He never samples his own junk. He doesn't need to get high; he can sail away on his own if he wants to. He meditates often, alone in the dusty house, and flies over rooftops and chimneys. He drives very fast and thinks, who needs drugs when you can get the bitter, exhilarating flood of adrenaline with nothing but a stamp on the gas pedal?
The high school men's room is filthy and dank - it looks like the crapper in some seedy corner bar. "Home, sweet home," Zeke mumbles and makes his rounds, checking for eavesdroppers, junkies, masturbators and other unwanted ears and eyes. He finds an unflushed toilet with a used condom floating listlessly in the bowl. He doesn't pull it, just cracks his neck and moves on.
The last stall is locked. "Hey," he says, rapping sharply on the door. "Get the fuck outta there."
There's no reply. He shuffles back a little and bows down to look for feet. There are none. He bangs on the door and the whole row of stalls shudder and clang. He looks around at the dung-brown walls, the stained mirrors, the wet floor. "You got five seconds before I bust in there and kick your ass," he says a little distractedly. He has a small screwdriver in his pocket for cases like this, and the simple locks are no match.
He thinks he hears a soft sound just before the lock clicks open, and he cocks his head and listens. Then he gives it a sharp nudge and it falls open.
He finds that little dweeb Casey Connor curled up on the seat of the toilet, much like a Chihuahua puppy after a good round with the rolled-up newspaper. Bulging, wet eyes, trembling paws - he's a dead ringer. He's also nursing a bloody nose.
Zeke's mother once had a Chihuahua named Gordon. Zeke remembers it falling off the sofa one day and breaking a leg.
Casey sniffs and shoots him a glance that's probably meant to be vitriolic. Zeke snorts and says, "Surprise. Now scoot." Casey cringes back and curls up even tighter.
"I got a right to be here," he mutters, and when Zeke makes a move, he actually gives him the finger and shows teeth, a little puppydog snarl, stained red and wet.
"And I got a right to kick your ass, cause I'm bigger than you," Zeke says.
"Fuck you," he says, but it sounds like a plea and he's looking down now, hiding his eyes and the blood on his face.
Zeke catches him by the wrist and wrenches his hand from his face, just hard enough to make him wince and recoil. His head is pressed against the wall and he might be praying for it to let him just sink in and disappear. Zeke can't help but let a smile grow on his face. Sometimes, it's just so easy.
This is what he's always doing: pushing it. Pushing just to see what will give, how far it will give before it snaps. Teachers, his parents, the law, his car, his grades. Little miserable Casey Connor.
He could probably change if he wanted to. He might even change Casey: shake him a little and tell him to fight back, stand up, be a man and not a mouse. He even thinks about it for a second; thinks about being careful for once, picking up a stray and nursing it back to health. That might be different, at least.
Then Casey closes his eyes. Zeke stares at his smooth, vulnerable eyelids and his small mouth twisted in fear. He gives himself one second to analyse his own reaction: sympathy, contempt, malice, desire, anger.
Desire?
He doesn't sample his own junk, but there are other ways to get high. Some people just need a tiny, little, light...push.
He listens for a second to the footsteps and voices outside the restroom door, but they're hidden from view here and no one would come in without treading carefully - this is his domain. And he leans in, not too quickly, and licks at the blood on Casey's trembling mouth. Leans back and watches his eyes fly open.
Only the tiniest little push, and Casey's slack-jawed and melting against the wall, limp in Zeke's hands. Zeke steps in and pulls the stall door closed behind him.
Casey can't seem to turn away, but he tries hard and gets out a quavering, "No, wait-- Fuck YOU, Zeke--" that doesn't convince.
Zeke licks him again, prods the cut lip with his tongue and feels a shiver travel through Casey. "You're always asking for it," he murmurs softly. Casey finally turns his head away. "They'd leave you alone if you fought back just once."
He's still got a thin wrist caught in his hand, and he puts on a little pressure, makes the bones roll and creak against each other.
He uses his other hand to turn Casey's face back, digs his fingers into his jaw and says, right into his open mouth, "Fight back, just ONCE," and drops the hand down, his fingers skidding over Casey's ugly shirt, down to his crotch to find what he expected; gives it a good squeeze and waits for the reaction.
