She focused on his heart and the steady ebb and flow of his breathing.
Her eyes shuttered closed at the warm feeling the enveloped the both of them. For a second, she thought that Cliff was still right next to her. And indeed, she even pictured him next to her.
That evening over his last Christmas break at her parents' house in Reno. They had had that argument: such a distant memory at that point, but it still haunted her even with the warm feeling around them. She shook her head a little bit as she realized that she and Joey were about to part once more, but that time around, he could go over to Europe on a high note with her.
As far as she knew, she could lose Joey exactly how she lost Cliff. She could lose any one of them exactly how she lost Cliff.
She awoke the next morning to the warmth of his deep chest and his slim waist, and the smile on his sleeping face. She couldn't help but smile herself, and she squeezed him a little bit before she woke him up with a kiss on the neck.
"'Morning, sleepy head," she greeted him.
"Shall we fetch some coffee and a bite of breakfast?" he offered her.
"Please," she insisted.
Within time, they had dressed and headed out the door all the way back to New York City. Given it was still way early, they both agreed on a cup of coffee and breakfast while down in the City together. At some point overnight, the torrential rain had turned into freezing rain, and thus all the roads were blanketed in a fine layer of slush and sleet. Sam nestled down in the passenger seat next to Joey as they began out of Camillus.
They reached the last stoplight before the onramp to the freeway and Joey rubbed his hands together to keep the warmth in. She glanced out the window and there on the sidewalk before one of those small book stores before the freeway, Sam recognized that little dark head once again with his parents: the last day they were there no less. Even in the midst of the clouds, she spotted that small plume of gray. He happened to turn around at that point.
While Joey rubbed his hands some more, Sam raised her hand and gave him a friendly little wave. Alex returned to the favor, complete with a sweet little crooked smile.
The light then turned green and they lunged forward to the freeway.
Four hours and the faintest trickle of heat from the vents before them, and that familiar skyline emerged from within the low hanging dark clouds over them. Where the lake effect had given them freezing rain, a full fledged snowfall had covered New York City in a couple of inches.
Joey took that bypass down to Hell's Kitchen once again, but instead of going to a cafe there, he kept on going to that apartment by the harbor.
"I saw a little coffee place down the block from you," he told her. "Close by and we can give a li'l sump'n for Marla, too."
"Good idea!"
He offered to buy them both cups of coffee, while Sam asked for a blueberry scone from the barista in there. It felt just like the first time, back when Cliff was alive: indeed, she expected to see him on the porch chatting with Alex. Joey held both cups of espresso, one for him and one for Marla, as he led Sam out of the coffee house. They then started back towards his car but Joey kept on walking up the cleared but damp sidewalk to the complex by the harbor. Sam followed him as she held her scone, which had been put inside of a little brown paper bag, in her pocket, that is until they reached the complex itself.
She pressed the buzzer outside of the door to grab Marla's attention and then she turned to Joey, who set his cup of coffee down on the post next to him.
"Happy birthday, Joey," she told him as he put his arms around her. She rested her chin upon his shoulder, so he could press his lips to the side of her neck.
"I'll see you at Christmas," he said right into her ear. And without another word, he let her go, and she took Marla's cup along with her back up the steps and up to the apartment, where she and Genie both awaited her. But when she reached the top step, she stopped, and she turned around for a look down at him. His black curls were still disheveled all about the crown of his head and his dark skin seemed darker in comparison to the fresh blanket snow all around them.
"Drive safe," she called out to him, and he showed her a little smirk.
"Will do," he vowed, and he flashed her a wink and blew her a kiss. Without another word, she stepped inside of the front lobby and she headed upstairs, where Belinda greeted her with a big beaming smile on her face.
"There she is," Marla called out from behind her.
"The lady of the hour!" Belinda declared. Sam shut the door behind her.
"What's going on?"
"Oh, my god, Sam—you gotta get into glass," Belinda begged her. "You've got to!"
"Well, school's already long started, Bel." She set her cup of coffee on the kitchen table and then she handed the other one to Marla. "—I don't think I can, to be honest."
"I'll recommend you for the winter term," Belinda said. "You've gotta be in glass. It's so much fun, you'll love it."
"She really just wants you in there," Marla pointed out as she brought the cup of espresso to her lips.
"But it's true, though!" Belinda insisted. "It'll be so good for you, Sam, especially with that daunting senior project before you."
"Did you give that suggestion about leather crafting, by the way?" Sam asked her.
"Yeah, I gave a suggestion like three times to Bill and to Mrs. Robinson, too," Belinda replied.
"Mrs. Robinson."
"My counselor," she answered.
"Oh, I see. Well, of course when I was hanging out with Joey yesterday, I got the idea to do glass work with his countenance, dare I say. I mean, I have had that idea for a long time now, but I'm really feeling it now." Sam then set down her cup of coffee on the table before her, and she reached into her purse for her journal. She plunked it open to that bare sketch she had made the day before. Marla and Belinda both nodded at the sight of him.
"He was playing drums and guitar for me," Sam told them.
"Flexing big time," Marla remarked before she took another sip of coffee. "Charlie did that all the time with me."
"Sometimes that's all you need is a simple little sketch," Belinda told her.
"Sometimes it really is," Sam agreed with her, "sometimes it's enough to give you all the layers to work with."