I Made Commemorative T’shirts

You lean forward so quickly he nearly misses it. A flash of your hair and your eyes glittering like fish scales in the blue dawn light. You touch his jaw and use your other hand to comb his sweat-damp curls back from his brow. He wants to say something because he feels naked in front of you - this stranger in his sweats and one of his t-shirts.

Who are you? Who are you?

Instead, he says: “I’m sorry…I didn’t expect guests. I would have cleaned…”

He would have. He would have made an effort. You smile at him and that’s when he notices the gash at your hairline. The strange bruising along your collarbone.

“Did we…?” he finally asks because why else would a girl be in his apartment - at his bedside. Your lips quirk and you shake your head.

“I’m - do we know each other?”

He really shouldn’t press his luck. Things happen to Steven. He ends up with dates he doesn’t remember making. He finds his fridge full and fishes with two fins. There is an attractive woman inches from him and he should just shut up and take it as a sign from God or Gods. Whatever.

“In a way,” you hum as you stretch your arms above your head. Your joints crack and that cut on your forehead beads with blood. A few hours later, he will notice that it’s gone. He will notice that marks on you never last longer than a day.

“In a way?” he echoes. He is lost in this conversation just as he is lost in most conversations. Everyone seems about five feet ahead of him at all times.

“Yes - in a way, but,” You shoot your hand out and grasp his own tightly. He notices his palm is covered in raven-black grease and you don’t seem to mind. “I suppose we should meet formally.”

You tell him your name and he repeats it - rolls it around over his tongue like a smooth marble. His accent is thick and often too chewy in his mouth. He doesn’t know why he even uses the term “accent” because shouldn’t it just be his voice? His tone. His.

He feels like he’s trying to shove himself through a narrow hole. Nothing fits.

***

He starts waking up with you - coming to with you - in weird places. One time, he’s restocking mugs etched with incorrect hieroglyphics and the next thing he knows he’s coughing up blood on a rain-soaked street. It’s thundering. The clouds spiderweb with lightning. There’s the smell of wet leaves and garbage and a neon Exit sign is blinking above him.

“Marc! Help me out here.” You’re a few feet away punching the hell out of a man in back. There’s a splash of blood. It splatters over your nose and chin. You’re in this tight suit that shimmers grey-blue in the rain. Weird. When your eyes meet his, you suddenly grimace. Your expression flits between seemingly concerned and incredibly irritated.

“Who’s Marc?” He rubs his forehead. His teeth feel loose in his mouth. “Wait - where are we?”

Wait. Wait. Wait. He’s always colliding into a disaster or conflict before he can confirm what it is. Where - when - what -

“Fuck,” you growl and then the man you’re fighting socks you right in the temple. You stumble to your knees. Steven doesn’t really think - he doesn’t have to - he rushes forward in some hopeless attempt at protecting you and - well - everything goes black again.

***

He wakes to the tinkling music of a Carnival. He’s got his hands wrapped around a pole with chipped gold paint. There’s a thousand colors blurring into a mosaic of blues and pinks and purples and reds. Yellow as buttered popcorn. Green and copper as scarab beetles. He can taste sugar on his tongue. Cotton candy. His stomach aches.

He looks down and sees the white mane of a wood worse. It’s uncomfortable between his legs. He blinks. He shakes his head.

“You okay?”

He turns to find you sitting - riding - next to him. You’re straddling a unicorn, which oddly seems fitting since he’s about 67% certain you don’t exist. There’s an unreadable expression on your face. A strange transformation. You go from cheerful to anxious and he feels as if he has interrupted something. You bite your lip and reach for his hand. You thread your fingers together as the carousel picks up speed - as it circles and whirs like a cyclone.

That terrifying, obnoxious jingle of music.

“Hi Steven,” you tell him, which he doesn’t understand. Why are you greeting him when you’ve obviously been with him for a while. Are they on a date? This must be a date. Did he drink? He swears it was 4 PM last he checked, but the sky is black-navy. Violet and midnight.

“I’m sorry,” he mutters as he clings to the pole with one hand as you hold onto the other. He leans his too-hot temple against the wet-cold surface of it. “I’m sorry.”

He doesn’t know what else to say.

***

His eyes flutter open and it’s day again. The midafternoon sun peeks through his heavy blinds. You’re sitting next to him - hunched over like a curled C. One of his heavy mythology books in your lap. You’re reading about Isis and Osiris and he wonders if all his pieces are scattered over the Earth. It would make sense. It would honestly be a relief. An explanation.

There’s a white bandage around your arm with old blood staining half of it. It’s practically brown. He sniffs a metallic tang in the air along with the harsh scent of antiseptic.

