Dandy Taylor Sucks

I discovered Troye Sivan on YouTube, long after his fame peaked as a vlogger.  I’m always late to the party.  I had written him off as just another cute youtuber teen singing songs for other teenagers until he blew my mind with the boundary-breaking video trilogy for Blue Neighbourhood.

I’d been starving for a pop icon that was explicitly gay in their music, one who did more than hint at his homosexuality with his songs and his videos. At the time, Troye was the closest thing that came to my ideal gay pop star, and I ate it all up, despite his lyrics being only vaguely gay.It was then that I had begun to take him seriously as an artist.  I had become a huge Troye fan, going as far as braving the very young crowd to see him in concert.

Fast-forward to 2018, as Bloom approached.  There were so many singles sprinkled upon us in the lead-up to the release of the album, and so much marketing (holy shit, a huge fucking billboard in NYC!), that my excitement was constantly undulating like that roller coaster in the first single off the album.

The ride started for me when Troye strut back into my life with My, My, My, in all his open-shirted epileptic-seizure-inducing glory.  And the fact that he was Malfoy blonde - shit, that blew my Draco-loving mind.  I wasn’t used to Troye being this sexy, and admittedly, I felt a little dirty for liking it.  I hadn’t yet come to terms with the fact that he isn’t a teenager “kissing up on fences” and just holding hands anymore – he’s grown up, and he’s ready to get deeper into the story of his sexual evolution.

My My My! was the perfect way to herald this new era of sex-positive Troye.  No more teasing with coquettishly drawled lines like, “too long till I drown in your hands” (for the longest time, I had been convinced he was actually saying, “come in your hands”).  In My My My, he’s singing overtly about tongue kissing.  He’s hinting heavily at la petit mort in the chorus (“every night I die with you”), and he’s being a total bossy bottom (“go fast, no go slow, you like it just as much as me”). I was so on board for this kind of song.

I was pleased with the production value of the song as well.  It has an infectious kick-snare-kick-snare beat, perfect for doing the supermodel stomp across a stage, and oh my, does Troye WORK IT in the video.  It’s a great dance song.  I can’t listen to it without swinging my hips like Naomi Campbell. I was excited for more songs like this that I could dance to.  Ha, foreshadowing!

And then he dropped The Good Side, sooner than I had expected, catching me off guard.  I was underwhelmed on the first listen, and in subsequent listens.  In fact, the song took months to grow on me, and still, it doesn’t completely sit right with me.  Here’s why: It’s got a lovely sentiment, and it works as an acoustic guitar ballad with a waltz-y 3/4 time signature.  But then the song becomes awash with fluttering eighties synths, reverb-heavy distorted guitars, and Vocoder-laden vocals.  

Don’t get me wrong, I am a huge fan of eighties synthesizers, crunchy guitars, and Vocoders.  But in this case, they interrupt the mood and rhythm of the song.  It sounds as if the producers of the track thought it would be so very hipster to use vintage keyboards and to play with a vocal effects box, but to the detriment of the song as a whole.  Leave that stuff to Daft Punk and Chromeo, please. 

The Good Side is over-produced and overwrought, and any message that is to be had is completely lost in the noise.  There are four producers and six writers credited on The Good Side, which would only make sense if the song were an epic progressive rock song performed by a six-piece band. Such is the sad truth of how pop hits are made – they don’t emerge from introspective song-writing sessions in a candle-lit bedroom, they are assembled by several hands and libel to be spoiled by too many cooks in the kitchen.

When Troye performed The Good Side on Saturday Night Live, it was super awkward during that section where the vocals drop out and the cheesy synth twinkles in a haze of bass-y reverb.  He couldn’t sell it to me, no mater how blissed-out he looked with his eyes closed and with his arms outstretched.

Thank the gods for Bloom, the single that restored my hopes of a good overall album.  However, the video was bizarre as fuck, starring an animated Troye that reminded me of a creepy AI android.

When I had a really deep listen, I heard things in the lyrics that made this old smut-writer blush. “Baby, I’ve been saving this for you.”  Oh my gods, this is a song about Troye losing his virginity!  The title should have clued me in immediately, as an allusion to being deflowered, duh.

Bloom is another example of Troye being a bossy bottom, albeit a sweet one, with “tell me right before it goes down. Promise me you’ll hold my hand if I get scared now. I tell you to take a second, baby, slow down.”  Good for you, Troye!  Tell him how you want it!  

