>>CHAPTER EIGHT::

Aruis Ex

Disclaimer: Don't own, don't sue.

x

It was a year before. Or some time around then.

I was stirred awake in the middle of the night. I'm not sure exactly what it was, but at the moment all that interested me was getting back to sleep. Turning over onto my other side I found a mass of sheets and an empty pillow, a small crack of light creeping up across the doorframe of the bathroom.

The dull red light from where the cordless telephone should have been.

I wasn't bothered. At some point in a relationship you just stop giving a shit. It's not that you don't care, but, well, you don't. At least not about the same kind of stuff that you will a decade down the road. But I had noticed a shift, a defined change in direction. Though nothing seemed out of the ordinary I could feel something crawling beneath the surface like a worm under the skin. Like an ingrown hair.

My feet sunk into the carpet as I crept around the end of the king-sized bed, past the dresser and up towards the doorway. The cold air seeps out from beneath the door, from the small crack where the vanilla tiling meets the carpet and sends a shiver down my spine. I'm not wearing any clothes and that always seemed to bother her on some level. It's like when you go to someone's funeral and you wear a flashy tie. It's not like you went in a fucking clown costume but you can tell that it bothers people. You make out muffled conversations about it but no one ever addresses it directly. You just see them fidget uncomfortably whenever you're nearby.

My hand reaches the doorframe and I gingerly lean forward to peer through the small crack. The fluorescent lights sting my eyes and I hear one end of a conversation.

"Oh, yea, that's it, fuck me."

She's sitting on the toilet but the seat is down and when she shifts her small, petit cheeks on it you can see the moisture in the air condense on top of it. The cordless phone is pressed against her ear, against her muzzle, and as she whispers sweet sounds of lustful sex into the receiver two fingers plunge in and out of her like twin pistons.

"Oh, God, that feels so fucking good."

She's hammering her fist up against her clit in unison with her short, panicked breaths. Her hair is matted and a little disorganized but it still glows like gold in the light. She closes her eyes and clenches her teeth and I hear things come out of her mouth that I only hear in my dreams.

"Harder, yea...fuck me."

It could be anyone. The car mechanic. Some celebrity. Or maybe some stranger she's never met. It makes no difference to me and I'm sure it doesn't make a difference to her, either.

It's the same clit. The same dick. The same fingers and the same feeling.

My erection pulses between my legs. I grip it with one hand and press my lips against my bicep as I start to stroke. This is magic in the making and I'm not about to miss out.

"Harder, baby, harder."

She starts to accelerate and so I do. She doesn't mention any names but then again she never does. My breath quickens and my hips buck into my fist as she grunts and hisses her raunchy passions into the cordless telephone.

I'm a silent witness to her slowly advancing orgasm.

"Ah, oh yea...ah baby."

I close my eyes and hear her soft, panicked voice as it begins to rise in expectation. I feel her breath as mine bounces back into my face. In my head I'm pressing her against the seat, groping her ass and feeling the moisture on the polished plastic. Her legs are spread around my waist as I begin to ravage her, send her into fits of passion that she never knew she could have. My tongue runs across my own arm but it's her soft breast, her neck and as I bite into it she squeals.

"Yes, oh...ah!"

My body tightens and twitches as we both reach our climax simultaneously. Her back is arched and my cock is spilling a seemingly endless flow of juice into her belly. My hand. The door. The carpet and portions of the tile. We both struggle to cath our breath and I bury my face into her bosom. My arm. My shoulder. And slowly she leans forward, her lips just barely grazing my cheek and she whispers faintly into my ear - into the receiver.

"That was amazing."

It felt good to rinse off at the end of the day. The only time when I could truly experience the joy of hot water. It was only for a few minutes but it had become a sort of ritual, a kind of rebirth in which I would cleanse myself in preparation. Because after each evening shower break I would return to find another of Falco's gifts underneath my pillow.

Think tooth fairy, but, you know, without the pixie dust.

I ran the soap across the front of my chest and watched the suds ebb and flow over the scars that ran across the front of my body. The August 4th caning. The July 27th assault that cracked one of my ribs. And the July 13th laceration where Ethan managed to patch up a very impressive piece of rope with small weights and a few thumbtacks. You have to give him points for creativity.

