RCannah, don'tcha wanna? Mhm.

Two older adolescents sat at a table in front of the coffee house across the street. One wore a threadbare windbreaker with a ratty blue Dodgers cap secured low over his eyes; the other was far larger, the word “Trick” tattooed across his shoulder. There was nothing on the table or in their hands. Dodger glanced at him and their eyes held a beat too long. He tapped Trick’s elbow.

Max started to walk down the opposite path into the shopping district. He lowered his phone as if to scroll through contacts, watching them over his shoulder in the phone’s reflection. They were already at the end of the street. Max returned the phone, palming the switchblade in his pocket. They were following him.

Max ran down the nearest alley, knocking a trash can over behind him. He heard the hard clatter of footsteps against concrete. He cut into the honeycombs of the shops and back passageways, vaulting over a wire fence and taking a sharp right. He flattened his body against the inside of an arch, shedding his fedora and suit jacket. The loud clap of shoes. Trick bolted past, Dodger just behind. In an instant Max had Dodger’s head caught in his jacket, jerking and gagging before Max slammed his fist into his nose. Dodger dropped. A sudden, jarring impact knocked Max breathless, Trick’s nails snagging skin as he shoved Max back into the brick, both struggling violently for leverage. Trick slugged Max across the face, knocking out his cigarette. He pinioned his arms and hoisted him off the ground, crushing his spine into the wall with bruising force. Max blew a wreath of smoke into his eyes. Trick hissed and recoiled, Max twisted and grabbed Trick’s ear, yanking viciously. Trick swore and loosened his grip. Max ripped out of his hand and hammered his elbow repeatedly into the other’s face, down between the neck and shoulder, into the larynx. The massive shoulders went slack as he released Max in slow collapse, hacking and wheezing while blood gathered about his nose and lip.

“Mother fucker!” Max snarled, eyes broiling, circling around. “Who the fuck said this was a wise fucking decision?” He kicked his throat with the in-step of his foot, flipping Trick over. He stomped onto Trick’s bladder, straddling his coughing opponent and snatching him up by the collar, spitting in his face, eyes drowned in a terrible rage.

“Do you know what I do to shits like you? I fillet their fucking skin and eat them alive!”

“There he is!” Max’s eyes flickered up. Three dashed down the near alley. He swore under his breath and fled, taking a side street toward the shop fronts.

They were shepherding him. He knew they were, but as he rounded the corner and sprinted hard they had him closed in. He could hear the shift of their clothing, feel the stink of their breath. He had to shake them if he was going to turn and not be caught. The wares on display in front of the shops became projectiles. He turned over cans and pillars, tore items from the hands of passers by and flung them over his shoulder.

A tanned bruiser on his left cut his retreat, steered him left. The bottoms of his feet scorched, breath a barbed ache in his throat. He caught the glint of a knife in his periphery. He grabbed a vase from a woman exiting the shop and spun rapidly to throw it into the left flank’s face. He didn’t pause long enough to see if it hit, and turned immediately into a narrow lane, shadowed and cold with high cobbled walls. He spun around, his pursuers reduced to single file.

A knife sliced the air by his face, bit into his forearm, came down in a wide stroke just before his chest as he pedaled backwards. He knocked their manic strokes away in a flurry of swipes, nicked again across his wrist. As the assailant drew their knife back for another attack he stepped in, pinning their ankle under his foot and catching their arm. Max plunged his knife into their ribs, twisting them left so their body blocked the path and sinking the blade deep into the calf. A lead pipe clipped his jaw and sent his ears ringing. Max scrambled out of the lane, disorientated and listing right as he ran. He wiped his bottom lip with his hand, the thumb greased with blood. He tasted metal and the world was soft and warped.

A body jumped down from the roof and knocked him onto his side. The sky and buildings and ground blared white. It was too bright to hear.

Slowly, pieces came back: the feeling of grit on his cheek, the sting of wounds, the darkness of the alley, and the sensation of hands on him. He was forced on his knees, pressed against the concrete by three men roughly eighteen to twenty four years of age, one of which he recognized to be Dodger. Blood streaked down his swollen upper lip from his broken nose. A fourth stood in front of him in a tailored vest with his hands in the pockets of a camouflage jacket. There was a fresh gash on his forehead.

