Taste of Power by: Krazytop ---
Part XXVI
Don't be fooled.
It may look cute, with its big round eyes and fluffy hair.
But it's a menace.
Pure evil--in mokimon form.
Most mokimon evolve in predictable ways.
Marmander evolves into Marmillion evolves into Marizard.
A little salamander...into a midsized chameleon...into a very, very big fire-breathing lizard.
But the mokimon Obo works a bit differently.
Give it a magical smiley stone, and it evolves into the cherubic Bassoony.
But give it a magical frowny stone, and it evolves into the demonic Clarinetta.
Clarinetta lurks in the shadows, ready to strike. Clarinetta is eminently ready, making people stub their toes and lose their keys at the most inopportune of moments. Nothing pleases Clarinetta as deeply as the Parcheesi blockade effect of two slow trucks side by side on a two-lane road, plugging the traffic flow to a foul grind. Even generally normal drivers, when corrupted by Clarinetta, will slow down to a maddening, leisurely pace, particularly if they are in front of you are on the way to the airport. You thought the train track crossing through the road had been retired, but Clarinetta giggles at the thought of proving you wrong.
Clarinetta doesn't mind delaying the flight—but only when you are past the gates.
Once you know, it changes how you see the world.
In life, there is no bad luck.
There is only Clarinetta.
I bang the cellar door.
The sky is mottled with clouds, obscuring half the stars. I hug my jacket around myself.
A minute later, Chris opens it a crack. He's shirtless, with profuse sweat running down his chest. "Oh..." he says, pausing to read my face. "It's you."
His eyes dart around in the space behind me. Then, he swings the door out, so that it smashes back into the house.
"What was that for?" I ask.
Chris shrugs, beckoning me inside.
I step over the threshold and Chris closes the door behind me, making sure it is locked twice.
He looks like he has regained about half his swagger.
He gestures for me to walk down the steps first, then he follows after.
"What were you up to?" I ask.
"Working out," Chris says. "I've been working twice as hard ever since..." he trails off. Then, he flashes a half-smile. "I'm sorry I left, that day, you know."
"Whatever."
"Seriously! I'm sorry, okay?"
"What would you do different?" I ask, my voice flat.
"Win." He turns his head. "Or at least—get you out of there."
He plops down onto the couch, and I wait, standing a few feet away. "I didn't mean to interrupt. I can help you work out, if you'd like."
Chris rolls his eyes. "Sit down, Travis." He pats the couch cushion next to him.
I sink into the seat, and he switches on Big Bang Brothers, passing me a controller.
We play for a few minutes, but I get the feeling he is toying with me.
"Why are you here?"
"To not be alone."
"And Zane?"
"I'm not allowed to be with him right now. Not until I have enough money."
"What?"
"I spent all of Sunday, running around town, looking everywhere I could to find work. I have some time now that I quit wrestling. They had an opening at Melt, the sandwich shop, and today was my first day."
"Why does Zane care whether you have money or not? He's not exactly used to being pampered."
"He's broke."
"So—you're like—his breadwinner?"
"I will be."
"And you'll pay for the privilege of his presence?"
"That looks to be the game."
"You'll work without making money for yourself," Chris says, frowning. "You're his slave."
"Yeah."
"Fuck that," Chris says, tossing his controller to the side, abandoning the match. He grabs my head, pushing it into the couch cushions, holding one of my arms behind my back. I feel his body weight on me. Sweat mucks up my clothes. "WHERE IS HE?" Chris asks in a harsh whisper.
The game music idles on, unaware our focus has shifted.
"What?" I whimper.
"Where is Zane?"
"I don't know..."
"Something funny happened the other day," Chris says. "Brett swung by. The night after he went to the drive-in with you. We played video games for a while, but his eyes kept flickering toward my leg. Eventually, he just reached out and grabbed my quad, looking me in the eye. Then, without a word, he sunk down to his knees."
I gulp.
"Any idea why Brett would do that? I've known him for as long as I can remember, and he's never so much as looked at me funny before. Suddenly, he's..."
"Did you fuck him?"