I think it’s sexy any time a guy admits he’s inexperienced, rather than fronting like he’s a seasoned sex monster.  When Troye sings, “you should know I bloom just for you,” I fucking swoon.  It’s the disclaimer of a virgin who has finally found the right guy to give it all up for. If a dude said that to me, I’d bend him over in a heartbeat.

Admittedly the production didn’t grab me right away on the first listen because it starts out a little juvenile, with a melody reminiscent of a nursery rhyme.  And then the chorus goes into this beat with popcorn snare drums that immediately made me think of the Fine Young Cannibals song, She Drives Me Crazy. Even the bass synth in Bloom brings back memories of that eighties song.  I love eighties music.  I am an eighties kid.  But I came here for Troye, not Fine Young Cannibals.

Then there’s a little break in Bloom that I think is supposed to be a lot sexier than it actually is.  The swoon-worthy line, “I bloom just for you,” is whispered with this weird vocal effect and with a cadence that makes Troye sound like a Speak and Spell – other eighties kids should know what this is – and comes off a little creepy, especially paired with the weird-ass video.

We got nothing from Troye for a while, and that was okay.  There had been enough hype and buzz still wirling around on his social media, keeping us at a suitable state of anticipation.  And then, BAM, he announced that he was about to drop a single with Arianna Grande, and my first thought is, fuck me, here’s another pointless collaboration with a female vocalist who brings nothing to the song.

Okay, you can hate me for this opinion:  I think every vocalist that has ever been featured in a Troye Sivan song detracts from it.  For example, IDKLA could have been one of my favorite songs of Troye’s previous catalogue, if it were not for the completely distracting rap break from Tkay Maidza.  

If anything, his collaborations just make me want to Google these other artists to find out how they stand on their own, and usually, they shine much brighter without Troye.  Seriously, Tkay should be knocking Cardi B off her hip hop throne with this latest dope single.  But I digress…

I anticipated Dance to This to be a much-needed club banger in Troye’s repertoire, with a huge pop diva to help carry the weight of what would be an anthem.  I WAS WRONG ON ALL COUNTS.

This is NOT a dance anthem. But Arianna KILLS, and her vocalizations meld perfectly with Troye’s.  She’s not a distraction, she doesn’t overshadow Troye – she is a perfect partner.  She comes in with “Dear beloved, bring those 501’s a bit closer,” and I’m like, FUCK YES GIRL I’M COMING.  In other words, I’m all on board for Arianna’s sultry vocal drawl.

Dance to This is not the gay club anthem I expected, but I like it a lot.  It’s halfway between slow-jam and dance-jam.  I could either salsa dance while making dinner to this, or lay my lover down in front of the fire and slow fuck to this.  It’s a versatile song.  

The beat reminds me of those canned bossa nova beats on old electric organs. I actually really like the beat.  And the guitars, awash in reverb, summon the dreamy vibe of songs by Beach House (who incidentally also have an album titled Bloom).  While you’re at it, have a listen to this other song by Beach House, which comes to mind when I listen to Dance to This.

My only gripe about Dance to This is that it’s entirely hetero. I’m being petty; I know.  I shouldn’t complain that it’s not two gay dudes singing, because Arianna and Troye sound so good together on this track.

Okay, I lied.  I have another gripe.  The video is Awkward, with a capital A, for all it’s harsh fluorescent lighting, drab location, and uncomfortable snapshots of ordinary people. It doesn’t fit the mood of the song. And I really wish that Troye’s stylist would put him in suits that are actually tailored to his body.  Oversized suits make him look like a boy who went shopping at the thrift shop and got pieces from the 1970’s that don’t fit right.  Not that there’s anything wrong with thrift shopping, as long as you tailor your sweet vintage finds.

Next to drop was Animal, but I was too busy with the end of the summer to pay immediate attention to it.  When I finally listened, my first reaction was, this is nice… Sometimes we don’t want nice songs, though. Sometimes we want songs with an edge. After Troye brought the sexy with My, My, My and Bloom, I was disappointed by Animal.  The words are about possession and passion, but they are in stark contrast to the subdued tone of the song.

Production-wise, this song falls short for the most part.  It starts with seventeen seconds of what could be considered total silence when listening through the shitty speakers of most devices – let’s face it, that’s the sad reality of how we experience music these days.  That’s a lot of nothing at the beginning of a track.  I turned it way up and listened on my professional headphones.  There is a barely audible, subsonic rumble of thunder that tries, but fails, to set a somber mood.  

