Days where it is want, I can function. I can sing, I can perform, I can live my life with some semblance of normalcy. No one can guess that inside all I can think about is what I want more than anything else.
Days that I need, I cannot function at all. My hands shake, everything is blurry, insects crawl up my arms, and I am drowning in my need. I avoid as much human contact as possible, because it is obvious that I am a slave to the need.
Heroin, the ruler of my life, has not yet left and will not leave quietly.
Today was a day tinged with need, but dominated by want. Valentine�s Day and nothing and no one to do or spend it with. And so I turned to alcohol and a nearby club. I could at least have the illusion of being a member of a crowd.
The bar at the club was decorated with red, pink, and white balloons shaped like hearts and with inane sayings scribbled on them with black Sharpie. I guessed they couldn�t afford to have them specially printed and had gone for the more half-assed approach. Paperchains of crudely cut out red hearts were draped over the bottles of whiskey and gin, and glittery red hearts were sprinkled liberally along the surface of the bar. For some bizarre reason, all of the drinks had the garnet cast of red food coloring. My teeth must have looked like I�d been in a fight. Even the snacks in buckets on the table were either pink or red.
The cause for all of this obnoxious display of celebration was standing in front of the bar arguing with one of the bartenders. She had just recently purchased the club with daddy�s money and wanted it to be a hip hangout for her friends and the rich and famous. This was the first time I�d been here since the transfer of ownership and I doubted that I�d come back again.
�Look, I don�t care if it makes the drinks taste funny...it�s fucking Valentine�s Day and I want people to know it!� She poked her finger in the bartender�s face and puffed her chest out. Emblazoned across it was a stupid catch phrase about how boys were stupid. Bleached blonde hair tangled with her red heart earrings and stuck to her ruby lipstick. She was leaning further and further over the bar, showing off her cleavage. The bartender, for his part, was trying to ignore her as best he could and gave everyone pained glances to let them know that this wasn�t all his idea.
Right in the middle of her tirade, her cellphone rang and she just had to take that call. She proceeded to tell her friend how hard it was to find any decent help these days. Her friend must have told her about a better party elsewhere because soon she was off, jacket and purse in hand.
It was easier to keep my mind off my own problems by listening in to everyone else�s.
My hands were starting to twitch. That meant need was starting to take over. I gestured for another drink. Sometimes alcohol helped.
�Hey Elijah!� a familiar voice called out halfway down the bar. It took some concentration to make my eyes focus that far away. The speaker was taller than pretty much anyone at the bar, and dressed with much more care than I had exercised. He walked closer, making walking in platform shoes look easy. Hair that was a mixture of black and brown jutted out in random spikes across his head. Jay. What he was doing here was a mystery.
I raised my glass and nodded, hoping the tremble in my hand wasn�t too obvious.
�This place has really turned into a shithole, hasn�t it?� he asked, swirling his drink.
�Yeah. I�m probably not coming back after this.� I tapped my glass and he grinned.
�So what have you been up to? I heard you lost your bassist.�
I laughed humorlessly. News traveled fast, I guess. �It�s the second time now. I�m beginning to think getting a machine to do it might be better in the long run.�
He smiled and shook his head. �Sometimes there�s no replacement for the real thing. I learned that when Bobby left.� He took a sip of his drink and set it back on the bar.
I shrugged. Sweat was beginning to bead on my back and the shaking was harder to control. More alcohol seemed to be the answer.
�What�re you doing here anyway? I would�ve thought you�d have someone to spend the night with,� he asked. I really wanted him to just go away so I could stave off the need in peace. And yet I wanted him to stay, maybe if I had company it would be easier to stop myself losing control.
�I haven�t really had anyone in a while, and I didn�t really feel like it tonight.� I took another drink. �What�s your excuse?�
�I guess it�s the same.� We were quiet for a few minutes. I felt him staring at me. It made the growing paranoia that much harder to bear. �Is something wrong? You look kind of...off.�
�Excuse me, I�ll be right back.� I got up and walked to the bathroom, trying to keep my pace normal and not stumble. Fuck, I must not be hiding things as well as I could.
The bathroom had not escaped the crazed owner�s decorating binge. Heart shaped beads trailed down inside the doorway and obscured the view of the restroom. For some reason she had even elected to put red urinal cakes in the urinals.
But that wasn�t what I was there for. I made a beeline for the sink and splashed water on my face. Still, when I looked in the mirror it was obvious I wasn�t going to be able to keep things together. Dyeing my hair black had been a poor choice, in retrospect. It drew out the fact that I hadn�t slept well in weeks and that my skin was the color and texture of parchment. I needn�t have bothered with eyeliner or eyeshadow, my eyes already had natural bruise colored accents.
If only I had another hit.
I didn�t notice that Jay had come in until he suddenly appeared behind me in the mirror. Splashing water on my face was supposed to help. But the sense of need, needing to feel that rush coursing through my veins, needing to escape from this, though what it was exactly was in question, remained.
�Are you sure you�re okay?� he asked, touching my shoulder gently.
The question summed up the whole night for me. I wasn�t okay. I had only been fooling myself for these past few months that I could function on my own. Something had to change.
