souls of black | fever in, fever out

chapter 142: my eyes have seen you

"my eyes have seen you,
stand in your door,
meet inside:
show me some more."
-"my eyes have seen you", the doors

"Man, that's rough."
Sam, Alex, and Louie all sat outside of the warehouse together: the latter had found himself a cup filled with ice and he swallowed down large pieces every now and again. The sun hung low over their heads as well as the skyline right before them. Another few hours, Sam figured, and she could take these two boys back home with her, especially after the story that Louie had just told the two of them.
"So, Chuck and Eric really just wanted to have more control?" she asked him in a loud enough voice for him to hear over the traffic before them.
"Yeah, pretty much," Louie replied as he held his cup out before him. "Between the two of them and Aurora, it was getting hard to watch if I'm being perfectly honest. I basically couldn't take it anymore, especially after the hammer came down on poor Alex over here."
"Don't blame ya," she said. "So, what're you going to do now?"
"Don't really know," he confessed.
"You could always join the four of us back there in the warehouse," Alex suggested with a nod back to the door behind them, and Louie chuckled at that.
"I dunno, if I'm being perfectly honest," he confessed. "I do like the drums, but I kind of need to support myself somehow."
"You could always hang out with me and him over at my gallery," she suggested. "I could talk to Scarlett and see if she can make you like my consultant or something."
"What would I do there?" he asked her.
"Don't really know. Answer the phone, take and count money, figure out what to do with my old artworks once an exhibit is up? I'll have to ask her about it."
"And what do you do?" Louie turned his attention to Alex.
"I just hang out for the time being," he replied with a little straightening of his spine. "I'm also hitchhiking my way up the street in terms of what I'm going to do with my music, too."
"So, pretty much what I'm doing," Louie declared.
"Yeah. I'm in the exact same boat. Looking for whoever wants to take me and my six stringed companion."
"He also told me that he could use as many friends as possible," Sam added.
"Oh, I bet. We all have to act as a community for each other. Every last one of us." He then turned to the two of them with a little twinkle in his eye.
"You know what? Let's all behave as a commune. Like a, uh—what's the word, bohemia. All of us all together in the heart of a city somewhere, whether that city is here in New York or over in San Francisco could be decided mutually."
"Like an artists' community!" Sam proclaimed.
"Yes. YES!" Louie pointed past Alex to her. "Yes! That's exactly what I'm thinking of. There's just one question I have about it."
"What's that?" Alex asked.
"Who do we want to be a part of it?"
"Well, me and Alex first of all," Sam replied.
"Obviously." Louie shrugged. "Do we want the girls—the Cherry Suicides—to be a part of it?"
"If they want to be a part of it, of course," Alex told him and he shifted his weight in the spot on the sidewalk given his former relationship to Zelda.
"We could base it out of Providence, too, if we'd like," Sam continued; she opened her mouth to say something else but he clapped his hands out of sheer unadulterated excitement.
"I can see this cropping up everywhere," Louie said and the smile crossed his face. "All of us, all together. I can see it really happening, you two!" He then clambered to his feet.
"Where you going?" Alex asked him, slightly unsettled.
"I'm going to make a quick little phone call to Zelda and see if I can reconcile with her," he replied. "This was great talking to you two! I'll keep in touch. I promise."
"Come to the gallery," Sam insisted in a lower voice.
"Of course, of course!" Louie bowed forward with his arms wide open for her, and then he embraced Alex right afterwards. He then scurried away from there and down to the corner for the payphone. Alex turned to Sam with his eyes wide with concern.
"You sure about any of this?" he asked her.
"I tried to say something but he was going so fast, though," she pointed out.
"Last person I want to see right now is Zelda," he admitted. "I mean, it wasn't hostile or anything, but—still."
"You broke up from her," she pointed out.
"I broke up from her and I must be blind, too," he added onto that.