Animal has a whole lot of echoing reverb and chorus-pedal-treated guitars and droning bass synth, which usually is the formula for my favorite Cure songs, but in Animal, this combination does little for me emotionally.  The three-note synth melody in the chorus once again harkens back to classic Beach House, which should be a good thing, but feels ingenuine in this song.

Then there’s this odd break-down bit with clicking beats that sound literally like buttons being pushed in the recording studio.  However, I do like the lyric “all laid out like a Tarot” in that bit.  

Animal would have been more pleasing to me personally, had it just been Troye and a piano.  It would have succeeded in conjuring a romantic rainy afternoon spent inside making love slowly with greedy relish, instead of coming just short of that.  

The lyrics and the vocal delivery are the only redeeming things about this song.  Troye has the vocal style of a male ingénue, singing about long-term, monogamous romance – it’s sweet.  It reminds me of Marilyn Monroe singing I Want to be Loved By You, but sung from the opposite perspective of wanting to love “you, nobody else but you”. 

Despite my personal gripes, I totally added Animal to my Albus/Scorpius playlist without regrets.

By the time the album finally, fucking FINALLY, dropped, after being strung along for months, I was too emotionally exhausted to even get excited.  I didn’t stay up until midnight to wait for the track titles to go from grey to click-able black in Apple Music.  I didn’t watch the YouTube livestream as it happened.  I didn’t even listen to the entire album in the morning.  I listened to Seventeen over breakfast, in a half-arsed haze, and decided that this album deserved to be listened to on a proper sound-system, rather than on my shitty Bluetooth speakers in the kitchen.

That’s not to say I wasn’t happy that my baby boy Troye released his second full-length album, or that I didn’t celebrate it.  I totally celebrated.  I put on my floral print trousers in his honor.  I listened to the album on repeat while going about my day.  It was motivational music for getting my lazy ass into gear, it was music to make running errands less banal, and it was background music for cooking a fabulous dinner.  It is an incredibly short album!  I must have cycled through all the tracks like twenty times in one day.

I’ve been listening to the album for almost a week now, and I’m starting to settle into it, which is weird, because I feel like I’ve already been living with nearly half the album for months.  So let’s examine the other songs on Bloom.

Seventeen really seals this as Troye’s sex-positive album. I could not listen to this song without knowing where it was coming from.  I had heard a little bit about Troye’s Grinder hook up with an older guy. This song was that experience, and it was so intimate and raw and beautiful.

I feel like this song is the closest we’ve gotten to the real Troye, not that he ever comes off as fake – just guarded.  In previous songs, we saw blurry glimpses into his sexual discovery and his coming of age.  Seventeen is a very candid, very clear snapshot of said sexual discovery and coming of age.  I absolutely love it.

To open a song, hell - an entire album, with something so fucking precocious as, “I got these beliefs that I think you wanna break, and something here to lose that I think you want to take from me”, is so ballsy.  And hot - not gonna lie.

Troye is endearingly vulnerable in this song, in all of his honesty about being “maybe a little too young” and getting in over his head. I feel his trepidation juxtaposed with teenage bravado in one breath – “You should know I’m green, but I’ll find my way around.”

We hear him struggling with the issue of consent between an adult and a minor - “he said age is just a number, just like any other, we can do whatever you want,” and resigning to a grown man’s entitlement – “Can’t tell a man to slow down, he’ll just do whatever he wants.” I can’t help but feel a little sad for him.  But it sounds like he’s learned from the experience and isn’t burdened with guilt or shame, which is great.

Production-wise, Seventeen works.  The lyrics really carry the song, and the music doesn’t get in the way. That’s not to say it’s a perfect song. The perfect song would have great lyrics, great vocal performance, and great music, all in a sweet harmonious package that moves me.  In Seventeen, the music is not particularly compelling. The vocal melody is also forgettable.

I keep thinking about Beach House, and also The XX, when I hear the sparse instrumentation and delay/reverb-heavy verses of Seventeen.  But Seventeen doesn’t come close musically to either of those bands, and that’s okay.

It’s okay, because the world needs more gay pop stars being gay, and more emotionally honest male vocalists being vulnerable, and Troye delivers with Seventeen.  

Postcard starts out with just vocals and piano – exactly the arrangement I wanted to hear in Animal and The Good Side.  Then we hear some very quiet bass guitar going through a chorus pedal, an effects process which seems to feature heavily on this album.  The guitar gives the song a little more musical breadth in what could potentially be an arrangement that’s too thin. 