I took a deep breath and turned around. Shock registered on his face, though he tried to hide it. That didn�t matter. I grabbed his hands and pulled him closer until we were face to face.
�No, I�m not okay.� I whispered, leaning in closer. Our lips met. He tried to pull back but couldn�t as my grip tightened. I licked along his lips, begging them to part, hoping he wouldn�t break away and hit me. His lips were hard and unyielding, but softened as I ran over them with my tongue. Finally they slipped apart and I gained entry to his mouth. Our tongues collided and twisted together.
I was sure that at any moment he was going to push me away and slam me into the sink, leaving me there with blood dripping down my face. He didn�t. Our tongues slid over each other. My hands left his and grabbed on to his ass, pulling him closer. Our cocks bumped against each other and that was an almost divine torment because I knew that there was no way this could go any further than kissing. It would explode and consume us both. Yet his hands were trailing down my back and into the waistband of my jeans. Cold fingers met my lower back and it felt like I exploded in goosebumps. I moaned, unable to keep it in anymore.
My hands ghosted over the front of his jeans, settling on his crotch. I held it there, feeling his cock spring to life beneath my touch. He gasped as my thumb slipped into his fly and began to inch the zipper down. His hands on my back were roaming all over underneath my shirt, leaving a trail of chilled skin and excitement behind. Instead of wanting heroin I wanted sex, I wanted him.
I pushed him backwards gently into one of the stalls. They were clean and immaculate, as if no one had ever used them. My lips left his and I knelt down in front of him, pulling his zipper down and unbuttoning his pants. He put a hand on my head and mumbled something incoherent. His cock was straining against the fabric of his boxers. When I leaned closer and just breathed on it, it twitched and grew impossibly harder. I pulled his pants down around his thighs and then had a brief moment of clarity where I realized that I shouldn�t be doing this, hell, I wasn�t even sure if I wanted to do this, but his cock was already in my mouth and my tongue was caressing its every inch.
Fingers tightened in my hair as he pulled me closer. My mind went blank, all I could think of was the taste of his skin, the faint mixture of soap and vodka, and the sounds that I was bringing out of him. �Elijah,� he gasped, throwing his head back and hitting the wall behind him. I responded by intensifying my labors and devoting myself to making him feel as good as possible. I was a little turned on by this, but the part of me looking on in horror seemed to be the part in control of my reactions.
I pulled back and kissed the weeping head before moving my hands to the base and stroking slowly. I swirled my thumb at the top and his cock twitched in appreciation. My hand seemed to take on a life of its own, one devoted to making him feel as good as possible. It pumped on his cock, slick with precum, and his moans grew louder and more appreciative. Just before he was about to come, I stopped and let go. His eyes snapped open. I met them with my own, smiling devilishly before descending one last time. His cock hit the back of my throat and I gagged a little, but soon recovered and sucked and licked until he came, filling my mouth with salty liquid.
I pulled away and ran to the sink, spitting it all out. My legs collapsed beneath me and I fell to my knees. He was still sitting in the stall, panting, his half hard cock still sticking otu of his jeans. His eyes were half-closed and his lips slightly parted.
I still looked like hell. And even that was being kind. My feet scrabbled for purchase on the tiled floor and it was only by bracing myself on the sink that I was able to begin to pretend to regain my composure and even think about going home.
And that�s what I found myself doing. I didn�t even bother looking back, not even when he called my name and came out of the stall trying to pull his pants up.
I got home late. Lights wouldn�t have helped at this point so I left them off, stumbling around in the dark until I reached the bathroom. Somehow I made it to the toilet and was able to brace myself on the rim. I threw up, letting all the pain and confusion of the night come out of me in stomach heaves that produced nothing but a distraction.
I rested my head against the porcelain and wanted so badly to be free from all of this. If only I had resisted heroin�s alluring grasp from the first I could be whole now, instead of an empty shell trying to fill the gaps with drugs and sex. What did Jay think of me now? It must be a combination of pity and disgust, neither of which I wanted to deal with right now, if at all. Before, when I was so deep in heroin�s grasp that I didn�t know who or where I was half the time, this would not have been out of character for me. The few times I had woken up naked with Renn or with Renn and Alec let me know that I didn�t have any inhibitions about having sex with girls or guys. The biggest regret I had was that I couldn�t remember how I had gotten there. And they weren�t willing to explain what happened.
The one incident I did remember was Renn sucking me off in a bathroom stall, bracing his injured arms against the sides of the stall. And maybe that was when I realized that I had a problem, because it was obvious that this had happened before, and that I had reciprocated for some faceless person in order to get just one more hit.
The thought that I had done it again, but while sober, was nauseating.
I hovered above the toilet bowl, waiting to see if my stomach wanted to protest anymore tonight. Nothing came. My head was pounding like a hyperactive drum machine, it felt like my eyeballs were going to explode. Slowly I slid down until I was laying on the floor. It felt good there, peaceful.
I woke the next morning with my face smashed into the rug and a massive cramp in my back. It was only through force of will that I was able to make it up to the sink to try and clean up a bit. The rug had left an imprint on my cheek, and the hollows underneath my eyes were evidence of how little sleep I had gotten. There was little I could do about that now. I made my way to bed and tried to sleep a little more.