"Hey, kids!" Dave called out from the warehouse door: the afternoon sun grazed over the crown of his red hair.
"What's up?" Sam called back to him, and he gestured for them to come on inside of there with them again. The two of them stood to their feet and they walked on over to him.
"We're getting ready to jam," he replied with that lopsided smirk still spread over his face. "You sure you're up to the task of managing us?"
"She can do it," Alex assured him.
"Yeah, I can totally do it," she joined in right next to him. "I've balanced working alongside Aurora and going to school—I can do this, Dave. I promise you that."
"Fantastic!" He stepped out of the door so they come on inside for themselves; Alex made his way over to the rack for the bass guitar and he slung it over his head and shoulder. Lars took his spot behind the kit and he picked up his sticks, which he had lay across the head of the snare drum. Joey and Dave congregated at the center of it all with their guitars and a microphone for the former. Sam stood off to the side with her arms folded across her chest: she thought of taking out her journal right then and there but she decided to watch them instead.
Alex plugged in the bass into the amp off to the side there, and he turned the dial as Lars tapped onto the head of the snare with his sticks, which in turn caught Sam off guard.
All the while, she thought about Louie and also about the future of Testament on top of that. She hoped that they would pull through the whole thing, and she hoped that Chuck and Eric could find their way even with Aurora nearby them and with her hands pulling on the strings. Alex leaned back against the face of the amp with that bass pressed up against his body. She thought about Greg right then and how he was doing amongst all of this, especially once she remembered what Alex had said about the bass guitar before then.
If Louie left with such ease, then it was more than possible for Greg to do the exact same thing for himself. It was all possible. A brand-new decade filled with possibilities: that was what she and Alex had told each other when the whole decade first started.
She turned to Lars as he got a steady drum beat going for the three of them, complete with those blast beats that Sam had heard for what felt like an eternity up to that point. Charlie did them, so did Zelda and Louie, too. Those intense pedals on the kick drums for more energy and more power to the rhythm, such that they resembled to the rapid-fire sound of a machine gun. Alex smacked the bass strings with the side of his hand which made a quiet, muffled jolt, but it nonetheless made all four of them around him jump back a bit.
"Easy there," Joey said with a wag of his finger, and Alex did again on every third beat from Lars. A little clunky especially he hadn't really done it much aside from the odd viewing from Greg in the times he did it on bass, but he did it anyway.
"Getting a little funky in here, eh?" Dave joked.
"Just something a little different," Alex declared. "There is such a thing as funk metal after all. Four black guys showing us white boys how it's done." He flashed them all a little smirk when he said that.
"Oh, yeah, uh—what are they called?" Lars asked aloud. "They're a metal band but they're real funky like that."
"Living Colour?" Alex filled in.
"Living Colour, yeah! Those guys are awesome."
"We'd have to play a funkier groove, though, Lars," he pointed out.
"We can always learn," said Lars as he twirled his drumstick around his index finger.
"I think—I dunno, what do you think about studying music theory?" Alex suggested.
"You should do it, Alex," Sam quipped right then.
"What she said," Lars gestured over to her.
"School's cheap-o right now, Alex. You should find yourself a good school and go for it especially if you're just gonna do odd jobs for the time being."
Alex glanced down at the bass pressed against his body and he fingered the strings on the neck a bit.
"Look at it this way—it would beat the hell out of hanging out at the gallery all day and doing nothing."
"There you go!" Lars exclaimed, and he reached into his jeans pocket for something; he took out a stick of gum and slipped it into his mouth.
"Well, first things first, what should we do here?" Joey demanded into the microphone head. Lars tapped the drumsticks together and he pounded on the bass drum next to him in a successful rhythm.
"What're you doing?" Joey asked him.
"I think he's doing a little..." Dave started as Lars did it again: it sounded like a rain dance of sorts. Joey raised his eyebrows at it.
"A little Bo Diddley."
Alex set his fingers on the bass neck and he played that high riding bass line. Sam nodded her head when she recognized it.