He lifts himself up gingerly. More soreness. More agony in his back and the constant headache that thumps at the center of his forehead. He leans into you out of reflex, his chest brushing your shoulder. He touches your arm - drags his finger down the bandage.

“I didn’t do that did I?” He can’t trust himself. He doesn’t know anything. He loses days and nights and you are the only constant in his life. The one unmoved variable.

You twist around to look at him. You’re visibly exhausted. He wonders when you sleep because he’s never seen you do it.

“No,” you assure him. They’re so close that your breath fans over his lower lip. They’re dating and they aren’t. “Dating” is the only word he has for it because he wakes up and you’re in his room or literally in his bed. Sometimes you haul him to a restaurant or coffee shop.

Eat, Steven. You’re very pale.

They’ve never kissed though. They’ve never done anything beyond you looping your arm through his as you take him around London. He hadn’t realized it until now, but every errand they go on has been for his benefit.

You need more shampoo. You need another jacket. You need to get your haircut. Do you want another fish so he has a friend?

You let him talk to you. You let him vomit his words all over you because he has no one else. His mum’s voicemail. His mirror. His mind. One minute, he’s spilling his guts to a living statue and the next he’s spilling his guts to you.

And you respond. You nod and agree or disagree or drop your chin into your hand and listen intently. You laugh when he says something he actually meant to be funny.

“You’re such a weirdo,” you tease in between sips of coffee. It makes his lungs expand to the point he can finally get a full breath in. He is wide awake.

He shifts on the bed. The springs squeak. His sheets are scratchy and he notices there are granules of sand in the folds of linen. Bloody hell and all that.

There’s a wrinkle between your brows as you watch him watch you. You don’t avert your gaze like so many others do when he makes them uncomfortable. He can’t help it. He forgets himself sometimes. You’re different. You meet his stare straight-on.

His voice is low and urgent when he finally asks: “Why do you take care of me?”

You suck your lower lip between your teeth. It turns a color and he has to stop himself from swiping it with his tongue - from digging his thumb into the flesh. “I promised someone I would.”

He should question that. Who?

You know who.

The voices have returned. Swelling and shivering at the back of his head. They distract him. Solid. Tempting.

You know her mouth. You’ve tasted it before just not as you. You’ve had her. You’ve felt her. She’s ours.

He doesn't know what to do. He’s aware of his own awkwardness. He’s aware that he often misses social cues even though a large part of him seems to understand them. He just can’t get there.

“Steven,” you whisper like a secret - like their secret - every fucking letter deliberate and compassionate.

He wants to feel this.

He surges forward and kisses you. His body does it before his brain even catches up. He grips the hinge of your jaw and crushes his mouth to yours. You squeak in surprise before relaxing - before allowing him to cradle your cheeks between his hands and continue.

It feels familiar.

His lips move against your lips. His tongue traces your tongue - teasing and caressing and it subtly changes from sweet and careful to frantic and dirty. Your hand is on his chest - right where his heart thumps. He scrapes his teeth over your lower lip before soothing it with his tongue. He makes a demanding sound and pulls you closer.

He senses that he’s been at this threshold a thousand times previously. He has to move forward. He knows the steps. He needs to take you - plant himself inside you where he’d be safe. He’s been safe.

His hand palms the crown of your skull. He tilts your head to deepen the kiss. You respond gracefully - your own fingers now locked in his t-shirt. They trade kisses in his dusty room with all of his old books and white-noise sound machines and cheap cutlery. You sigh into his mouth - your breasts crushed against his chest. Your heart. His heart. Pound for pound. Sharing a rhythm. How much would they weigh? The bandage on your arm chafes the inside of his bicep.

You shiver and it surprises him - the fact that he’s capable of arousing such a sensation out of you. He wants to go further.

He wedges himself between your legs. He doesn’t know entirely what he’s doing and yet he does. He’s had to have done something like this before. Maybe, at school. His twenties? He should know though no distinctive memories come to mind. No images of teenage lust in a backseat or fumblings in a dark theater.

Still - he appears to be getting it. Gestures before thoughts. It’s like the act itself is already written on his bones - taped somewhere in his mind with instruction.

At some point, they get naked.

You are spread out on his pillows and he uses his hands to open your thighs. He watches your cunt - shiny and pretty in the afternoon light. There are bruises on your hips - along your ribs. He wants to ask, but doesn’t.

You already know, Steven. You saw her get them last night. Fighting. You have some too.

That voice that’s like his voice, but not.