“Cute trick with the vase.” He said wryly. Max grinned.

“Afternoon, Danny Boy. How’s your day going? I’m doing pretty good. Hand kind of hurts. Probably from busting your friend’s face open.” Danny nodded his head. The three holding him pulled him back so he sat up, a hand knotted in his dirtied blond hair. Danny’s hands flexed as they slipped out of his pockets, brass knuckles gleaming. He cracked Max across the face. A spray of blood speckled the concrete.

“Don’t call me that. Only friends can call me that,” Danny rubbed his wrists, sneering down his thin, aquiline nose. “You’re a gutter snipe latched onto his Daddy’s teat.” Max attempted to talk, his jaw slack and dribbling thick, bloody strings of saliva.

“What’s that? Speak up. I think I may have broken your fucking jaw.” The hold on his body shifted as Danny brought his foot down onto his head, grinding him into the ground. “My dad just told me I couldn’t come home over Thanksgiving. He had to sell my plane ticket to pay your shitty old man,” He dug his heel into Max’s discolored cheek. “So guess who’s eating chow-mein and fucking pop tarts for the next two weeks while you stuff your face at Day fucking manor?” He removed his foot and squatted on his hams, arms draped over his legs. Danny studied him a moment, into the dazed but venomous spite kindling beneath Max’s calm expression, steeled for pain. Danny smirked, peering closely into Max’s face.

“This is the guy they expect to run the Day family? He looks like a girl.” Max’s teeth snapped on his nose and bit down hard, feeling skin give way. Danny screamed on the floor, hands on his face, blood leaking between his fingers. Max spat out a chunk of flesh and grinned, teeth coated in blood.

“I’m fucking adorable.” He crooned, voice sugared with malice. Someone kicked him under his chin, a spike of pain thrust into his brain. Another bruised his gut, another square to the ribs and chest. A rush of feet beat Max into the earth. Danny snatched Max out of the barrage, hands grappling his shoulders, blistering agony licking the bone free of the socket. Danny struck the side of his head, the blow sending his head into the ground.

“You shit-eating mafia gutter rat!” He pried Max’s mouth open and secured his tongue in his fingers. “I’m sick of your fucking mouth!” Max struggled, his dislocated shoulder screeching. Someone behind him spoke up.

“Danny—Johnny’s really hurt.” Danny glowered up, then back down at Max. Blood dripped from the mangled tip of Danny’s nose. He paused. The same voice spoke again,

“Seriously, man, please! He’s bleeding everywhere. We need to get him out of here. Right now.” It was cold and quiet for a minute as the words worked out behind his eyes. .

“Fine.” Danny brought a blade to Max’s tongue and sliced off the tip. Max gagged as blood flowed down his tongue into his throat, pooling onto the ground and laving his crooked mouth.

Danny lingered. Clothing shuffled and a belt unbuckled. A hand sank into the back of Max’s neck and forced his head down. Bitter heat lanced his spine, body pushed forward and low, blunt fingers impressing black bruises into the skin. There was the wet slap of hands on flesh and staggered breath.

"Danny--!"

"Shut up!" He rasped. "I'm fixing his face." Max coughed, drooling blood. A stiff grunt and Danny ejaculated, warmth seeping into Max’s hair and semen flecking his cheeks. He heard a zipper close.

“You tell anyone about this and we’ll come into your house and kill you.” A curt kick or a heavy body tramping over his and his attackers slipped away, leaving him bleeding and raw.

Tenebrous grey clouds hung low overhead and the wind picked up the smell of rain and blood and musk. A droplet landed on his nose. He couldn’t move. His mouth tasted like gore and the skyline blurred in and out of focus. He closed his eyes. Their threat was almost laughable. A light drizzle slowly fell. The ground swirled beneath him and yawned away. It wasn’t in his nature to tell.

It simply wasn’t worth it.