Joey shook his head and closed his eyes as he recognized it himself.
"Where's that big headdress you used to wear?" Dave asked him.
"It's around," he replied into the microphone and in a flat tone of voice as well. "I just—would rather not at the moment."
"You know anything from my band?" Dave asked him. "I can play ya something to get you going and you can take it from there."
"Not off-hand, no," he confessed with a shake of his head.
"Well, what do you want to do?" Lars called out to him, and Joey sighed through his nose. Alex then walked over to Sam with his fingers across the neck of the bass to keep it silent. He peered over his shoulder to Joey and Dave there on the other side of the floor.
"Be careful what you wish for," he told her in a hushed voice, and she nodded her head at that.
"A brand-new decade filled with possibilities and we've got this," she said in a near whisper.
"You wanna get something to eat after this?" he suggested and she nodded her head at that.
"I've gotta call Aurora, too," she added, "tell her what the hell is going on with Testament right now that warranted a departure from Louie." And he nodded at that as well.
He stepped back a bit and he strummed his bass with the side of his thumb.
"You know," Dave started, "when I got kicked out of Metallica, I was so pissed off by the mere mention of their name, that I started Megadeth and I wrote everything on that first album to vent, basically." Sam was taken aback by those words, especially with Lars standing right there right across the floor from him. But Dave turned to him and nodded at him.
"Wouldn't you agree, Lars? That I was pissed off when I wrote Megadeth's first album?"
"You still kind of are pissed to be honest," Lars said in a low voice. "But I still talk to you, though."
"Right, you still talk to me but you still have that guy Kirk with you guys as well," Dave retorted, curt.
"Oh, no," Alex muttered and he backed away from the drum kit. Sam held back, baffled.
"Why can't you be grateful that I still talk to you, Dave?" Lars demanded, and he clutched his drumsticks together in the palm of his hand. He stood up and set one foot on the head of the stool as if he encouraged Dave to come for him.
"Why can't you see that you left me at the curb with absolutely fucking nothing, Lars?" Dave spat back.
"Oh, god, this again."
"Yes, this again!"
Meanwhile, Joey glanced back and forth between the two of them all the while. Sam thought about running over to him and pulling him out of the crossfire but then again, there was nothing that she could do about it, especially with Alex right there next to her. He took off the bass guitar and set it back on the rack; he ran his fingers through his dark hair and he set a hand on Sam's shoulder as if to guide her out of there. She opened the back door and she ducked out to the street first.
Alex let out a low whistle.
"That came out of nowhere," he declared.
"I know, right? Poor Joey was just standing there completely clueless, too. I almost wanted to go over to him and take him with us but I just—I didn't know how he would react, though."
"And I—don't really want to sound like 'that guy', but he kind of started it," Alex pointed out.
"He really did," Sam agreed with a nod of her head; "he started it, he has to be a big boy and fight his way through it if he really wants out of there."
"Right! But all things aside, it sure does make Louie's excitement about a peaceful commune a little bit of a moot point, doesn't it?"
"Yeah, I kind of feel bad now that that's not going to happen now." She folded her arms across her chest as Dave raised his voice in there.
"I'm so glad we got the hell out of there when we did," Alex proclaimed.
"Yeah. You wanna grab some coffee and a bite to eat?"
"Yes, please! And we'll go back to your place afterwards, I presume?"
"Of course!"
The two of them walked on back down the block to the nearest coffee shop where they took their seats and they ordered two cups of coffee for themselves, as well as a couple of sandwiches.
"So, about that point of going to school," she started again, "that was just a suggestion, but—what do you want to do, though? That's the big question, really. It should be on you, I feel."
"Absolutely," he said as he stirred in some cream into his coffee. "Well, for now, I'll thumb my way through it all and if the time comes, I'll do just that. I'll find a school for myself."