"Well, you sure as hell haven't been available." Chris puts me in a headlock, hissing in my ear. "I called Brett, you know. The day you and Calvin were trapped at the Wombach house. The day I—lost. I'm the one who got him to check in on you."
"You sent him to oblivion," I croak. "Zane broke him. Zane got him begging to be fucked. He got him to flaunt his ass, bucking around in the faggot pussy position. Then Zane pounded him like there was no tomorrow. Pretty sure Brett's got a taste for jock cock now. And he couldn't pass up the chance to be with you...because you fit the bill."
"Shit," Chris says. "Oh, shit. And Calvin wasn't at wrestling today either. I'm pretty sure he's quitting, just like you did. We'll lose the whole JV team if this keeps up. Damn it. I thought—Brett could save you guys—in a way I couldn't. Instead...it looks like I'll have to after all."
"If he failed, you might fail. Brett's a few rungs above you, isn't he? Or at least, he was..."
"He sure as hell isn't now."
"Yeah."
"I've got to put an end to this."
"Don't develop some sort of hero complex. I'm sick of people assuming I want them to rescue me."
"I—I miss you, you know."
I shake my head. "It's been a long time since you held the key to my heart."
Chris digs his nails into me. "He uses you as a toilet, Travis."
I pout.
"How can he do this to you? How can he make you so dependent on him, then forbid you from spending time with him? Is he trying to weaken you more? Is he trying to weaken me?"
My eyes are still buried in the cushions, so I close them, then turn my head to the side, so my words will be less muffled. "Let's say I were to walk, and every once in a while, he would note the inverse of the number of miles I had walked. One over ten. One over one hundred. One over a million. The number would get closer and closer to zero, without ever quite reaching it. That's how it is with Zane. He stretches me further and further, thinner and thinner, without ever quite annihilating me."
I try to clear my throat, which is still gravelly where Chris's arm is digging into it.
"But Zane grows bored with me, because the challenge I present is so marginal. A great checkers player wants always to win, but they find less joy in dominating someone unworthy of the endeavor."
"So what then? He sees me as worthy of being broken?"
"I'm sure he does," I croak. "Is it the worst thing? Maybe Brett's happier now. Not so worried about being turned into a pillar of salt. He couldn't know his true colors...he couldn't know where to put his faith...until he experimented."
"Get out," Chris says.
"But I thought you had grown out of abandonment?"
"GET OUT."
Chris releases me. I take one look in his eyes, then scamper up the creaky stairs. I unlock the door, my heartbeat thumping along. Then, I launch myself into the blanket of fog, my pathway checkered halfheartedly with the feeble light of the moon.
The flip side of Clarinetta is Bassoony.
It is said that God created the first Bassoony on the sixth day, using man as something of a rough draft.
Bassoony was the one who convinced God that he deserved Sunday off, encouraging him to take a bit of time to himself.
Historically, it's in God's honor that people take the Sabbath off work. This constitutes a tradition that secular people rarely call into question. In that sense, Bassoony is indirectly responsible for the concept of weekends.
Thanks, Bassoony.
Glad you did that.
The next day is much the same. Instead of wrestling or ceramics after school, I head straight to Melt. About half way through my shift, they let me make myself a sandwich. That's a boon. It means I can avoid dinner with my parents.
By the time I get home, it's already late. Tomorrow—I should have enough cash for Zane.
I roll over his instructions in my mind. He shouldn't have asked me to provoke Chris like that, especially with all that's happened. It's too much to ask...
I sneak quietly into my room, avoiding my parents' customary interrogation about my day. I try to silence my slinking thoughts.
There are far fewer clouds tonight.
My room is a prison of moonlight, broken up by the gridlines on my window. The splintered light falls on the walls, the ceiling and the floor, painting it like a cellblock. I clench my eyes shut.
Sleep. I have to sleep. The uncertainty tugs at my brain, keeping me awake. The house is creaking.
I need to relax.
I pull down my princess underwear. Zane said absolutely no coming—but teasing is forgivable, right?