Postcard is a straight-up torch song.  One can’t be a gay pop icon without a torch song.  It’s a sentimental ballad that could have been written five weeks ago or five decades ago.  It’s got a classic sound that will age well, meaning it will be just as good in twenty years as it is now.  Troye puts his own stamp (lol, see what I did there?) on the quintessential torch song – one that brings it into the present era – he drops an F-bomb and breaks into an R&B cadence in the second half of the verse.

And then, Gordi comes in. You already know how I feel about guest appearances in Troye’s songs.  I’m going to stand strong on this one and say Gordi’s vocals don’t work here. It’s very distracting and not harmonious with Troye’s voice, even when they’re harmonizing.  She detracts from the song, especially when Troye’s vocals drop out and it’s just her.  

When I listen to Postcard and Dance to This back to back, I can really hear the difference between a song where a featured vocal works, and where it doesn’t.  Grande succeeds, where Gordi fails, not that it’s a competition or anything, and not that Gordi lacks talent.  Listen to how she shines on her own, and bring tissues.

Plum, does absolutely nothing for me.  Sorry, Troye.  The lyrics of the chorus are trite wisdom.  “Even the sweetest plum has only got so long.”  All the fruit references are silly to me.  OK, I get it, not all relationships work out.  But that sentiment is in contrast to the sugary pop melodies.  The music does nothing for me – not the arrangement, not the instrumentation, not the vocal melody.  Nothing.  What Plum offers is a sense of balance and reality to the album as a whole, as far as subject matter is concerned.  Every song can’t be about hot sex or falling in love, right?  

If you could slow down Plum, dissect away all the distracting drums and synths, you might be left with a good sentimental song that fits the message. The worn out metaphors might even come off as poetic.

Heavenly Way to Die is another low point in the album, both in mood and quality.  I am immediately reminded of the classic song by The Smiths, There is a Light That Never Goes Out, in which Morrissey sings, “To die by your side is a heavenly way to die.”  I don’t think that Troye is referencing that song, though I could be wrong. It would be a nice homage to another queer icon if it were indeed a Smiths reference.  

Troye’s languid vocal delivery, paired with the melancholy electric piano, make this song kind of a downer.  Don’t get me wrong, I am all for sad songs – and Moz is a prime example of how sad songs can be incredibly moving.  But this song is neither sad nor moving.  It’s just… uninteresting.  

I can’t get a sense of what this song is about, other than maybe being in love.  I was expecting some romanticism about love and death, but I’m not feeling it in the lyrics or the music.  The busy drumbeat, especially that annoying clap, does not mesh well with the rest of the song.

In stark contrast is Lucky Strike, an absolute production triumph. All those musical tropes that the producers used throughout the album actually work splendidly in this song. Eighties synth, click-y electronic drums, and cavernous reverb vocal effects all fit well with each other.  I love that bouncy bass synth so fucking much!  It’s another versatile song, like Dance to This, that can be moved from the dance floor to the bedroom floor, with its smooth rhythms and jaunty two-note melodies.

Troye’s vocal delivery is reminiscent of… don’t kill me… Justin Bieber.  In a good way!  Biebs knows how to give sexy on a vocal track!  I’m getting a little Drake too from him.  I like it a lot.  The chorus is so fucking catchy, I hear it in my head long after the song has ended. And when the song ends, I am compelled to click the little repeat button.

Lyrically, Troye doesn’t let you forget that this song is about a boy, and we know exactly which boy he’s singing about.  “I wanna know just how to love you, the Jewel of California”.  If this isn’t about Jacob, then I don’t know anything. When he sings, “my boy like a queen, unlike one you’ve ever seen,” I can hear how proud he is of his BAE.  Troye may be super private about his relationship, and I admire that about him, but this sweet little gem gives us a rare glimpse at what it’s like to be in love with Jacob Bixenman.

I know that smoking has fallen out of fashion because it, you know, kills people.  But I’ll never let go of the sex appeal and romanticism of cigarettes, as a former smoker who struggled to kick the habit.  

There’s something so sexy about lighting your lover’s cigarette – “You drag, I light.” And I know that kissing somebody who smokes is like licking an ashtray, but in abstract, it’s hot - “You taste like Lucky Strikes”.