"I'll keep an eye open for you," she promised him, "'cause you know—the whole thing about you wanting to be here in New York and whatnot."
"For now, I have The Urge to tend to," he said, and he brought the coffee up to his sensual little lips.
"You know what's something I really want to do?" she started again.
"What's that?" He sipped on his coffee.
"I really want to do a live drawing of you. Like what I did with Cliff, but with you instead."
He lowered his cup and he gazed on at her with his eyebrows raised up.
"You—want to do that for me?" he asked her in a low voice.
"Yeah. I really want to have a look at you and draw you down on a big sheet of paper like that and put you on display in the gallery."
He hunched his shoulders at that and he leaned back in the seat.
"I dunno, Samantha—that's—that's pretty private. Like I would have my body on display in front of all of New York and everything. All my bits and pieces and all of that."
"We could do what Cliff did and put a flower pot in between your legs," she suggested. "I had that vase of tulips and that worked just fine with him."
"So that wasn't added in," he remarked, to which she shook her head.
"Not at all!" she declared. "And I've seen you, too. It's not like I'll be seeing something that's surprising, either."
"I don't really know," he confessed with a shake of his head: a soft blush crossed his face and he shifted his weight again. "There's a lot to me you haven't seen yet."
"I haven't seen the last of Alexander Nathan Skolnick yet, that's for sure," she echoed him with a raise of her coffee mug to him.
"You have not!" he declared with a little nervous laugh.
"You know, when I first ran it by Cliff, I told him that I won't do it if it makes him uncomfortable."
He ran his tongue over his bottom lip and his eyes locked onto her.
"Just like the first time we got together," she continued, "I won't draw you in the buff if the very thought of that makes you tremble and makes you feel uneasy."
"Well, if I'm going to be partially covered up," he began, "then I could see it happening. But I'd have to get acquainted better. I'd also have to make time for it, too."
"Of course! Tell you what. When we're done here, and we go back to my place, we can practice it. Take off your clothes for me and just pose for me. I have my journal with me so I can make a little practice sketch. It'll just be between you and me."
He pursed his lips together and he glanced down at the cup of coffee cradled in his hands.
"Deal," he said.
"It's a deal," she declared and she raised her mug to him again, and he gently clinked the rim of his against hers as part of the toast. They drank down their coffee in unison and then the waiter came with their sandwiches in either hand. Sam watched Alex delve into his sandwich and his fries as if he was starving to death.
Once again, a hasty big eater but he managed to keep himself clean and with his manners intact all the while: every so often, he brought the napkin to his mouth and all over his fingers. She pictured him eating a lot during Thanksgiving dinner at her parents' house, but then again, she had no idea if her parents would be willing to have Thanksgiving or Christmas together again, especially after the last one. She wondered if the two of them could have a hearty dinner together at her dad's house once he was moved into that new place in Marin Heights.
She also pictured all that good food going right to his body as well. He did mention about having "the Skolnick belly" once he got older as well. He was already doing well in his hips and his thighs, and he was already soft and handsome enough at the age of twenty-three as well. He seemed perfect for a live drawing on her part, such that she was glad that he had agreed to a secret practice drawing beforehand. A sweet little nude drawing of him in her journal for real that time around.
Sam left a generous tip for their waiter and then once they were done, they headed back to Hell's Kitchen to get right into it. Sam locked the door behind her, much to Alex's surprise.
"Whoa, what're you doing?"
"What? You're gonna be naked, I don't want Marla and Belinda walking in on us or our landlord, for that matter."
"Oh. Oh! Good idea." He chuckled at that: Sam doubled back into her room for the desk chair for him to sit in, and she hauled it in the front room. He stood there with his arms tucked behind his back as if he was hiding something from her. She set it down on the floor and she patted the seat of the chair.
"Now," she started again, that time with a rub of her hands, "get undressed for me."
"Shall I go slowly?" he offered.