I think of Zane flexing for me, drawing me in, and kissing me on the lips. He holds my head, spitting into my open mouth. I moan softly, rubbing my balls. My mouth falls open and I bite my tongue at the corner of my lips. The warped moonlight catches my eyes; the vision of Zane blanches; the notion of Chris hovers.
"Dammit, Chris," I whisper. "Why can't you leave me alone?"
I pull one leg into the air and my asshole gapes open slightly. The plug starts to slide out. I had almost grown accustomed to it. I smirk. I grab the plug and start sliding it in and out of my ass.
"Chris," I whimper, reliving the scene when he shoved me into the couch. I shake my head. "Just give it up."
My disdain for him is hazier when I'm half asleep.
His arms close around me. The fuzz near his hairline is spiky yet soft—I want to run my fingers through it; I want to feel it prickle my skin...
His golden eyes warm me up like firelight. His frustrating smile...
He has strength. I know he does.
The question is...does he have guts?
I feel the draft, rustling the curtains, like a whisper, a question, hanging in the air.
How to guide a stream, as it cuts its way into the heart of the mountain?
Maybe I'll let Chris win—tonight.
"Chris," I whisper. "Don't be mad at me for talking about Zane."
I close my eyes, smelling the sweat rising of Chris's body as he pins me down.
"But if you're the alpha, then why don't you prove it?" I whisper, twisting the plug up my ass. "You had me pinned down. You coulda broke my slave pussy open. Mmn, fuck..."
I feel a hand my mouth. I start to kiss and suck it. I moan, pumping the plug harder into my hole.
A bolt of shock crackles from my head to my toes.
It's real!
There's somebody in my room.
Oh my God...
He grips my face around the mouth, looming over me in the dark.
I start squirming and flailing; my squeals are muffled by the hand. My heartbeat hastens.
"Shut up, bitch."
A cloud shifts and I can see the moonlight on his face. I relax and close my mouth. He moves his hand down from my mouth to my chest.
"Chris!" I whisper.
He smirks.
"How did you get in?" I croak.
Chris spins a key-chain around the finger of his other hand. I see the Penrose Triangle.
Chris puts the keys down on my nightstand. He strips off his clothes, flexing absentmindedly. His muscles glint in the patchwork light.
"Chris—" I whisper. "You shouldn't be here."
"Really? You mean I shouldn't prove how much of an alpha male I am? I shouldn't pin you down and fuck your slave pussy?"
"Shit, Chris..."
He crawls into bed and lifts my other leg into the air, nodding towards me with a cocky look. "Hold your legs up for me."
I wrap my arms around my legs so they won't move. "Chris—you are not supposed to be here!"
He leans in and drops his lips into mine. "That wasn't what you were saying a minute ago."
He pulls the plug out of my ass and my mouth falls open; he plunges his tongue inside my mouth and I suck on it softly; he positions his cock against my hole, rubbing it around in slow circles.
He unlocks his lips from mine.
"Tell me what you want," Chris says. He wraps his arms around me, the head of his big cock waiting against my hole.
I can't find the words through my shallow breathing.
I know what I'm supposed to say.
I finally summon a gravelly whisper from somewhere inside me.
"Fuck me."
His arms flex around me and he plunges his cock inside.
"Oh hell," I whimper.
"You like my cock inside you?" he asks. He leans in and his warm lips graze mine again. I suck on them softly.
A surreal haze fills the room, pierced by a shaft of moonlight.
"Mmn," I whisper, biting down on his lips.
"You fantasize about me when you jack off?" Chris asks, a touch of surprise in his voice.
"Shut up."
He smirks and nibbles my tongue. Then he suspends his right arm behind his head, cupping his ear. He flexes his arm inches from my face.
I lean forward and lick his bulging arm. I drop kisses across his biceps, nibbling his nipple, before burying my face into the valley of his chest muscles. He pumps himself up; stretching my jaw. His cock burrows deeper into my ass as his body hardens. I suck the salty sweat off of him. My mouth explores his vein-lined pectorals, treading closer and closer to his musky pit. His arm is still draped around me; he kneads my shoulder before gripping the back of my head.
I dare to imagine him shoving my face inside; I sniff his pit, my breath rattling.