But it was Falco's sudden appearance on the recreation field that was really on my mind. It was the first time he had actually interacted with someone other than myself, effectively trashing my hallucination theory. He had given Roger a serious injury, and word around the cell block was that his eye was done for. Part of me felt sorry for the young wallaby. I'm sure if he'd known the way Falco does his fighting - like a complete madman - he might have taken a minute to think things through. We aren't always gifted with that kind of foresight, however.

My hand twists the hot water nozzle further and the steam begins to fill the tiled corridor. Through the polished chrome on the water valves I see the distorted figure of a lone security guard patrolling from the towel area. I was the only inmate who had decided to take advantage of the showers this evening, which, while unusual, probably allowed him to slack off just a little. Everyone deserves a break every one in a while, I tell myself, a small grin creeping up my lip. The soap runs across my waist and for a brief moment I see Falco pressed up against my side. There was a warmth about him then that I hadn't seen or felt in anyone before.

And then a flash, a pain against my back and I'm pinned up against the cold and slippery tile that lines the walls. There's a form that's pressed up against me and he has my arms pinned behind my back. A shoulder is rammed in between my shoulder blades and my back and I wince at the pain.

He brings his muzzle up next to my ear and sure enough there's a large black eye patch over his right socket.

"Hey there, Powalski."

He grabs my wrists and presses them together behind my back. I don't struggle. It's just not worth it. I hear the crunching sound of a zip-tie and feel the sharp plastic dig into my flesh. I eye the chrome reflection for the guard but he's nowhere to be seen.

"Your fucking tit friend thinks he's ace, does he?" His breath wreaks of cigarettes and absinthe. "Hopping in and out of here and fucking with the rest of us." One of his hands presses the side of my face into the tile as the other holds my wrists against the small of my back. "How's he get in here? Tell me."

Immediately I think of all of those cheesy spy movies where the dashing secret agent refuses to give up the top secret documents or some shit. But he has secret compartments and some kind of freaking laser watch or a grappling hook.

He's never naked, zip-tied, and being pressed against the wall by an equally naked wallaby who has a vendetta against his queer avian friend.

"You've got a lot of fucking nerve to hold out on me like this, Powalski," he growls, forcing his whole weight into me and lifting up my tail. "But if you wanna be someone's bitch that badly..."

I try to remove myself from the situation. There's a long stretch of beach, bronze sand and perfect blue ocean. I'm on that beach and I'm dragging a bleached piece of driftwood from the waves to add to my collection.

I'm not whimpering into a cold tile wall as Roger murrs and presses himself deeper into me.

There's an endless downtown street and the neon lights glow like a thousand stars that fell from the sky and came to rest on the sides of run-down buildings. I'm wearing my best suit, and even though I may have just lost one of the biggest games of seven card stud I have warm comfort of smooth alcohol running through my bloodstream. I drift through the crowds like a phantom.

I don't hear the sickening slap every time Roger's crotch comes into contact with the base of my tail. I don't feel myself getting torn apart from the inside, or hear his low grunts and soft moans as he begins to grow slick inside of me.

I'm a thousand feet above the clouds. I'm ten thousand feet below the surface of the ocean. I'm lying next to Gloria and she has her satin robe on and she fusses with me as I rest my head on her torso. She tells me how I'm such a baby and how I could never make it alone. I smile and I laugh because I know she's right and that at the same time she's completely wrong.

I'm lying curled with my knees up against my chest on the small cot in my cell. There's a presence behind me. I can't see or hear him but I can feel him hovering over me. The lumpy grey mattress beneath me shifts and pivots as he lies down with his shoulder nudged up against the center of my spine and tells me he's sorry. I turn over and bury my face into the warm center of his chest. He wraps his wings around my shoulders and his chin comes to rest on the top of my head and his warmth envelops me. My chest heaves and my body begins to twitch in a horrible nervous fright as I tell him I want out. That I want to escape this place, this personal Hell. I feel his heartbeat through his tight blue undershirt and the soft, rhythmic rise and fall of his chest against me as my eyelids grow heavy and drape themselves like curtains over my eyes.