Sweetheart
Asleep. Finally.
It’s been four days since the last time your lover granted himself reprieve from the ceaseless suffering of the waking hours. He might’ve held out longer if you hadn’t suggested he lay his head on your lap and close his eyes… just for a minute. Just to keep them from drying out in the stale, dusty air.
He offers a different excuse every night — There’s nowhere safe to rest… How can I relax with death following me everywhere I go..? What if those things find us again..? — but you know the real reason he can’t sleep.
Still, everyone surrenders to exhaustion eventually.
You run your hand through his unwashed hair, twirling a lock around your finger and letting it fall with a gentle tug, then move down to stroke his emaciated cheek. So fragile, your one surviving seraph among the crumbling statues holding vigil in the long-abandoned Église de Saint-Valentin.
His beauty never fails to enthrall you — undiminished despite his misery — though you no longer remember his name. You’ve taken to calling him pet names instead: Darling. Angel. Sweetheart.
You wonder if he’s realized it yet.
An inquisitive finger travels from his cheek to trace the perfect curve of his lips, dipping into his mouth just enough for the fingernail to graze his teeth. On your second trip around, his breath catches, drawing your finger deeper.
He sighs, murmurs a single word against your palm, and you know exactly what he’s dreaming about. You’d have forgotten your own name if it didn’t play at his lips so often. The name doesn’t mean much to you anymore, but maybe holding onto it gives him comfort.
He shudders, the glow of half-buried memories too feeble to fend off the harsh bite of a cold night, the sting of your clammy skin against his cheek.
Love means comfort, so you decide to warm him up.
You catch sight of your lover’s candle burning weakly atop the altar across the room — a prayer for sanctuary that he should never have entreated you to join — and the dancing flame sparks an idea in your mind.
You withdraw your finger from his mouth, now slick with saliva, and forge a slow trail down to his chin, beneath the collar of his tattered shirt. You run your fingernails across protruding ribs, the feeble bones stalwartly protecting his succulent spark of life.
His sigh is louder this time, breathing more erratic, and the reaction isn’t limited to the upper half of his torso. The figurative fires of passion spread so beautifully that you can’t help but admire their twisting and flickering… the drowsy, fragile rise of the soufflé in their midst.
It’s been four days since the last time you’ve had a bite to eat.
You’re so hungry.
You slide your legs out from beneath him and pause, startled, as his head slips and knocks against the floor. He winces but doesn’t otherwise stir. You’re lucky he’s such a heavy sleeper.
Muscle memory moves you forward as you skillfully imitate motions that once held a very different purpose. You straddle his thighs and lean down, stretching to grasp his length as if reaching for the juiciest fig at the end of the tree-branch.
He gasps and arches into your touch, starving for contact and far too easy because of it — a strange reversal of the roles. You know all too well the desperation that accompanies hunger.
It doesn’t take long for his heavy breaths to contort into soft moans as fingers claw the frayed carpet for purchase, your signal that he’s had enough of the aperitif. It’s time to move on to the main course.
The faded crotch of his jeans, stretched tantalizingly taut, feels much rougher in your mouth than you were expecting — as irksome as the chafing of the easily discarded gag at your side, and similarly flavorless.
Despite the pleasure clear in the fluttering of his eyelids, you feel ridiculous. No one in their right mind eats a candy bar with the wrapper still on — though you’re not entirely sure that condition applies to you anymore.
Instinct takes over completely as you unzip him and savor his sweetness with your lips, your tongue. You guide his willing hand to the back of your neck, groaning as he grasps the collar of your shirt and urges you further down.
The taste of his flesh is nothing short of divine, though the tough, unyielding texture from his current state inhibits your indulgence. You plant your palms along his inner thigh, grapevines winding through a thick wooden trellis, and knead them like dough. He gasps, shudders, bites his lip.
Maintaining this smooth simmer is effortless with a tongue as talented and mouth as masterful as yours, and when he starts to call your name in earnest, fervent whimpers dripping sugar-syrup and rosewater, you expertly bring the pot to a boil. There’s no need to worry about minor inconveniences like gag reflexes anymore.
You swallow him down until he crests, sleepily mumbled praises flowing from his tongue like wine, fingers curling against your neck. He relaxes in your mouth — the exquisite melting of a freshly baked tart — and you lick the custard from your lips.
Now for the soft, buttery crust…
Your lover’s howl breaks you from your reverie. He struggles to sit up, to pull you off him, but you bite down harder, unyielding. When he finally succeeds in tearing you away — exhausted muscles stronger than your decomposing ones will ever be — you’ve managed to latch onto a sizable chunk of flesh, glistening between your teeth like a sliver of raw salmon.
Your eyes flutter closed, and you slurp it down, savoring the taste of long-forgotten ecstasy. The meat’s a little dry, but you’ll take what you can get.
Love means sharing pleasure, so it’s only fair that you get your piece of the pie.
When your eyes drift open again, there’s a pistol leveled unsteadily at your mouth, muzzle close enough to scrape against your blood-stained teeth. Your lover is trembling all over. In pain, probably; terrified, for certain. The scent of his blood makes your mouth water.
Your lips curve around the barrel of the gun. “Did I wake you?”
“Get… away… from me..!” he threatens between racking sobs, clenched in on himself and trying desperately to staunch the flow of blood from his groin. Eyes blazing, he’s not letting you out of his sight again.
The familiar taste of rusted metal on your tongue makes your head swim, but your gaze is focused on the finger quavering against the pistol’s trigger. If only you could get close enough to reach it.
You open your mouth and urge the gun deeper into your throat before you’re thrust back by the force of the gunshot. The empty chamber resounds with the crack of your neck snapping, the thud of the gun clattering to the floor.
You right the uncanny angle of your neck with another snap, but when you try to speak again, the only sound that leaves your throat is gurgling. Even with froth gathering at the side of your mouth and the emptiness of the gaping hole in the lower back of your head, your rotting brain is perfectly intact.
If your lover really wanted you gone, he would have aimed higher.
The last bullet, wasted.
The dampness spreading along your collar indicates heavy blood loss, and you know it’d hurt like hell if you could feel it. Your poor lover is offered no such respite. He sobs quietly less than a foot away, entire body shaking like a hurricane.
Overcome by memories of consolation and once again acting on instinct, you crawl over to him as innocuously as possible. One hand settles along the small of his back, tracing whimsical designs up and down his spine, the other tenderly stroking fingers engaged in a desperate attempt at first aid.
He turns toward you, hesitant, and the scared, despairing expression on his face melts what remains of your decaying heart. The light brush of your nose against his cheek elicits a flinch, but he makes no attempt to shove you away.
You press your lips to the side of his jaw in a trail of fairy kisses — one for each hiccuping sob, following the pattern of day’s first light filtering across his skin through the stained-glass windows — until his weeping quiets. Even now, the temptation to sink your teeth into his flesh is almost more than you can bear.
Almost. But love means patience, so you resist.
Your head rests along the crook of his neck, half-deteriorated smile hiding inches from the missing chunk of flesh in his shoulder, evidence of your last passionate love bite. You revel in the erratic fluttering of his pulse against your lips, each throb a promise of the ultimate indulgence.
The beating of his sweet heart.
He can’t stay awake forever.
To read more of Midnight Mosaic’s A Season of Strange, please visit our FEATURE PAGE and follow us to see our stories in your feed.
