Rage, rage against

Us

It's been three weeks since the coffee shop, and I haven't been back. I'm puttering around the apartment, halfheartedly picking up the ruins of the pizza boxes. Digging my way through a jungle of empty bottles. A joint dangles from my lips. MCAT pulses gently through my veins. I'm high, I'm content; for the first time in a long time, I'm thinking of nothing.

And then I see it, wedged between an empty syringe packet and the sofa cushions. Amidst the scattered debris of crumbs and stray hairs. A Polaroid photograph.

Sam's face peers out at me. He is smiling, his teeth bright from the flash, bright with the promise of life. Back before his tests came back from the clinic, before we both believed death was something that happened to other people, before we found ourselves slipping. We were at a rave, and I snapped this photograph of him right as we were about to go in the doors. Sam's face and arms, streaked with glow-in-the-dark paint, like some sort of tribal war chief. Meth hums in his veins; the rims of his nostrils are bloody with traces of cocaine, but he is grinning broadly. The happiest night of my life, he had told me, an arm slung around my shoulders. And he was right, it was the last carefree night we had. The world had indeed, for those precious few hours, belonged to us.

I crumple the Polaroid in my fist and sink to the floor. The tears come, but I know that's a useless way of coping. It's not like they'll bring him back, or purge all the chemicals the doctors pumped into him to slow the gradual ruin of his body. I wipe my face. Stand and grab my coat. I don't have anywhere specific in mind, but I have a vague memory of a place, of people who can help me forget.

I take a cab to a club. A hole-in-the-wall, a shitty place spoken about only in whispers, which no one bothers to favor with a second glance. The cab driver's face is a mask of disgust as he takes the money from my hand. As though I've just shit in my palm and made him touch it. I slam my way out of the car. The bouncer at the entrance, a big hairy guy, recognizes me and waves me in.

Inside, a roaring blast of noise and neon flashes, like chemtrails against the corners of my retinas. My heart booms and thuds to the shadow beats, and I taste the sweat and smoke like pheromones in the air. Bodies twist and press against each other like oiled, greasy snakes. Even in the dim light, it's hard to miss the tubes, the paper packets, the ladders of bruises running up and down people's arms. Everyone here, all guys like me. I can get lost here, become someone else entirely. I can be anyone but myself.

Someone wraps a beefy arm around my waist. I don't recognize the man it belongs to. He's built like a washing machine, two hundred pounds of unadulterated muscle. He's in a pair of tiny, flowery cutoffs and nothing else. A sprawl of tattoos over his hairy chest. Silver barbells hanging from his nipples. You know the type. Dick bigger than a hosepipe, possibly bigger than his brain. Now that he has my attention, he lets go of me briefly to light a joint. He sighs in satisfaction and blows the smoke into my face. Sam would've looked at this guy incredulously, then back at me again. Him? He would've asked, his face crumpling in mingled amusement and dismay.

"Wanna take a walk, sugar?"

Sure, I say. He sticks his meaty hand into the back pocket of my jeans and gives my ass a squeeze. I lead him to the restroom at the rear of the club. When we get there, I see that all the stalls are occupied. At least two pairs of feet under each door. Everyone's here for the same reason, doing the same thing. The smell of sex rides the air, mingling with the ever-present odors of piss and puke.

"Sorry, man," the big guy says. "There's no room. Looks like we'll have to wait for a bit."

I don't like this, the way he can see my face, all raw and exposed under the fluorescent lighting. It's obvious I've been crying, and I hate him for bearing witness to it, for having to be stuck with me when he could be with anyone else. You don't know me, I think. I take a deep breath and bend over the sinks.

Fuck me now, I say, over my shoulder. Look, just hurry up.

He hesitates, his fingers hovering around the waistband of his short shorts. Despite his reluctance, you can see that he's turned on. When he still doesn't move, I slide my pants down and stick my ass in his face.

That decides him. He lumbers over and grabs my ass, pulling it apart like two halves of a sandwich. He isn't gentle or tender, not that I expect him to be. His dick is a fat snake, jabbing me where it hurts the most. Then he stops.