These spoiled, spoon-fed, indulgent sycophants would win out in the end, these people scattering like termites to their palace of shit would always have more. Thus it was no small pleasure reducing them to their true state; crows swollen with the fat of the living fleeing before the marble scarecrow. He cast terrible shadows over his classmates. They were not above him. He was not inferior.

Max rounded the lockers at the end of west hall, smiling complacently albeit uneasily at some braud walking with him. His green jacket and yellow dress shirt draped off his shoulders, figure consumed in the folds of his clothing. Forty-five points—wait, seventy-five. Chad stalked up to him and the eight he was talking to—Michelle, he thought her name was, with the nice ass. Or was it Ruth from math? He glanced down. Ruth.

Max smiled at him as he approached, Ruth peering over her shoulder as his attention strayed. Her face blanched. Chad didn’t slow his pace but picked Max up by the neck of his jacket, heels sweeping so he walked backwards a few steps to exchange a parting, flirtatious wink.

“Borrowin’ the squirt for a second; I’ll come back for you though, Ruthie Baby.” Her brows immediately furrowed.

“My name’s Beth.” He appeared not to hear her, sauntering out of west hall with Max protesting at his side. It would’ve been simple to commit to his exploration right then. He’d done it before, after all. Took a chick’s top off in the middle of class, not like she had much to show anyways. It wasn’t like Max had anything either, but the idea of eyes other than his profiting from his initiative was irritating. Max folded his arms, suspended above the floor in the other’s grip, swaying with Chad’s long stride.

“Yes, Chadrick?” Chad grunted, hard stare roaming over the hall. “You could just ask me to follow you.” Chad trod on without heed, peering into the occasional classroom.

“Are you going to put me down? I feel like a fish on a hook.”                   

“That so? If I see an ocean I’ll throw you in.” The corner of his pale lips pulled up in a lazy smirk. Max was not amused.

“My arms are falling asleep,” Chad kicked another door open and entered an empty classroom, pushing the door closed with the back of his foot. “What are you even doing?” He set Max on his feet and said dispassionately,

“Arms up.” Max quirked a slow, quizzical brow but complied with noticeable hesitation. In a single motion Chad took his jacket by the cuffs and ripped it unceremoniously off his back. Max staggered, blinking incredulously. He only processed what was happening when he felt his tie slip from his neck. His cheeks burst into color.

“What are you doing?” He shoved Chad’s hand away. Chad frowned and reached again to be promptly denied. “What are you doing!” Then Max was on the floor.

“Pipe down, I just want to see!” Max twisted underneath him, shoulder held down to the tile. He struck at Chad’s chest and shoulders.

“Get off of me, you lunatic!” Chad’s lips curled into a thin sneer, eyes hooded as he leaned away from Max’s blows and pinned his arms beneath bent legs.

“We’re both men. What’s the big deal?” He drawled, proceeding to unbutton Max’s shirt with agonizing meditation.

“What’s the—Define sexual harassment?” Max jerked against Chad’s imprisoning weight, writhing and swiveling to no avail as he spouted a loud, unintelligible string of protests.

“Hey, Relax! Relax, blondie, it’s just a shirt. I’m not gonna spill your cherry cola.” Max froze abruptly. He stared up for a nonplussed second.

“My what?” Chad grinned, more than halfway done. Max twisted harshly and kicked.

“If you keep moving around I’ll pop the buttons off.”

“You honestly expect me to just lay here while you take my clothes off?”

“Have you seen me? I’d be naked in seconds.”

“Well, I’m not like you!” Cold air touched bare skin and Max swallowed bitter defeat and lie in exasperated repose. He tilted his head away, sulking and humiliated. Chad’s eyes wandered over his slight, smooth chest and the soft rise of his stomach. He glanced up at Max’s flushed face and grinned devilishly.

“So this is where all that rich food goes?”

“Don’t…”

“What? You embarrassed by your organ purse?” A slight frown pulled at Max’s mouth as he glared up. Chad snorted.

“Are you stupid?” Max cast his eyes downward; they locked stares. “What people tell you to look like changes every twenty-odd years. Two hundred years ago,” He pressed a finger to Max’s stomach. “This was a desirable sign of health and prosperity. Mr. Park Avenue would’ve been rubbing his money all over your massive fat rolls.” Max pouted dubiously. Chad’s touch slipped away and he stood, towering high and impassive.