"We're doing a live drawing, Alex, not a strip tease," she scoffed at him, and he chuckled at that. He set his fingers on the hem of his shirt and he lifted up. His waist was still very slim and trim, such that she could make out the sight of his hip bones from right underneath the belt of his jeans. His skin seemed smoother and silkier than she had remembered from before, especially right on his chest, even with the fine little sprigs of dark hair on the breastbone. He set his shirt down on the arm of the couch and then he unbuckled his belt and unbuttoned his jeans. He dropped his jeans right before her.
She pressed her hands to his hips as he hesitated with his thumbs underneath the band of his underwear for a second.
"C'mon, Alex, I've seen you," she told him. "I have seen you before."
He closed his eyes and he lowered them down his hips and thighs.
"I was usually inebriated when I did it with you, though," he pointed out as he let them fall onto his ankles.
"Who needs inebriation when we've got the might of the journal?" she told him as she showed him that journal, right out from her purse. She let her eyes wander over his naked body and she showed him a smile.
"There he is," she declared with a gesture of her hand out towards him, "have a seat."
Given it was a rather spindly chair with no arm rests, Alex could sit there with his hands on the edge of the seat, on either side of his hips. He spread his thighs over the top of the seat as he tried to adjust himself to the actual chair. He rested his feet flat on the floor and the natural light through the kitchen window shone down on his knees: the skin had a bit of a sheen to it.
"You sure you want to me sit here?" he asked her.
"Are you not comfortable?" She held over the counter with the journal right underneath the pen in her hand.
"Not really," he confessed. "I worry about falling off of this thing. There's no back on this thing, either, so that just adds to the feeling."
"Try standing up," she suggested. "Like putting one foot up on the seat and resting your elbow on your knee like what Lars was trying to do to Dave earlier."
He burst out laughing at that.
"Mad dog Lars!" he exclaimed.
"Yeah, exactly!" she laughed with him. Alex then stood up and he set his right foot on the seat, and, careful not to slip it out, he placed his elbow upon his bare knee. She raised her eyebrows once she realized that she was looking at everything there.
In all of his glory. Right before her very eyes.
"It's all real," he said in a low voice. "Every last part of it."
"Yeah, it's—I can tell." She showed him a little grin and she brought the pencil to the paper, and yet she hesitated at the sheer sight of him there.
"You're of pretty good size," she remarked as her eyes wandered over the shape of him.
"Eh, I'm not that big," he assured her with a shake of his head.
"Oh, heavens, no. Cliff was big. You're a little more—I want to say 'natural'. Like there's nothing there to hold you back."
"Dirty like a dog," he teased her, and that time he showed her a little smirk. Her eyes raised up his upper body and his sinewy arms. Her eyes fixated on his chest and his shoulders, especially his collar bones. Every inch of him was fine, as if made straight from the cleanest bones in the whole grand scheme of things. His skin was smooth, almost pearly in appearance.
Cliff was big and Joey had that kiss of the sun on him, but Alex was in a whole other ballpark entirely. And then she locked onto his jet-black hair, those curls over his slender shoulders and the few stray ones over his left collar bone. His deep eyes gazed right back at her as if he stared through her and into her darkest secrets. It helped that he was sober that time around as well.
"Alex, I have to tell you," she started, and then she hesitated without the right words in mind.
"Tell me what?" he asked her as he shifted his weight on the stool.
"You have a—a—a, uh, um—"
"A what?"
"A beautiful body," she replied with a bit of a tremble to her voice. "Like, no, it's really beautiful. I don't think I've ever seen a body as beautiful as yours."
"Not even Cliff?" he asked, stunned.
"Not even Cliff, no." She brought a hand up to her face and fanned herself. "Oh, my goodness."
"Do you need a moment?" he suggested to her, and he knitted his eyebrows at that. She brought her eyes back down to his stomach, all full of food but still very slender. He was so gorgeous to her that she could pass out.
And she did, much to Alex's surprise no less.