Who the hell smokes Lucky Strikes anymore?  I’ve no idea, but smoking archaic cigarettes sounds more romantic than, “you taste like Marlboro Lights,” but maybe that’s just my history clouding my perception.  For the record, nobody liked kissing me after I smoked a cigarette, even when I’d been unafraid of fiberglass and smoking menthols.

Lana Del Rey sang, “his Parliaments on fire and his hands are up” in her song West Coast.  In the same vein as so much of Lana’s music,  Lucky Strike is Troye’s Los Angeles ride-or-die love song, without the crime.

I know I talked a lot of shit about the music production on this album, but I still enjoy Bloom overall.  It’s a well-rounded collection of songs that captures Troye Sivan in candid moments of love, lows, and lust.

Bloom is an important and historic album for how authentically gay it is. It is honestly and earnestly gay.  It’s rare to hear songs sung so unguardedly and sincerely and openly by a gay male performer. Rarer still, are songs with sensual lyrics about gay romance and gay sex, laden with male pronouns, that aren’t brashly explicit.  

Troye Sivan is not the first openly gay musical artist ever to write gay songs.  Earnestness is the key here that makes Bloom unique as a work of gay art.

I won’t deny the overt and explicitly sexual gayness of bands like Pansy Division or performers like Jonny McGovern, but these artists create songs with a decidedly comedic slant.  

And I would be remiss to ignore Years & Years, not just because they’re my fave, but because Bloom comes behind the coat tails of their recent Palo Santo release with it’s subsequent short film.  And still, Olly Alexander, as outspokenly gay as he is in life, is still only questionably gay in his art.

There’s something really refreshing and wonderful about the range of emotion on Bloom.  Gayness aside, Bloom is a beacon that stands out amongst all the pop music that’s out right now, for how sensitive and genuine and non-objectifying it is.  Troye’s sentiments are not forced, they’re not part of a manufactured persona, they’re not trending – they’re real and they’re his.

When compared to the top four songs on the Billboard charts this week, the songs on Bloom are not belligerent like Post Malone’s Better Now, are not emotionally vacant or generic like Maroon 5’s Girls Like You, are not vocally incoherent like Love Lies by Khalid and Normani, and are not repetitively materialistic like Cardi B’s I Like It.  I know, I’m being unfair to all of the above, but you have to admit that Troye Sivan and Bloom are a world apart from what’s getting airplay at the moment.

But who’s still listening to broadcast radio as their first source for new music?  Comparing Troye’s music with what’s on the radio is kind of stupid, because who really cares about Billboard’s Top 40 anymore? With streaming services and YouTube, it’s a completely different environment than twenty years ago.  

Major media is starting to recognize Troye as a new species of pop star – I still have the New York Times article displayed in my kitchen.  Troye is a music artist of a new era, an era in which genuine gay voices can actually be heard in popular music.  He’s finally evolved into my ideal gay pop star, and I can’t fucking wait to see him sparkle on tour this fall.

And what does Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch enjoy doing, you ask?  Well, isn’t that the fucking question of the century?

I like watching Snow while he sleeps, staring at him from the pillow we share.  In the blue light of the small hours is when I can really watch him without worrying that my unblinking, penetrative stare will creep him out.  

I watch him in the dimness with my heightened vision, surveying every centimeter of his body.  All the expected parts are subject to my appraisal, from his copper curls falling messily on the pillow, to the soft angle of his jaw, to the conspicuous curve of his Adam’s apple, to the gentle rise and fall of his chest.  

I take special care to study all of his extraordinary parts when he’s sleeping.  The demonic coil of his tail, winding down his leg like a slumbering tree snake.  The leathery skin of his wings, stretched like translucent canvas between the joints and bones.  His wings are alive and vascular, with a lacelike matrix of blood vessels.

Fuck me… Those damn blood vessels.  

Simon Snow has the most delectable, pronounced, vascular system and it isn’t fucking right that I, of all creatures, ended up as his lover. When I’m roving his body with my nighttime eyes, I’m drawn to every pulsing conduit, thrumming with life.  I can fucking smell the iron brine of his blood coursing along his cygnine throat, mingling with his sweat.  

But his jugular has nothing on the great vein that forms a ridge along his cock when he’s hard.  Merlin and Morgana, that vein is probably ninety percent of the reason why I can’t reasonably give him a blowjob without accidentally causing a bloodbath (which is why I’ve never sucked him off).  The other ten percent is the way he makes my teeth fully extend when he gets me hot.  And by hot, I mean horny and marginally warmer in temperature due to increased blood flow.  Because, let’s be real, I’m never really hot.