But then he tilts my head back, making me look into his eyes.
"Too dirty?" I say, gulping back saliva.
He starts wheeling his cock in and out of my hole. I whimper.
He smirks, ignoring the question, before pulling back, his cockhead lingering at the cusp of my hole. I feel empty; my face is cold with Chris's sweat.
"I'm your dream guy?" Chris asks.
What makes an idol false?
And what makes an idol true?
You can't always decide
What choice is up to you?
My open-mouthed breathing is ragged.
Chris snarls and shoves my kneecaps into my pecs. My accessible ass points up, waiting defenselessly. Chris impales me with his cock.
I look into his eyes, ignoring his question right back.
He grips my neck, tracing the indentation where the collar had been, before thumbing my lip.
"He was trying to brand you. Do you remember? He was going to tattoo you. I stopped it. Are you glad I stopped it? Or would you like to be marked...as property?"
I nibble Chris's fingers as they brush over my lips.
He pushes down on my tongue, leans in, and bites my neck hard. He sucks on it. I whimper and flail, and he bucks hard into my shaking ass until I go limp.
"There. We'll see what Zane thinks of that when we see him tomorrow."
"Chrikh," I whimper.
"What?" he asks, a tremor rolling through his deepened voice. He pulls his hand out of my mouth and wipes it off on my chest, smirking. Then he chomps down on my nipple.
I squeal. I hope to God my parents don't hear.
Chris clamps my mouth shut, wrapping his other arm around me. I feel his muscles tighten and tense; I smell the sweat of his last workout mixing with this one, the vapor filling the room.
He starts pounding me roughly, stretching deeper and deeper inside me, exposing tender places. Believing it safe, he navigates his hand away from my mouth, cradling my cheek.
"Fuck Chris," I whimper. "I—I don't know if I can take it."
The prison of moonlight plays against his face. He flashes a shadowy half-smile, moves his arm, and teases me with his bristled armpit again.
I breathe slowly, closing my eyes, sniffing his dense sweat.
I lick the air, not quite reaching it, before nibbling my tongue.
He snarls, pulling me in till the salty, warm musk restricts my face.
I bathe it in tongue as he continues to clout my ass.
I slurp down all the pit sweat I can collect while the rest laminates my nose and brow.
He tugs on my hair, tightening his lock around my head.
Chris turns so he can suck on my ear, my face still entrenched in his pit. I drag my tongue about, slowly moaning.
He licks; he slowly blows inside. "Can we just forget it all—all the bullshit, all the mistakes, all the stupid people and things in the whole world?" He releases my head; I sink back into the pillow. "Can't we just forget it all?"
"I don't think so," I whisper.
"Why not?"
"For starters—I'm not sure I like you."
"Sure," Chris says, batting my rock-hard dick. It bounces against my stomach before standing treacherously erect.
"You haven't been there for me."
"I sure as hell am here now though, right?"
"I hate you," I whisper softly. "I hate you for what you did. And even more for what you didn't."
"Then—why let me fuck you?" The gilded sparkle in his eyes splinters through the shadows.
"Zane says—hatred is a way of defending yourself—from yearning. And what I've wanted—what I've always wanted—"
I surprise myself as I think it. Not Chris. Not Zane. Not even Calvin.
"Is--to be—good enough."
Chris stops thrusting for a moment, wrapping his arms around me tightly, his eyes inches from mine. For a moment, I just look into the pools of his eyes, into the shadowy ocean that seems to go on and on, endlessly penetrable, and yet, still, withholding secrets.
"What ever made you feel you weren't?"
You did.
But that's wrong, I realize.
I let it happen. I'd been fed a narrative. And I devoured that narrative. Self-esteem; Manifest Destiny; dream to climb, rise above all the others, be the best of them all.
And, when that didn't match what was happening, I cried. I let myself become the victim of a dead dream; I'd lived a nightmare.
The dissonance between expectation and reality was tethered together by desire, but not the one that society had prescribed for me.
I never wanted to prove myself in the first place. I'd been brainwashed and heckled into it.
I only ever wanted to give.
