You are above me, and your grip is like the belt around my neck.
“Enough… please.”
Tears pour down my blue cheeks. Your saliva falls into my mouth in globs. Your face is red, and you smile like you always do when you look at me. Wide and with teeth.
“More? You want more?”
You are underneath me, and your eyes are huge, wet, and dripping. Rain pours down the gutters, pattering on the ceiling, and your hand touches my thigh. Fingers taut. Curling. Nails into my flesh. You want me. You crave me. This is why I love you.
You move and I don’t have a choice in it: how you take from me, with my body inside you—that feeling you think I want.
“Enough… I said enough.”
I speak, but you never listen. Sometimes I wonder if my mouth opens at all. Do you hear me at night? When I say the same words I say now?
I hear you. I hear you begging, yearning for something you don’t yet know exists. How do I teach you? I’ve been trying so hard.
“Just another minute. You can do it.”
You are beneath me, and I am the one who speaks. The words from your mouth: into mine like your tongue. And you. All of you. There are parts of you that want me that you can’t control.
You are so heavy. My head floats above me, where I want to be, wish I was, somewhere out of reach but not too far. You won’t let me leave and I won’t try. You take what you’re here for and fall away—no, onto me. I only hoped you’d fall away.
“Thank you… thank you.”
Your hands are on me and you whisper in my ear.
“Look at you. I love you. God, I’m gonna kill you.”
How many times have you said this now? It used to hurt. Now it feels inevitable. This could be the night, maybe or you’ll fall asleep before you can get the knife out of your pocket, the gun out of your drawer. Under the bed. I know you moved it under the bed.
“I really am. I mean it. Oh God, you’ll look beautiful. Oh, God.”
You get up, but your eyes are on me the whole time. Backing into the hallway. You glow in the light of the refrigerator, beer in hand, staring at me, leaning on the counter, drinking. Guzzling.
I watch your chest, up and down, and you’re gorgeous even in the dark. Those scars—the ones I paid for—so beautiful. I made you, and I can have you as much as I want. Until I don’t want you anymore. Until you’re nothing but bones. Until I bury you with my own hands, the dirt under my nails and in your mouth and in your gut.
Three beers down, and I still can’t move. You’re out there, but you’re on top of me in this room. The air is heavy, the sweat on my stomach—heavy. Like you. Like your words. Like your gaze.
“Come back.”
“You want me.”
“Come back. I need you.”
“Say it again.”
“I need you. Please, come back. Please.”
God, why do I say it? Why do I always do what you ask? In the midnight silence, I am your puppet. I don’t want this—you do.
You haven’t moved. God, you’re perfect. I run my hands down your stomach and you’re still wet. The sheets beneath you: wet. My mouth: wet. Your insides: wet. And now I’m dripping, and your eyes are dry, and I climb back into bed and reach underneath.
I can’t look at you, but I don’t need to. You lay on your side against me and I know you’re staring at my eyes in the dark, watching them, but I don’t glance away from the ceiling because if I do, I’m dead. I can smell the oil. The cold metal.
“I love you.”
The yeast on your breath.
“I love you.”
The stitch in your chest.
“You love me. You do. Don’t say it, I know you do.”
“Enough.”
You’re so calm. You aren’t blood-red, huffing and grabbing the blankets, trembling, not like you used to do. That stopped forever ago. Now you’re rosy pink and love-drunk—everything anyone could ever want—and I don’t want it to end but it will. It will if I don’t do it.
“I love you.”
“Enough… please.”
You press the metal against my head and I turn away because there’s nowhere else for me to run. I don’t want to look. Not at it, not at you—if I could forget your face in an instant, I would. But I only think that. I could never do it.
“You want it.”
“I don’t.”
“You do. You want me, and this is me forever. Us: forever. Don’t you want forever?”
You’re heavy. So heavy. Why can’t I move? I hate the smell. The carbon and hops. The way your skin sticks to mine. I hate everything about you but I can’t say it and I’m glued underneath you.
“Don’t you want us forever?”
You put it under my chin and I’m looking at you, your drooping eyelids, your sweat-slick hair, your bare chest in the moonlight through the blinds. I do love you. I do want you. But
“Not like this.”
“This is the only way.”
I’ve tried all the others. Don't you realize how fast a corpse rots?
“We could get married.”
“That isn’t forever.”
“Neither is this.”
“You don’t understand.”
You never understand, and this is why I am the one who speaks. I speak; you follow. So I place the gun on your chest and splay out my arms, head back, like a crucifixion. I’m here, all of me, for you to see. And you. You are underneath me.
“I’ll go first. Then you join me.”
The metal is cold and you are burning, blazing hot above me, a target so big I can hardly aim. I do want forever. I do. But not like this. And not you.
“Do it.”
Can you feel me? Shaking? Chattering?
“Do it.”
“Please… please… enough.”
“If you love me, you’ll do it. And I know you love me. Do it.”
You pull my hand up. Put the metal to your chest.
“You love me. Oh, God. We’ll be so beautiful. I can’t wait. Do it now.”
The gun wobbles. Do I even have the strength? I open my mouth.
“I love you. Oh, I love you.”