"You clean?" His voice is squeaky, and it makes me want to punch him. Annoyed, I swivel around.

Yes, I say. An edge in my voice. It's not exactly a lie, but it's not the truth, either. I don't know for sure. Ever since Sam's results came back from the lab, I've been too afraid to get myself tested too. But of course, I don't tell him this, this baked stud with the hairy chest and muscles and tattoos. He doesn't need to know that.

"Right," he says doubtfully. I ignore him and drop my head, willing him to get on with it. I close my eyes as he resumes his inept poking. It hurts so bad that the pain drives tears to my eyes, but I don't say anything because of how much I deserve it.

Don't think of Sam, I implore myself silently. Don't think about how I failed him. I cast my mind wide, and suddenly, the elf slams into my thoughts.

He just materializes like a commercial break, standing right there in the center of my consciousness. Wrapped in his coat, he's standing outside my apartment, smoking a cigarette. The moment I see him, his beautiful eyes swing to meet mine. What the fuck, I hear myself saying. Dimly, I hear the big guy grunting, pushing my head against the cracked mirror with each thrust. Then all at once I'm back in the club bathroom and the bass beats are bouncing around in my mind, giving me a delightful migraine. My ass is on fire; I actually feel like I'm about to shit myself. The tension is building in my gut, heavier than a fart.

Stop, please, I gasp, and the big guy, he actually does. Rests a dirty hand against my bare hip. His face is reflected in the mirror, his small eyes deer-like with bewilderment.

"You okay, man?"

Sorry, I say. I disengage myself from him and pull up my pants. He's hurt me and I think I'm bleeding, but I don't show it. I clear my throat. Just remembered, I say. There's somewhere else I gotta be.

The big guy squints at me, like I've confused him with my sweeping vocabulary. Then he nods. His dick still hanging out of his pants, he's practically naked. He says, "Okay."

Sorry, I say again. He doesn't look like the type who'd force me down and bash my face in, but I don't want to take any chances. I lunge for the door of the bathroom and pour myself into the club. Out of the main entrance, onto the street, and again into the back of a cab. I don't remember saying my address, but the driver floors the pedal at the look on my face.

Ten minutes later he pulls up at my apartment and I jump out and look wildly around. Sure enough, the elf is there, sitting on my front stoop. From the looks of it, he's smoked his way through half a pack of cigarettes. I dash up to him. What the fuck, I roar. What the fuck just happened?

He stands up slowly. His expression is all at once alarm and disappointment. He holds up his hands, a defense mechanism, perhaps, or an apology.

"Hey, hey, calm down." He puts his hands on my shoulders and I shake him off.

"I'm sorry," he says, and I'm suddenly embarrassed for myself, because I've no idea what he's even apologizing for. I want to shout at him again, but I clamp my lips shut. There's a joint in my pocket and I put it in my mouth and light it, just to have something to do with my hands. As the smoke spirals through my lungs, I feel my heartbeat gradually returning to calm. It dulls my senses, pulling me into its colorless embrace.

Let's go inside, I suggest wearily, and he nods. I fish my keys out of my coat pocket and let him in. Like before, I don't turn on the lights. I'm shaking all over, and I don't want him to see my face. The anger I feel courses through me, like electricity on the surface of my skin. It's an unfamiliar sensation, and it scares me. First the Polaroid, now this. It's only the second time I've felt something - anything at all - since Sam's death.

We sit on the couch. I keep my face turned away from him and concentrate on smoking the joint down to a stump. He waits. When I don't speak, he sighs.

"Mind-to-mind communication," he explains, delicately, as though it's supposed to make sense. "My people discovered it recently. It was a technological breakthrough, of sorts. I thought of you, and projected an image of myself into your head. I didn't realize it would be so... disruptive to the human psyche."

How, I ask. And why did he do it?