He slips his fingers against the seam of your folds - nudging between them and watching the effect it has on you. He thrusts to the knuckle before twisting his hand so he can press his thumb to the peak of your sex. You’re so wet and hot and each jerk of his fingers makes you tighter. The repetitive clench of your walls as he eases you through it. The push of slick more erotic than anything he’s ever even dreamt of.

“Oh,” you moan softly. “Oh - shit.”

“I-I think - is that alright?” he stammers - his chest tight - his cock so hard that it juts against his stomach.

You nod furiously. You open your arms to him - come come come - be with me. He goes - capturing your mouth - tongue warm as it slides over yours in a desperate, messy tangle. Your hand circles his cock, grasping him tenderly. You stroke him slow as he fucks into your palm. He kisses you. He kisses your throat - your breasts - your cheeks. You lead him - let him in - and then the head of his cock is rubbing right up against your pussy. It’s furiously hot - making slick sounds as it slips through the seam of swollen flesh.

You stare up at him, lips twitching and kiss-bruised. He keeps his eyes fastened to your face as he sinks in too quickly. You stretch around him - nails digging into his shoulders. Your mouth parting. Oh - it’s like this.

You feel like home. You feel like him. He knows this. He knows the wet clutch of your sex around him. Vice-like. Murderous. He rocks down and you glide with him. He draws back until he’s nearly out of you before snapping forward - punching a moan from your lungs. A push and pull. He tilts his hips and you follow - knowing the ebb and flow of his movements like you’ve done this before. You fist a hand into his curls as you nip his jaw. There is the loud liquid suck of your body greedily accepting his cock again and again. It’s so crude that he can’t quite believe it.

“Steven - fuck,” and now he is acting without thought. He is allowing the insides of himself to take over. It’s like a dance that he is watching from a step away, but oh he feels every second of it. He savors the soaked clasp of your cunt. The smell of your sweat and your hair and your lush skin as it slaps against his.

You shove him away and he groans as he rears back on his heels. His pleasure is dismantled. It is interrupted. You rise up on your knees and kiss him hungrily - nearly swallowing his tongue before you turn around. You get on all fours - your grip taut around the bed frame. His gaze traces the lines of your body - the curve of your ass that hitches into his hip bones and fitting snug.

You know what to do. You’ve done it before. Our girl likes it like this.

Ours. Ours. Ours.

That voice unbearably deep and vibrating with power. It’s like heartburn in his chest - bubbling up his throat.

This is for you, Steven. Trust us. Trust us.

He takes himself in hand and guides it back into your spread, dripping cunt. He bottoms out and you respond beautifully - a fragile wisp of a sob as you blossom around the length of him. You bury your forehead into his pillow. You bite the blanket.

Steven has never been able to keep quiet, but now he is out of words. He grunts low, rumbling noises and sometimes: oh god - fuck - so good -

He hopes that it’s enough for you to realize that this is everything he’s ever wanted. This true connection when he’s always felt like he’s living behind glass. He’s grateful.

He reaches around to pluck at your clit - something he wouldn’t have known to do or hadn’t done before and yet he does. It’s imprinted. The second he touches the swollen nub of it, you seize up like you’ve been electrocuted - pleasure ringing through your veins and limbs and he meets it by grinding deeper into you and there are filthy words flying from your lips in heaving, breathless whimpers and Steven blushes bright red because he can’t quite believe he’s done this with you - even as his cock spits inside you - even as he fills you to the brim without wasting a drop. When he eases himself out, there is his own pearly seed sliding down the backs of your thighs. It seeps between your swollen folds, dripping onto his comforter, which he will never wash again -

He touches it with his fingers - mesmerized. The voice in his head is throaty and smug: do it, Steven. I know you want to. She’ll love it.

He listens. He flips you onto your back - mouthing at your throat and tits before he travels downward. He forces your knees apart and buries his face between your legs - lapping and sucking and devouring what he has done to you. You arch up - hips jerking against his face. His nose hooked enough to deliberately scrape against your clit as he licks from your fucked-open pussy.

You cry out, yanking at his curls until it stings and he’s sure he’s missing patches of hair. He won’t let up. He latches and remains there - his hands now under your ass as he lifts the bowl of your pelvis up - like a platter - like an offering to the Gods - overflowing with nectar - a ritual -

He’ll repeat it. Day in and day out. He will perform this.

His skin burns with arousal. A fever. You know it’s him doing what he’s doing as he feasts - as he suckles his own come from your sex. He does not know this and yet he does. Another lifetime perhaps. Another yesterday. All of his memories are wrapped in plastic and yellowed with age. Opaque. Potentially not his. But this is clear. This he is sure to remember.