Casey explodes into action, like a desperate wild animal hurling itself against a closed gate. His knees buckle a little and then one comes up and, amazingly, finds Zeke's groin with a sharp push.
"FUCK!" Zeke says and backs off, just one step, but it's enough and Casey tears loose. Right, this should teach him not to fuck around with geeks; they sometimes do surprise you. Zeke likes surprises, but most of the time they're really more hassle than they're worth--
Casey doesn't run.
He stands frozen for one, two, three seconds, pulling in shallow breaths between his teeth, and then he lunges at Zeke, fists and knees first, just barely avoiding stumbling on the toilet. Zeke's too stunned to fight back at first, and then he can't get his hands up because Casey's wound himself around him, has him pushed against the fucking WALL, in fact.
This was certainly somewhat unexpected. Zeke even forgives him the knee to his balls. He twists his head and slides his mouth over Casey's furious face, finds hot cheeks and wet mouth and sweaty neck, finds the copper-penny tang of blood, the ocean-salt taste of tears, the faint bitterness of adrenaline-laced sweat.
Casey squirms against him and Zeke has a moment of self-realisation: this isn't just an intellectual exercise for him anymore. His hands are pinned to his sides, but he forces them up and gets his fingers on Casey's stomach. Casey's shirt has ridden up and there's soft skin and the sharp wing of hipbone when Zeke lets his fingertips travel down. Casey pants into his ear, short, sharp, hissing breaths and muffled words buried somewhere in every gust of air.
It takes far too much of an effort to wrench himself out of his prison of clinging Casey, but it's worth it. He has Casey by the arms and lifts him and swivels. The walls clatter loudly. As soon as he's caught fast between the rickety stall wall and Zeke, Casey scrabbles for Zeke, gets under his shirt with fingers curled into claws. He might have left welts on Zeke's sides and chest if his fingernails hadn't been chewed to the quick.
Yeah, some people only need the slightest nudge to crack. Zeke's felt frustrated all week - just a little off kilter, jittery. Dry-humping a nerd against a toilet wall isn't the most orthodox cure for that itch, but it'll do in a pinch.
He gets a knee in between Casey's legs, pushes them apart and presses even closer. He feels teeth on the side of his face, sharp rabbit nibbles on the line of his jaw, and it's almost, almost a surprise when his hips thrust forward hard enough to get a throaty groan from Casey. He takes a second, concentrates on controlling his breathing and lets Casey frantically mouth his face, claw at his side and squirm under him, whimper in his ear. There's something about this that's disturbing, an itch, a nagging in the back of his head. I need to get laid more, he thinks, and then Casey pushes his hand down the front of his pants and his back arches involuntarily. He pushes against the hand, hard, and his hands clutch at Casey's arms, making his fingers ache, reminding him that this is getting out of control, out of his control. He's not ready to go there yet, not ready to let anyone else take charge of the proceedings.
He might have growled, because his throat shudders with something, and he shifts, bends his knees and slams his shoulder against Casey's bony chest, slaps a hand over his mouth and sets the pace himself, rubs himself against Casey's leg - frustrating, awkwardly-angled thrusts, and Casey quivering and snapping for breath; now THAT is hot and Zeke's back on top.
And he can admit now that it's hotter than he would have imagined - maybe mostly because there's no way he could do this with a chick, grab her this viciously and still have her reluctantly comply, biting his fingers but unable to stop pushing for more. Hidden depths in this nerd, a sort of rubbery resilience that probably comes from being beaten up every day of his entire pathetic life.
Hot also because Casey's bony but soft-skinned, light and small and his eyes in extreme close-up seem almost unnaturally bright blue. He's hard and eager against Zeke's crotch, sharp and struggling against Zeke's hand - he's biting for real, might be drawing blood, but right now, Zeke can't really give a rat's ass, he's getting off on this, even as he awkwardly pushes Casey's hand away to fumble with stubborn belt buckles and button flies.