He seems genuinely stumped by my question. "I have an implant in my head," he says, finally. "All I had to do was map my neural synapses to yours. Among us elves, it's easy because our implants are all linked to each other. But since you're human, and not part of this neural network, I had to specifically target that part of your brain that can receive such messages."

He pauses. "As for why..." he shrugs. "I suppose I just wanted to see you."

I don't answer. Up to now, I suppose I'd always thought of everything he told me as bullshit. Just some tall nutjob who had his ears surgically folded into points and all his body hair waxed clean. That entire story about a separate universe? Taken with a pinch of salt. Never once thinking that it might be real. The thing is, when you hook up with someone, you don't always need to know if they're telling you the truth.

Unless the truth is about whether you're clean. Even then, people only hear what they want to hear.

Don't you ever do that to me again, I say, severely. It was fucking scary, okay? Like a trip gone wrong. Next time, just call or text me. He nods like a chastened child, apologizing over and over. Well, I say, and then I'm at a loss for words. My anger is gone; it has deserted me so suddenly I don't quite know what to do with myself. I wonder if I should apologize to him, and then I decide that I don't want to. Besides, it's not his forgiveness I need right now.

I toss the remains of the joint into a mug on the coffee table, then I stand up. He watches me warily, his eyes lambent in the gloom. I start taking off my clothes. You wanted to see me, didn't you? I say, my voice rising, a challenge. Well, I'm sure talking wasn't on your mind. Come on, I tell him. I don't have all night.

He smiles, then, and stands up too. Comes closer. "You're right. I definitely had this in mind."

The cold air whispers into the room through the cracks in the walls and from the gap under the door. My bare skin is lumpy with goose pimples, and I step forward into the circle of his arms. Against the rough weave of his coat, I feel myself igniting from within, a slow fire in a sea of cold blackness. He cups my chin in his large hands and kisses me. The inside of his mouth is extremely warm, like a hug. I kiss him back. His fingers wander down my body, enfolding me and leaving trails of heat in their wake.

I tear at his coat, and he lets go of me long enough to shrug out of his outer garments, and step out of his sneakers and jeans. We fall across the couch. With him, everything is tenderness, so good that it burns.

He licks his hand and reaches for my ass, and then he suddenly stops, frowning. When he brings his hand back around, I see something dark and wet on his fingers.

"You're hurt," he says, and it is a question, not a statement.

Yeah, I tell him. The guy before you, he went in dry. I search his face carefully, but see only concern.

"Wait." He walks into my bathroom. There's the sound of water running, my medicine cabinet squeaking open, then shut. Honestly, it's as though he fucking lives here.

He reappears. A wad of damp toilet paper, some antiseptic, and a can of lube in his hands. I let him clean me up. He works with his brow furrowed, swabbing at the dried blood. He goes back into the bathroom and comes back with the entire roll. Then he squeezes the antiseptic onto his palm and spreads it gently over my skin. It stings, faintly. It's something Sam would've done for me, a lifetime ago. I close my eyes.

"Done," he says at last. There's a sheepish note in his voice. "I don't suppose you still want to... ah..."

Thanks, I say. Sure, yeah, why not?

He chews his lip. "With you like this, it's not perhaps the best idea. Unless... " he peers at me, blushing prettily. It's adorable, like a flower seeing the sun for the first time.

No problem, I say.

We change positions, climbing over each other. I'm breathing unsteadily, shivering as the last vestiges of the drugs thrum in my bloodstream. Or perhaps, it's the excitement; the novelty. I turn him onto his side, because that's how my first time went. The guy I lost my virginity to, my college roommate, told me that it's the easiest position for rookies.

I've never done this before, I admit, and he blinks at me in surprise.

"Neither have I."

Just try to relax, I say. I empty a gallon of lube onto my fingers, and reach down his back and into the crack of his ass. I go deeper, and deeper still, very slowly. I feel him resisting a little at first, and then the lube does its magic. He's all heat and sensation, and it's fucking amazing. For all the things I've let other guys do to me, I've never once felt the need to reciprocate. To touch them like this. Now, I know, this is what it feels like for them.