I can’t stare at these parts of him when he’s awake.  If I allow my gaze to linger a little too long on his veins, on his tail, or Crowley forbid, on his wings, he’ll get all self-conscious and pouty. It’s not cute.  I’m exhausted enough as it is, constantly explaining the intricacies of sympathy and love and hunger and desire to somebody as thick and emotionally stunted as Simon Snow.  I really don’t need to exacerbate his insecurities further by staring.

Alas, I digress…

Continuing on with the things that Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch enjoys…

Long walks in the park? Not so much.  Nature makes me itchy.  The stupidity of Normals makes my eye twitch.  Both can be found in public parks, but Snow can’t get enough fresh air and Stupid, so I humor him.  I endure those long walks in the park because I love the git, and that’s what you do when you’re arse-over-elbows for someone.  You sacrifice.  You immerse yourself in Normal spaces because your boyfriend feels unworthy of magical spaces now, despite his enormous wings and the unspoken title of Humdrum-Vanquisher on his belt.

Holding hands?  I’m generally cool with it.  But then there’s holding hands in public with the Normals around, who are, as previously stated, quite stupid, and are idiotic enough to scoff at two blokes showing affection.  I have to literally hold Snow back with both hands every time some arsehole throws a homophobic slur our way…

Okay, that’s a lie. Nine times out of ten, I hold him back. On the tenth time, I let him have at the offending mouth-breather.  Because, let’s face it, Simon Snow is hot as fuck when he’s beating the shit out of some bloke, his blue eyes like petrol fire and his knuckles blanched white.  

He’s so sexy when he’s angry.  Maybe that’s just me being kinky.  Blood and sex and violence have always intertwined for me, ever since the day Snow broke my nose and concurrently gave me an erection with one well-aimed punch. We were fifteen.  That look on his face when he hit me was the one I saw behind my closed eyes every time I wanked in the shower thereafter.

To this day, that look makes me come with his name unspoken on my tongue.  Snow makes the same face when he’s fucking me hard and viciously, when he folds me in half and props my ankles on his shoulders, and gives it to me like it’s retribution for seven years.  And it’s the same look he gives me when he’s riding my dick and about to blow his load. All rosebud cheeks and angled eyebrows and gritted teeth and, shit… I get hard just thinking about it.

Let’s move on then, shall we?

What else does Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch enjoy?  Smoking a good hand-rolled fag… although, not really.  I mean, I do it because I like the way it keeps my fingers busy and my mouth occupied with something other than feeding upon tiny mammals.  

Snow has a habit of pinching my cigarettes after I’ve had a couple good pulls, just to remind me I’m flammable.  Then he’ll take a drag himself, smirking that dead sexy smirk of his, like he fucking knows he cheated death.  

I can’t finish an entire cigarette by myself anymore.  It’s just not good unless I’ve got Snow to share it with.  If I’m alone, I end up chucking it halfway through.

Bunce says I’m a bad influence for getting Snow hooked on nicotine.  I just have to laugh.  Developing chronic lung disease in future is the least of his worries.  Simon Snow is dating a vampire.  Simon Snow is fucking a vampire. I’ve never heard Bunce bothering Snow about that danger.  

She all too concerned with Snow’s health.  She makes sure to pick up a box of condoms to leave in the medicine cabinet every time she nips down to the chemists.  We’ll empty the box in a matter of days.

I know she’s not using them for herself, because Mister American Golden Boy Boyfriend only sees her four times a year, and she likes to rent a hotel room when he visits.

I would appreciate the fact that she’s looking out for us, if it were not for the fact that I’ll never suffer from an STI.  

Snow insists on us using condoms always.  “Just because you’ll never have an outbreak of herpes doesn’t mean you can’t pick it up and spread it all over London,” he said once.  I wanted to be offended, but I played it cool. If he wants to believe I’m a wanton slut, it’s fine.  He’s never asked the right questions, so he can think whatever the fuck he wants about my sexual past.  

If he knew how to use his words, he’d know I’ve only ever been with him.

I’ve only ever fucked Simon Snow.  And Simon Snow, well… one can only assume he’d slept with Wellbelove.  But I don’t really know for sure, and I’d rather not hear about his exploits.  I never ask.