Casey has sharp teeth and blunt fingers. Zeke lets him touch, as much as he can in this position - his feet are still dangling a few inches over the floor when they're not kicking at Zeke's legs; he probably can't breathe very well. He wheezes like a sick horse and chokes and Zeke's hand is wet with blood and spit and tears. Zeke's other hand is sticky and sliding over silky-wet skin, getting paid in jerky thrusts and more wheezing.
It's fucking great.
He wonders if maybe he's pushing himself, too. He moves his hand from Casey's mouth and replaces it with his own mouth, kisses deep, wet, hard.
Casey screams, a reedy, muffled sound that vibrates on Zeke's tongue, and comes with a shudder.
He hangs limp then, a damp rag doll for Zeke to thrust against. Zeke can think enough to fumble along the wall and grab a wad of toilet paper. Casey can run around school for the rest of the day with a come stain on his pants, but Zeke has a reputation to uphold.
This probably isn't in keeping with his reputation, though, but Casey's fingers are curled around his cock - surprisingly bold grip - and Zeke keeps him pushed against the wall and slams himself into Casey, slam, slam, sweet pressure and a hint of scratch, and the taste of blood and salt on his tongue, Casey's teeth grinding against his lips, Casey's harsh, whistling breaths in his ears. Molten heat pooling, biting rush coursing downwards and he hasn't done it like this before, he realises, never this far over the edge, and he likes it, likes the feeling of not having to give a fuck. That's the best feeling in the world, and it's been missing from his sex life.
It grows so fast; back-bending fucking high, he almost doesn't get Casey's hand pushed out of the way to catch his come in the toilet paper. He chokes his groan with Casey's mouth.
"Whoah," he mumbles, and lets Casey go. Casey crumples into a pile on the floor, snapping for breath and rubbing his face mindlessly. Zeke thinks, broken toy, and doesn't feel bad. He's too busy getting his breath back and riding the aftershocks.
"Fuck," Casey says softly, miserably. "fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck."
"What are you whining about? You got off--"
Casey lifts his eyes to Zeke and Zeke almost flinches. He's still a little breathless, a little slow, and he doesn't have time to react when Casey throws himself to his feet and hisses, "Fuck you," unoriginal, but with enough desperate hate that Zeke feels it.
Then Casey twists his face into a sneer, spits a wad of bloody phlegm into Zeke's face and runs out of the stall, leaving the door banging on its hinges and Zeke stunned and speechless.
He leans against the wall and pulls up his pants, buckles his belt, throws the sopping paper into the bowl. Wipes his face gingerly and feels swollen lips and a stinging cut on the inside of his mouth.
He pushed, all right.
He ambles out of the stall and goes to wash his hands. No sign of Casey, but the door opens as he's letting cold water soothe the teeth marks on his hand.
"Whoah, man, Zeke," Stan Rosado says, "that fucking Casey Connor just ran straight into me--"
Silence. Zeke turns to face himself in the mirror, and he looks like hell. Flushed and puffy and goddamn if there isn't a stain on his pants anyway. Casey must have come all over the place.
"What the fuck did you do to him?" Stan asks. "You look like--"
"Never mind," Zeke says and turns off the faucet. "Just a little issue we had to clear up."
He pushes past Stan, out of the restroom and walks through the corridor towards the front doors. He's almost there when he realises he's been walking with his head bowed down and his shoulders hunched. He's seen Casey creeping like that through the halls of this school for four years.
Fuck this. He knows when it's time to bail, and that time is now. His legs feel weak and he's developed a headache. The sunlight stings his eyes and he misses his sunglasses. He left them in the car.
Coach Willis has caught Casey by the scruff of his neck down by the steps - Casey's squirming and has his hands crossed in front of him, his head tucked against his chest. He's shockingly pale, with two bright blooms of heated red crowning his cheekbones. When Zeke passes them, he looks up and meets his eyes.
Zeke walks on. He hears someone calling his name - probably Coach Willis. He doesn't stop. His car is his refuge, hot and fast and ready to take him anywhere.
He slams it into gear and peels out of the lot. He doesn't look for Casey in the rear-view mirror. |