He shudders slightly. He's whimpering and mewling into the crook of his arm, pressing the side of his face into the stained couch cushions. His eyes reduced to slivers; the bone-white of his teeth, casually exposed. Me, I'm staring at him in fascination. Is this what I look like when other people do it to me? This quivering bundle of nerve endings, wound tight as a spring? The temptation to go further is there, but I pull back. Am I hurting you? I ask, although it seems laughably unnecessary.

"No, of course not," he sighs. He grabs my wrist. "Just... put it in. Please..."

Okay, I say. I exhale sharply. Okay.

It's awkward, but we manage it. I sit on my heels and lift one of his legs slightly. I push forward, ever so gradually, not wanting to hurt him. How's this? I ask every two seconds, and each time he nods, tightly.

"Good... nice... ohh."

This is dangerous, I know. Buried to the hilt, fucking him bareback, as if I don't let other people do that to me all the time. It's reckless behavior, the kind of thing that probably got Sam killed and me into this mess, but I can't think or turn back fast enough. The elf, his body is enveloping mine, drawing me deeper into his febrile heat.

He's lost now, in some magical faraway place in the stars, dancing hand-in-hand with his pleasure. I lean forward and flick my tongue up the outer shell of one of his pointy ears. I twist his nipples, squeeze his balls. I listen to him moan. Then I come inside him, and for the first time ever while coupled with someone, I wish it doesn't end.

Afterwards, I roll him onto his back and suck him off. He explodes in my mouth almost instantly. I'm not sure what I'm expecting, if he should perhaps taste like rainbows and Skittles. He doesn't, and I wonder if I should be disappointed or not.

He takes a longer time than usual to recover. While I wait, I roll us each a joint. He accepts it with a tired smile, but I watch him uncertainly. He and I, I feel as though we've just crossed an unspoken line. I don't know what awaits me on this side, and I'm scared to find out.

He says, "That was nice. I liked it."

Your people ever fuck like this? I ask, and he chuckles, genuinely amused.

"Sometimes," he says. "But it's different from being with a human."

Oh really? How so?

"Well, my people are a lot more discreet. We pretend that all these devious fantasies we have about each other don't exist. Humans are more... forward. More open to experimentation, and less ashamed about it."

He pauses and says, "Like you, for example. You're very direct. It was a bit of a shock to me when we first met. You were very businesslike."

I frown. That's true, I say. But not everyone is like me, you know. I'm uncomfortable with how accurate his assessment is, by how well he purports to know me. I look away, and in that moment I don't notice him bending to pick something off the floor.

"Who's this?" I hear him ask, and I turn slowly, my heart freezing to a lump of ice in my chest. He's holding the Polaroid of Sam, the one I snapped at the rave. The elf stares at me quizzically, unable to hide his curiosity.

My mouth is dry, and there's a heaviness like rain in my eyes. I clear my throat. None of your business, I want to shout, but there's no room between us for those cruel, cruel words. Instead I tell him, that's Sam. He was my best friend.

"Was?" He asks, very quietly. Then comprehension dawns on him, like color being sucked from a sunset. His mouth droops. He reaches out a hand to touch me; pulls it back. "I'm so sorry. What happened to him?"

He died, I say baldly. I push myself up, draw my knees into my chest. I say, Sam was always careful. Always went for regular tests at the clinic. Always used a condom. Never fucked random people; people he'd just met. Never invited strangers into our apartment, where they might rob or rape or kill us on our home turf. Always kept himself clean. Lectured me over and over again on my reckless tripping and cruising. Between the two of us, he was the responsible one.

I take a shaky breath and continue. But three months ago, his results came back, I say. He had tested positive for the blood sickness. And after that, his health started deteriorating.

The elf, he's staring at me, gripping the Polaroid in his hands. His knuckles pale, his expression oscillating between incredulity and sympathy. I start to cry; I can't stop myself.