I wonder if Bunce is secretly casting spells on Simon’s bed to keep me from draining his blood when I spend the night…

I wonder what she thinks he and I are doing when I cast ignorance is bliss through the door.  I never bother with silence is golden, because it tends to spread across a decently sized radius and I rather enjoy listening to the abject, vulgar sounds of carnal pleasure that erupt from Snow’s filthy mouth.

There’s another thing that Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch enjoys…

I enjoy seducing a delicate mewl out of Simon Snow when my teeth graze the skin of his neck just bellow his ear, before I bless his throat with a wet kiss, using all of my resolve to keep from biting down.  “Mmm, baby that’s good.”

I enjoy pulling a sibilant hiss from his parted lips when I curl my fingers around his hard cock and slide the pre-come-slicked foreskin over the reddened head.  “Shit, Baz…”

I enjoy squeezing wretched, mangled, wordless vowel sounds out of him when I breech his spit slicked hole.

I enjoy inspiring a half-angry, half-desperate low growl when I push into him maddeningly slow.  “Fuuuck, Baz, just fucking FUCK ME, YEAH?”  It’s so damn adorable when he’s so flustered that he’s redundant.

I enjoy forcing breathy, rhythmic cries of agonizing bliss that rise in pitch and volume with each fervent thrust towards his imminent release.  “UGH, FUCK, YES, JUST, LIKE, THAT, DON’T, FUCKING, STOP.”

I enjoy wrenching from his lips strangled litanies to the deities of the Normals, as he splatters his load all over his heaving chest (or mine, depending on our position.)  “Oh god, Jesus fucking Christ, I’m coming.”  Yeah, no shit, Sherlock.  I won’t ever laugh at him for being Mister Obvious because the sight of Simon Snow unleashing his load is a beautiful thing to behold and it shuts me right the fuck up.

Honestly, what does Bunce think is going on in Snow’s room?

PENELOPE

I’ve no idea when, where, why, or how Baz and Simon manage to blow through my entire emergency stash of condoms every week.  All they ever bloody do is get take-away, binge-watch Sherlock, crush on Benedict Cumberbatch, and retire to Simon’s room for massive pillow fights.  

The next time I find an empty box in the medicine cabinet, I’m leaving a note and asking for reimbursement.

SIMON

Baz enjoys posh clothes, doing posh things, and making me feel stupid.

Okay, that’s not exactly fair.  Let me rephrase.

Baz likes to dress up in expensive menswear, likes to dress me in expensive menswear, and likes to show us off in public.  

He’ll put us in these crisp shirts that are so fucking posh that they don’t even have buttons on the sleeves.  He has to fasten the cufflinks for me because I can’t figure out how to manage it single-handedly.  

We don’t bother with neckties unless we’re going out somewhere proper, like a fancy restaurant or the opera – I swear, he only bloody takes me to the opera to torture me. I don’t think he even likes opera. He likes the orchestra music, but honestly, I think the singing grates on his nerves.  He thinks I ought to be exposed to culture.  Fuck culture.

Usually we just get kitted out in tailored Paul Smith trousers for no fucking reason, other than to walk the promenade hand-in-hand.  I like our leisurely strolls in the park.  The fresh air smells so much more pleasant now that I no longer smell the underlying charcoal dusty scent of magic.  

There’s never any pressure to talk when we’re traipsing through the park, and I like that. Simply existing in the same space as Baz, without animosity and without some world-shifting problem looming over us, is bliss.  I just want to be close to him.  All. The. Fucking. Time.

That’s the fucking thing, though, yeah?  There’s always something…

Simon Snow enjoys long walks in the park, holding hands, and being permanently attached at the hip to Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch.  Those months that he was missing in our last year of Watford really did me in. Apparently, I’m one needy son-of-a-bitch when it comes to him.

It can’t be healthy – this breathless panic that wells up inside me every time I’m apart from Baz. This constant curiosity badgering my brain, making me wonder what he’s doing and where he is at any given time.

I find myself fidgeting when he’s not around.  Penny says it’s nicotine withdrawal.  That’s bollocks.  I don’t even smoke that much.  I only smoke when Baz smokes.  I don’t even like smoking.  I just like nicking his fags because he gives me this look every time I do it – like he wants to eat me.

Fuck… I wish he’d give me that look more often.  His dark eyes gleam and his bottom lip gets caught between his teeth, like he’s willing his fangs to stay sheathed.  And I go to fucking pieces inside.

Simon Snow enjoys long walks in the park, holding hands, stealing cigarettes, and being centimeters away from Death.