“But that was two hundred years ago. Are you going to get up, muffin top, or do I have to roll you onto your feet?” Max sat up and moved to tend to his shirt but paused.

“Muffin top…?” He muttered wearily, buttoning his shirt.

“Would you prefer shortcake? Or blonde dough boy?” Max’s body drooped. He reached for his hat and drew it into his lap, kneading it. Chad crouched, eyeing him narrowly before removing the cap from Max’s hands.

“Quit being a sap. This is nothing to have a complex over,” He said, replacing the cap on Max’s head and pulling the rim down. “The only opinion that matters is mine, and I say it’s no big deal.” Max smiled up at Chad under the brim.

“What about what I think?” Chad smirked, pulling the brim further down to cover Max’s face.

“Who cares?” 

            A breeze wafted from the open window. A shadow fell over the book; he looked up.

            “Into a new genre, eh?” Chad loomed overhead, eyes glinting like the devil’s grin. Max paled and shut the book.

            “Is it really so impossible to use the door? Or knock?” Chad tipped the book down to reveal the cover.

            “I thought you had enough people knocking already.”

            “That is completely unrelated! You know what I meant!” Max jerked it away and shuffled back, cheeks reddening.

            “Strange time to be a prude when you’re reading sex books”

            “Not a sex book—romance novel.”

“Were you imagining anyone?” He leaned onto the bed, smirk wide and wicked.

“It’s not a sex book!—“ Chad reached a long arm out for the book; Max ducked and scurried away.

“I thought this shit was for horny, forty-year old hags,” Max scrambled for the edge of the bed, ankle caught in Chad’s grip. “That cherry feeling a bit too ripe?” He cackled. Max sat up and tossed his hat at Chad’s head.

“Chad, c’mon, this isn’t funny! Let go of my foot!”       

“What? I just want to meet Lady Mc Funbags,” He eyed Max coyly. “Or should I be more interested in General Footlong?”

“You mean they aren’t already in your contact list?” Chad’s face darkened, eyes smoking with devious intent. Max chanced a glance at the door. Chad lunged and roped Max across the middle who threw the book over the side of the bed. Chad dove after it. Max attempted to roll away and flee when he was yanked to the floor. He sank into the carpet, a harsh puff of air escaping his sparrow’s chest as weight trapped him to the ground. Chad sat on his back. Max sprawled on the floor, staring irritably ahead.

“It’s harder to breathe like this, you know?” He pressed his face into the carpet, exasperated.

“—and she arced her back in the throes of passion, feeling his massive erection as he barreled deep inside her.” Max twisted to look up. Vindictive eyes seized his, a wolfish grin spread thin across his face. He writhed and pushed at Chad’s legs. Chad merely leaned greater weight onto Max’s body and held his wrists down with an imperious hand. All the while he kept reading with as much Shakespearean fervor as he could muster. Max was utterly mortified.

“‘Oh, Sir Horsecock, it’s so big~ I’ve never felt it go so deep. Un, Ah, Ah, oh my god~” Max attempted to smother himself in his outstretched arms, a deep red searing his face.

“Chadrick, for God’s sake someone will hear you!”

“Hey, you bought it. I’m just helping you get the full experience. ‘—and he pounded into her eager hole until she screamed.’ Do you really get off on this junk? It’s doing shit for me. Maybe I’m not being loud enough.”

“You’re loud as it is!” Chad craned his head back and moaned luxuriantly.

“Fuck, Miss Melons, you’re so tight. I could ride you like the last schipperke spring pony unless someone would like to confess something?”  Without a second lost, Max blurted out,

“Okay, it’s a sex book! It’s a sex book! Now would you please let me up?” Chad released Max’s wrists and clapped the book shut. He watched smugly as Max covered his glowing, ruddy face with shaky hands.

“You’re such a jerk…”

Chad crossed his legs and leaned further onto Max’s spine. “And they all lived happily ever after, until he realized she was faking it.”