I've known Sam for seven years, I tell him. Fresh out of college, I was celebrating my twenty-first at some shitty bar. I had a few friends then, all of us aspiring accountants with a shiny view of the world. One of them brought him along to my party as a date. Sam and I, we hit it off. Eventually he and my friend broke up, but we moved in together. Everyone thought Sam and I were a couple.

"Were you?" he asks, carefully.

No, I say, never. It's hard to get the words out over my blubbering. I wipe my hand on my arm, leaving a clear trail of snot along my skin. The elf silently hands me the toilet roll, and I blow my nose.

Sam and I, we weren't each other's types, I say. But we looked after each other. Once, the guy he was seeing broke his nose, and I drove him to the hospital. Another time, some sleazy trick slipped something into my drink, and Sam saw the whole thing. Threw it in the guy's face, grabbed me, and ran. We had each other's backs all the time.

Then the bombshell, I say. I look at the elf. He's watching me intently, resting his chin on a fist. His pointy ears cocked like a dog's, listening.

Sam tried at first, I choke out. He did the treatments. Every day, he cooperated with the doctors. Antiretroviral therapy. Bottles and boxes and jars of pills, all of them different. Endless traipsing to the hospital to get his blood work done. But even with his insurance coverage, things were getting tough. He wasn't getting any better. He was sick more often, coughs and colds, which he'd never had before. I'd come home from work to find him collapsed on the kitchen floor. He lost his appetite, then a bunch of weight, and finally the job he loved, teaching kids with autism how to interact with the world. One by one, our friends started deserting us as well.

I say, he was getting depressed, but I never noticed. I was too caught up in what the tangible things. I urged him to take his meds; lied to both of us that he'd get better tomorrow. Always tomorrow, I said. Always a new day.

I'm a burden, he used to say. Every single time I drove him to the hospital, every single time I measured out his pills, every single time I cooked something for him, only to have him wince and push it away. You shouldn't be stuck with me, he'd whisper. And I would tell him, No, you're my friend, and you're worth it. And for a time, we both believed it, until he didn't anymore. All this time, I say. I don't understand why it was him, and not me.

I take a deep breath. He killed himself, I say.

The police found his body in the river, I tell the elf. He had driven there, in the car we jointly owned. Stopped the engine, climbed out, and flung himself into the rushing water. Hours later, the police fished him out. They found GHB in his bloodstream. Crystal meth. MCAT. LSD, Special K, MDMA. A potent cocktail of party drugs. Sam, who was always so careful with his intake, who never liked to push his own limits, not even to impress someone he liked. He never even left a note, not even to say goodbye.

No foul play. The police ruled his death an accident, plain and simple. But I knew better, I say. It was his escape ticket.

The worst part, I say to the elf, was telling the people at the autism school that Sam was never coming back again. Just imagining the faces of those kids and their parents. All the progress they made so the world would learn to understand and love them, all of that coming undone. After I put down the phone, I say, I took a long trip right there in my living room, hoping to forget.I should have died instead of Sam, I say. He looked after himself, and everyone else. He was an angel. He didn't deserve it.

But, I admit at last, into the silence, I did.

The elf says nothing. He moves across the couch and wraps me in his arms. I breathe in the grassy, cinnamon smell of his body. Skin to skin, we are sticky and raw from the excess of our pleasure and pain. I bury my face in his shoulder and inhale. He strokes my hair. No one, except for Sam, has held me like this, in a non-sexual way. This time, I don't fight it.

"You don't." His soft voice is months, weeks, days too late, but it pushes the cobwebs and stillness aside, nestles deep into my consciousness. A kernel of truth, safely embedded in the lining of my heart. He brushes the tears from my eyes, kisses my salty lips, smelling and tasting himself on them, yet not pulling away. "Nobody does."

He tucks the Polaroid into my hand. For a long moment, I look at it, taking in the familiar details of Sam's face. Then I look back at him again.

Please, I whisper. Stay.

He takes my hand, rolls my fingers gently in his palm. Sam's picture is there, between our joined hands.

"I will."