When we’re not going to the park or being cultured, we stay in with cartons of noodles and Benedick Cumberfuck.  That’s what we like to call the yummy actor who plays Sherlock because we may be exposing ourselves to opera culture, but we’re still dirty little boys at heart.

Before we get too sleepy, we slip into my room.  Baz spells the door so Penny is clueless about what we’re doing behind it.  And then, I prepare to get into bed with Death.

Death doesn’t wear a hooded cloak and carry a big-arse scythe.  Death doesn’t have a skull face.  Death comes to call looking like a handsome gentleman, with raven colored hair and trousers tailored so closely that it’s almost obscene.  Death seduces you into his cold grip with a fag poised between two lithe fingers and a devilish drawl.  

“I’ve been waiting all night to tear you apart, Snow,” Death says, with the entitled lilt of Baz’s voice.

But you know what? Death is a bloody tease.  I should know.  I’ve been close enough to smell it and have come out with my bollocks still in tact.  The more Death teases, the closer I get, the more dangerous the game.  And, fuck, do I love the game we play.  We play dress up, just so we can get undressed.

The best part about wearing nice clothes is tearing them off, isn’t it?  I like to damn near ruin them in my haste to get Baz naked.  It’s not that I don’t appreciate nice things.  I just like how incensed Baz gets when I nearly tear his shirt sleeves when I pluck the cufflinks out.  Or when I nearly rip the carefully constructed seams of his trousers when I force them down.

Simon Snow enjoys long walks in the park, holding hands, pinching cigarettes, and sleeping with Death. Simon Snow also enjoys sucking vampire dick.

It sounds like something that would be scrawled on the bathroom stall in a pub.  Simon Snow sucks vampire dick. It’s also not as bad as it sounds.  It’s not like I’m fond of sucking any vampire’s dick.  I’m just very fond of a particular vampire’s dick.

You know you’re curious as hell, so I’m going to demystify it for you.  Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch has a massive vampire cock. I’ve no idea if it’s that massive because he’s a vampire, or if he’d be blessed with an impressive cock regardless. No matter.  It’s big.  It’s surprisingly warm, owing to all the blood it’s engorged with.

Seven years as Baz’s roommate has made me a bitch for torture apparently, because I love it when I’m going down on him and he pitches his hips just so to make me choke a little.  He always apologizes like the gentleman that he is, but I’m fairly sure he does it on purpose.  Prick.

I love the bitter brine of his pre-come on my tongue, and the sting of my scalp when his fingers tug my hair.  I love meeting his lips to kiss him and making him taste his own essence in my mouth.

And fuck, I love the electric thrill that rushes through my body when my kiss makes his fangs slide out of their glistening pink sheathes. I make sure to kiss him extra hard, pressing my tongue into those sharp tips, scraping my lips along the razor edge, before he collects himself and pulls away.

Baz is so good about never drawing my blood.  He’s too good.

For once, I’d like him to just have a taste of me. I don’t think he trusts himself to not drain me dead or inadvertently turn me.

I know he wants my blood. Part of me wants to fuck it all and just let him have at me – if I die, I die happy, and if I turn, I’m his forever. How fucking romantic is that?

On nights when he’s not with me, I wank to fantasies of teeth puncturing my neck with surgical precision.  Fantasies of my blood sliding down Baz’s throat, filling him with so much life that his skin glows pink.  Fantasies of me slowly riding his massive cock until he’s drained enough of my blood to make my movements sleepy and lazy.  Fantasies of crimson streaking down the front of my body, dripping down to my cock, making it sticky and slippery as he strokes me to a blissful End with a capital E.

In reality, Baz is the perfect picture of poise and restraint, even when he’s fucking the living hell out of me.  I don’t know how he does it – how he manages to keep himself from sinking his teeth into my throat while he’s sinking his dick into my tight arse.  We’re always in perfect position for blood sucking when I’m bottoming because my stupid wings limit the positions we can get ourselves into. So the opportunity is often staring him in the face, literally.

Of course, Baz is never going to bite me.  He’s morally opposed to feeding on humans.  Such behavior is beneath him.  He’s not a monster.  

Well… he’s not an evil monster.  He’s more of a cuddly monster, like Elmo.

Not that we cuddle, per se. We sleep close together.  I’ll often drape my arm over him, just to make sure he doesn’t sneak away in the middle of the night.  Because I’m greedy like that.  

I’m needy like that.

Fuck nicotine, I’m addicted to Tyrannus Basilton Grimm-Pitch.