I pull Chris into me, breathing in his ear. "Harder, stud."
"And risk losing control?" he asks, his voice bending.
"I've always been a bit of a gambler."
He looks at me like he is just seeing me. The moonlight breaks along the windowpane before skipping across his eyes. He snarls.
He batters my ass hard; I feel his balls compact against my skin; his cock stretches the tunnel of my ass; his chest pulses over me; he flexes around me.
"Fuck!" I whimper.
Chris barrels on. He hits the sweet spot of my ass; light flashes in front of my eyes; clarity stings...
"Please—Zane said I'm not supposed to cum—I'm so close, Chris..."
Chris smirks. "He did?" He leans in and sucks on my lips, pushing his tongue into my mouth and playing with mine until it droops.
He hammers me; I gasp--his cock stretches me; reworks me; opens me.
"God Chris—I—damn it—you bastard—"
My ass starts to clench; my balls draw up; Chris humps me like an animal; sweat drips off his body and falls onto mine; my mouth is wide open; I bite down on my tongue again; I close my eyes; I can't believe it; oh my fucking God...
The first rope of cum shoots out so hard that it hurts. With a stab of guilt, I grip my dick to prevent it from expanding too painfully. Another strand of cum follows, and then another, painting my chest. Chris grunts, thrusting one last time before burying his cock into my ass as deep as it could go.
I whimper as I feel him shoot deep inside me, stretching me to places I've never been. My eyes shift; everything is hazy. I bite my lip; my legs shake. I start to lower them slowly; I wrap my arms around Chris and pull him in for a kiss.
He allows it, but not for long.
When he pulls back, he cocks an eyebrow, reaches his fingers into the pool of cum at my chest, and brings it to my lips.
I slurp it down.
Chris chuckles. "Your problem isn't that you aren't good enough. If anything, you are too good."
He pulls out and I gasp. My dead legs collapse onto the bed. I snuggle into Chris; he wraps his arms around me again and nibbles on my ear, running his hand through my hair.
My thoughts cloud over as I slip into sleep.
If you lose then you are a bitch. That's a vulnerable, depressing feeling. But if you get fucked afterwards, you get to be someone's bitch. And that's my favorite feeling. Being under the wing of a man, in the shadow of his power and the protection it affords.
Moonlight glances through the window, and I open a wary eye.
I'm alone.
Maybe it was all a dream. I stare at the light-woven ceiling.
A sweet dream.
But then I see it.
The Penrose Triangle keychain is on the nightstand.
I flip on the black light that I use as a guide when I have to take a piss. I gaze into the rainbow prism of the keychain, watching the violet light fracture and play on the walls.
The eye of the storm. That's where I am, till Zane's tempest takes me again.
I turn away—but then a needle runs down my spine.
An image is staring up at me from across the room. A monkey, drawn in pure light, with its hands over its mouth.
I rub my eyes, trying to shake away the hallucination.
But it's not going away. I climb out of bed, the twinge in my ass confirming I'll need a day or two to recover. As I float across the room, I see that the image is engraved on the cover of the book Hiro gave me of Escher's pictures.
He'd drawn it in invisible ink—so the others wouldn't see it before he gave it to me. He knew I kept the black light in my room, back from when he used to come over sometimes. The black light he'd given me years ago, to spook passerby of Calvin's haunted garage each Halloween.
I rifle through it, finding his little witticisms written in invisible ink here and there.
Some are soothing, like music.
"Ten persons, ten colors."
Some make me roll my eyes.
"Fall down seven times, stand up eight."
Others make me laugh.
"Even monkeys fall."
He'd explained that last one to me before. Monkeys are very good at climbing trees, you see. But no one, not even a monkey, is flawless.
A few lonely names streak the pages. Henry Beecher. Iwazaru. Jen Li.
I close the book, clutching it to my chest like a smiley stone.
Then I set it down next to my keychain, flipping off the light, ready to ignore the moon and get some real sleep at last.
--- Feedback keeps me in the mood to write and brainstorm and is always appreciated. :) email: krazytop@gmail.com tumblr: krazytop.tumblr.com